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Social Media and Sponsors

Social Media and Sponsors
By Don Terrill (c) - www.RacingSecrets.com

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are three services you must add to your sponsorship efforts.

Facebook

• Register.
• Create your profile.
• Invite friends.
• Invite business contacts.
  
• Go easy on the security settings.
• Set up a custom URL.
• Upload photos.
• Create a sponsorship page.
• Post weekly updates
• Post your Facebook URL everywhere.

Twitter

• Register.
• Adjust Settings.
• Add More Info URL.
• Add One Line Bio.
• Create your own background design.
• If you have a smart phone, post updates from the track.
• Post your Twitter URL everywhere.

YouTube

• Register.
• Create your profile.
• Upload racing videos.
• Upload video plugs for your sponsors.
• Post your YouTube URL everywhere.

Use the same profile photo for each service for a more professional look.

How-To Beat the Recession

By Milt Gedo - www.sponsorship-101.com

Open any newspaper or turn on any television news program, and you’ll hear the word “recession” or even “depression” thrown around, along with all the necessary hand-wringing that goes with it. I’m not a financial guru (as my accountant will attest), so I don’t really know if the U.S. economy is in recession, depression or just a slow-down, but I do know one thing: Corporate America will always have the need to sell and market their wares effectively and efficiently, and motorsports marketing remains one of the best methods to achieve results.

If you’ve read my columns for the last 12-18 months or so, you know that I’ve been preaching the decline of “traditional marketing” (i.e. newspapers, magazines and television) in favor of “consumer driven” marketing, such as mobile marketing and event marketing. I recently saw the results of a survey that demonstrates this trend. The survey was conducted by Gfk Roper September 11 through October 10 of this year, and asked adults (18 and older), “What do you do during TV commercials?” The findings are interesting:

-52% of respondents claim they “Talk to others without paying attention to the commercials”
-51% responded they “Get up and do something else before the show comes back on”
-44% replied they “Switch to another channel”
-43% of respondents “Fast-forward through the commercials while using a DVR”
-26% of respondents said they “Turn the sound down on the TV or mute it”

Here’s the most important finding of all:

-Only 13% of respondents stated they “Sit and watch the commercials”

If you were the VP of Marketing for a company, and were responsible for spending your advertising budget in the most effective and cost-efficient way, how would the findings above make you feel about television advertising? Technology and consumer mind-set is changing the way companies look at advertising.

At a race event, the commercials are the race cars! When a fan watches a race, either in person or on television, they’re not going to “talk to another person to avoid seeing the sponsors”, “get up and do something else”, “switch to another channel”, “fast-forward through the race”, and no REAL race fan will ever turn the volume down or mute it! For fans who attend a race event, even walking through the Manufacturer’s Midway is not considered commercials “to be avoided”. The Midway at most motorsports events is more like a carnival, where fans can buy merchandise, get autographs and have a good time… all the while being bombarded with marketing messages. As I’ve mentioned, motorsports is the “original mobile marketing” venue, and remains the best value in marketing today.

So how can this information help you, the sponsor-seeking racer? Clearly, as corporate America tightens its belt, every dollar spent will be closely scrutinized… including advertising budgets. I believe the trend of spending less in traditional advertising and shifting those funds towards mobile or event marketing will continue and even pick up speed. Every serious race team should be prepared to capitalize on this trend.

When you sit down to create the list of actions your race team can offer a potential sponsor (Step one of my proven Six-Step program), you should include a heavy bias towards mobile and event marketing. Sportsman race teams are at a real advantage here, because you can offer a lot of these actions at a fraction of the costs of a Professional team. True, a Sportsman team can’t offer the same exposure at a race event as a Professional team (Television coverage, preferred parking in the pits, hospitality opportunities, etc.), but once you’re away from the track, the playing field is leveled.

In these tough economic times, the lesson is: Companies will always have the need to sell and market their products, and savvy racers/race teams know how to capitalize on this fact. Take advantage of the shifting market trends, and GET SPONSORED!

More tips from Milt...

New Sponsors? It's a Numbers Game

photo by Mulsanne

New Sponsors? It's a Numbers Game
By Don Terrill (c) - www.RacingSecrets.com

It's a numbers game my father told me - to find a great woman you just need to meet more women.

Well, what about sponsors?

The Formula:

Number of new sponsors = (Number of prospects you contact) x (Percentage of contacted prospects you close)

So, to get more sponsors you need to contact more prospects and/or increase your closing rate.

The closing rate is going to be dictated by your skills and economic conditions. Now, you can't do anything about the overall economy or a business's financial position, but you can improve your skills by...

• Educating Yourself - Read every sponsorship book you can get your hands on. You only need to get one good idea for a book to be worth it.
  
• Role Playing - Get your family members to play potential sponsors so you can work on your pitch. This should also help your confidence when you do the real thing.
  
• Becoming a Veteran - No shortcut here, the more experience you have in searching for sponsors the better you'll be.

As you can see, one of the ways to improve your closing skills is to make more closing attempts. How do you make more closing attempts? You contact more prospects.

In the end it really does come down to how many prospects you contact - (1) by directly increasing your odds and (2) by helping improve your closing skills through practice.

So, did I take my dad's advice on women? You bet, the best thing I ever did.

Advanced Team Funding: Niche Racing Business

Advanced Team Funding: Niche Racing Business
By Don Terrill (c) - www.RacingSecrets.com

I'm a huge advocate for starting a business to help fund your race team.

The story of RacingSuits.com:

This domain name was included in a large lot of names I purchased in 2000. I had every intention of developing each into a viable Internet business. Fast forward to present day: I own over 350 domain names and have turned a handful into successful websites. Looking at how long it took me to turn those domains into sites, I now realize I would need 10 lifetimes to develop them all. So, I've begun to sell off some of my portfolio. Last month I auctioned off RacingSuits.com.

I don't know what the new owner is going to do with the name, but what a great domain for starting a highly focused racing business where you did nothing but sell driving suits and accessories. I hope he makes it a huge success.

Here's how you can create a successful racing business:

• Pick your Niche - First look at where your passions lie. About any topic can be turned into a viable business, but your odds of success will be greatly increased if you do something you enjoy.
  
• Pick a Profitable Revenue Model - Most racers are very busy, so the last thing they need is a service type business that in essence has them getting paid by the hour. Even if you're not that busy, I still recommend that you look for revenue models that decouple your money from time.
  
• Build the Business - Nothing is more important at this point than the amount of overhead you take on. I have personally witnessed many first time business owners seal their fate by taking on unsustainable monthly fixed costs. Start small and see how it goes.
  
• Grow, Expand, Duplicate - Racers are not known for being timid and why should they be any different when it comes to running a business. Once you've got a good thing going it's time to build upon your success. Just think about constant improvement.
  

If I was going to build RacingSuits.com I'd start by selling other companies suits and quickly move to designing/selling my own - which is where the real profits are going to be.

What is your niche?

Check out my list of racing domain names if you're interested in starting something.