NASCAR does not just rely on big names to endorse and promote their organization. Rather, they create and market their own celebrities to carry the brand. Mike attributes DALE EARNHARDT JR. and his development into the sport’s first true cross-over star as one of the factors for NASCAR’s dramatic growth in the first part of this decade.

Based on that idea, if you can’t find a celebrity to endorse your dealership, you could just become one yourself. Think it’s impossible?? Well in the age of YouTube, Social Media and the internet, it’s really not.

Make yourself a local celebrity by beginning a blog, writing articles for your local publications, speaking to local groups, hosting seminars about smart car buying or credit strategies, hosting your own weekend radio show, etc. You could get a book or take seminar on DIY PR and begin getting your name in the press as a featured expert. Use social media to garner “fans” and build your celebrity status that way. Every little bit counts.

NASCAR Understands the Power of Cross Promotions

You might be a little guy in a big dealer pond, but you definitely don’t need to advertise like one. Actually, you could play a bigger game in this area simply by associating yourself and your business with other popular entities in your area. When done right, this can aid boost the potency of your message and protect you from being hurt financially and emotionally in the case of a failed promotion.

To break this down further, cross promoting means teaming up with other businesses and promoting each other. Sometimes you see this in an auto mall, where multiple dealerships will pool their marketing dollars to create a bigger splash in the market. Sometimes you see this with multiple, non-competing businesses in a tight geographical area, where they pool their marketing bucks to bring consumers to the general vicinity.

But if you want to cross promote similar to NASCAR… you will want to do what these other companies are doing and take it to the MAX.

So forget auto malls and tiny marketing collaboratives… doing it the NASCAR way means partnering with famous (celebrity-like) businesses right from the start. For instance, Tag Heuer, the watch brand, already has Tiger Woods secured as a celebrity endorsement. Maybe you can connect with a local jewelry store that is a Tag Heuer retailer, to offer a Tag watch to one fortunate winner on Father’s day. Your marketing can feature you and the jeweler (and Tiger). You can either share the cost of the marketing, or ask the Jeweler to offer the watch. You then have a big event, the jeweler is on site with a cut out of Tiger wearing a Tag watch, you have a putting contest (of course, you can even tie in a golf course or country club for this, split the marketing 3 ways!), you give away the watch, you sell some cars, and everybody goes home contented.

Realizing that there is power outside of yourself is the key element here. You must expand your thinking to allow for the opportunity of working with others and leveraging their existing celeb associations. Not to mention, you’ll be spending less cash for greater exposure as you learn to pull your resources and share the costs of these incredible campaigns.
Here’s some of the great ideas which you might need to consider.

You could tie with local celebrities like news personalities, local authors, radio DJs, local musicians, etc. Again, promote them and ask them to promote you. Perhaps offer to pay for a printing of the next batch of CDs produced by a local popular band… with your logo and offer on the CD or inserted inside. A pal of ours lately offered to host a reception in his coffee shop for a group of young pageant contestants. The result was the present Miss America came by to meet the contestants, signed autographs, tasted his coffee and declared, “Best Ever.” Now he has a portrait of Miss America drinking his coffee that he could use forever.

You begin seeing lots of opportunities all over when you start expanding your thinking on this. You just have to look through the lens of the power of celebrity to begin seeing them all. In less than an hour of focused concentration on this subject you can certainly come up with 10 good ideas. Or, place the desire in your subconscious by writing it down on a piece of paper and carrying that in your pocket for a week. In time, the ideas will pop right into your head while driving in traffic, or standing in the shower, or after getting up in the middle of the night.

Focusing on this element of your business truly is the kind of influential, leverageable activity that can make you rich. While most people are moving cars around or writing on windshields or brewing coffee, you can be working on SPEED and quickly moving your business into the fast lane, while drafting behind the existing success and celebrity of somebody else. That is the true power of NASCAR!

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