3 Nascar Marketing Secrets That Will Turbo Charge Your Success This Year - Part 2

NASCAR Makes Their Own Celebrities

NASCAR does not just 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 legend as one of the reasons 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 internet, it is really 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 seminar on DIY PR and begin getting your name in the media as a featured expert.   Use social media to garner "fans" and develop your celebrity status that way. Every little bit counts.

NASCAR Understands the Power of Cross Promotions

You might be a little guy in a big dealer pond, but you definitely do not have to promote like one.  Actually, 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 can assist strengthen the potency of your message and insulate you from being hurt financially and emotionally in the case of a failed promotion.

To break this down further, cross advertising means teaming up with other businesses and advertising each other. At times you see this in an auto mall, where multiple dealerships would pool their marketing dollars to create a larger splash in the market. Sometimes you see this with multiple, non-competing businesses in a tight geographical area, where they combine their marketing dollars to bring customers to the general vicinity.

But if you want to cross promote like NASCAR? you will have to do what these other companies 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) firms right from the start. For instance, Tag Heuer, the watch brand, already has Tiger Woods secured as a celebrity endorsement. Perhaps you could connect with a local jewelry store that is a Tag Heuer retailer, to provide a Tag watch to one lucky winner on Father's day. Your automotive marketing could feature you and the jeweler (and Tiger). You could either share the expense of the marketing, or ask the Jeweler to offer 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 (naturally, you could also tie in a golf course or country club for this, divide the marketing 3 ways!), you give away the wristwatch, you sell few cars, and everybody goes home contented.

Realizing that there is power outside of yourself is the main element here.  You should expand your thinking to give the possibility of working with others and leveraging their existing celebrity connections.  Not to mention, you will be paying less money for greater exposure as you learn to pull your resources and share the expenses of these incredible campaigns.

Here's some other great ideas you may want to consider.  

You could tie with local celebrities such as newscast personalities, local authors, radio DJs, local musicians, etc. Again, promote them and ask them to promote you. Perhaps 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 pal of ours recently 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 portrait 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 have to look through the lens of the power of celebrity to begin seeing them all. In less than an hour of focused concentration on this subject you can surely come up with 10 good ideas. Or, place 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 would 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 individuals are moving cars around or writing on windshields or brewing coffee, you can be working on SPEED and quickly 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!