Honda Part

By A Ketley1

 NASCAR is a powerful business and marketing machine. There’s a lot you will be able to learn about positioning your own dealership just by studying the lead-generating, revenue exploding strategies of this racing giant.

You have probably heard of Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart. They are all pretty famous NASCAR stars. But a name you might not know the name Mike Bartelli. Racecar driver? No. But he is a guy who knows lots about speed. Mike is a marketing guy and when it comes to NASCAR and motorsports marketing he is, “the” guy.

Mike is a professional in motorsports marketing, and as head of Millsport Motorsports he’s helped NASCAR see record growth in popularity and sponsorship. Today Mike is chief marketing officer and senior VP of Petty Enterprises.

In a recent interview, Mike divulged some of the secrets to NASCAR’s Marketing Success. We’ve from then taken the ideas Mike shared and reshaped them to fit the car business. We are now serving them to you on a silver platter so you could utilize them in your own dealership this year.

So print this out, grab a highlighter or a pen and put on your thinking cap as you are about to go for wild ride.

NASCAR Understands the Power of a Celebrity Endorsement

In building their own monster brand, one of NASCAR’s main techniques was to make use of celebs and celebrity endorsements to reach new fan bases. The NASCAR approach honed in on target groups of prospective fans that usually would overlook the sport and reached out to them making use of a popular celebrity from film, television, music, sports, etc.

You see, nothing gets attention like celebs… Definitely NOTHING. Though NASCAR undoubtedly knows this, most dealers in this country do not.

The goal of marketing is to get your prospect’s attention. So if nothing works better in getting attention than celebs, why not make use of it?

Demographics do not matter either. Rich investors, CEOs, credit challenged, blue-collar, white-collar they all are attracted to celebs. We believe the reason is reach and frequency. Just as effective marketing is about reaching several people and more significantly reaching them several times, celebs have a huge amount of reach as their job is to be noticed and be heard.

Another reason why celebrities are influential marketing weapons is based on the power of association. Individuals connect you to people they see you with. If you’re hanging out with celebrities then you ought to be one yourself. This is reassuring to your customers and places you in a good light. And naturally potential clientele will like aligning themselves with you too, as they also want a piece of that celebrity pie.

Not to mention, customers are more probable to refer business to the “cool” dealer who hangs out with celebs over the guy they have never heard of. Keep in mind, boring is safe, but it will get you nowhere. Leverage the power of celebrity and your leads will be chasing you down for a sale.

Think this doesn’t pertain to you? Think you can’t use celebs in your marketing because you cannot afford Dan Marino? Well think again.

There’s actually some low-cost means you can start featuring celebrities in your marketing immediately.

One strategy we like is designing a mail piece with a full color envelope utilizing images of three famous celebrities your target audience will resonate with… let’s say, Barack Obama, Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey and YOU! You can use the headline, “What Do Barack, Tiger, Oprah and Mr. Dealer Have In Common.” Next to your image you would put your name and “owner of ABC dealership in XYZ town.” BANG, instant celebrity tie in. And that is getting opened.

Or you could make use of your marketing dollars to purchase a celeb for direct sponsorship, endorsement or events. Sure most A-listers may be out of your price range but there is always someone affordable who resonates with your target market. Older celebs who are no longer in their hay-day or little known celebrities like popular contestants on reality TV shows can usually be hired for surprisingly little.

Also keep in mind that the recession impacts everybody. Even celebs jump at the possibility to make some extra money. More often than not it’s our impression of celebs and our ego, fear of the unknown and apprehension created by star charisma that keep dealers from leveraging this super-charger of a promoting resource.
You could find contact info on virtually any celebrity in a book by Jordan McAuley called the Celebrity Black Book available on Amazon.com or contact our office directly for celebrity agent suggestions.

Jimmy Vee & Travis Miller are the authors of Gravitational Marketing: The Science of Attracting Customers and founders of the Rich Dealers Institute. 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
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