10 tips for planning, selling and promoting auto racing promotions

Since there are 75 million fans in the United States – that's one in three Americans! – auto racing promotions are a huge opportunity for newspapers. In fact, auto racing is the #1 spectator sport in the United States and the #2 regular season sport on TV.

The opportunity around auto racing is immense, and one of the best ways to capitalize is by running auto racing promotions throughout the 37-week season.

Below, you'll find 10 tips for planning, selling and promoting auto racing contests and ballots.

TIPS FOR PLANNING YOUR AUTO RACING PROMOTIONS CAMPAIGN

1. Set a goal. The first step to reaching your audience and revenue goals with auto racing promotions is to set those goals in the first place. What do you want to achieve? If you're looking to increase your social engagement, make sure all of your promotions run on Facebook behind a Like-gate as well as on your website. If you're trying to increase your email database, run several racing-themed sweepstakes throughout the season. If you're looking to deliver leads to your advertisers, add simple survey questions to all of your registration pages.

2. Build a team. Your auto racing promotions will be even more successful if there is buy-in across your entire organization. Your planning team should include people from a number of relevant areas, including sales, marketing, digital, admin and the newsroom.

3. Create a calendar. To increase your reach and bring in even more revenue, complement your 37-week season-long auto racing contest with additional promotions like UGC submission contests, sweepstakes and ballots. You can see a sample calendar below to help kickstart your brainstorming.

4. Get organized. Take a look at your master calendar and see if there is anything that you already do around auto racing, such as publishing a related special section, that you could align your auto racing promotions with.

5. Excite your sales force. Your auto racing promotions will be even more successful if your sales reps are genuinely excited about selling them, so take some steps to get your team inspired. Create sales materials and talking points and hand them out to your reps. Offer incentive bonuses or adjust their commission plan to make selling auto racing promotions more exciting and more of a priority. You could even have an auto racing promotions sales blitz!

TIPS FOR SELLING

1. Sell the benefits. When you approach advertisers about sponsoring an auto racing contest or ballot, you want to be sure to sell the benefits. Here are a few talking points to include in your pitch:

• An auto racing promotion can help the advertiser achieve its goals, whether those are to grow reach, increase awareness or generate hot leads.
• Your auto racing contests and ballots are multi-platform promotions, meaning that they have the power to reach your audience wherever they are.
• Auto racing promotions can help advertisers build up their email databases of social followings with opt-in checkboxes on the registration page or access to the contest through a Like-gate on their Facebook page.
• Auto racing promotions have the power to drive foot traffic to the advertiser's location if they include a coupon or special offer in the weekly reminder emails.
• The advertiser will be exposing his brand to an actively engaged audience who will return to the contest to make their picks each week for 37 weeks.
• You also want to emphasize to the advertiser that you are a trusted local company with deep roots in the community and an audience with desirable demographics.

2. Create an integrated package. When you are selling auto racing promotions, you have a few options for how to package them – exclusive, category exclusive and multiple sponsor packages have all been successful in the past. Below you can see sample packages for an exclusive sponsorship in a mid-size market and a multiple sponsorship package from a small market.

TIPS FOR MARKETING

1. Remember the impact of email. Email is absolutely at the center of a successful revenue plan. Since 91 percent of Americans check their email at least once a day, it is absolutely the best way to reach your audience where they are actively engaged and listening. Also, since people can easily click to enter a contest or ballot directly from an email, it is a great way for you to drive digital conversions. When you run an auto racing campaign, be sure to send at least the following emails:

• Invite email before the contest or ballot begins.
• Weekly reminder emails.
• Include a coupon or offer from a sponsor with each email to keep it interesting and keep your audience clicking!

2. Promote in a variety of media. In order to reach the widest possible audience, be sure to promote your auto racing promotions in all of your media.

• Send emails.
• Place online ads on the contest or ballot pages and around your website.
• Place print ads in your print product.
• Tweet about the promotions, and add images to your tweets to increase your click-through rates.
• Create custom graphics to use when you post about the contest to Facebook (plus find more ideas for crafting engaging Facebook posts here).

3. Make the URL visible everywhere you promote. The contest URL is the most important piece of your ads and promo spots, as without the URL no one will be able to take action and engage with your promotions. So, make it clearly visible on all print and online ads.

Matt Coen is the president and co-founder of Second Street, a leading provider of private-label online promotions platforms and partner success services for media companies based in St. Louis, Mo. He can be reached at (314) 880-4902 or matt@secondstreet.com.