RaceTrends: The Attraction of Teams

Successful race promotion goes beyond the obvious social media, race flyer, email marketing model and looks at ways to get participants more involved as de-facto ambassadors for the event. One simple option: Groups & Teams.

Teams (or groups) can have a broad definition. A few usages we see:

• Relay teams
• Competitive teams (scored as a team)
• Social teams, with incentives for team size in the form of price breaks or RaceDay benefits
• Social teams, with no incentives

Are Groups Attractive to Participants?

Resoundingly, yes. We’ve seen a slight dropoff of participants electing to join groups when they are available, likely due to the departure of a large “Fun Run” series on our platform that invested heavily in groups. Regardless, people take advantage of the opportunity to make their race more social:

In 2017, 31% of participants joined a team when it was an option, with an average of 6 participants per team.

Takeaway: Teams can bring a more social, fun aspect that help make even the most traditional race more appealing to the quintessential social runner who wants to participate with friends. Adding them to the event can help you reach a new audience.

Why Offer Incentives?

Incentives – price breaks or refunds for reaching a specified group size – increase the motivation to join a team by ~5%.

There are also incentives that we can’t measure: in addition to financial incentives through the system, we see races using more tangible incentives on RaceDay. Popular options are things like a private tent or porta-potty, custom team t-shirts, or pizza after the event. Races can promote these incentives to encourage teams to reach out an increase their team size in order to claim a reward.

Takeaway: Incentives work! Everyone loves a financial incentive, but be creative with your offering. Think about something that will make participants feel special on RaceDay, and clearly communicate the benefit of building a bigger team.

We’ll take a closer look at more of the findings from the RaceTrends Report in the coming weeks…but you can check out the full report here anytime.