Jayson Alexander Racing Stays in the Fast Lane with Constant Contact

From the time he was a kid watching races and playing racing video games, Jayson Alexander dreamed of becoming a NASCAR driver. He even made his own makeshift wheel for the PlayStation 2. In high school, he continued to follow his passion through a program called iRacing, an online racing simulation program where professional drivers practice when they’re not on the track. When it was time to go to college, he chose Queens University of Charlotte because Charlotte is the capital of all things NASCAR.

“I knew that if I could get into Charlotte, I could try and figure out a way to at least get into the NASCAR industry,” Jayson said. 

Taking a risk

Jayson began by interning with a NASCAR team to learn the inner workings of professional racing. After about a year, he reached out to other teams in the area, asking if they would give him a shot at a test day — taking a race car out to the local track. “I thought, why not give myself a chance and see if I can do this once and for all?” he said.

The risk paid off. One of the teams agreed to let him drive. “I found myself at a place called Hickory Motor Speedway, which is the birthplace of NASCAR stars. It’s a super rough, all-original surface track in Hickory, North Carolina. That’s where the legends have made their names,” Jayson said.

It is also where Jayson began making his own name. His test drive resulted in a NASCAR developmental contract with the team, and he drove with the team for two seasons. By pairing his racing experience with the skills he was learning in his business administration and marketing classes, he became the director of Jayson Alexander Racing.

Jayson didn’t stop at his own brand. Being a driver is expensive, and to fund his racing career, he used the skills he was learning in his business and marketing classes to co-found the Premier Performance Group. The group offers representation to NASCAR drivers, negotiates team deals, finds sponsors, and supports drivers throughout their careers. 

“There’s so much more than just showing up and driving. We have everything: the social media side, the sponsorship side, and the marketing side. All these cohesive units come together. I’m just one small part of it,” Jayson explained. “We have a whole team that works with us to make sure everything we do is very seamless from off the track to on the track.”

Driving the business forward

Jayson Alexander Racing is how Jayson promotes his brand and engages his fan base. With Constant Contact as a sponsor, Jayson has all the digital marketing tools he needs to spread the word about his driving career through multiple channels, including email and social media. 

He manages his marketing with another Queen’s University student, Shane DiMantova, the Director of Public Relations and Social Media Management of Jayson Alexander Racing. Shane studies sports management and was equally passionate about racing — he also chose Queen’s University because of its location and proximity to all things NASCAR. Despite their busy schedules as student athletes, they find time to meet every month and plan their content strategy for the coming weeks.

“Watching Jayson rise up, gain popularity, and race against better competition has been really cool,” said Shane. “It has been enjoyable to be a part of that experience of watching our success happen firsthand.”

Streamlining the work

Like many small business owners, Jayson and Shane are simultaneously growing their knowledge of digital marketing and running their business. Constant Contact’s tools help streamline their workflows and simplify the execution of marketing campaigns.

“The tools are amazing and it’s really easy to use,” said Shane. “I can type out an email and social media post, and it takes just a few steps to send it. I was very intimidated coming in, thinking about how to send a marketing email to hundreds of people. But Constant Contact has simplified that with templates. We made preset templates that we use in our weekly emails.”

Shane uses Content Generator to help him change wording and make the content more engaging. He finds this especially useful when he starts repeating himself because AI offers creative suggestions on how to keep emails and social media posts fresh and exciting for fans.

“Having the tools of Constant Contact has taken Jayson Alexander Racing to the next level,” said Shane.

Email templates and AI are not the only tools Shane and Jayson use to make their marketing more effective and efficient. They also use the social media tool to schedule posts in advance. “I really love being able to run all of our social media through Constant Contact,” said Jayson. “Shane is able to make a post and replicate it across all these different forms. That’s been really key for us to really streamline everything.”

Connecting with fans

For Jayson Alexander Racing, fan engagement is part of steering the brand towards growth. They continuously add emails to their contact list so they can send weekly newsletters, updates, links to purchase merchandise, and race announcements. People can join their email list through a sign-up landing page on their website. Jayson and Shane share the landing page in their social media bios and on their Facebook and Instagram stories, which is how they gain the most email addresses.

“We want to drive that engagement, so we’ll do giveaways for upcoming races to get people to sign up,” explained Jayson. “We will throw sales out there for people to exclusively get through our mailing list.” 

Through an email poll, Jayson and Shane can directly ask fans what they want to see from the brand, specifically what kind of merchandise they are interested in purchasing. “Seeing what the people really desire is important because that’ll help drive our merchandise sales, which is one of our main goals here at Jayson Alexander Racing,” said Shane.

Their audience includes partners and potential sponsors as well as fans, so segmentation is another key strategic element to engagement. Constant Contact enables them to segment their list to differentiate between people who are engaged fans and those who are interested in the business side.

“I never understood how I could segment a market when it came into racing until I started trying to do it myself,” said Jayson. “Through the help of Constant Contact, you understand how you can segment, who you’re reaching out to, why you’re reaching out to them, and what you’re doing.”

In addition to targeting audiences through segmentation, Jayson and Shane use automations to keep their fans engaged with welcome emails, discounts, and abandoned cart reminders. All it took was 10-15 minutes of setting up the automations, and they were able to move on to other tasks — which streamlined their processes even more.

“We are making sure fans get to experience what they want to experience with our brand. We want them to know who Jason is and his story, and maintain that connection with him,” said Shane.

Maintaining consistent branding

Like with any small business, brand recognition is crucial — and in racing, drivers are often recognized by their name and their sponsor. Jayson and Shane have implemented Constant Contact themes and colors throughout their messaging, specifically on social media. “When people see it, they know right away that it’s Jayson Alexander racing in Constant Constant,” said Shane.

They make sure to keep their own branding consistent even as they incorporate sponsors. One of the first steps after their partnership with Constant Contact was to upload the Jayson Alexander Racing brand to use in their email templates. By using BrandKit to scan their website for a logo, images, and colors, they added their media to Constant Contact in a single step. “We were able to pull all of that content from the website super easily by just putting in the URL,” Jayson explained. “That’s been something that was super helpful for us to get off the ground and start making emails and templates.”

Through recognizable branding and regular emails and social posts, Jayson and Shane make sure they have an online presence and are engaging with the fans even when they are not at a track. “It’s all about being really intentional about everything you do, especially when you have to do it on a part-time basis,” said Jayson.

Igniting growth

Since using Constant Contact, Jayson and Shane have seen growth in multiple areas of their business, from reach and engagement to revenue. Previously, they got 1,500 to 2,000 impressions a month. Now, they see over 50,000 different impressions on Instagram alone.

“Sales have gone up so much since we partnered with Constant Contact,” said Jayson. “Through the emails, you can track the specific clicks that took them straight to the merch store. I can see there’s a real boost after [sending an email] using Constant Contact.”

As their brand reaches more fans and their sales increase, Jayson and Shane look forward to crossing more exciting finish lines in the future.

“Our fan base, our brand, and our identity have grown so much.”