by Kristin Swartzlander | Sep 22, 2016 | Racing Sponsorship
Sometimes, marketing your race team to potential prospects can feel like finding the Goldilocks of companies: not too big and not too small. A few weeks ago, I got a great question from a prospector who detailed the struggle: many companies are too small and local to be interested in racers who run a regional or even national schedule. They don’t benefit from the traveling, so they don’t want to pay what, say, a regional or national team would charge for that advertising. On the flip side, most big corporations aren’t interested in smaller, regional programs. And if they are, it’s extremely difficult to cut through the bureaucratic clutter to find the marketing person who is going to pay attention to something that’s a very small percentage of their marketing budget, especially when it’s less quantifiable than, say, a regional magazine or Facebook advertising campaign. So, how do you find those Goldilocks companies: the ones that aren’t too big to care about your market but too small to get the cost-benefit of your program? Here is some food-for-thought on a very valid question: First, like we’ve talked about on the blog in the past, it’s most important to align your prospecting to the interests and spending habits of your audience than the region and the size of the company. I’m going to assume that if you’re deep enough into the prospecting process that you’re looking at company size, you know that and, like our question-asker, are on top of this principle. But, as a reminder, that’s principle #1 of sponsorship searching: know your audience and your assets. Know what you have...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Sep 1, 2016 | Racing Sponsorship
Have you seen Gary Vaynerchuk’s recent video titled August? From talking with some of you on coaching calls, I know that he’s pretty polarizing. I personally like his no b.s. approach but I don’t subscribe to the business-over-life mentality. I was really happy when one of our great DirtyMouth Sponsorship Success Community members – hey Haley! – shared that video with the group, as I really feel it’s worth watching. If you have a few moments, I suggest you go do that. If not, here’s the general gist: August is the time when most people are sleeping and resting. They’re taking vacations or taking time off or focusing on getting the kids back to school, and they’re not focusing on their businesses. If you’re really devoted to being successful in business, you can use your August to hustle and show up in places and ways that other people aren’t. Although August is already past us, I wanted to relate that back to a few racing conversations I’ve had over the past few weeks. Because I feel that September is a really big month for racers: In the short term, September is when the pros really shine on the track. In the long term, September is where marketing pros put together their next season. Let’s talk short term first. As many race tracks close up shop on their weekly shows, racers that normally stick close to home have the opportunity to go out and race in specials. But, that’s only the case if they’re not out of money or equipment or energy. Those who plan their seasons to have enough equipment/money and energy, both in them...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Aug 4, 2016 | Racing Sponsorship
Some of the most frequent questions I get are regarding sponsorship pricing and value. Many racers, and racing properties and events, struggle with knowing how much to charge and how to justify their pricing. That’s one of the reasons that I wrote a popular blog post on the difference between pitching racing sponsorship that’s too expensive versus a package that’s just not worth the price. You can read it here if you haven’t already or need a refresher. That’s also why I created an advanced training workshop on crafting and valuing sponsorship offerings that marketing partners will be thrilled to sign up for. You can learn more about that here. One of the questions I was most recently asked is how to increase the value of your sponsorship offerings. That’s a great question because if you want to charge more, you better be prepared to deliver the equivalent value. Here are a few ways that you can increase the value of your offerings: Increase the size of your audience. Increase the depth of connection to your audience. Reconfigure your offerings. Create partnerships with other properties. Increase the size of your audience, and the depth of your connection to them. This is the easiest way to add the most long-term value to your sponsorship offerings and your team as a whole. If you’ve been around here before, you know that sponsorship is a marketing investment. Many companies are making that investment so that they can access your audience. If your audience is aligned with their target market – i.e. the people who like you are their potential customers – then it...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Jul 28, 2016 | Media and Public Relations, Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Social Media, Racing Sponsorship
Big wins. They are what we all live for, right? Being crowned King Kristin (hmm, Roger, can we chat?) at Eldora Speedway’s Kings Royal or the Knoxville Nationals Champion might top your list. Or maybe you’re aiming higher, for a points championship in Formula One or NASCAR. But most of us aren’t just one step away from our IndyCar points trophies. That might be where our dream started, but it’s not going to happen tomorrow, or this year, and we’re mostly okay with that. Why? As long as we don’t quit, we’re still working towards our dreams. But what about those days – or months – when you’re losing motivation? When those big wins are too far apart? When you feel like you’re not making any progress? When you question what you’re doing altogether? Over the past few weeks, I’ve released just shy of 20,000 words in the Build Your Racing Brand Challenge. It’s been a bigger undertaking than I imagined, mostly because I can’t stop typing everything I think will help you in your quest to build a brand. (Didn’t join at the beginning of the month? Don’t worry – you can still start from Day 1 of the FREE challenge right on over here. There are tons of social media goodies in there, along with mindset hacks (<-just realized I don’t care for that word, thankyouverymuch) and sponsorship insights.) It’s also the middle of summer – the busiest time of the year for us in terms of schedule because we’re racing and so are all of our clients – and I have been up to my eyeballs in...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Jul 17, 2016 | Media and Public Relations, Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Sponsorship
As a racer, you might not think of your website as a critical piece of your program. But to me, your website is to your online brand what your hauler is to your on-track performance: it’s the hub of the action in the pits. If it’s effective, it holds your tools, spare parts and support crew/materials in a layout that’s designed for racing. The more effective your hauler – the more it contains in a better layout – the better job it enables you to do on the track. Your hauler doesn’t make or break your on-track performance. But without it, your job would be a heck of a lot harder. Your website serves the same function when it comes to your ability to grow an audience and support your team financially with sponsorship marketing and merchandise sales, for example. Yes, you can serve marketing partners without one. And yes, you can sell apparel and build a fan base without one. But it’s less effective – you’ll have to work harder for lesser results. (Why? When fans want to purchase your apparel but can’t make it to the pits at the track where you’re selling your t-shirts that one night, they go to your website to purchase. When marketing partners do their research on the driver that just pitched them, or they found on a social media channel, they’ll go to your website to see if you’re legit and represent yourself well. When at track announcer needs bio information, when a media member needs results, and when a fan wants to find out more about you, they’ll all go to your website.)...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Jul 1, 2016 | Media and Public Relations, Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Social Media, Racing Sponsorship
Last week, we talked about one of the best pieces of advice I can give you: don’t wait until you’re winning to build a brand. Smart companies partner with brands, not just fast race cars, in order to reach their audience. Fans become the audience of their favorite brands. In short: if you want to win races, fans and partnerships, build a brand. If you signed up for the 30 Day Build Your Racing Brand Challenge, you’re on board with the concept. If you haven’t already, you can sign up here. But it’s important before we dive too deep into the actionable parts of the challenge to build a strong foundation. We need to cover what being a personal brand means, and what it can do for you. What is a Brand Let’s not call Merriam or Webster on this one. I will give you my definition, and we’ll move forward on the pretense that I’m not completely incorrect: A brand is a set of stories, relationships, experiences and expectations that inspire a person’s decision to choose one product over another. You are the product. So is your competition. The relationship you have with a fan (or marketing partner, or media member) helps them decide whether to buy into your brand or not. Those relationships are built on their experience with your brand. That experience is built on a set of stories. And this is my word of warning: even if you are not telling your story, an experience is still being formed about your brand for fans. And it is completely out of your control. If you want...
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