In today’s IBJ, there is an article about the ‘cash woes’ IndyCar teams are facing. It isn’t surprising because motor racing in general is down – attendance is lower, corporate sponsors are leaving, and money is drying up. The thing that caught my eye was a quote by Michael Andretti, a very well known former IndyCar driver and current owner. He said, “Corporate budgets are much tighter now and there’s much more competition in sports marketing.  Every company wants specifics on a return on investment. They want data and analytics to back up their spending. It creates a lot of pressure.”

While sponsoring an IndyCar may make showing an ROI particularly difficult, it is always surprising that companies aren’t even doing it when it comes to their traditional marketing efforts. TV, email, print, radio, pay per click ads, SEO – can all be connected to analytic tools that will allow you to showcase an ROI. In fact, setting up this conversion tracking is one of the things we have been doing an awful lot of for midsize companies hoping to get the most from their marketing dollars.  These efforts should be tracked and analyzed on an ongoing basis so changes can be made before sinking tons of money into something not producing revenue.  This where Sharp Guys’ can help – that is unless you want to sponsor an IndyCar and see a revenue-based ROI.