BMW Racing Team Sponsorship
Hi
Some friends of mine have a BMW racing team that races in the Canadian Touring Car Championship series.
They approached me and asked if I could help find team sponsors.
Having no experience in promoting car racing sponsorship, I did some research on the Internet and found a surprising amount of helpful information.
One thing I found is that car racing sponsorship has very poor ROI. Paying for a billboard at the side of the highway would be cheaper and get more 'eyeballs' than slapping your logo on the side of a race car.
My idea was to build the team's online following so when I approach potential sponsors I can say things like, "We have 10,000 fans on facebook and 20,000 subscribers to our YouTube channel. We can position your company and brand in front of this captive audience".
I think video is a great start.
I have been bugging the team to meet with me to go over their videos so we can grab juicy clips for YouTube.
The team runs with two GoPro cameras in the cars and have many cool 'incidents' captured, like recovering from severe fish-tails, spinning off the track and one driver had the cameras running as he literally rolled one of the BMWs off track.
I want to grab these cool clips and target people looking for racing footage and crashes on YouTube. Things like "BMW Roll Over", "BMW Race Crash", etc.
I am also encouraging them to build more self identification in forums. For example, one of the drivers posts regularly in racing forums, but his forum profile is very plain with just his name and location.
I am trying to get him to fill out a more complete bio that says (for example) "I drive the #10 car for our BMW racing team". So people know he is an actual driver and not just another 'fan' in the forums.
Anyway, my idea is to build a following for the team so they can have an audience in their pocket for sponsors.
But that is just general marketing ideas off the top-o-me-'ead.
I think the team has a great foundation to start and I'm starting to work on driving 'fans' to our YouTube channel and facebook, but I'm not familiar with the race sponsorship market in general.
Does anyone have any experience, knowledge or tips for marketing a race team and/or finding racing team sponsorships?
This is the team- 8legsracing.com. They were featured in a CTCC TV webisode:
Thanks,
Mahlon
Some friends of mine have a BMW racing team that races in the Canadian Touring Car Championship series.
They approached me and asked if I could help find team sponsors.
Having no experience in promoting car racing sponsorship, I did some research on the Internet and found a surprising amount of helpful information.
One thing I found is that car racing sponsorship has very poor ROI. Paying for a billboard at the side of the highway would be cheaper and get more 'eyeballs' than slapping your logo on the side of a race car.
My idea was to build the team's online following so when I approach potential sponsors I can say things like, "We have 10,000 fans on facebook and 20,000 subscribers to our YouTube channel. We can position your company and brand in front of this captive audience".
I think video is a great start.
I have been bugging the team to meet with me to go over their videos so we can grab juicy clips for YouTube.
The team runs with two GoPro cameras in the cars and have many cool 'incidents' captured, like recovering from severe fish-tails, spinning off the track and one driver had the cameras running as he literally rolled one of the BMWs off track.
I want to grab these cool clips and target people looking for racing footage and crashes on YouTube. Things like "BMW Roll Over", "BMW Race Crash", etc.
I am also encouraging them to build more self identification in forums. For example, one of the drivers posts regularly in racing forums, but his forum profile is very plain with just his name and location.
I am trying to get him to fill out a more complete bio that says (for example) "I drive the #10 car for our BMW racing team". So people know he is an actual driver and not just another 'fan' in the forums.
Anyway, my idea is to build a following for the team so they can have an audience in their pocket for sponsors.
But that is just general marketing ideas off the top-o-me-'ead.
I think the team has a great foundation to start and I'm starting to work on driving 'fans' to our YouTube channel and facebook, but I'm not familiar with the race sponsorship market in general.
Does anyone have any experience, knowledge or tips for marketing a race team and/or finding racing team sponsorships?
This is the team- 8legsracing.com. They were featured in a CTCC TV webisode:
Thanks,
Mahlon