3 Nascar Marketing Secrets That Will Turbo Charge Your Success This Year - Part 1

NASCAR is a powerful business and marketing machine. There's a lot you could find out about positioning your own dealership just by studying the lead-generating, profit exploding strategies of this racing giant.

You have probably heard of Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart. They're all pretty famous NASCAR stars. But a name you may not know the name Mike Bartelli. Racecar driver? No. But he is a guy that knows a lot about speed. Mike is a marketing guy and when it comes to NASCAR and motor-sports marketing he is, "the" guy.

Mike is a specialist in motor-sports marketing, and as president of Mill sport Motorsports he's aided 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 tips to NASCAR's Marketing Success. We've since 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 would be able to utilize them in your own dealership this year.

So print this out, grab a highlighter or a pen and put on your thinking cap because you're 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 strategies 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 who 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… Certainly NOTHING. Whilst NASCAR undoubtedly knows this, many dealers in this country don't.

The purpose of advertising is to get your prospect's attention. So if nothing works better in getting attention than celebs, why not utilize it?

Demographics do not matter either. Rich investors, CEOs, credit challenged, blue-collar, white-collar they are all attracted to celebs. We believe the reason is reach and frequency. The same as effective marketing is about reaching several individuals and a lot more importantly reaching them several times, celebs have an enormous amount of reach as their job is to be seen and be heard.

One more motive why celebrities are influential marketing weapons is centered on the power of association. People connect you to those they see you with. If you are hanging out with celebrities then you ought to be one yourself. This is reassuring to your consumers and puts you in a positive light. And of course potential clients would like aligning themselves with you as well, as they also want a piece of that celebrity pie.

Not to mention, clientele are more likely to refer business to the "cool" dealer who hangs out with celebs over the guy they've never heard of. Keep in mind, boring is safe, but it will get you nowhere. Leverage the power of celebrity and your potential buyers would be chasing you down for a sale.

Think this doesn't pertain to you? Think you can't utilize superstars in your marketing because you cannot pay for Dan Marino? Well think again.

There is in fact some low-cost ways you could begin featuring celebs in your marketing immediately.

One strategy we like is designing a mail piece with a full color envelope making use of pictures of three well-known 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 picture you would put your name and "owner of ABC dealership in XYZ town." BANG, instant celebrity tie in. And that is getting opened.