1. Get photos of race vehicle, race team & your staff at your place of business.
2. Use race pictures on your stationery, cards & brochures.
3. Create a themed promotion or slogan to coincide with racing – i.e.: “Fast service or Exciting fun.”
4. Reward your best customers with trips to the races; let them meet the team.
5. Use racing to emphasize teamwork in the workplace to your employees.
6. Your racing team’s racer can do public speaking on the topic of teamwork.
7. A local racing team can be its hometown’s equivalent of a major league team; it’s all in the marketing.
8. Name the team or race vehicle entry after your company, for instance: The Stampede Casino Enduro & Street Racing Teams. That way your company name appears in race results in local media.
9. Paint the race vehicle in your company colours.
10. If your company has uniforms have the team supply them to the team to team.
11. If your company has retail outlets, sell racing team apparel.
12. Use team apparel as an employee incentive.
13. Use team apparel as a customer incentive.
14. Prepare a promotional video of the race vehicle in action. Your video could gain great notoriety for your company and the way it does business.
15. Do an unusual outing: bring your best customers and employees; dress everyone in your team colours. Make it a real happening that everyone wants to attend.
16. Apply your race vehicle’s number and likeness to the sides of your company’s vehicles.
17. Bring suppliers and customers into your racing project by offering them the opportunity to become associate or secondary sponsors.
18. Use your race vehicle as an attention getter at trade shows or special events. Take photos of prospects sitting in or on the race vehicle; get their names and mailing addresses so you can send the photo along with other information about your product, service, and company. Add the info to your database.
19. Display your race vehicle at your place of business and invite the public to see it.
20. Enter your race vehicle in parades.
21. Add the race team in your advertising that tells where your race vehicle is running.
22. Create a weekly print or broadcast ad that tells how your team fared over the weekend.
23. Involve the team in charity projects.
24. Utilize racing’s ability to give your company or product a more hip, more edgy image.
25. Target racing fans as a segment of your market and pursue them with full intensity. Research has shown that racing fans are considerably more likely than fans of any other sport to support sponsors.
26. If you buy signage at the racetrack you should tag it with both the company name and the affiliation with racing – i.e.: The Stampede Casino Enduro & Street Racing Teams.
27. Keep in mind that the difference between taking people to the races or to other sporting events is that at the races you own the team; at a hockey game you’re just a spectator.
28. In the racing business every race team’s goal is to win races – sponsors goals should be to use racing is a marketing tool to its full extent.
29. Showcase your “Racing as a Marketing Tool” activities in the local business press by submitting a feature article presented in a news release format.
30. Go out of your way to let your customers know about your involvement with racing: Use photo postcards as a means of keeping in touch. Postcards are cheap and can also be used as handouts at the front desk or at the track; the photo caption on the backside of the card should include a selling message.
31. Make your customer entertainment at the races legendary and highly sought after, by promoting the heck out of them via newsletters, trade journals, p.r., etc. Make it subtle yet clearly obvious that trips to the races are by invitation only and reserved for only the best customers.
32. Equip your racing team with a supply of your catalogs or other promotional material that can be freely distributed.
33. Make space on your race vehicle and/or the services of the team available to your favourite charity. Help the charity’s public relations machine to do its part for your company by supplying it with plenty of photos, facts, etc.
34. Print your team’s schedule and distribute as a handout.
35. You have a racer and team at your disposal; capitalize on their endorsements.
36. Auto racing is the most popular spectator sport in the country because it’s enjoyable to watch; but it’s even more enjoyable for spectators who feel connected to a particular team. Create opportunities to bond with the fans. These connected fans will support their favourite team’s sponsors, but fans need to be reminded that the team hopes they’ll try the products next time they’re in the market.
37. It’s okay to do a one season or even a one-race sponsorship, but the longer you stay involved the better the results will be.
38. Offer your race vehicle and team to advertising agencies and commercial producers. On screen value may be nil, but local media is likely to give you some press. Producers will pay for the use of the car, but you might be able to negotiate and give them free use of the car if they make sure your name makes it onto the screen.
39. Invite owners, managers, and players of other sports from your area to be your guests at the races. They will reciprocate by inviting you to their guest boxes where you will get the opportunity to network with other VIPs.
40. Send regularly scheduled news releases about your team to all local media, and to the print and broadcast media that are sensitive to motorsport racing.
41. Racing is widely known as the sport where everything and every person must perform at the maximum; it is the perfect tie-in for a company stressing excellence in design, product, performance, and service, whatever.
42. Create an image of success. The world-at-large perceives auto racing as being outrageously expensive; obviously, any company must be hugely successful to field a race team.
43. Local radio stations are always looking for promotions — your team apparel and trips to the track certainly qualify. These promotions get your name all over the airwaves, and your team’s home track will probably want to participate.
44. Formalize and simplify your sponsorship with a written agreement and a marketing plan.
45. Consider acquiring a personalized canopy under which the team can work; it’s a good way to get extra name visibility and one method of signage about which few tracks would object.
46. Your sponsorship is a marketing tool and should be used to enhance your advertising, selling, promotions, and public relations — not be the only marketing that you do.
47. Because your team only races locally does not mean that you can’t use big-time racing as a marketing tool. Example: Chances are there’s a national pro tour event that takes place within reasonable distance of your home base. You can load your employees and customers into a chartered bus and treat them to a day or two of big-time racing. A hospitality tent or inside suite can be bargain-priced at some events. Check it out.
48. Print calendars with pictures of your race vehicle and team and give to employees, customers, and vendors. Include race event dates and locations. Calendars are displayed year through, and will help keep everyone up to date with when and where the team is racing.
49. Use your race team for in-store appearances where your product is sold.
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