The Race for Sponsor Dollars is On!
By Brian Mackey
All rights reserved

Marketing Strategies (Part 4)

Embark upon a number of strategies to assist with finding sponsorship funding:

Publicity -- create a number of opportunities to receive coverage of your race program. In this way, you have further ammunition that you may need when proposing sponsorship to a prospect. You have proof of your ability to acquire publicity. This may be an objective of a prospective client and you want to be positioned to prove your worth.

Hook -- develop a sales "hook" that separates your program from the myriad of others both within the motorsport community and those in other alternative special events, including civic, music, festivals and other activities. This critically important element plays a major role in securing interest from the perspective sponsors. There is no magic hook that guarantees sponsorship, but there are any number of ways to develop one. Strive to acquire that unique hook that others can not emulate. If a corporate sponsor can use your hook to achieve their marketing objectives, your sales program is over one giant hurdle: separating your program from the hundreds of others on a Marketing Director's desk.

The strategy for sales -- depending upon the budget required, whether a multi-million dollar high profile program or a modest showroom stock series, will have a bearing on your selected strategy for marketing your program. It becomes a matter of what is realistic in terms of potential sales gain. Obviously, a high profile Indy car program can justify a more elaborate sales strategy when millions of dollars is the desired objective. But eve team should have a program devoted to secure the budget needed within their own select racing activity. In these days of computer publishing available to nearly everyone, each race team has the opportunity to create a professional-looking presentation package that will create the kind of professional image each race team is seeking to introduce.

The sales and marketing elements -- after careful development of your race marketing program, researching potential prospects, searching for leads and follow ups, embark upon a systematic utilization of your marketing budget. It is not always successful, but over the past ten years, I have found that a dedicated approach results in sponsor interest being secured far more often that simply waiting for a sponsor to chance by your race operation. In my ten years experience, that "chance" sponsor has never materialized.

Finally, remember that the marketing aspect of your racing enterprise is no less competitive than all-out dicing for position on the race track, perhaps even more so. You are not only in competition with every other race team on the planet, but also other sports, other events, series, charity events and so on and so on. Everything these days seems to be seeking a sponsor -- it is competition for sponsor dollars across the board. And ultimately you are in competition with me, and hundreds of others like me, because we are after the same money you want! I sit at my desk, on the phone, day in and day out, every day, every hour, every chance I get looking for sponsors. I will be persistent, professional, purposeful and knowledgeable. We all are your competition. If you don't take marketing seriously, remember, we do! And if you and your team are not out there seeking your own piece of the sponsorship pie, you make our job all that much easier. We would be happy to divert what might have been money towards your program and drive it toward our clients. It's that simple.

Food for thought. I wish you happy hunting and good fortune. Perhaps we'll meet on the road to sponsorship!

Beginning (Part 1)

Rule Number One (Part 2)

Investing in Marketing (Part 3)