When you decide to become a racer, you also have to have a racing business. If you want to make money off of the thing that you love you need to learn how to leverage your platform to sell. There is a major difference between being just a race car driver and having a business as a race car driver. People won’t listen to your interviews and share your content if you don’t give them a reason to.

If you’re not sharing interesting and relatable content, sponsors won’t show any interest. You need to get attention and exposure by growing your network and building small relationships with companies. Even if you don’t like it, you need to embody different hats like selling, marketing, bookkeeping, media, and more. 

Since Facebook launched, social media has radically shifted from a digital directory to an entire metaverse, prime for social selling. As a motorsports driver, your job is more than just winning races and posing for pit photos. Your racing career also is heavily focused on being a paid influencer or a brand ambassador. Social selling, or using social media to help sell your sponsor’s products, is an important tool in any well-rounded racer’s career-building toolbox.

Using social media to make connections that convert with sponsored content and products isn’t all-consuming as it might seem. Here is your 4-step starter kit for social selling for motorsports racers:

Know your audience before you pitch to sell

Landing the right sponsors to become their ambassador begins with knowing that you have the right audience. You don’t want to be pitching tampons to your audience if they’re mostly 50+ year old men. Confirm with your platform insights to get the demographics of your audience.  

Plan relatable content

Don’t just snap a photo and post, give yourself a week or two to get creative content. Don’t go overboard with editing or filming, you want to still be authentic yet memorable. 

Reels and posts that connect the products to your real life are always the most interesting. Spend some time with the product and with your audience and find the best connection point.

Get approval

Get approval of the visual and caption from your sponsor before you post! Follow your sponsors process for approval, or if they don’t give you one, make sure you send them an email with all the content you plan on sharing with ample time for them to review and approve before you post. And of course, make sure you have working links and the right codes, and know when they expire.

Sell consistently and authentically

Finally, consistency and authenticity are key to selling for brands on your social media. Don’t just talk about the product non-stop for three days and then never bring it up again. Integrate a selling rhythm into your marketing plan. Aim for once or twice a week every week until the end of your contract.

As much as you love what you do, the reality is that without the funding from sponsorships, you won’t be able to race (long-term). That’s why you need to decide how you can market your brand to get sponsors, customers, and loyal fans. My course Fueled and Funded teaches you how to make real money from racing sponsorships. Spots are limited to 50! Get on the earlybird waitlist now to save 10% off.