by Kristin Swartzlander | Jul 17, 2015 | Media and Public Relations, Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Social Media
Have you ever walked into a crowded restaurant and felt the whole place turn around? Their eyes take you in and the room seems to go silent. You know, somehow, you broke their code. You used the wrong door, you wore the wrong clothes. You’ve walked in on a story that you’re (obviously) not a part of. Then there are the other crowded restaurants, the ones that you walk into and feel like you’ve discovered something. There’s a story here, too. But it’s one that you’re excited to have caught a glimpse into. There’s something special going on here. And now, you want to know more. Many of you have been around the blog for a while, but for others, this might be your first visit. Every day, new people happen on to my website, Twitter feed, or Facebook page. The same goes for you, whether you’re a race track welcoming new fans through the gate or a racer getting a retweet. You know you need to tell your story. I know you already know how important that is. But while we’re all in the middle of telling our stories – you started the day you put yourself out there – people are tuning in at different points. How much getting up to speed will that new potential fan need to get invested? How long do they need to see or know to care? I’m not saying that you need to treat every tweet, every piece of signage, and every interaction as if the person is new. Or a beginner. But you do need to be welcoming and inclusive. Help people to...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Jul 9, 2015 | Mindset
It’s hard to believe that we’re already at the mid-point of the season, especially with the weather challenges we’ve had in the Pennsylvania area with rain, and lots of it. In fact, our team has had more rain outs on our schedule than races. Weather – be it rain or the heat waves that my Southern clients are facing – doesn’t stop me from doing business, although it does make it more challenging to help tracks and racers make money when they can’t race. In fact, this year has been the busiest one yet for me and DirtyMouth, despite the challenges. When 2015 rolled in, I had high hopes. I put together a strategy and a set of goals to shoot for, and I made that into a giant post-it that hangs in my office. It’s been extremely helpful to have a visual reminder of where I want to go. The theme I picked for the year was ‘Growth’. I wanted to grow my audience as big as possible so that I a) knew what the industry needed and b) could grow the business. But lately, every time I glance at it, it hasn’t seemed to resonate. The problem? The business grew faster, and in different ways, than I expected it to. So, last Friday I took 2 hours ‘off’ for the Fourth of July to sit down and do a mid-season review. Here are three things I learned: There’s a big difference between a vision and a plan. I know where I want to go with DirtyMouth. I haven’t fully shared that vision because, frankly, it’s scary and vulnerable to...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Jun 26, 2015 | Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Social Media
Does washing your car make you go faster? Not on the street, it doesn’t. But, having been around the back gate of racing for as long as I have, I do believe it makes you go faster on the track on an average night. It’s not that it makes you more appealing to fans and, thus, leads to sponsorship support for better equipment. Although there’s truth to that argument. It’s not that you have better aerodynamics. At least not in dirt track racing. It’s not just that you end up looking at every inch of your car and likely notice good and bad things sooner. Although that’s true, too. And it’s not that other cars are distracted by the glittering sheen of your body panels (SQUIRREL!). It’s the mindset that makes all the difference. Washing your car is a seemingly unnecessary task that takes time. It takes energy and effort. It takes at least $10 at the Buffalo Express Lube in Sarver. And it requires these things of you before you do anything else you need to do. But the type of people who wash their race car before they do anything else are the people who understand what it takes to win. It takes more than building a car. It takes more than showing up on a Saturday night. It takes more than the minimum. Whether you’re a driver, a track promoter or a business operator, there are tasks that are the equivalent of washing your race car. I would argue that marketing is the car wash of all three of these categories. It’s not enough to do your...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Jun 5, 2015 | Media and Public Relations, Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Social Media, Racing Sponsorship
Last week, I wrote about why engagement matters more than ever in racing. Engagement at the race track and engagement in your online community. The more engaged your audience is, the more consistently committed they are to you and your brand. If you read last week’s post, you know why engagement matters, I want to talk about how to boost your online engagement, whether you run a race team, series, track or brand. When you think about engagement, I want you to think about specific actions. Reading a piece of content, whether that’s on your Facebook account, Twitter feed or your scoreboard, is not engagement. That’s consumption. Engagement, by quantifiable standards, means taking action. Let’s talk about two of the most popular platforms: Facebook and Twitter. On Facebook, engagement means a: • Like, • Share, • Comment, or • Click on a link. On Twitter, engagement means a: • Retweet, • Favorite, • Reply, • Click on a link. You can imagine what engagement looks like on the rest of the interwebs – for example, on Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and your email newsletter. What you probably already know is that Facebook treats engagement differently. Your content is ‘edge-ranked’ by Facebook’s algorithm based on a number of factors that influence who sees your content and how often. Engagement is a major factor in that equation. And while the other networks – including race tracks – don’t use engagement to determine your level of exposure to your fans, it’s just as important. The more action fans take with your content – whether that’s what you do at the track or online...
by Kristin Swartzlander | May 14, 2015 | Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Sponsorship
For most of us in racing, time is a limited resource. We don’t lack ability, smarts or awareness. It’s time that stops us from doing anything more than getting our day-to-day tasks done. It’s time that stops us from being proactive about marketing, interacting on social media, and pitching new partnerships. That’s why much of what I write focuses on two things: doing things better and making them easier. (Here’s a popular post on making it easy for others to help you sell yourself and tell your story.) As a person who owns a home, runs a business and is elbows-deep in a race team, I make a lot of buying decisions. And I have a few criteria that I weigh when I decide where to buy what I need: connection, convenience and cost. Last week, when I needed contacts I had to decide whether to order from a) my eye doctor or b) an online retailer. Here’s how I weighed my buying decision: Connection: I love my eye doctor, and I’d like to support her. I have no connection with an online retailer. Cost: My contacts cost between 40 and 50% less when I buy them online. Convenience: When I order from my eye doctor, I have to pick up the phone during their limited hours and explain to them what I want to order. They usually don’t know how long they’ll take. I wait for a phone call to say they’ve arrived. When I get the phone call, I have to find a time within their limited office hours to pick them up. They call every single...
by Kristin Swartzlander | May 7, 2015 | Mindset, Thoughts and Rants
If you’ve been following DirtyMouth for long, you know that I’m passionate about making waves in the racing industry. My goal with everything I do, from coaching and seminars to promoting and consulting, is to help us all make the sport stronger with positive change, now and in the future. So I bet you think you know what this post is about: making waves. In this case, I think a lot of you will be happy to know that you’re wrong. Today I want to talk about making ripples. But who cares about ripples when other are making waves? Me, and I’ll tell you why. When you first start out in racing, or in anything else for that matter, you’re a beginner. From your first job to your first time playing a video game, you generally start out at zero. And when you work at something new, you start improving. In fact, the harder you work, the more you improve. You go from tiny steps to leaps and bounds. It’s easy to see this with rookie racers. Most struggle to make their first laps. But after some experience, they start to improve. Once they get the car under them, they quickly shave a large chunk of time off of their laps. Then they finish their first race and begin making passes. When you get a little bit of skill and confidence, you can quickly go from last to, well, not last. That’s making waves. But as you get better and better, those huge improvements taper off. You might only shave two seconds off your best lap on a good...
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