by Kristin Swartzlander | Mar 3, 2016 | Mindset
As someone who does marketing for a living, I do my best to go out and consume a lot of content, products and services in order to learn about the craft. ‘It’s called market research…’, I tell my husband and my accountant. I mean, it’s like taste-testing. It makes you a better host, I say, to ensure that your guests will enjoy that dessert. And if you need to taste-test an entire package of bacon or bowl of cookie dough, well, that’s between you and your spatula. No judgement here, my friend. One thing I notice, though, with marketing content is that there seems to be three types of bloggers: those who write to attract to new readers, those who write to serve their existing audience, and those who manage to do both. Guess which one I aim to be? And, thus, this post. While writing about tools and resources isn’t going to attract new customers, it is going to serve you – the people who are already here, lending me your precious time and attention. So here we are. (And, speaking of time and attention, if you’re a track that’s interested in getting more in-depth on setting up tools and systems to market yourself throughout this season, we have a free workshop coming up next week on Thursday, March 10th at 10am EST. You can sign up here. Can’t make it live? We’ll provide a replay for everyone who registers.) Now, to the meat of the issue. What tools do you need to run your race track or team? Sometimes, on Tuesdays, we get together on the free DirtyMouth Sponsorship Success...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Feb 25, 2016 | Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses
If you’ve been around these parts long – that sounded very Southern…I feel like there needs to be a ‘y’all’ inserted here – you know that I believe pretty heavily in thinking not just outside of the box, but outside of our industry for ideas on how to survive and thrive. That’s how the best do it. After all, we’re not competing against other race tracks for fans. We’re competing against every other activity they’re choosing to do or not do. So I was really happy to get to listen to Speed Sport’s own Ralph Sheheen last week at RPM Daytona talking about exactly that. Specifically, he highlighted his experience with and observations of the AMA Supercross events. Here are a few things that I took away from his talk that I think you’ll benefit from, whether it’s as an event promoter, racer or marketing partner: The emphasis at Supercross Live is, first and foremost, on families. It’s family-friendly, from the advertising to the event experience. If you have, or are observing, an aging fan base, you can presume that they are lifelong fans. This sport isn’t built for an aging demographic, so you can guarantee they didn’t just walk in for the first time last race. If you want to create lifelong fans today, you have to get them in young. Appealing to young fans and parents, who are constantly looking for outlets to entertain their children in a safe, fun, cost-effective activity, you need to be family-friendly from the outset. They only have two racing classes. [Oh. My. Word. Did y’all just die?! Stay with me here.] This is a...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Feb 5, 2016 | Mindset
At the end of last year, I gave you some advice on how to keep the offseason from getting you down.You can read it all here. One valuable piece: “What you do in the offseason can set the tone for what you do the rest of the year. It’s the foundation of your season.” I really feel that’s the case. Unfortunately for many of us – myself included – the offseason has zoomed by and we’ve found ourselves, well, what’s the positive term for ‘looking down the barrel’ of the impending race season? It’s so close. And that’s so exciting, if we can stop breathing into a paper bag for long enough to realize it. For all of you who join me in panic mode at this time of year – whether you haven’t gotten as far as you wanted to in your off-season progress or you’ve lost motivation in the midst of to-do’s – here are some tips to get back on track with your plan for getting back onto the track: Make a list. It sounds simple, but just get it out of your head. Write down every single thing that you wanted or needed to get done before the season. Don’t let go of the things that you know you don’t have time to do – they’ll just haunt you. Get them on paper. Prioritize. Now, find yourself another piece of paper and create two columns. Label them: ‘Need to Do’ and ‘Want to Do’. Put every single thing on your first list into one of the two columns. Don’t know where to put something? If you think about not getting...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Jan 22, 2016 | Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses
Want to take your marketing game to the next level, whether you’re a racer, track promoter or racing business? Look outside of racing. It might sound simple, but it’s worth considering. Because the most successful people that I know in racing didn’t get there by modeling off of other racing businesses. They don’t stay at the top that way either. They look outside of the industry, and model bits and pieces of other successful businesses. My business, and my customers’ and clients’ programs, have benefited both from my experience outside of racing and my eagerness to research, test and execute new tactics that other industries are having success with. For example: Want to offer fans better customer service? Don’t just look at what other tracks do. Consider what the best customer service providers, like Zappo’s, in the world do and how they empower their employees to enact their philosophy. Want to entice more ‘casual’ fans in? Look at how other entertainment venues or, even, gas stations like Sheetz provide a winning model of custom, higher-end food and beverage options. These are really straightforward examples, but that’s because it’s a straightforward concept: some of my best (and most profitable) ideas and strategies for my clients have come from studying the business of other industries that are seemingly unrelated. How many brilliant crew chiefs found a technological breakthrough from an inspiration outside of racing? Probably more than we know. It takes either an active level of curiosity or an active decision to ignore what’s in front of you and search for what’s better, or sometimes both. But it’s necessary if you want to be...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Dec 31, 2015 | Media and Public Relations, Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Social Media, Racing Sponsorship
As we close out 2015 this week, I encourage you to take some time to reflect on the past year. We all experience successes and failures in life, work, and racing, and I’m no different. Last week, I shared the powerful impact of 2015, both on me and on the community, and how grateful I am for the progress we’re making. You can read that here. Today and tomorrow, I’ll be in the office attempting to close out 2015 and plan 2016. (I’m only three months late on my October ‘2016 Planning’ target. If you’re behind, you are not alone!) We have a lot of fun things in the works for next year that I hope to announce in January and February, but we do have one coming up SOON: Sponsorship Marketing Workshop: Crafting Effective Sponsorship Proposals – Live on Sunday, January 10th. On-Demand Forever. Details Here. We had a great response to the first sponsorship marketing workshop on crafting and value the perfect offerings (you can get the on-demand version here if you missed the live event), so I’m adding more workshops just like it to the calendar. This is something that I’ve always thought could bring value to the community with a lower price point than private coaching, so I’m excited to share that we’re planning on releasing at least one workshop per month going forward in 2016. More details on that later, but if you want to weigh in on the topics and content, please feel free to share your thoughts with me here. Some of you are new to this blog (sign up for the free newsletter if so!),...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Dec 17, 2015 | Mindset, Racing Sponsorship
It’s selling season, in case you haven’t noticed by the glut of marketing materials, the number of trade shows and expos, and the amount of time you and I are spending thinking about how to make our businesses and race teams work in 2016. And my email box reflects that, too. The questions I’m getting most right now are about selling – creating offerings, making an effective sponsorship proposal, targeting customers and potential marketing partners, pitching, and the mindset and all of the tactics that go into the many things we need to know to be able to sell. One thing I wanted to address today are two principles we touched on in my most recent on-demand workshop on creating the perfect sponsorship offerings: knowing who your customer is, and, knowing what you’re selling. Gone are the days when we can create a product that we think is fantastic and then go out and find someone to buy it. Discretionary income is not the same as it used to be -even if we have extra money for something we didn’t know we needed prior to you showing up to sell it to us, we now need to see return on investment for that extra money. And we need you to prove it to us, whether we’re a consumer or a business. And how will you do that if you don’t know who we are? So why do we still sell sponsorship and marketing that way? “Here is the great thing I have, and here is why you need it.” – Doesn’t work anymore. The more effective sales strategy today is a...
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