From what you have seen, my team spends a lot of money on sponsorships: custom stickers for the car, flags, T-shirts, uniform embroidery, and autograph cards. You may think we spend more money on all of the sponsorship hype than we get from our sponsors. The reality is, in some cases, we probably did.
However, we are ensuring our sponsors get their return on investment. We are trying to create a brand and a long-lasting relationship. That way, when the next big event comes along, and we need help, hopefully, our sponsors are willing to throw more support our way. It is a long process, but the end-game has to be continually selling the sponsor on why your team is the one with which they should be connected.
Outside The Box
Anytime I have the opportunity to do a podcast or a Skype interview, I always have a background that represents my sponsors. You can see I’m wearing a Tactical Ops Brewing hat because they are a sponsor. I’m always trying to do my best to represent every one of my sponsors as professionally as possible.
I’m continually looking for opportunities to spread the word for the companies who have been kind enough to support my racing habit. I look for different magazines that might want to do a feature on our racing team or podcasts that might want a race car driver on the show. Recently, I did the
Technik Podcast, where I had the chance to talk with host Peter Hopelain about racing. During that conversation, I mentioned some of my sponsors for the audio podcast and represented all of my sponsors with the background in the video version (below).
Thinking outside the box, I was able to get one of our race cars in the Nissan Motorsports calendar. This was really cool for our team, and it was a great package to send to our other sponsors to show them how we were representing them. This didn’t happen automatically. I essentially harassed the people at Nissan until they included our car in their calendar. Don’t take no for an answer, just like the characters from
Glengarry Glen Ross.
One year, I was “Miss November” in the Nissan Motorsports calendar. It was seen by way more people than who would ever saw it at a racetrack.
The road to sponsorship is not an easy one. If it were easy, every autocrosser in the country would have free racing tires. If this all sounds like too much work, then invent something new on the internet and get rich before you go racing.
The process is selling yourself and providing a service to a sponsor that they need. And then following through on your promise, providing that return on investment. And last but not least, ensure your social media game is on-point. Sponsors like a lot of hashtags, tags, and lots of followers. Now that I think about it, follow
Krider Racing on Instagram, I need more followers too!
More Sources
Eibach
https://eibach.com
(800) 507-2338
Hoosier Tires
https://www.hoosiertire.com/
(574) 784-3152
Sports Car Club of America
https://www.scca.com/
(785) 357-7222
I/O Port Racing Supplies
https://www.ioportracing.com/
(800) 949-5712