You decided to put on a race to bring awareness to your cause. You want to put on an event to raise money for something that is near and dear to your heart. The only problem is, everyone else has the same idea. There are so many races. What makes yours worth attending? While the most important thing to you is your cause, you have to remember who your audience is first. The RACER. There is so much that goes into planning a race. The permits, the insurance, the course, the timing, the bibs, the swag, the food, and maybe even beer. When you begin to make choices, keep your racer in mind. Your goal for the race, no matter how big or small, is for racers to leave your event with a positive feeling. The racer experience should always be at the front of your mind. Their experience will enable you to have a year two.
You can spend a lot of money on tshirts and medals, but we’re talking about a different type of racer experience that goes beyond swag. How does your race FEEL to a racer? Day of todos: Be prepared with extra volunteers. Make sure you are available at your event and not tied up in details. Be the person welcoming racers. When packet pick up begins, so should the high fives. Thank your athletes for joining you. Share the why behind your event if someone has time. Make them feel a part of your race. If you are not the high energy type- assign this position to a person with a contagious personality. Think of them as the Master of Racer Experience.
​Music is key. Make sure your choices are upbeat on race day. This sets the tone. It’s early, people woke up in order to spend their FREE time with you. Listen as people talk. Encourage the ones saying they plan to walk. Talk to others about their goal time. SMILE! High five the kids that got dragged out of their beds for this endeavor. Do you have an MC? Make sure to pick one who can talk easily and upbeat, but with a BOOM.  Make sure they thank the vendors, any partners, and the racers for coming out.

You and your volunteers get to create a feeling of family, of closeness. This does not change if you have 25 racers or 3000. As the minutes tick away and the racing field gathers near the start line, feel free to steal our ideas. Five minutes before the start, we ask all runners to high five each other. We don't know if they showed up alone or with a team of friends. This helps loosen the feel and makes a few people laugh. Once people are a little more loose, we do what we like to call the Family Picture. This is your marketing picture for year two. Do a serious one and a funny one- hands in the air! Then, while you have their attention, share a quote or a one or two sentence explanation about why you’re there. This is when people can connect to your cause and think about it while running. Start the race ON TIME! This matters. Everyone is now ready to pound the pavement and share the joy, pain, and accomplishment of your race.
This should go without saying, but OVER mark your course. This matters to racers. Mark every turn, any possible area of confusion. You will have kids, new racers, and the direction challenged. Prepare for them! A poorly marked course will really hurt the feeling of your event. Be sure you have coached your volunteers to actively CHEER for your racers.
It’s time for the gun to go off and for the feet to get moving! Here we go!! Tick tock.. Oh man.. 14 minutes..maybe 17 if you’re at altitude. Or 21 minutes if you have a normal field, but any second the first runner should be coming back.. No matter how many races you produce, this is  the most stressful part of the entire WEEK!!!! OMG DID WE MARK THE COURSE ENOUGH??????
​YES! Here comes the first runner!!!! Bells are being rung, high fives are being given.. Again. The calm sets in for you… its all butter from here! Turn the music a bit louder, grab a beer, and yes, it may only be 10am but who cares. Have your volunteers cheer and high five everyone. Run out to your final finisher and cross that line with them. This is what its about…..Racer experience. Good luck on planning for year two. 

I'm going to share with you step by step how we achieved this amazing mark. Don't get me wrong, it is a lot of work. But it is so worth it when you can hand that check over to the charity!

Creating a successful fundraising culture within your event is a multi-year effort that requires nearly as much work and planning as putting on the event. But if you put in the effort you can grow your per-runner fundraising year over year. Even though participation in our Destin Beach Ultra event is small, our fundraising totals have broken records. Here is how we have accomplished that.
Choosing the right charity to match your event
-Identify a charity that is highly rated by an independent rating site such as Charity Navigator. People are most often concerned with the % of overhead. If a charity has high overhead (greater than 10%) it is more difficult to get people to donate- as a large portion of their donations are going to expenses other than the charity’s mission.  Charity business models can be debated, but it’s a whole lot easier to promote a charity with low overhead.
-Identify a charity that impacts the target audience of your event. If your area has a large military population, a military charity makes sense. If your race demographic is mostly women, maybe a charity focused on women’s issues. It is hard to go wrong with a charity that helps children. The more runners that have an emotional link to your charity’s mission the better they will fundraise.
-Identify a charity that the race director/promotor is passionate about. Just like any business, if you are not passionate about what you are selling, no one is going to buy your product or donate.
Setup Fundraising
-Fully fill out all the charity and fundraising areas on Its Your Race (or your registration platform). Explain to people who might not know what the charity is. You can even include links to the charity home page or charity navigator page. Its Your Race can automatically set up fundraising pages for everyone who registers. If your registration platform does not do that, your goal is to get runners to setup their fundraising page during their registration process, so make it as easy as possible for them.
-Don’t forget to enable fundraising AND donations. Even if someone doesn’t want to setup a fundraising page, many will make a donation on checkout. Non-runners who don’t know a runner can also use this link to donate.
-If you have some awards for different fundraising levels, set those up as well to get things started. Having a very small award level for your first award will get people over the hardest step- actually setting up a fundraising page. You can think about refunding entry fees for people who reach a certain mark, getting them reserved parking passes, or sponsor discounts. Set a low bar and don’t have an overwhelming number of levels- too many levels will only make things confusing and make your life much more difficult when it comes time to get everyone what they have earned.
Promoting Fundraising
-Ensure that your runners are as familiar as possible with your charity (Actual email example at the end)
-Post updates from your charity on your race social media throughout the year. Be sure to highlight stories about individuals helped by the charity so people can put a face with the charity. 
-Use the email function in your registration platform to both remind people to set up their fundraising pages and educate them about the charity. We also use our email list to send out ‘fundraising tips’ for individuals (see email below). 
 -Ask your charity to share posts about your event or fundraising successes on their social media.
 -Brag about your fundraisers and share the leader board on social media. As with most things in life, about 10% of your runners are going to raise 90% of your donations. The more you can stoke the competitive fire in those 10% the more they are going to raise. And there is no doubt that runners can get very competitive, even over fundraising!
 -Make a big deal about your fundraisers at your packet pickup, in your race program, at your pre-race briefing, and/or at your awards ceremony. It is uncomfortable and hard work to ask people for money, so some public recognition for a job well done will go a long way toward motivating them the next year. We treat our top fundraisers equal to or better than the people that won the race. The top fundraiser gets to wear a custom Bib #1 (awarded at the race briefing in front of all the other runners) and gets the same award as the people who won the race (at the awards ceremony). Not many people have the physical ability to win races, but everyone can see themselves receiving that fundraising award.
 Make the charity part of your event
 -Include the charity logo on all your race materials. It should be as big a part of your event as your top sponsor if you are really focused on fundraising. Your sponsor should also appreciate being associated with the highly rated charity you chose.
 -We include the charity logo right on the back our runner’s medals. This demonstrates to the runners that we are committed to this charity and gives them a sense of purpose to accompany their sense of accomplishment. Everything from signs, to briefings, to awards are built with our charity in mind.
 -Bring people who have benefited from your charity to the race. Once of the more emotional things I have experienced at my events is when families that have directly benefited from the charity thank runners when they finish. The runners are already familiar with how much these families have gone through (thanks to our emails, posts, and briefings) so they are pretty shocked to be getting thanked for simply running a race. If a runner didn’t fund raise, I bet they will highly consider it when they sign up the next year. 
 
Example email to all registered runners
The Time To Act Is Now!
This week, during a special operations raid in Yemen, Navy SEAL Ryan Owens gave his life in the service of our nation. Unfortunately, Ryan's loss added his three children to the rolls of the Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF) family. Since he was a member of special operations the SOWF made a commitment to him, long before he left on this mission, to put each of those children through college should the unthinkable happen. On Sunday the unthinkable did happen. And now us, the supporters of the SOWF, are committed to honoring Ryan's sacrifice and ensuring these three children are given the best education possible.  
I share Ryan's story because you will all learn more about him and his family in the news over the next couple of weeks and you will have the opportunity to understand more about the sacrifices all our special operations warriors make each day. By all accounts he was a professional warrior, a great teammate, and dedicated father and husband. Although Ryan's family is the most recently affected, the SOWF currently has over 720 children just like Ryan's waiting to attend college. Many of you know the cost to send one child to college, so you can only imagine the cost of 720+ tuition bills.
 While I know we will never raise enough to send all three of Ryan's kids through school at our small event, we are dedicated to doing everything that we can in his honor. If you are running the ultra and have not setup a fundraising page, simply click here to get started. If you are not running but would like to donate, you can do that by clicking here. 
 These SOWF children are the only reason the Destin Beach Ultras exists and we appreciate your training and dedication in support of them. We also still have room in each of our events if you have friends who would like to join us. 
 Fundraising Tips For Runners:
-Choose a fallen special operations warrior and share their story, along with the mission of the SOWF, with your potential donors. Don't personally anyone? You can start at the SOWF website http://specialops.org/in-their-own-words/
-Be sure to thank your donors! Check back on your fundraising page often and thank those who donated to you publicly on their social media pages.
-Keep your donors updated on your training with photos and reminders of why this event is special to you.
-Let those who can't attend be part of the event. If you are bringing a crew, let them Facebook live from your account or post to your social media feed during the event. Lots of donors will donate the day of the race or in the days following! I'll even let you stream the briefing. ​

I hope that at least gets you thinking about how you can do amazing things for your charity! Good luck and happy fundraising!

First, I'll start off by telling you that I don't know everything about race marketing. If I could tell you exactly how to get 1,000 runners at your first event with a small marketing budget, I'd probably be relaxing on a tropical island somewhere right now! Marketing your event (or anything for that matter) is very challenging. I'm going to walk you through some options so you can see what might be the best fit for you.

You cannot escape social media in your personal life and you had better embrace it in your Race Director life. Your social media presence is your race's face to millions of potential runners. How you conduct yourself on your events social media sites, and to a certain extent your person sites, tells the runners a lot about what kind of event you are going to put on and what kind of an organization you run. You should, at a minimum, have the following social media accounts for your race or races: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Of course as soon as this is published, that list will be outdated so please stay up to date on the social media trends of your target runners. If you have a young target audience you may want to include sites like Snapchat.
 
Once you have setup your social media sites, layout a rough game plan of how you want to run your sites. This might include some target weeks where you post each day leading up to a big event, like the opening of registration. Then there might be weeks where you post very little.

TIP: Base your post frequency on the platform you are using. For example, you may post a few times spread through the day on Twitter, but post consistently more than once a day on FB and you will start losing followers.

Keep your posts focused on content that is relevant to your audience. High quality, original photos and video will outperform simple text posts nearly every time. Be open and honest with your audience but always keep the tone positive. Be responsive to your audiences' feedback. There is nothing that turns a runner off more than asking a question on social media and not having it answered in a timely manner. Keep posts professional- don't curse or point out the shortcomings of other races specifically. If you want to highlight a competitor race that made a big mistake, find an article about it in a reputable location and link to it. Then tell your runners how your race is planned to avoid this pitfall. Keep in mind your social media posts will last a lifetime, even if you 'delete' them. Don't have a few glasses of wine and then decide it's a good time to post in your race social media (might be a good idea to avoid this for your personal too).
 
There is a variety of sites that allow you to schedule social media posts in advance. But these services cost a month my fee, so you might be better off using the feature in Facebook that schedules your posts in for future times. Another time saver is the Instagram feature where you can instantly share your post on a variety of other social media sites. You will get a lot of emails promising to manage your social media and/or websites. Unless you have an unlimited budget (call me if you do!) this probably isn't a wise investment for your race. 

This is an ever changing landscape, but your online presence is as important as any advertising you do. One of the largest platforms to market your race is Facebook if your target demographic is over 30. On FB you want to create a Business Page. This is different from your personal page and allows you to run ads from your business page. Facebook became a multi billion dollar company by continuing to perfect the art of targeted marketing. When you advertise on FB you can narrow your audience geographically, by other pages they like, and/or by their online habits. Using these parameters properly ensures that your ads are hitting your target audience. The goal at one time was to get the most followers of your page. But it appears that FB has changed their algorithms so that only a small portion of your fans ever see your posts. Although there is still some benefit to having fans, most of your posts will not be shown to your friends unless you boost them. Boosting is the simplest way to advertise on FB. Start by choosing one of your posts that has already been served by FB to a large audience and has got good response in terms of interactions. By boosting these already well performing post you will get the most bang for your buck. If you boost a post no one wants to see, you are force-feeding the customer, and FB will charge you much more for this. The more your target audience interacts with your ad or boost, the cheaper it will be per person to you. The second way is to create a traditional ad. Simply click on the ad manager and it will walk you through the process step by step. I suggest making a few variations of your ad and see what performs the best. You can then turn off the low performing ads and save some money. Instagram works in a similar way and can be integrated when setting up or sharing your FB ad.
 
Another way to advertise online is through Google. This targets people using the search engine. Therefore, you target you audience based on what they are searching for. Although I find the ad interface to not be as intuitive as Facebook, it certainly is an effective option for some events. Advertising on Twitter is also becoming more popular. As you can see, there are a lot of options for advertising on social media. You need to identify what social media platform your target demographic is using most often and use that information to give your ad dollars the biggest impact. 

Billboard advertising used to be out of reach for most races, but with the advent of digital billboards this has become more affordable for some races since you don't have to buy for a long period and you don't need to physically print a billboard size ad. Most billboards have the name of the company that owns them right at the bottom of the board. You can google the company and find your area contact. This person can give you availability of the board and the price per day/week/month. Depending on the traffic density passing the board it can range from less than $50 per day to over $100 per day. Just keep in mind that you are casting a very wide net with a billboard but most people passing it might not have any interest in running.
 
Print advertising: Print advertising can be very expensive but it also has the potential to be very effective. Just like online, you need to choose a publication that most closely targets your target audience so that you are not wasting money on people who have no chance of registering. If you have a road race that will attract a national audience, maybe it is worth spending a few thousand dollars on an ad in Runners World. Likewise if you have a trail race or ultra run, maybe Trail Runner or UltraRunning Magazines can help narrow that audience even further and save you some money in the process.

For all these marketing methods I have been telling you to try to only market to your target audience. The most effective way of doing this is to find people who are already doing events like yours. I have found the most effective marketing method is to ask the RD of a race similar to yours, but far enough apart in time to not be a competitor, if you can handout postcards for your event at their race.  Or if you can have them put in the runners bags in exchange for returning the favor later. If they are not a direct competitor they will most likely agree to one of those options. If they don't respond to you, or respond with a negative reply you still have a few other options. If the parking for the race is in a public lot, you can carefully place your postcards on the runners cars during the race. Or you can find a public place that the runners will transit after the race and handout your postcards there. I also like to go to local running club week night runs. If you show up with some swag from one of your sponsors, then they are usually happy to have you and take your postcard. These groups are usually major influencers in your local running community so getting them excited about your race can really pay off as they spread the word about how nice you are and the details of your event. Likewise, make the effort to go to the local running stores, introduce yourself to the owners/staff, give them the details of your event, your contact info in case a customer has questions and of course, leave some postcards. Good news, postcards are cheap! Although you can have them printed online, at least ask your local print shop for a quote. Especially if you are a charity or non-profit, they may be able to meet or beat the online price a I'll almost guarantee they will have better customer service. For your postcards, make sure the design is simple, eye catching, and gives the 5 w's (who, what, when, where, why) in as few words as possible.
 
Similarly, you can print posters for event and hang them in the windows of local businesses. The best businesses are those that are already your sponsors. They want your race to be a success! Other small businesses are likely to let you post in their windows, but large chains often have policies against that. Just like when you are reaching out for sponsorship, ask to speak with the owner or general manager. Those are the folks who have the authority to allow you to put up your poster. Don't forget your tape, so that you can put that poster up the moment they say yes. Keep in mind they don't want it in their windows forever, so only put them up at max, two months prior to your event. I aim for 3-4 weeks prior for 10K-5K runs.

​How boring does a press release sound? I know, pretty boring. But a press releases is not intended for your runner directly, it is intended for the press. The press draws the important facts from your release and turns it into an interesting story. Of course it is even better if they include an interview with you or one of your runners. Press releases are great for when you create your event, announce registration opening, and after your successful event. Work the phone and email to find writers who you can get interested in your event. Although they might not be interested in just another running event, they will be interested in people. These are called human interest stories. Would you rather read about another 5K that is being run to raise money for cancer, or read about a high school student who is battling cancer with a smile and his classmates are putting on a 5K in his honor? Find the human interest stories among your runners she then pitch those along with your press release. Maybe you have someone registered who has lost a ton of weight and this is their first race ever or a family that is using your race as a family activity. Unfortunately you most often don't find out about these great stories until after your race, but with a little asking around you might be surprised what you uncover. 

I hope these tips might help you get started marketing your event. It is going to be challenging, but your event won't be a success unless people know about it and show up!