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 | Jun 19, 2015 | Media and Public Relations, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Social Media
Over the past few years, I’ve worked with a number of race tracks across the country. One of the subjects that comes up over and over again is live updating. I’ve had countless conversations with members of the industry who emphatically believe that live results published on social media are hurting our sport. With apps like Meerkat and Periscope, fans can now stream live video (for free!) right from the track or pits. You might not be surprised by this, but I disagree with the argument that live updating stops fans from buying tickets. Fans come to the race track for the experience, not just for the results. Mistake that, and you’re missing out. It’s my opinion that live results are meant for fans who can’t make it to the track that night, whether they’re in a wedding or another state. They’re not for fans who just choose to stay home that night because they can find out who won on Twitter. In fact if results, or even a little bit of video, are satisfying enough to stop someone who would normally buy a ticket from walking through the gates, I think that says something worth thinking about. Either that person isn’t a serious race fan, or they don’t find the experience worth paying for. If the first, are they really someone you want to cater to? Are they adding to the atmosphere at your track? If the second, maybe the product isn’t enticing enough to bring that fan there in person. Is the entertainment experience at the level it needs to be at? It’s a question we all need...
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 28, 2015 | Media and Public Relations, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Social Media, Racing Sponsorship
Over the next two weeks, I want to explore a topic that’s always hot when it comes to marketing and almost never talked about when it comes to racing: engagement. First, let’s talk about how to define engagement and why you should care. Generally, engagement is: emotional involvement or commitment. In our social media and online marketing, engagement means likes, comments, shares, and other actions like subscribes, purchases and referrals. At the race track, engagement is generally less quantifiable. It starts when a fan or driver enters the speedway and, for example, gets built by: Forming relationships with other fans, drivers and track staff, Cheering for their favorite driver, Attending an autograph session, Bringing a friend or family member, Buying apparel and souvenirs, and Sharing their experience on social media, bringing the concept full circle. As you might notice above, social media engagement feeds the at-the-track actions and at-the-track engagement can feed social media. If that doesn’t give you enough of a reason to care about engagement, here’s the what it boils down to: The more engaged your audience is, the more consistently committed they are to you and your brand. So, what does that mean to you? For drivers, engaged fans might mean more apparel sales, more cheers from the grandstands, more fan votes in contests, more sponsorship opportunities and better performance for your current marketing partners. For tracks, engaged fans might mean more consistent, higher attendance numbers, more apparel and souvenir sales, more sales of signature concession items, a higher propensity to share their experience at the track, more sponsorship opportunities and better performance for your current...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Apr 30, 2015 | Media and Public Relations, Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Social Media, Racing Sponsorship
When you’re trying to do something great, whether that’s run a race team or build a business, you have to commit. That’s not news. Most of us in racing know all about commitment. You can’t just build a team or buy a race track and try it for a few weeks. You have to commit, up front, with time, sweat and money. We don’t have a problem with commitment when it comes to the racing part of the business. One of the biggest mistakes I see in racing, though, is a lack of commitment to marketing. To building an audience. We build racing properties then try our hands at a few press releases, tweets, advertisements or another method for getting the word out. We stick with it for a few weeks, maybe a few months, and when the opportunities don’t come knocking, we quit. It happens all the time. Racing is a demanding sport, no matter what side of it you’re on. It’s easy to imagine that you’re wasting time building that audience, and decide to put that time and effort into the actual racing. But if I gave up after a year of blogging, I would have missed some big opportunities. Huge ones. Some of which you know about, like the Dirt Classic, and some of which you don’t. At least not yet. And most, if not all, of them came from my writing. But do you know how long I wrote to no audience before that happened? A really, really long time. For over a year, I spent hours – sometimes over multiple days – crafting a blog post to...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Feb 27, 2015 | Media and Public Relations, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Social Media
As many of you know, last year I had the opportunity to help produce the Dirt Classic Presented by Kasey Kahne with Jarrod Adams of Adams Investing and Alan Kreitzer of Lincoln Speedway. Together we created a solid foundation for the entire brand from scratch, crafting everything from logos and social media profiles to the race format and purse structure. Everything, and I do mean everything, was built into an overall promoting strategy designed to build awareness for the initial event and create a brand experience that customers (drivers + fans + marketing partners) would want to experience year after year. This year, the Dirt Classic will once again be an event produced by DirtyMouth. And as we work on the event, I’m thrilled to see how solidly we built this strategic foundation for ourselves. Because of that solid foundation, we’re able to innovate with tactics. Instead of rolling out a brand-new social media strategy, we’re able to tweak and innovate with individual tactics. Instead of a new advertising strategy, we can optimize to reduce costs and test new ads. Instead of a new race format, we’re able to modify the existing one to create better track conditions and more exciting racing. One of the fun new promotions we’ve introduced this year, for example, is the Fans’ Vote Race. The race will be a five-lap, $400-to-win dash for four cars as voted in by the fans on the DirtClassic.com website. Most importantly, though, it offers us a new tactic to promote the event through engagement with fans and drivers. It’s great for us – it doesn’t add a large percentage...
Connect!