When you tell your story effectively, you highlight what makes you unique. What makes you different from your competition.
But because racing itself is unique to many people outside of our industry, we sometimes forget that the racing itself isn’t what makes us unique. It’s just part of our story.
What makes you unique isn’t that:
- You drive a sprint car
- Your events run on Saturday nights
- Your track features five divisions
- Your track has high car counts
These are details. They’re how you do what you do, not what makes you who you are. Right?
One thing that I think we’ve forgotten is that people don’t just come to the tracks to see a cars turn circles. If that were the case, we’d be happy sitting in the stands watching self-driving cars.
They buy tickets for the excitement. The drama. The stories.
They buy tickets for the drivers. And the teams. And the family history. And because little Sarah likes watching the girl driver and little Johnny loves the car with the cow-print paint scheme. And your track is the only place cousin Billy can ear ‘Action Track’ Snacks. (Someone stop me now. I could do this all day.)
If you’re a driver, you’re also probably finding out that companies don’t buy sponsorship just because you have a race car. Or even because you win races. They buy because you and your team align with their values.
People buy because they’re invested in a story. In your story.
If you want to know how to tell yours better yourself, check out a few of the most popular posts I’ve already written on this below.
- Stories Matter. (Especially in Racing.)
- How to promote yourself without feeling like a sell-out.
- The Perfect Social Media Bio
- There’s a time to produce and a time to promote.
But today, I want to talk about something that I hope will help you increase your promoting efforts tenfold. And this isn’t just for race tracks. If you’re a driver/team owner or have a racing business, you’re in the business of promoting what you do, too.
I want you to see the power in helping others tell your story.
Your story is your most powerful tool. We’ve established that. And if your story is created by the people that interact with your business – your drivers, your crew, your marketing partners, your fans, your customers – then imagine how much further you could reach if you put them to work telling your story.
You know that the people around are your best assets. So why don’t they help you promote your race track or your race car?
You have to help them to help you. There are a few ways that you can accomplish this:
Tell your story. You’d think I was beating a dead horse here, but I can’t help myself. Tell everyone what makes you unique. And the hard thing that many of us don’t want to admit? If you’re a track, you need to promote your drivers. And their marketing partners. If you’re a driver, you need to promote the track or series that you race with.
It sounds simple, but it doesn’t happen nearly enough because of the complicated relationships we all have.
It’s tough love time. Get over it.
Be the bigger person and get the ball rolling. They’ll likely promote you back (or look like jerks for ignoring your positive support).
Next, give them the information and tools they need to promote both you and them. There are a ton of ways to do this, from really simple – like creating countdown graphics to your opening night that feature their car numbers – to more complicated. This might include:
- Offering a free class, course or document at the beginning of the season teaching drivers how to use social media and maximize their presence (by interacting more with you, hooray!)
- Collecting driver’s social media handles and pages when they do their annual registration so you can tag and mention them in your updates
- Offering a weekly prize for the best post promoting your business
- Creating a designated hashtag where fans can ask their favorite drivers questions
- Featuring them on marketing materials. You think the driver on the cover of your schedule doesn’t give out every copy he has?
These are just a few suggestions.
And drivers, don’t think you can’t use these, too. Ask your marketing partners what social media tool they love to be featured on. And then feature them. Share feedback from your fans. Retweet your local track’s statuses.
Promoting is what built our sport. Help others help you to continue building it, and you’ll get rewarded in the process.
Win, win.
xo.
Kristin
P.S. Have you helped someone promote you in a way I didn’t mention? Would love to hear about it in the comments.
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