NASCAR Creates Their Own Celebrities
NASCAR does not simply rely on big names to endorse and promote their organization. Rather, they create and market their own celebrities to carry the brand. Mike attributes DALE EARNHARDT JR. and his development into the sport's first true cross-over star as one of the factors for NASCAR's meteoric growth in the first part of this decade.
Based on that idea, if you can't find a celebrity to endorse your dealership, you can just become one yourself. Think it's not possible?? Well in the age of YouTube, Social Media and the web, it is actually not.
Make yourself a local celebrity by starting a blog, writing articles for your local publications, speaking to local groups, hosting seminars about smart car buying or credit strategies, hosting your own weekend radio show, etc. You could get a book or take class on DIY PR and start getting your name in the press as a featured expert. Use social media to garner "fans" and build your celebrity status that way. Every little bit counts.
NASCAR Understands the Potential of Cross Promotions
You may be a little guy in a big dealer pond, but you certainly do not need to promote like one. In fact, you could play a bigger game in this area simply by associating yourself and your business with several other well known entities in your area. When done right, this could aid boost the strength of your message and protect you from being hurt financially and emotionally in the case of a failed promotion.
To break this down further, more advertising means teaming up with other companies and advertising each other. Sometimes you see this in an auto mall, where multiple dealerships would pool their marketing dollars to create a bigger splash in the market. Occasionally you see this with multiple, non-competing businesses in a tight geographical area, where they combine their marketing bucks to bring shoppers to the general vicinity.
But if you want to cross promote similar to NASCAR... you will want to do what these other businesses are doing and take it to the MAX.
So forget auto malls and tiny marketing collaboratives... doing it the NASCAR way means partnering with famous (celebrity-like) companies right from the beginning. For example, Tag Heuer, the watch brand, already has Tiger Woods secured as a celeb endorsement. Perhaps you could hook up with a local jewelry store that is a Tag Heuer retailer, to offer a Tag watch to one fortunate winner on Father's day. Your marketing could feature you and the jeweler (and Tiger). You can either share the expense of the marketing, or ask the Jeweler to supply the watch. You then have a big event, the jeweler is on site with a cut out of Tiger wearing a Tag watch, you have a putting contest (of course, you can even tie in a golf course or country club for this, divide the marketing 3 ways!), you give away the watch, you sell few cars, and everybody goes home happy.
Realizing that there is power outside of yourself is the key element here. You should expand your thinking to allow for the opportunity of working with others and leveraging their existing celeb connections. Not to mention, you would be paying less cash for greater exposure as you learn to pull your resources and share the costs of these incredible campaigns. Here's some other great ideas you might want to consider.
You can tie with local celebrities like newscast personalities, local authors, radio DJs, local musicians, etc. Again, promote them and ask them to promote you. Possibly propose to pay for a printing of the next batch of CDs produced by a local popular band... with your logo and offer on the CD or inserted inside. A friend of ours lately offered to host a reception in his coffee shop for a group of young pageant contestants. The result was the current Miss America came by to visit the contestants, signed autographs, tasted his coffee and declared, "Best Ever." Now he has a photo of Miss America drinking his coffee that he can use forever.
As you expand your thinking on this, you would literally see opportunities all over. You just need to look through the lens of the power of celebrity to begin seeing them all. You could come up with more than ten great ideas when you begin to focus on this subject for an hour. Or, plant the desire in your subconscious by writing it down on a piece of paper and carrying that in your pocket for a week. In time, the ideas will pop right into your head whilst driving in traffic, or standing in the shower, or after getting up in the middle of the night.
Focusing on this element of your business truly is the kind of strong, leverageable activity that can make you rich. Whilst most people are moving cars around or writing on windshields or brewing coffee, you could be working on SPEED and rapidly moving your business into the fast lane, while drafting behind the existing success and celebrity of somebody else. That is the true power of NASCAR!
Jimmy Vee & Travis Miller are the authors of Gravitational Marketing: The Science of Attracting Customers and founders of the Rich Dealers Institute.
NASCAR does not simply rely on big names to endorse and promote their organization. Rather, they create and market their own celebrities to carry the brand. Mike attributes DALE EARNHARDT JR. and his development into the sport's first true cross-over star as one of the factors for NASCAR's meteoric growth in the first part of this decade.
Based on that idea, if you can't find a celebrity to endorse your dealership, you can just become one yourself. Think it's not possible?? Well in the age of YouTube, Social Media and the web, it is actually not.
Make yourself a local celebrity by starting a blog, writing articles for your local publications, speaking to local groups, hosting seminars about smart car buying or credit strategies, hosting your own weekend radio show, etc. You could get a book or take class on DIY PR and start getting your name in the press as a featured expert. Use social media to garner "fans" and build your celebrity status that way. Every little bit counts.
NASCAR Understands the Potential of Cross Promotions
You may be a little guy in a big dealer pond, but you certainly do not need to promote like one. In fact, you could play a bigger game in this area simply by associating yourself and your business with several other well known entities in your area. When done right, this could aid boost the strength of your message and protect you from being hurt financially and emotionally in the case of a failed promotion.
To break this down further, more advertising means teaming up with other companies and advertising each other. Sometimes you see this in an auto mall, where multiple dealerships would pool their marketing dollars to create a bigger splash in the market. Occasionally you see this with multiple, non-competing businesses in a tight geographical area, where they combine their marketing bucks to bring shoppers to the general vicinity.
But if you want to cross promote similar to NASCAR... you will want to do what these other businesses are doing and take it to the MAX.
So forget auto malls and tiny marketing collaboratives... doing it the NASCAR way means partnering with famous (celebrity-like) companies right from the beginning. For example, Tag Heuer, the watch brand, already has Tiger Woods secured as a celeb endorsement. Perhaps you could hook up with a local jewelry store that is a Tag Heuer retailer, to offer a Tag watch to one fortunate winner on Father's day. Your marketing could feature you and the jeweler (and Tiger). You can either share the expense of the marketing, or ask the Jeweler to supply the watch. You then have a big event, the jeweler is on site with a cut out of Tiger wearing a Tag watch, you have a putting contest (of course, you can even tie in a golf course or country club for this, divide the marketing 3 ways!), you give away the watch, you sell few cars, and everybody goes home happy.
Realizing that there is power outside of yourself is the key element here. You should expand your thinking to allow for the opportunity of working with others and leveraging their existing celeb connections. Not to mention, you would be paying less cash for greater exposure as you learn to pull your resources and share the costs of these incredible campaigns. Here's some other great ideas you might want to consider.
You can tie with local celebrities like newscast personalities, local authors, radio DJs, local musicians, etc. Again, promote them and ask them to promote you. Possibly propose to pay for a printing of the next batch of CDs produced by a local popular band... with your logo and offer on the CD or inserted inside. A friend of ours lately offered to host a reception in his coffee shop for a group of young pageant contestants. The result was the current Miss America came by to visit the contestants, signed autographs, tasted his coffee and declared, "Best Ever." Now he has a photo of Miss America drinking his coffee that he can use forever.
As you expand your thinking on this, you would literally see opportunities all over. You just need to look through the lens of the power of celebrity to begin seeing them all. You could come up with more than ten great ideas when you begin to focus on this subject for an hour. Or, plant the desire in your subconscious by writing it down on a piece of paper and carrying that in your pocket for a week. In time, the ideas will pop right into your head whilst driving in traffic, or standing in the shower, or after getting up in the middle of the night.
Focusing on this element of your business truly is the kind of strong, leverageable activity that can make you rich. Whilst most people are moving cars around or writing on windshields or brewing coffee, you could be working on SPEED and rapidly moving your business into the fast lane, while drafting behind the existing success and celebrity of somebody else. That is the true power of NASCAR!
Jimmy Vee & Travis Miller are the authors of Gravitational Marketing: The Science of Attracting Customers and founders of the Rich Dealers Institute.
About the Author:
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
No comments:
Post a Comment