Webinar Recap: Make Money, Save Money

This webinar was a high level look at some ideas you can use to make money and save money right now. If you want to dive deeper into any of these ideas, we have a ton of resources below to get you started:

State of the Industry

Where are we today?

Bad News:

  • Transactions are currently down 40% compared to 2019
  • Major races (such as Berlin Marathon) have already cancelled for fall

Good News:

  • Signs of Rebounding
  • Virtual Races are increasing
  • Creativity around in-person races in future

Tracking the state of the Industry

To follow the week-by-week state of the industry, we have weekly coronavirus blogs for Week 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. Future updates will be posted on our blog.

With people home, running is also reaching a new audience who is looking for something to keep them active and get them outside. There is opportunity to bring more runners into the racing community!

Current solutions will not 100% replace “normal” racing. However, there are ample opportunities to bridge the gap until racing returns to normal, engaging your community and allowing you to make money (and save money) now.

Go Virtual

Virtual is the new normal, whether you’re converting an existing event to virtual, adding a virtual option to a future race, or starting a virtual race from scratch, we have resources to get you started.

Virtual Race Hub: https://runsignup.com/govirtual

New! Virtual Challenge Tracking

Get Started:

Examples of Creative Virtual Events

Tools to Create a RaceDay Experience (without the RaceDay)

Looking for a Timer who is RaceJoy certified? You can search here.

Beyond Virtual

While regulations and recommendations vary widely by location, some areas are seeing loosening of restrictions that allows for modified events to start rolling out.

Maximizing Revenue

A Referral Rewards Program is a great low-cost, low-risk promotion strategy to help increase your participation without a large ad spend. Two reasons why:

  • Most referrers don’t reach the threshold for a refund, but still refer a friend or two. On average, there are 13 registrations for every refund processed.
  • Referrals appear more effective during coronavirus, with 18% of registrations in April from Referrals – up from 7% in 2019.

Resources for setting up an effective Referral Rewards Program:

Adjusting your Fees can bring in additional revenue, spread easily between participants.

  • Understanding Price Elasticity
  • Processing fees can be adjusted via Financial >>Pricing>>Extra Fees
  • Best practice for setting up the extra fee is to absorb the regular processing fee (Financial >> Pricing >> Processing Fee Type), then set the Extra Fee as higher than the standard processing fee with a simple name like “Processing Fee”. This means that only one fee shows up for the participant during registration. If you need assistance here, follow up with your rep or info@runsignup.com.

Sponsors can still have a role in virtual landscape.

  • Use Sponsor Offers for virtual swag from sponsors – like a discount for take-out from a local restaurant or a coupon towards shoes at a local running store.
  • Promote sponsors in RaceJoy with Banner ads and Audio Alerts

Multi-Race Registration bundles can help you engage participants who are interested in one event, and get them to engage in several. For example, bundle a series of 5K’s, or combine a current virtual race with a future physical one.

Raise Money for Your Nonprofit

Nonprofits are looking to fundraise on a shoestring budget – and free, or inexpensive virtual events can be a lifeline for them.

Free Tools

Free Websites

A beautiful, professional website doesn’t require a web designer and a huge outlay of money. RunSignup’s free websites are customizable, with built-in SEO Optimization, data security, PCI Level 1 Compliant payment Processing, a free SSL Certificate, and more. Get started:

Free Email Marketing

Reach participants, previous participants, and custom lists of supporters with free email marketing, built directly into the system. Take a pause on expensive email marketing systems while your organization recovers.

Free CRM

Take a break from an expensive CRM solution and focus on the CRM functionality a race needs most.

Free Photos

Keep the RaceDay engagement going, online, with free and unlimited uploads of photos.

Free Texting

There are a couple of free text options to engage your participants and text messages via free texts.

Results Text Bot for Participants

Text Results Notifications for Spectators

Understand Your ROI with RaceInsights

Evaluate your true return – track specific marketing actions via promotion >> source tracking >> source tracking codes.

Structural Changes

Timer Agreement: Work with your timer on an agreement that allows for payment via a Timer Processing Fee to reduce your upfront costs.

Encourage Deferrals: Deferrals allow you to spread out your losses over several years.

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