3 Nascar Marketing Secrets That Will Turbo Charge Your Success This Year – Part 1
NASCAR is a powerful business and marketing machine. There’s a lot you could learn about positioning your own dealership simply by studying the lead-generating, revenue exploding strategies of this racing giant.
You have probably heard of Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart. They are all pretty famous NASCAR stars. But a name you might not know the name Mike Bartelli. Racecar driver? No. But he is a man who knows a lot about speed. Mike is a marketing guy and when it comes to NASCAR and motorsports marketing he is, “the” guy.
Mike is an expert in motorsports marketing, and as president of Millsport Motorsports he’s helped NASCAR see record growth in popularity and sponsorship. Now Mike is chief marketing officer and senior VP of Petty Enterprises.
In a recent interview, Mike divulged some of the techniques to NASCAR’s Marketing Success. We’ve from then taken the ideas Mike shared and reshaped them to fit the car business. We’re now serving them to you on a silver platter so you can use them in your own dealership this year.
So print this out, grab a highlighter or a pen and put on your thinking cap as you’re about to go for wild ride.
NASCAR Understands the Power of a Celebrity Endorsement
In developing their own monster brand, one of NASCAR’s main techniques was to use celebs and celebrity endorsements to reach new fan bases. The NASCAR approach honed in on target groups of prospective fans who normally would overlook the sport and reached out to them utilizing a popular celebrity from film, television, music, sports, etc.
You see, nothing gets attention like celebrities… Absolutely NOTHING. Although NASCAR undoubtedly knows this, most dealers in this country do not.
The purpose of advertising is to get your prospect’s attention. So if nothing works better in getting attention than celebs, why not utilize it?
Demographics don’t matter either. Wealthy investors, CEOs, credit challenged, blue-collar, white-collar they are all attracted to celebrities. We believe the reason is reach and frequency. The same as effective marketing is about reaching a lot of people and more importantly reaching them many times, celebrities have an incredible amount of reach as their job is to be noticed and be heard.
Another reason why celebrities are powerful marketing weapons is centered on the power of association. People connect you to those they see you with. If you are hanging out with celebrities then you ought to be one yourself. This is reassuring to your clientele and puts you in a positive light. And obviously prospective clientele would enjoy aligning themselves with you as well, as they too want a piece of that celebrity pie.
Not to mention, clientele are more probable to refer business to the “cool” dealer who hangs out with celebs over the guy they have never heard of. Remember, boring is safe, but it gets you nowhere. Leverage the power of celebrity and your potential customers would be chasing you down for a sale.
Think this doesn’t pertain to you? Think you can’t utilize superstars in your marketing because you cannot pay for Dan Marino? Well think again.
There’s in fact some low-cost methods you can begin featuring celebs in your marketing instantly.
One strategy we like is designing a mail piece with a full color envelope using pictures of three well-known celebrities your target audience would resonate with… let us say, Barack Obama, Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey and YOU! You could use the headline, “What Do Barack, Tiger, Oprah and Mr. Dealer Have In Common.” Next to your image you’d put your name and “owner of ABC dealership in XYZ town.” BANG, instant celebrity tie in. And that’s getting opened.
Or you could make use of your marketing dollars to purchase a celeb for direct sponsorship, endorsement or events. Sure most A-listers may be out of your price scale but there is always somebody affordable that resonates with your target market. Older celebrities who are no longer in their hay-day or more obscure celebs such as popular contestants on reality TV shows can normally be hired for surprisingly little.
Also bear in mind that the recession influences everybody. Even celebrities jump at the possibility to make some extra cash. More normally than not it is our impression of celebrities and our ego, fear of the unknown and apprehension created by star charisma that keep dealers from leveraging this super charger of a marketing resource.
You could find contact info on almost any celeb in a book by Jordan McAuley called the Celebrity Black Book available on Amazon.com or contact our office directly for celebrity agent recommendations.
Jimmy Vee & Travis Miller are the authors of Gravitational Marketing: The Science of Attracting Customers and founders of the Rich Dealers Institute. They help dealers double their profits in as little as 118 days. Receive a free copy of their special report & video presentation, The New Rules of Automotive Marketing by visiting http://www.RichDealers.com/special
