Latest / The Racer on Demand Show / Episode 18 | Memories Over Metrics (ft. Jacklyn Donahue)
Transcript
- Megan: Hey everybody and welcome back to the Racer On Demand Show. I am Megan with my amazing co-host Amanda. And today we've got a really special guest. We have Jackie Donahue, who I have had the pleasure to know for quite a few years. She is the group marketing manager for Aftermarket at NYTERA North America, which in the racing world is the NGK Sparkplugs. And ⁓ wasn't it last year that you guys had rebranded or two years ago? Amanda Van Den Elzen: Hi. Jacklyn Donahue: Two years, yep. Megan: Two years. Yep. so Well, thank you for joining us today. ⁓ And just to kick things off, ⁓ when it comes to, you know, how you guys work with racers ⁓ in motorsports and kind of, you know, I know you guys work with other types of athletes as well too, but can you just tell us overall basics, your marketing strategy and how you leverage motorsports and athletes for ⁓ Jacklyn Donahue: Thanks for having me. Megan: NGK spark plugs in Nitera. Jacklyn Donahue: Yeah. it's actually so I've worked at Nightara for nine years and it since the the the time that I started till now, it's actually a whole different way that we use ⁓ motorsports. Like when I first started, we doing the bring customers to races. This was pre-COVID. we sponsored a lot of race teams with plugs. and mostly the ⁓ the motivation was like, ⁓ you know, put a sticker on the car, do two social posts, ⁓ basically that was all that's required, like ⁓ two social posts per month. That was what was required for teams. And then we took, you know, loads of customers to different events that we sponsored. ⁓ that COVID passed and all that happened, we kind of market a little bit different than we did pre-COVID. ⁓ Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Jacklyn Donahue: I guess COVID, ⁓ there are a lot of things that happened during COVID that we realized that wow, maybe we were spending a ton of money that we didn't need to spend. So we had to like readjust the funding that we had because during COVID, we were still selling a ton of spark plugs without marketing. And that was kind of, I guess, eye opening to ⁓ like my bosses. were like, Wow, you know, we're spending Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Jacklyn Donahue: hundreds of thousands of dollars on sponsorship, but yet during COVID we didn't, and we didn't see any drop in sales. So that sort of changed minds of a lot of the folks that, you know, were controlling the the funds here. And they were saying, well, do you really need to go to NHRA events? And do you really need to sponsor all of these people? ⁓ and so we had to take a look at that and and think, okay, Amanda Van Den Elzen: Hmm. Megan: Interesting. Jacklyn Donahue: How are we gonna adjust that? ⁓ because we still wanna be visible there, but we have to spend the money differently. And so a lot of that changed with the teams, like of course want the the decal on the car because that's what gets seen. So obviously that's a a given, but the the content ⁓ and the way that the race teams talk about the product, Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Jacklyn Donahue: became more valuable than just slapping the sticker on the car. and we and we're a small team, ⁓ marketing team internally. And I definitely cannot do ⁓ of the things that we need to do alone with a team of five. So we rely on teams specifically to to churn out content, especially about authentically talking about using our products because that's what I feel like influences sales. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Jacklyn Donahue: Is like, ⁓ you know, Megan is using, you know, our spark plugs on her car and she's winning. And so that tells a better story than me just, you know, doing ⁓ a video on spark plugs in our shop. ⁓ it's so it's it's a it's I guess is a balance because we obviously we do some of that that content as well, but we have to have the people who are actually using the product because those are the people that Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Jacklyn Donahue: people who are buying the product trust. so I mean there's a balance of both. So we we kind of do a little bit of both. But ⁓ when COVID, like I said, we had to when we took those funds, ⁓ we to re you know, put them in a different spot. So ⁓ a lot of those teams now use different funds that we use for ⁓ like customers and so those customers that we want to sell more product we have funds that we give to those customers like they're called co-op funds or we call them not co-op anymore they're called marketing partnership funds so those marketing partnership funds are available to certain customers that Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: you know, depending on how much they sell of our product, those funds are available to use to help sell the product. So we've used it for some of those customers have their own marketing programs. Like for instance, ⁓ one of our customers just federated, they do a lot of motorsports marketing. They do a lot of dirt car racing. And they have some of their own programs set up. And sometimes we just allocate money to programs that they already have set up. And then we've also worked with customers where maybe they don't have anything set up and they they have the sum of money and they're wondering how they can run a pr a promotion or you know how they can get involved in motorsports because they're not currently involved in motorsports. And we have helped them with folks that we've worked with you know folks that we work with currently. So maybe like for instance like You know, Megan, if you were like, ⁓ you know, I had a customer and I was like, hey, you guys want to get involved with with Megan? And we'll take fifteen thousand dollars of our co-op funds and then we'll co-brand Megan's car with our name and like X brand, ⁓ you know, or ex customer. And we've done that. we do one right now with ⁓ Parts Authority and we were sponsoring Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: Jeff Sprague, he's a fisherman. So this is not motorsports. This is a little bit different. But we didn't have the funds to, sponsor him by ourselves. They they wanted to go a different route with him. But with Parts Authority, we went to Parts Authority and said, hey, you guys want to do this joint partnership? And we'll use the marketing partnership fund to sponsor Jeff. And then we'll use that to market our product and to to get people to go to Parts Authority to buy NGK product. And it's been working out great. We've done that for this is like the third year that we've sponsored Jeff through Parts Authority. So there's those opportunities. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Megan: Awesome. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah, we had something similar. So our race team is heavily sponsored by Nexen Tire and they also do, they don't call them co-op funds. I don't even remember what they call them, but basically like marketing partnerships with the distributors of Nexen Tire. And ⁓ Chris was out at a K ⁓ trade show, which is one of their distributors back at the beginning of this year. I think it was January. Yeah. And ⁓ we had been talking to them about Jacklyn Donahue: Okay. Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: launching like a ride-along incentive program. So whoever bought the most Nexen tires through K ⁓ as a distributor could win this ride-along experience that we were offering. So it was a really interesting way to be able to dive into a different part of the budget because Nexen didn't have that budget allocated, but they did have those marketing dollars through K &M's partnership. Jacklyn Donahue: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: It's really interesting to be able to look at those different buckets and how you can start to pull from those. I'm curious, like how do you determine the eligibility for co-op funding or marketing partnership dollars? And you know, is that only for large retailers and distributors or can race teams, shops, those smaller businesses participate in those programs too? Jacklyn Donahue: Yeah, so the way that our marketing partnership funds, they're allocated to certain customers. So there is ⁓ it wouldn't be for small shops. It would be like certain customers of ours, they qualify for it. So it'd just be those customers. But the way that you a team could integrate into that would be okay, so ⁓ Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Jacklyn Donahue: And in like for ours, it's all been sort of I don't I don't want to say kinda it's kind of been spontaneous, like there was a need and like ⁓ that something fell into place and then it worked. Like it just happened. But it wasn't like I was str I haven't been strategizing like with a calendar thing, okay, X, Y, and Z have these funds available and I haven't been plugging people into it. It just happened to be like, you know, like so. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: Say for instance, like we have a customer that's like, ⁓ we want to run a promotion. And you know, then then we're thinking about it at that time, like, hmm, what could we do to drive sales? Most of the things that we do to drive sales would be, you know, like you were saying, where we have, you know, there's a opportunity to have an incentive where, you know, you could have a ride along or you could go to an event and be a VIP for the day. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: And then we could run a promotion around it for two months with like that customer that says, hey, you know, and it could be for their counter people or it could be for their customer. It could be like, well, if the customer buys X amount of ignition coils during this time period, they would qualify for an entry and then they would win this, they could possibly win this trip. And that would could drive sales because I can measure that. And that's something I could easily get, you know. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: my cust our customer and then you know the people I need to get approval here on board with. ⁓ I don't do a ton. I mean the besides the one for Jeff Sprague, he does he does promotions and then he also does, I know he does a lot of content for Parts Authority. ⁓ I don't do a lot of ⁓ sponsorship where we're just sponsoring for content. I don't I don't know why. just most of it's been Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: mostly center on like the your things you're talking about, like incentives. Like it's been a to drive some type of promotion. ⁓ Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Well, I think you mentioned, you know, that's something that you can measure is the sales. And I think ultimately, you know, marketing is a sales function. And if you can't draw it back to sales easily, then it's hard to justify that spend. So that makes sense. Jacklyn Donahue: Yeah. Yeah. And it seems like that's lately what's been happening, right? I don't know with you guys too. It's just everything's been like, okay, how are you gonna help me move X amount of product out of here? ⁓ I know that's for us, that's that's how it is, but ⁓ I'm sure it is for a lot of different ⁓ automotive suppliers for sure. Megan: Yeah. Have you seen anything that ⁓ like really stands out to help with the sales and move product more? Or is it just kind of like is there like a certain incentive or certain type of like promotion or like advertising you've done? Jacklyn Donahue: Yeah, I always I always ask the customers this. I'm like, cause it seems like it's different for every customer, but I'm always like, what what motivates your your sales people to sell more? Or what what do your customers look for? Like what are some of the promotions that have been like ⁓ super popular or you know, really successful? A lot of them are have been mostly they tell me is like these experiences they can't get on their own, right? So they can't just like Megan: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: Mm. Jacklyn Donahue: I mean, everyone can go to Disney World and buy a ticket or whatever, but it's these other things that they're not able to grasp on their own. Like they can't go ride along in a race car in it's these one of a experiences that they might not want to pay for themselves, but they would love to win it. I mean, everyone can go to Disney World and buy a ticket or whatever, but it's these other things that they can't they're not able to grasp on their own. Like they can't go ride along ⁓ in one in a race car in specific race cars. It's just not possible unless they know somebody or what have you. But it's these one of a kind experiences that they may not they might not want to pay for themselves, but they would love to get, you know, as a you know, to win it. Megan: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: So anything like that, it's mostly that kind of stuff. ⁓ And and it's funny you know, we I told you we stopped doing like customer events. And it that the customer events were dear to my heart. I know they were expensive to do. ⁓ but honestly, those customer events are the what our customers talk about every time I see them, like year after year. They're like, ⁓ remember when we were we went to Charlotte? Megan: Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: And ⁓ we got to, you know, we were in your suite and those are the things they always bring up because they always remember those things. And I I've been trying my hardest to get them to come back. I would keep telling ⁓ the folks here, like, ⁓ we should bring a customer trip back. Cause it I mean, we were lucky. We were doing them twice a year. No more than twice a year. Cause when we were involved with NASCAR, we were doing them like for every NASCAR race at in Charlotte. So there were Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: think two or three there. And then we did the drag races there. So we were doing like five, five or so customer trips a year. And then we were bringing like thirty customers down. But those are the ones that people talk about. You know, they were just like, ⁓ that was so fun. And remember I got to bring my wife or sometimes they brought their son or daughter. ⁓ but I and I know like like obviously things change and we had to pivot a little bit on that. But Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: I keep bringing them, you know, wanting to bring at least one back. Like we should have like and and maybe like, you know, I keep saying like it could be an incentive. Like, what if we do something with, you know, a big customer like Factory Motor Parts and we do like a a coil incentive where we have like, you know, their 10 top customers who spend X amount of dollars, they get, you know, they get to come with a plus one to ⁓ drag race and we put it on just like we used to do. I don't think that's off the off the off the table. ⁓ I just haven't been able to try to put it together. But like those types of things I think are what people remember. ⁓ I don't know. Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: Yeah. I yeah, I remember the rental car race that we did. That is still like one of the most fun experiences we've ever had. And I yeah, I can't imagine how expensive that was because we had like half a dozen camries that you you rented and it taken Yeah. So they brought, I don't know, maybe 30 customers or something. And so it was like the day before the big NHRA race started and we were at the Charlotte track and ⁓ Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: Yeah. Those would make the most fun. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Wait, tell me about this. Megan: The NHRA guys also, like, I don't know if you had to maybe pay any extra to get the track before the race. ⁓ but so we did it. ⁓ okay, nice. Yeah. So we did a drag race. And I think for a lot of the people, like it was their first time, like even being at a drag race or going down a drag strip. So we had Camry ⁓ rental cars. So we were all like, you know, supposed to be on like an even playing field. Jacklyn Donahue: It was all included. Yep. Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Megan: ⁓ but I think there was like one or two that were maybe like an upgraded version so they were a little bit faster. So everyone was like, I want that car. ⁓ but yeah, so it's cool because like there's me and a couple other racers that were trying to like explain to them, okay, this is how you stage, this is when you know you want to go. ⁓ but we need to like rev it up a little bit because we don't want it to just spin the tires when you take out. ⁓ and we were going eighth mile. Amanda Van Den Elzen: You Jacklyn Donahue: Mm-hmm. Megan: ⁓ but yeah, so they got to race down the track, race against me, and then we started off like in a bracket and then, you know, worked our way up to a winner. And ⁓ I don't remember it who ended up winning. ⁓ but yeah, it was so cool. And then we had like little trophies for ⁓ and then we went up to the suite and had dinner, and yeah, it was just so much fun. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes! Jacklyn Donahue: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: What a great experience. Yes, because it makes them part of it. Jacklyn Donahue: Yeah, those are the things that people remember. Megan: Yeah. Yeah. And we had a we had yeah, I also remember we had the shirts. So we had a red team and a green team. So N G K and N T K teams. ⁓ yeah, that was a lot of fun. Jacklyn Donahue: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of the relationships that, you know, our s I mean, our salespeople still say it all day long, but a lot of the relationships that they tried to build with their customer, you know, to have to be, you know, have a more trusting relationship, be, you know, just to build it happened at those races. They would get their customers there and they would have like three days of time where they got to actually hang out with these people for multiple days. And that's how, like, I mean Unfortunately, that's how some of the our sales grew from that. Just because of those three days that they, you know, hung out with these people, you know, that's how you build relationships. And I on honestly, the in the aftermarket, I feel like a lot of this is built on relationships. I go to these shows and it's just like, you know, all these people who know each other and you know, it just they have like, you know. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Jacklyn Donahue: some type of history with them and they feel, you know, safe, you know, ordering from these people and stuff. It's it's all about that. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah, I feel like all sales, all marketing, everything is about relationships with the customers, with the racers, with the companies. That's all it comes down to. Jacklyn Donahue: No. Yeah. Exactly. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You're always gonna wanna go back to people you feel comfortable with, right? Like if you you know ⁓ for me it's it's funny because like when we do when I do sponsorships or s or like say things come up ⁓ that I need, a lot of times it's timing for me because I'm just so busy and then someone will just like, you know, someone who has been calling on me for like Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: months, you know, and they just keep, you know, checking in with me. Like, ⁓ okay, so then maybe there's not an opportunity for them now. But I want to say this like for racers. Like, you know, in the past we used to, like I said, ⁓ sponsor tons of race teams. And then it it kind of got smaller and smaller. So like this year we I think we sponsored like 30 race teams. And those people that didn't get picked in it, unfortunately The ones that keep following up with me and staying in front of me, those are the ones I remember. And then next year, unfortunately, that's the ones I go, ⁓ yeah, this guy, he checked in with me like a hundred times. And now I'll remember that. And then most likely they're gonna get looked at next year. And then there's like just people who just they submit their application and then I never hear from them again. But I'm telling you, if you stay in front of me. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: Or you send me an email once in a while, I I that I remember that all year. And then that that's more likely for people to get because you know, I we get 800 applications and honestly, probably six hundred of them, they're all about the same. There's nothing that's really different or makes them stand out. The what makes them stand out is that they probably I remember them because they emailed me like five, five times throughout the year to let me know what they were doing. Megan: Mm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Mm-hmm. Jacklyn Donahue: Or they tagged us on social. They don't have to, but they just do it. So there's just staying in front of us and then they're just memorable, right? So then I just remember, ⁓ yeah, that was that guy. And they were super nice and they sent me, you know, their their race, like what they were doing and how they did all year. And I remember that. And then I go, ⁓ yeah, I'm probably gonna sponsor that guy next year. So and then I just forget about the people who just check in once a year. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Megan: Sure. Jacklyn Donahue: Right. I it just Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah, well in a way that's kind of proof of performance too, right? Like you get to kind of know their product before you're buying it too. Jacklyn Donahue: Yeah. And and that's that's true. Like you get this application, right? You're trying to make decisions on six, eight hundred people and all you're doing is, you know, looking at their application, go out to their website and you're just getting a glimpse of it for like a minute, right? So you're like, ⁓ yeah, that's what they're doing, blah, blah, blah. But like you're saying, if you if you're checking in with me all the time, I'm seeing it all year and I'm like, ⁓ yeah, that guy's doing a good job or that gal's doing a good job or what have you. And then it just takes you from the bottom of the list to the top of the list, you know. Unfortunately, that's just how it works just with s you know, seeing so many. And it's it's funny because this past year I had, you know, typically I'm usually the person who's checking all the the applications, but this year I had Ashley who works with me do it. And she has like no clue on any motorsports. So she was looking at it from fresh eyes. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: Yeah. Yeah. Mm. Jacklyn Donahue: She was looking at it strictly at a ⁓ social perspective. Like she was just going off to her social and looking at it. And I'll tell you what, she came back and she cut a ton of people that I actually we've been working with for years because she said their social was atrocious or they didn't do it. You know? And and and it was kind of like, ⁓ dang, you know, like, and shame on me because I'm not always like, you know. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Mmm. Megan: Mm-hmm. Jacklyn Donahue: I don't have the time to check in on every little thing. But yeah, I mean, she I was like, just from a social perspective and a content perspective and what they should be doing, rate it. And she came back and was like, she had she had marked off all these people. I was like, ⁓ crap, those are people we sponsored for like 10 years. Like, well, they're not doing anything. And I'm like, so we had to make some hard decisions this year. I had to send out some emails, like, you guys gotta like. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Hahaha. Megan: Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: you know, step it up or, you know, or we or we just said it's not gonna work this year. We have to you know cut you guys. But yeah, because they weren't doing even the mi the bare minimum of what was required on the contract. So it was kind of good that I had her do that. You know, because you just you just become you don't you don't see it anymore because I'm like, ⁓ they it's so and so Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: And they just kind of got lazy and they didn't do anything and but I wasn't noticing it because I was just kind of like, ⁓ they're the you know, the people we've always sponsored for X amount of years, but it wasn't fair for them to be not doing what they're supposed to be doing. And then you got you got all these other people that would do, you know, their like, you know, would do anything to get to be sponsored. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: Mm-hmm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: And it was it just wasn't fair. So yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah, especially when you're allocating funds towards something that's not actually moving the needle for your brand, too. Megan: Mm-hmm. Jacklyn Donahue: Right. Exactly. Yeah. So I mean, I guess every every company's kinda gotta do a a little deep dive on that. and just check. I mean, we did that like when I first started here, we had to do that as well because we had a lot of teams that we found out and I don't think people were really watching it, is that, you know, they weren't even racing anymore, but they were still getting free product. Megan: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: And that that's that was when I first started at NGK. There was all these people just that just would send in a thing like, ⁓ send me X amount of product. We'd and we didn't they weren't even racing. Which was that was crazy. We had that was a lot of cleanup. ⁓ I don't I don't really know what happened with that. That was just I guess the program was so big they weren't checking all of that. But yeah. Luckily got past that and ⁓ Amanda Van Den Elzen: Gosh. Great. Megan: Yes. Jacklyn Donahue: I I mean people always say that they're like, ⁓ well there's you know the you had people doing that. I'm like, Yeah, but not anymore. It's not like we we're definitely not sponsoring anybody who, you know, isn't racing. Yeah. Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's just common sense. I mean, yeah, everything evolves. So it sounds like they need to be on social and post consistently and then following up consistently. Is there anything else ⁓ that look for? Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: mean I'm always looking for people doing different things. ⁓ but I would say the most thing I mean is the consistency 'cause you'll get like people who ⁓ and ⁓ a of people and I know you talked about this Megan there's like ⁓ 'cause I try to give people pointers when they ask me like why they didn't get sponsored. So some people will have like a you know a personal social page and then they they'll kind of it'll kind of be morphed their personal and their racing page. And sometimes that works. And sometimes I think that doesn't work because you ha might have ⁓ things in there that you don't really want a brand might not really want to be associated with on your personal page. ⁓ so I always tell them, you know, if you're doing a racing page ⁓ or you're racing, you should have a separate social for racing. and then just keep it all about racing. ⁓ because we've had some folks that were, you know, had other ⁓ Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: ⁓ subject matter on there that we had to say and yeah, we can't we can't be involved with that because we don't want to have our name ⁓ out there when you're talking about whatever it is that you're talking about. So ⁓ I always tell people you gotta keep it separate. But basically I would say like the checking in, like just, you know, letting us know what you're doing, like even like when you win. When you win, that's awesome. That's something I wanna share. I get people who don't even tell me when they win. And that's that's crazy. Like I you know, like there's some people who are very consistent, tell me like they'll tell me if they win or lose every week. They send me on Monday morning I get an email that tells me like ⁓ you know how everything went or I'll get it like at the month end and they'll tell me like all the things. Some people I don't even hear from at all. And even when they win, I'm like, I I'll happen to be on Facebook or ⁓ Instagram scrolling through there and I'll see that they won. I'm like, dang it. I you know I'd like I'd love to repost that we have a social file and that's pretty big. we love to repost all that kind of stuff. but yeah some people just don't don't even tell us. Amanda Van Den Elzen: what a lost opportunity. Jacklyn Donahue: It's just crazy. If I was winning I would be bra bragging it up. Everybody. Megan: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah Megan: Yeah. Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: But yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: So I'm curious, how do you measure the value of motorsports marketing compared to the other forms of advertising that you do? ⁓ And what the racing sponsorships worth continuing year after year? You know, how do you measure that success? Jacklyn Donahue: I mean, it's hard because a lot of the motorsport stuff I there is no measurement on it unless I can tie it to a promotion or what have you. But The way that I measure it, like okay, so just for example, we had our 60-year anniversary. ⁓ it's this year, and we just had the event over the over the weekend. And obviously there's a lot of things that made Natera successful for for 60 years. And what I found out, you know, it's funny is when we had our event, what they wanted for the event to show were ⁓ Amanda Van Den Elzen: Hey. Jacklyn Donahue: all these different teams that we worked with to say, you know, to do a congratulatory video. Because that's what people want to see, right? No one's gonna remember a promotion that I will I did with a customer that sold more coils. Obviously that's important. But like the things that are memorable are these these things with with the motorsports. Like the people that's what they they want to see the all the stars and all the Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: people who are winning and the people on the track and all that. So there is value. There's like it's visibility for that. It's the memorability of that, I guess. ⁓ I just I it's hard to say like, ⁓ can I measure it? It's the measuring ⁓ is don't I don't know how to explain it. It's like ⁓ even though they Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: It's the like intangible. Jacklyn Donahue: Yeah, it's like they don't they wanna say, ⁓ well we don't need to do motorsports, but then they always go back to it. Like, you know, do we have any tickets for anything? ⁓ do we do we still sponsor anybody? Like it always comes back to that. And then I'm I'm always like, ⁓ well remember we we pulled back on that? ⁓ remember we don't have tickets for that. But that's they always go back to that. Every single time. So we've it's it's like Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: They've tried to get out of it. They tried to think, ⁓ well, we don't need to be in motor sports. We don't we don't really need to be there or do this and that. But we always get pulled back because it's the most visibility. It's the it's the thing that people remember. Like when people turn on the TV and they see our logo on something, there's there's something that, you know, in your I guess in your heart you feel proud of that. Like, ⁓ the you know, there's you recognize the NGK on Megan's car when it's going down the track and you see it on the TV. It's like Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: There's that's I don't know how you measure that, but it's it's brand visibility. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah, and alignment. feel like your brand is so strongly aligned in motorsports, it would be weird and out of place for it not to be there. Jacklyn Donahue: Yeah. Yeah. If it's and if you don't see it, then like my boss is like, well, where's where's our logo at? Why are we why aren't we there? I think the having the logo in these in these places shows it validates it. Right? Like it's saying, like, we're the best spark plug out there. That's why all these cars are using it. Yeah, I don't can't measure sales from that, but there are definitely sales from that. I d and like and that's the Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: The thing with marketing that you are sh you have to you struggle with all the time because you're like, dang it, I wish how can I measure that? You but you you just have to just it's just things that you have to do for your brand that you just can't put a number on. But if you don't do it, then you're wondering why aren't we there? Or people are asking, why isn't NGK there? Why aren't they at the track? Why you're just losing that visibility. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Jacklyn Donahue: And so I feel like that's why we've never really got out of it because there is value there. ⁓ so it's kind of you have to do like it's like a a thing you gotta kind of balance both. You gotta use that and then you gotta, you know, turn other things into things that you can measure, like you know, running promotions with racers or doing other things. It's like a balance of both. Megan: Yeah, well said. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah, I agree. Jacklyn Donahue: I don't know. I hard it's hard to explain it, but I you know, I'm so sometimes I'm passionate so passionate about live events. Like people I it's like you I don't know how to explain it. It's like you ha you have to do it. It's something that you f it's a feeling and it's a thing. And it and if you don't have it, you'd I don't know how to explain it. I wish I knew how to explain it. If I knew how to explain it, I'd probably get more money to do it. But Megan: Right. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: But I don't I don't know how to explain it. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Story of all of our lives, Jackie. Jacklyn Donahue: No. Megan: Yeah, seriously. Yeah. say, ⁓ I mean in closing, we always ⁓ ask our guest ⁓ one last question, and that's just basically, do have any piece of advice for our racers that are listening? Jacklyn Donahue: Yeah. I got I gotta work on that. I gotta figure out how to explain it. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Jacklyn Donahue: Yeah, I would say don't give up. And like if you get a no, that doesn't mean the no is forever. That just means maybe the no is because we don't know you. And like I said, if you're picking twenty-five to thirty people out of eight hundred, it's not nothing personal. It's just that, you know, that's like six hundred and 70 strangers or what have you that we just don't know, I would say stay in front of it, stay in front of it, email me, ⁓ send us, you know, I know it's extra work, but in the long run, I'll I'll remember you throughout the year and be more likely to pull pick you out of a group of six, eight hundred applications that we get because you stayed in front of me and I'm like, ⁓ and I recognize who you are. And it gives us visibility, like you said, into what you're doing all year. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Jacklyn Donahue: Instead of me just like looking at a resume and trying to make a decision off of that. ⁓ but I would say, yeah, don't give up. And then, you know, be consistent. That's the other thing. I'll see a lot of people who just, you know, do social posts for a couple of months and then drop off for like six months. So just being consistent. And it's it doesn't take much if you just, you know, post at least even once a week. That's fifty-two posts that you wouldn't have had. Megan: Mm-hmm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Jacklyn Donahue: You know, if you didn't do it at least once a week. Yeah, and then ⁓ just what you know, think trying to think about things that that you can do to be different, you know, with your content. Is there anything, you know, unique that you can do ⁓ to be fun and engaging on on social? I mean, these are all the things you kind of talk about, Megan, you know, like of you know, marketing yourself, your personal brand type of thing. you know, there that little bit of work ⁓ that do. ⁓ to invest in yourself, it it'll it's only will make you better. And and not just for me, but like other people who wanna, you know, you're looking to get sponsored by. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: Mm-hmm. Exactly. ⁓ all right. For our listeners, can you tell us when does the applications open and where can they find that at? Jacklyn Donahue: Yeah. Yeah. So the application opens August first and it's always open that first day on our website. So if you go to NGKsparkbugs.com and you go to the About Us tab, there's a racing. You click on racing and then the application will be live. And then the application is live for three months. So it's August, September, October. No, actually four months in November, because it closes November thirtieth. So you got four months. to fill it out. Cause I always get people like, ⁓ I didn't know. I'm like, yeah, four months. Four months. Fill it out. There's lots of time. I mean you can you can just go in this. It's not too hard. It's really quick to do. and then ⁓ we try to get sometimes we get held up by budget, but typically we try to let people know by ⁓ you know February time frame, January, February timeframe, if we're able to sponsor Amanda Van Den Elzen: Hehehehehe Megan: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah, that's really cool. And I think that really does highlight too, like this is not an instantaneous process at any company. This is something that needs to be budgeted and approved and. Jacklyn Donahue: Yeah. And a lot of people like contact us like in March looking for sponsorship. And I try to tell them that, you know, you guys we're looking at this like at the end of the year. So for the next year. You know, ⁓ January, February is too late. Like we're already like, you know, filling out applications the year prior to that. So I try to let people know that, but you know, sometimes they forget. You know, and like when we go to I mean, you guys probably go to the PRI show. We used to we used to Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: exhibit there. ⁓ we haven't in the last couple of years, but people would come to the PRI show, which was in December, and wanting sponsorship there. And it was already like, I mean, our application was already technically closed at that point. So it was kind of disheartening to have to tell people, well, you know, we've already, you know, decided sponsorship for the year. And they would be bummed out because I feel like they felt like that was their time that they were going to go around to all these different companies and, you know, talk to people. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jacklyn Donahue: And it was probably good the following the previous year to do that for that year. But there it was just the timing always seemed to be off, you know. ⁓ so Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Yeah, for the racers listening who have felt that way, we have a whole episode about prepping for PRI. So listen to that way before December. Jacklyn Donahue: Yeah. Tell me. Yeah. Megan: Yes. Yes. Yes. Jacklyn Donahue: Yes, for sure. Like you should be reaching out now 'cause this is when people are like either like you s like I said, August is not too far away. It's two months. We'll be starting to take applications for twenty seven. So yeah. You should be prepping now. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: Mm-hmm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Jackie, it has been awesome having you on. We have learned so much from you. I hope our listeners have learned so much from you. Megan and I are going to take a minute to debrief, but I just wanted to thank you for taking the time this morning to talk to us and to talk to our racers. ⁓ Jacklyn Donahue: Yep, it's Thank you so much. Hopefully I didn't ramble too much. Thank you. Megan: Yes. We appreciate it. Thank you, Jackie. That's good. Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: No, it was good. We'll talk to you later, Jackie. Thanks, bye. Jacklyn Donahue: Okay. Thank you so much. Megan: Bye. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Wow, she gave us so much good information and I am so excited just to like, I know she didn't have a ton of time. So I thought that you and I could maybe talk through some of the things that she talked about and bring that back to like what racers can actually do to turn that into dollars in their pockets. Megan: Awesome. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, I love that you had asked how do they measure the motorsports? And she was just like, I mean, she's straight up honest. Like, it's it's hard to measure it because yeah, it is, it is intangible. It's all about the experiences, the memories. ⁓ yeah, like that that rental car race that we did. Like that's something I will never forget. And it's so cool because like it's only like they used to come to the races quite a bit because, like she said, they did a lot of Amanda Van Den Elzen: It's so hard. Megan: ⁓ customer stuff. They used to be a vendor at the drag races. And so they would have a lot of employees there as well. ⁓ and then yeah, really since COVID, they cut back on that. So I really don't see her or any of the other employees from NGK except for when we go to Apex. And that's always like one of the first things that we talk about. It's like, hey, remember when we got a race yield? And so it's just so cool. So Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Hahaha! Megan: Yeah, I love that like you guys have that two seater because that's something that like could you could use as like a co-op deal and have those experiences and use it as an incentive for your sponsors and like their customers or their employees or their distributors or whoever they want to use it for. ⁓ yeah. I just want make sure that I am in line to get a ride in the Chris's two seater. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Yeah. Me too! Megan: Yeah, yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: What she was talking about too, and like what you just brought back up is the live experiences, like they might not be immediately measurable, but they do translate back to sales. like, okay, a ride in a two seater or like racing a Camry. Like you're not gonna forget that you're going to have a much more positive, you know, experience with that brand and a much more positive ⁓ thought about that brand when you go to like. Hey, ⁓ I need spark plugs. You know what? I'm going to get NGK because I've got a really good experience with this brand. And she talked initially about how when they cut the funding during COVID and they didn't see a sales decrease. And part of me wonders if it's like lagging, right? You have leading indicators and lagging indicators on whether something is working. Megan: Mm-hmm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: I feel like that positive experience that you have from an experience or like this ⁓ alignment with a brand that you really like, with a racer that you really like or something, those kinds of intangible benefits, they're long lasting. And so I feel like if you immediately defund it, like she was talking about in COVID where a light switch just happened and you just weren't doing motor sports anymore, right? Megan: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: So like that doesn't necessarily turn off the emotion that came from what you had already been doing, right? And so I think that's something to like think about though when you're creating those experiences, like you're not just selling a single year of influence, you're selling that experience that sits with somebody for a really long time. Megan: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's true. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's true. And that's that reminds me of like earlier when we got to go to Talladega with Dave and ⁓ a couple of the guys from Blaster and Gunk. And they were telling us about like this VIP experience that we got to be a part of is something that like spectators, like people that attend races, like they literally cannot pay for this experience to be Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: in the infield and go to the race trailers and be in the garage. ⁓ like it was so cool like to s be standing literally right next to the car like while the crew's warming it up. ⁓ and they were they were very strict about what we could get pictures and videos of and what we couldn't. ⁓ even though a lot of stuff was covered, it was still like, hey, you can't get a you can't get a video of this. ⁓ but yeah they're like we were talking to ⁓ Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Megan: some of the the salesmen that work for the team and their job is just to get sponsors, but they have like a whole sales team that does it. And they were saying that even if a like a fan had a million dollars, they couldn't buy this experience. Like it's only available if they sponsor the car. And ⁓ yeah, it's just it's very interesting to hear like it's like having those Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Megan: experiences and those events and that VIP access and something that's yeah, it's just it's not part of the regular race is like I feel like yeah, that's kind of where racers like we need to get creative of like how can we build a whole experience around this and and sell that instead of trying to sell another spot on the car or to sell, you know, this is how many people attend races or this is Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Megan: You know, this is how many views I get on my socials. Like, yeah, what's what's like a memorable experience that we can do? And I think I talked about it on the last episode about like just when I went to Crandon, like all the cool things that you could do there. And I know that like that was kind of just like regular fan stuff, but like the that's stuff that like, even though I didn't participate it, like I'm still gonna remember that and just Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Megan: You like those vendors like having those experiences. ⁓ yeah, I feel like that's where they're gonna get that that ⁓ loyalty and longevity with their customers. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. And it does not have to be complicated. I feel like we've talked about a lot of things like, okay, we have a promotional two-seater truck. That's a pretty big expenditure, right? But you don't need to have that. You don't need to be able to buy a club suite for $100,000. Although I will say, you can sell things that you can't afford on your own also. you could say, hey, I will put you up in this club suite. Megan: Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: It's going to be, you know, this experience and talk to the tracks, figure out what's included in those things, figure out what it's going to cost you, and then put a price tag on it that's bigger than that and sell it to your sponsor. Because it doesn't matter if your racing budget is $50,000, but that suite is $150,000, right? Sell it to a partner for $200,000 and then now you've got an extra $50,000 for your program. Plus they've got the B2B benefits of being able to bring in their customers and have somewhere to do this and say, that's the car that we sponsor out there on the track. And like one of the things that we have leveraged is, I mean, I'm going to put this in very loose quotes, a VIP experience, but just like relationship building and giving our sponsors an experience that they otherwise wouldn't have at the track is ⁓ our chili cook-off at Crandon. Megan: Yeah. Yeah. Like so many people tell me about that. Amanda Van Den Elzen: And it's so low key. It is so low key. But every fall Crandon, every Labor Day weekend, every Friday after the Beatles race, we always have a chili cook-off and we invite people to bring pots of chili and come and taste test and vote. And it's like hundred people show up. It's not crazy. It's not this high production thing. But like last year we had a couple of brands step on to like provide prizes to our podiums. And we invited our partners to be there. We invited them to come eat chili and mingle with the racers. And we end up with people from all over the US, and now they're getting an experience with a brand that maybe they wouldn't have seen otherwise. And we don't have to think in these really huge terms to be able to create an experience. ⁓ Even like, Megan: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: what does a skybox cost at your local race? You might be surprised. Like we were incredibly surprised at what it costs to get a skybox at Crandon. It is way less than what is in your mind right now. If you're thinking of a number, promise it's probably less than half of that. And, you know, it's like, you know, start talking about like, what is an experience that I could build for my Megan: Okay. Interesting. Amanda Van Den Elzen: partners or for my partner's customers or for my partner's partners, you know, and be thinking a little bit more like that than like just what is a deliverable that I could give to my partner. Megan: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Amanda Van Den Elzen: that was a big takeaway, I think, from listening to Jackie talk. It's just about those live experiences and what kind of an impact they have on her audience. Megan: Yeah. Yeah, I know. It it's it's such a bummer that they don't really do it that much anymore. Cause I know they were going all in, like not just drag racing, they were going all in with drifting. ⁓ like she said, they sponsor like fishermen and stuff. So like there was a time there, you know, five, six years ago where they were just everywhere and it was so cool that we got to be a small part of that. so I think maybe Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Megan: maybe we can kind of, you know, get them to come back and do a little bit more of that. Cause yeah, it is it is such a memorable thing to do. ⁓ but but yeah, I don't know. That's kind of I guess one of the not like a headache, but just something when you work at such a big corporation like Nightera is ⁓ huge. And I mean yeah, and they're based out of Japan. So I don't know how hard it is to kind of ⁓ Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Yeah. Megan: you know, be on two completely different continents a and try to get on the same page with marketing things like that. ⁓ but yeah, I mean Yeah. Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes. We run into that with Nexon too. Like there's even just a cultural difference. know, what works to sell in Korea is very different than what works to sell in the U.S. and sometimes pitching a U.S. marketing strategy to a Korean executive can be really challenging. Megan: Yeah. Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That's so true. So true. But yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Okay, so there was one other thing that Jackie said that I was like, I don't know if I agree with that. that. And I'm really curious what your stance is on it. ⁓ She that they recommend that racers have a separate personal and a separate racing page ⁓ where they only talk about the racing on the racing page. ⁓ Megan: Okay. Yeah, that was interesting. Like, I totally like I know ⁓ what she's talking about. ⁓ because ⁓ again, like trying to think back to, know, of when they were really big. There's also, you know, a lot going on politically, culturally, economically. So I know she's talking about kind of more personal stuff like that that people were having a very strong stance on that yeah, didn't align with their brand. So I I understand that part, but I think we do still need to keep some personal stuff on the racing page just 'cause like what we always talk about, like that's how you build your personal brand. That's how people get to know who you are, ⁓ your personality, like Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Megan: Yeah, you can post racing pictures and videos all day, every day. But if they don't see who you are, get to know who the driver is, then there's gonna be that lack of connection. But yeah, I I agree, like you don't don't take it too far. But there's still like there's still a line there to not cross and not treating it like your personal diary. But Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Yes. Megan: Yeah, you still need some personal stuff on there, which I feel like I like I have tried to do more personal stuff on my racing pages this year, like sharing more about our family, like about Henry, our hobbies. Cause well, thank you. Thanks. Well, and like honestly, like I have had such a slow start. Like, we're in June now. I've only done one race the first half of this year. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah, I love that, by the way. Hehehehehe Megan: And like usually like my dad, my dad's already like a third of the way done with his season. Like you guys have already done a couple rounds. Your next race is coming up this weekend. ⁓ my first drag race of the year is this weekend, which it was gonna be Memorial Day weekend, but that got canceled. So I've just had like I haven't really had much racing opportunities to like get content. And ⁓ I mean, like I was telling you, like the race cars, like the dragsters aren't even at Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yay! Yes. Megan: home so like I can't even do anything with that. So ⁓ so yeah, so like I I really like if I want to be consistent and keep posting, like I ha I do just need to do more personal stuff because that is what I'm doing every day. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Yes, yeah, okay. I'm glad that I wasn't alone, because I was feeling very much the same way about like, ooh, I feel like if we only post about racing stuff, we're really gonna lose our audience, you know? And okay, so this might seem a little off base, but have you seen the videos of the woman who is currently in the middle of rowing from California to Hawaii on her own? Okay, so there's a woman who, Megan: No, I have not seen that. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Every single one of her videos is at like 2 million views right now. God, what's her name? I think it's like Kelsey something. She's currently in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and she has been one post a day giving us by herself. She's trying to be the first American woman to row solo from the coast of California to Hawaii. And... Megan: Like by herself. That's insane. Yeah, you'll have to send it to me. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah, Kelsey Fendler, it's P-F-E-N-D-L-E-R. So she posts once a day and she's clearly got like a social media person or team like back at home that's like writing out the captions because the captions are in third persons like Kelsey's currently here but here's an update from her on her boat, right? But as she's posting, she is not just saying like, rode from here to here today, you know? Megan: Mm Mm, okay. Amanda Van Den Elzen: she's saying things like, here's what I eat while I'm on the boat, or like, this is how I packed 90 days worth of food with me, or here's what the inside of my cabin looks like, or like, this is what I have to do in order to get the barnacles off the bottom of my boat while I'm rowing and stuff. like, the things that she is talking about are, They're really personal, but they tie back to what she's doing. And it makes us follow her as a person and as a human being, not just like because she's rowing across the ocean, but because she's opening up and getting really personal about it too, you know? Megan: Yeah, that wow. That's interesting. Yeah, I'll definitely have to go look her up. That's so cool. Well, okay, that's so that kind of reminds me of I don't remember her name either. ⁓ but it was someone that was doing the Olympics and I don't remember what sport maybe ⁓ what's the one where they like they ride in like the sled? Is that Bob sledding or? Amanda Van Den Elzen: ⁓ either like bobsledding or are you talking about luge? Like where they're on the ice kind of slide? Yeah. Megan: Yeah, I think Luge. Okay, so I don't really I don't really know. I didn't really watch the Olympics, but I was seeing posts from this woman and ⁓ but yeah like kind of like same thing like Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah Megan: she so she was sharing some personal stuff she was sharing about how like she's a mom ⁓ and trying to ⁓ Like trying to just like be a good role model for her her kids and ⁓ like I like resonated with that and so it was cool to kind of see like her personal journey while like while she's competing in the Olympics and ⁓ I know she meddled I don't remember like what position she finished. But ⁓ yeah, like it that was really cool and like I like I still follow her to this day. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Yeah. See, I love that too because like when I'm talking about like Kelsey rowing across the ocean or, you know, the Olympian, like we're not talking about what they're doing in that sport or in the activity that they're doing. What we're talking about is how we're connecting to them as people. And I think racers can really take that back and say, it doesn't matter if I race a light buggy or a pro four. Megan: No keep. Amanda Van Den Elzen: What matters is if I connect to people or like it doesn't matter if I'm in a four cylinder circle track car or if I'm in a four 10 sprint car, like as long as I'm connecting with people and I'm showing people something that they wouldn't otherwise be able to see, which again, I think comes right back to those live events that we were talking about, right? What did Jackie say was most impactful for her customers, for her distributors and whatnot was something that they couldn't buy no matter what money they had, right? And we have such opportunity to deliver that as racers. We have the opportunity to give people a peek behind the scenes of something that they couldn't buy. They just don't have the connections. They don't have the know-how. Or maybe they don't even have the desire. Like, I don't care to row across the ocean, but I'm really curious about the autopilot. Or like, I don't have the desire to do that, but how does she poop? Those are the things that I'm... very curious about when I'm scrolling through Facebook, but that's how we really make an impact. Because you know what, if Kelsey turned around today and like she's, don't know, on day like 23 right now, and I've been following her since like day three, I think is when she popped up. But if she turned around and said, you know, what's been really helpful is this brand of sunscreen this whole time. Did you know that it's reef safe and it has been protecting me while I'm out in the elements? I would probably really consider that sunscreen because I've connected with her as a human and I trust that she's not just selling me some BS, right? Megan: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, and that's also like a great way to just organically and like naturally plug in your sponsors. Like instead of it just being like, here's a straight up promotional post and go check out this brand of sunscreen. Like like, yeah, why why why does she use it? Why would it help us out? yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Mm-hmm. U.S. Yes. Yeah. Or she's like unpacking her snacks and she's like, I really like licorice and she pulls out licorice, right? Like, ⁓ you know what? I really like licorice too. So I'm going to give that brand a try. I've never tried it before, you know? Megan: Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, and that kind of relays like like I know you guys do your surveys and it's like like how loyal are you to like the partners that work with our race team and how how often or what's the word I'm looking for? ⁓ Amanda Van Den Elzen: Hmm? Megan: you know, like switching the brands to the ones that do support you. And I think also, yeah, conversion thank you. but also like like kind of like going back to like the content and stuff, like just I feel like social media has changed so much, especially since COVID. Like like before that it was it was very easy to like grow on socials 'cause there wasn't a whole lot of traffic or like not there wasn't a whole lot of noise on there. Whereas now like Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes, conversion. Hehehehe Yeah. Megan: Everybody has five different accounts, like and you know, there's account for your pets and like everything is just promotional now. So the like the storytelling posts and the ones that aren't like a straight up promotion, I feel like that like we like racers need to kind of get more into like a storytelling mode. And I know it's hard, like it takes more work, and I struggle with that too, because I know it's like this is Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Megan: what I should be doing. Like I see it working for other people, but it it like it is harder because it's like my default mode is like, hey, you know, here's why we use the spark plug and it the spark plug helps us win races. And it's like, yeah, it's like, okay, like how could I reframe this to kind of yeah, be more organic, be more like a story and ⁓ yeah, something that could resonate more with the audience. Cause yeah, I think like yeah, it's just things are evolving and Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Megan: Yeah, I mean like social media is so hard nowadays 'cause you've got point three of a second to get someone's attention and get them to watch or reel. And yeah. Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yeah. Well, and because it is a marketing channel, Like people recognize now that it is a marketing channel. So they're scrolling past commercials. And, you know, to your point to be able to like get a sponsorship message across without feeling like a salesperson, you're right, like a narrative, a story really is necessary. But if that's the only time that you're using that format and you're not using storytelling about what you do or like being educational about your own content, then even just that flip to a different format is going to feel like a commercial. So like you have to have better content all the way around in order for your sponsorship messages to really stick. Megan: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's true. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Amanda Van Den Elzen: All right. I know you've got to get Henry to school. ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ you have to use a mom voice. ⁓ ⁓ right. The dog kennel. ⁓ ⁓ Megan: Yeah, before he runs back in here. Yeah. You get to paddle out. ⁓ Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, this this was a really good episode. I I loved that we were able to have Jackie on and yeah, she she always has some some really good topics and she's just yeah I love how honest she is and she's she's real ⁓ yeah ⁓ Amanda Van Den Elzen: So... Yeah. She's not gatekeeping. Yeah, that's what I really loved. There was no gatekeeping at all. She was so open about her marketing strategies and about the challenges too, which I think that transparency really helps racers to navigate around those challenges too. Megan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Well, hopefully the listeners get some ideas of some creative ways how they could work with partners they have or potential partners and if they could maybe dip into those co-op funds and yeah, how how they could get creative with things ⁓ like a skybox or a a ⁓ race before the race starts or a ride-along or ⁓ or any other type of experience that everyone's gonna remember for the next twenty years. Amanda Van Den Elzen: Yes, 100 % agree. So to our listeners, thank you again for being here. We're always so excited to have you here. We will see you in another two weeks. And until then, we love you. Bye. Megan: Pay