by Kristin Swartzlander | Dec 3, 2015 | Racing Sponsorship
Each week, we field lots of questions on marketing, sponsorship, PR and social media via the blog, email and on the Sponsorship Success Facebook Community. One of the topics that I frequently get questions on is regarding paint schemes. For example: Will my current paint scheme attract or repel future sponsors? Should I make my car look ’empty’ so that sponsors see the opportunity? Should I let my sponsors determine the color scheme? Should I pick a signature color scheme or topic theme (example: non-profit partner) if I don’t have a title sponsor? And the list goes on and on. Before we get so deep into the paint scheme conversation, I think it’s pivotal to note: your paint scheme should not be your primary focus unless that’s your primary offering. (And, by the way, I don’t think it should be your primary offering when you’re looking to grow from beginner to intermediate and advanced. To go to the next level, you need a dynamic program that engages beyond a logo on a car.) What I really want you, as a sponsorship seeker or seller, to think about is this: what purpose or role do I want my paint scheme to have in my marketing program as a whole? The answers to those questions above depend heavily on what you’re selling to marketing partners. And what you’re selling to marketing partners depends heavily on what your marketing partners’ goals are. Think about it this way: how would an advertising agency answer similar questions? When a company approaches their marketing program, they have virtually an unlimited number of ways to spend their marketing budget....
by Kristin Swartzlander | Nov 20, 2015 | Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Sponsorship
Raise your hand if you: Hate thinking about sponsorship Love thinking about sponsorship but never actually do anything about it Worry your proposal looks amateurish Have no idea what to charge (too much? or too little?) Don’t follow up because you feel like a nuisance Feel like you have to promise the world, or aggressively ‘spin’ your driving resume like your competition, to even get in the door Are tired of hearing: “We don’t get involved in motorsports”, “It’s not in the budget” or “I’ll get back to you” Resent the fact that running your own race team or track makes you feel like you have to be someone else to be successful. Yep, selling marketing partnerships is hard. But for most of us, there’s a reason why that’s the case – why many of us stop before we even start – beyond the obvious. It’s confidence. And, no, I’m not going to tell you to recite some affirmations while you brush your teeth every morning or when you breathe out in yoga class. Let’s get practical. Many racers and tracks aren’t selling (enough) sponsorship because they’re not confident about what they’re selling, or how to value it. You and I both know that you can’t sell wins. You can’t make promises about on-the-track performance. But what we can sell? Some of us are secretly afraid that we can’t deliver those offerings. Or that the people sitting across the table don’t care about those offerings, at best. Or that we’re hitting all the right notes, and completely off-key on the price. It’s all about confidence, baby. When you’re confident about what you’re...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Nov 13, 2015 | Media and Public Relations, Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Sponsorship, Thoughts and Rants
At the end of the race, at the end of the day, what are you left with? ‘Trophies,’ according to Kenny Wallace. This morning, I had the pleasure of listening to Kenny Wallace keynote the RPM Promoter’s Workshops in Las Vegas. He made quite a few interesting points, but one that jumped out to me for racers was this (and, forgive me, but I’m paraphrasing): “For racers, the money goes into the accounts, and the money goes out of the accounts. All we have left at the end of the day are the trophies.” Kenny talked a lot about where we are as a sport, both fiscally and emotionally.He made sure to emphasize that as racing businesses, we need to be profitable. But what I took away from it was this: if you’re only paying attention to the financial side of things, you’re forgetting about why we’re here. Because at the end of the day – and this is according to Kenny – we’re all trying to get to that same moment where we’re cracking open a Bud Light after the hauler’s closed up and the lights are shut off. The money that came in has already gone out, and all we have left are the trophies. Kenny was talking about actual, physical trophies because we’re at a race track conference, but I think it goes beyond that. Our trophies are not just trophies. In your relationships, whether that’s with a fan, sponsor, racer or track, I think we need to ask ourselves: what trophy are we leaving them with? Are we giving them the trophy that they can...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Nov 5, 2015 | Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Sponsorship
“The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.” – Theodore Roosevelt (I love the sentiment of this quote, but you could even argue that ‘never doing anything’ is that mistake-less man’s mistake. Anyway, I digress. And in the first paragraph, no less!) I get emails, Facebook messages, tweets and phone calls every single week from racers asking questions about sponsorship. We all make mistakes when it comes to marketing – or, we learn what not to do, in my opinion – but there’s a general theme that I find when we talk about the mistakes racers make when pursuing sponsorship. In one word, it’s ‘focus’. Too often, racers are focused on the wrong things when approaching their marketing strategy: Focusing on the money they’ll get and what they’ll do with it instead of what their marketing partner will receive. Focusing on what they can do and not what their marketing partners want. Focusing on selling sponsorship first and building the audience that the sponsor wants to purchase access to second. Focusing on why their competition is getting sponsorship that they’re not. Focusing on how much work they’ll have to do for a ‘small’ amount of money. Focusing on the health of the economy or their perception that large companies have large marketing budgets, and vice versa. Focusing on racing results instead of marketing ROI. This is not meant to be a criticism towards racers. I, too, am often focused on the wrong things at the wrong times. Usually because the ‘wrong’ thing I’m focusing on is easier than the right thing. In my experience, focusing on...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Oct 29, 2015 | Media and Public Relations, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Social Media, Racing Sponsorship
It’s that time of year – okay, it’s always that time of year – when the stakes feel their highest for teams, tracks and manufacturers. We have to get that one last win, that one last show in, that one last sale and, often, that one last dig at our competition. Media training was a big part of my career when I started out working in professional football because my role was in the public relations department. Helping athletes to understand how to deal with media was one of our most important jobs, and I learned a lot about the importance of positive messaging as it benefits the: Athlete Team Sport Marketing Partners To say that trash talking in the media was discouraged is an understatement. Trash talking, in my opinion, hurts everyone. When you see another driver spinning his or her version of a story, it’s so tempting to hop on the media or social media bandwagon and try to correct it. Or put out your own equal-and-opposite take on the situation. But if you’ve ever worked with me, you know that I advise my clients to take the high road every time, no matter how difficult or tempting the situation is. (And, by the way, the high road doesn’t always mean silence. “No comment” is a response, too.) Why? Trash Talking Makes YOU Look Bad Whether you’re talking directly about your competition’s actions or highlighting your position at their expense, in this industry there are plenty of witnesses. If you think you can pretend you didn’t hit someone on the track or scream obscenities at them in the...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Oct 2, 2015 | Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Social Media, Racing Sponsorship
There are times when I am optimistic. I have high hopes for what we can do for this sport and with this sport, as racers, promoters and fans. Some might say my hopes are too high, too optimistic. Some might even call me naive. And this weekend at the Dirt Classic, I had my eyes opened to how, in a way, those people would be right. See, when I’m writing, I often imagine that when I push ‘publish’ on a blog post, it disappears from my computer and flies out into the universe, never to return. And, while I truly hope that it helps someone in their quest to improve their team or track, I don’t imagine them reading it and thinking about where it came from. I imagine that you like the words. You appreciate the words. You take the words and make great things with them. Like race cars. And race tracks. And racing businesses. For me, promoting a blog post is all about putting my work in front of people and what that can do to help people. It’s not about putting my face in front of people. On Saturday, I walked up to many people that I expected to introduce myself to, only to find that they were introducing themselves to me. Or, once I said my name, they talked to me at length about my writing. Or my clients. It was mildly terrifying, in the best possible way. If that makes sense. The thing is – I know the numbers. I know how many people subscribe to my email list, like my Facebook page or hop onto...
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