Posts
45
Joined
3/3/2017
Location
Miami, FL
US
I have been in love with moto since I was a little kid...raced. Stopped. Getting back into it on a participation level...but never stopped following it.
Made an intro thread here.
Anyway, I own a couple of marketing agencies (one does paid media for large brands and the other is an influencer marketing agency) so I have always paid close attention to the efforts of pro teams in terms of outside the industry sponsorship.
Just a little rant, because I want to see these teams excel and find the funding to operate. Too many teams fold. Too many amazing racers are left with no ride. Too many riders are risking A LOT for pennies. So many problems could be eliminated with proper funding. It won't come from within the industry. It needs to come from outside.
Most teams are dropping the ball. Prime example: Rockstar Energy Racing -- the website still has 2016 images and the schedule. No 2017 schedule. No info on the 2017 team. I am in no way bagging on them or singling them out. I went to their site to look at their graphics to see who made them and found all the images were of the 2016 team kit.
The teams need to think like these big brands. Let's take a company like Apple for instance. If they were to sponsor a top 250 team, do you honestly think they are going to care whether the team goes 4, 7, and 12 or 6, 9, and 13? No. Sure, podiums and wins are great for branding, but the real value in SX is the pit presence.
Fan engagement and activation is where a company like Apple is going to get their "return."
Most teams toss a sponsor logo on a team poster and try to pass that off as value. Sure, the fan takes it home, tosses it up in the garage, but do they even notice those little logos? Nope.
A lot of teams that feature very popular riders will hand out "tickets" for the autograph line. But they should take it a step further:
What percentage of fans in attendance (over the age of 16) do you think have a mobile phone with them? I would say it is VERY high. They are taking pictures, video, posting to social media, etc. These teams should have interactive stations around the truck (iPads on a stand...nothing fancy or expensive), where a fan can enter his or her email address in exchange for an autograph ticket. They enter a valid email, and it gets sent to their phone. Show their conformation, get a hard ticket.
They should also have giveaways every weekend (used plastic, jerseys, goggles, etc) that require an email address entry. This data is the REAL value to the sponsors. Teams could work into their sponsorship terms that they will send out X number of emails, allowing the sponsor to include an offer, or allow them to lease the list X number of times to directly market.
There are literally dozens of things these teams could be doing to pull in NASCAR-level sponsors...but nobody seems to be trying hard.
The cost for these teams are increasing while the $$ support is decreasing. Not a good combo.
Ok, marketing rant over lol.
Made an intro thread here.
Anyway, I own a couple of marketing agencies (one does paid media for large brands and the other is an influencer marketing agency) so I have always paid close attention to the efforts of pro teams in terms of outside the industry sponsorship.
Just a little rant, because I want to see these teams excel and find the funding to operate. Too many teams fold. Too many amazing racers are left with no ride. Too many riders are risking A LOT for pennies. So many problems could be eliminated with proper funding. It won't come from within the industry. It needs to come from outside.
Most teams are dropping the ball. Prime example: Rockstar Energy Racing -- the website still has 2016 images and the schedule. No 2017 schedule. No info on the 2017 team. I am in no way bagging on them or singling them out. I went to their site to look at their graphics to see who made them and found all the images were of the 2016 team kit.
The teams need to think like these big brands. Let's take a company like Apple for instance. If they were to sponsor a top 250 team, do you honestly think they are going to care whether the team goes 4, 7, and 12 or 6, 9, and 13? No. Sure, podiums and wins are great for branding, but the real value in SX is the pit presence.
Fan engagement and activation is where a company like Apple is going to get their "return."
Most teams toss a sponsor logo on a team poster and try to pass that off as value. Sure, the fan takes it home, tosses it up in the garage, but do they even notice those little logos? Nope.
A lot of teams that feature very popular riders will hand out "tickets" for the autograph line. But they should take it a step further:
What percentage of fans in attendance (over the age of 16) do you think have a mobile phone with them? I would say it is VERY high. They are taking pictures, video, posting to social media, etc. These teams should have interactive stations around the truck (iPads on a stand...nothing fancy or expensive), where a fan can enter his or her email address in exchange for an autograph ticket. They enter a valid email, and it gets sent to their phone. Show their conformation, get a hard ticket.
They should also have giveaways every weekend (used plastic, jerseys, goggles, etc) that require an email address entry. This data is the REAL value to the sponsors. Teams could work into their sponsorship terms that they will send out X number of emails, allowing the sponsor to include an offer, or allow them to lease the list X number of times to directly market.
There are literally dozens of things these teams could be doing to pull in NASCAR-level sponsors...but nobody seems to be trying hard.
The cost for these teams are increasing while the $$ support is decreasing. Not a good combo.
Ok, marketing rant over lol.
You've got like maybe 10k in audience but 500k+ watching on tv. Only gonna get a few thousand dedicated superfans to interact with in the pits. That's not going to pay the bills when it comes to the pro level budgets.
Just an example - this is my third year taking my kids and nieces and nephews to SX, all aged 8-13. They only get into it when I say "Pick a rider and cheer for him!"
One picked Broc Tickle because her birthday is on the 20th - I tried to steer her away I but looked kinda foolish after he podiumed. She was cheering louder than anyone I've ever cheer for Broc.
Ditto my sister, who picked Chad reed as the old guy. Again, Chad has a fan for the rest of his career now.
Leaving just after the 450 race ended, I see a little guy and his girlfriend in Rockstar hats walking by a crowd of people on the sidewalk outside the dome. NOBODY recognizes him - I call, "Hey Zach!", he turns and I congratulate him on a great race. The kids were floored to see Zach Osborne who just won the race, and now instead of complaining about the cold, they ALL wanted to stay around the trucks 30 minutes in freezing weather.
DeCoster walked by and hid in his KTM hoodie looking scared he might have to actually talk to someone. I told them they call this guy 'the MAN', they were less impressed lol.
Finally, a privateer was pushing his tortured Yamaha outside the dome to his truck, with his half drunken crew holding onto his gear and toolboxes. Suddenly everyone crowded around and wanted to talk to this guy - he was laughing and his guys were joking about getting paid in pizza and beer. Everyone was impressed by his effort and if admiration could be paid in dollars, he was the richest guy around.
You're on to something, and it has more to do with rider/fan engagement than anything else.
The Shop
They are ushering the teams and OEM's toward the next level. It's not an overnight success though. Let's compare SX growth of the sport every ten years- and you see its larger than ever. Perhaps not in ticket sales, but it's overall reach.
I'm interested in seeing it expand, I think there needs to be more corporate sponsors and alliances. And they don't need to be from companies that you find in a gas station. Although, I'm also not a marketing strategist and I don't know what out of industry companies get out of the sport.
Additionally- I work for FedEx and every moto post I make I tag them on insta, I have them on my jersey, and graphics. Maybe someone at corporate in Memphis will follow the click hole after seeing me and find themselves seeing how massively our industry relies on shipping.
Maybe you should ask the people who will lose their jobs when the Circus closes for good what they think about Feld's lack of failures and mediocrity.
I'm wondering if it would be more cost effective for some of the smaller teams to ship their stuff from round to round. Probably not since they need the rig to do maintenance and what not. But if tracks were more like NASCAR in the sense that they had a huge garage every team could pit out of it might work. I know we offer rebates and stuff among those lines, so yes the upfront cost may be expensive but once you hit a number of shipments you get a negotiated rebate or half price shipping for running the logo on your jersey or something along those lines.
I agree with the posters above in that shipping is a huge segment in the motorcycle industry. It'd be interesting to see what types of partnerships could be drummed up that would bring in additional revenue or just save teams money that could go to additional riders or whatever else.
Point being... For feld to really blow up sx, noobies need to be able to buy an affordable bike and have somewhere reasonable to ride it. The mc industry needs sx to sell bikes, just like Feld needs real people riding bikes to become hardcore followers of the sport.
And look where it got them- they barely kept the team together this year.
Not trying to be negative- this dog and pony show needs more marketers like yourself because all the money is going to like 6 or 7 guys.
"Fan engagement and activation is where a company like Apple is going to get their "return." "
I mean, maybe it's more along the lines of marketing team that happens to go racing.
Maybe the teams set aside some $$ for an inhouse marketing person?
Marketing is such a battle of perception thing and as such there are many "correct" solutions but I've always felt that moto is such a passion/niche sport that those outside sponsors are more like benefactors.
Can't email addresses just be bought by the shitload to show sponsors? Hhahhaha J/K. But really, Methbot has that angle covered ten-fold!!!
Pit Row
kobalt Yamaha.ahh the graphics would be sweet.
I just think Gatorade on a bike would be bad ass. all the colors they have and the commercials would be super cool with the training riders do. what do you say? ill buy a pack a week.deal?
The "deal" just needs to be packaged right.
Just to throw something else out there...
Let's take a look at the KTM factory riders (Ryan Dungey, Marvin and Trey) Social media following:
Ryan Dungey:
Instagram - 785k
Twitter - 248K
Facebook - 998k
Marvin:
Instagram - 296k
Twitter - 77k
Facebook - 195k
Trey:
Instagram - 259k
Twitter - 120k
Facebook - 460k
This is a grand total of nearly 3.5 MILLION social followers between the 3 riders on this team.
This is a HUGE value, to both industry sponsors and outside sponsors that I can promise isn't being leveraged the way it could be.
There is so much that could be done. So much! Potential that nobody even knows exists...
Modern Works bikes heavy rely on computers...a tough book sponsorship would be perfect.
Candy sponsors, Drug companies, Band Aid, Yeti coolers, etc. All these companies sell products to moto people and don't do a whole lot with moto.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that maybe we need to change our approach to the issue.
It seems to me that the real question is why somebody is not exploiting this untapped potential, for a fee of course! I mean, if the money is there and if those numbers are indeed actual potential just sitting there, why are digital marketing guys not pimping those numbers to those wallets?
Marketing... My brother sells television channels and programming globally. He helps friends with projects sometimes as well. This is the digital age, everything is contingent on digital information. Locking in contact information for influence. It isnt about a logo on a jersey. It is about collecting the information for potential future sales. Peer to peer interaction with riders with the goal of collecting some point of contact. Fans win, sponsors win. Thinking sponsors want product pushed at the races is archaic. They want the digital footprint
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