Race week is an exciting time for participants. It’s important for race directors to capture that momentum and get early registrations for the following year. There are a few ways that RunSignup can help depending on the approach you would like to take. Here are a couple options and recommended best practices that you can follow to capitalize on this opportunity.
Post Race Renew Options
The easiest way to handle this is to renew your race the day after it ends which will archive all of your data and bring everything forward to next year. Once that is done an email can be sent out to all past participants using our Next Gen Email system to let them know registration is open! Don’t forget to let them know where to find their results and photos from yesterday’s race. Also encourage them to check out your sponsors or consider making a donation to your charity partner.
The email can contain a coupon code link or just have a single day early bird registration fee before the price goes up to create a sense of urgency and get last year’s participants to register early.
Pre-Race Ending Option (aka having this year’s race and next year’s race open at the same time)
Another option available is to create a separate race that is used specifically for race week or race day to collect registrations. Using the Copy Race feature this can be done easily so this separate race has all the same options as the main race. Mark this race as private so it doesn’t get picked up through our various affiliate calendars. You can keep all of your main links and SEO focused on the main race. This race should only have registration open for the small window that you want to capture early registrations. The benefit of this is that the registration fee can be discounted to encourage signups from your expo or on race day using our On Site Registration settings. Here’s a quick example of doing this by promoting a QR code on signage that you have up around the race!
Once this early registration option is over and you’ve renewed the main race, it’s easy to use the Bulk Race Transfer feature to move participants from this private race over to the main race. You will have a single database as registration is opened and all of your reporting lines up nicely! Then when race week happens the following year for your main race website, this separate private race can be renewed to handle future registrations for that same expo or race day experience to repeat the process again and also have historical data on who is taking advantage of this early registration option.
Conclusion
Race week and post race are great times for capitalizing on the energy surrounding your race. Choose the right option for your situation to help maximize the runner’s high and carry that into next year.