Loyalty is one of the best ways to measure if a race is successful – do past participants come back? Repeat participants also form the core of participation. RunSignup has helped races understand their loyal participants and developed programs for 15 years (there are some links to some very old blogs in here!).
Measuring Loyalty
Right on the main dashboard, there is a great visual report measuring loyalty. This race has 65% repeat (aka loyal) participants (hint – Harpoon serves good beer!).
Loyalty Report
On the bottom left, you can see a Repeat Participant Report button. This allows you to download data into a spreadsheet, or copy and paste into ChatGPT to do some analysis of your repeat participants with the demographic data provided in the download (more on this later). There are options for downloading the data depending on what you want to do. In this example, we are downloading the name, date of birth and gender:
Loyalty Incentives
RunSignup offers a large set of tools that can be used to reward and incentivize loyalty. These include:
- Coupons
- Vouchers
- Reserved Entries with Special Pricing
- Early Opening for Loyalty Lists (See below)
- Membership
The RunSignup Email V2 system is a powerful way to communicate with your loyal customers with customized content and event specific data.
Coupons
Coupons are a simple way to reward loyal customers. You can even make the coupon available as part of the email link you send with auto-applied coupon codes.
How a coupon code works:
- Coupons are entered as code during registration to apply a discount
- They can be limited by date, event type, or fee type (i.e. registration fees, store purchases, etc.)
- Partner coupons can work across multiple events.
- Coupons can have usage limits (e.g., only valid for the first 100 registrations, only good through a certain date)
Vouchers
Vouchers are different from coupons because they function more like a store credit. Instead of discount applied at checkout, a voucher holds a specific value that can be redeemed for race entry.
How vouchers work:
- Each voucher is assigned a unique code that can be used at registration
- They can be configured for a fixed dollar amount
- Unused balances can roll over to future registrations (if enabled)
- Vouchers can be used for multiple events
Vouchers are useful for rewarding loyal customers. The main difference between vouchers and coupon codes is vouchers always retain any unused balance and the balance can be used in the future – as long as it’s within the expiration date.
Learn how to set up a voucher here.
Reserved Entries
Reserved entries are useful when you need to guarantee entry to a loyalty group. Reserved entries does have the capability to have a set price that is different than the regular registration price for your loyalty lists.
How Reserved Entries Work:
- You create a list of pre-approved participants who can register with a private link (even if the race is sold out online)
- You can set special event pricing for reserved entries
- Combine with Loyalty Lists: allow races to tie a loyalty list to a multi-use reserved entry
Learn how to set up reserved entries here.
Early Opening for Loyalty Lists
There is also a Loyalty button on the Loyalty dashboard report. The race Loyalty Program allows you to open up registration to priority registrants before the general public, and offer special pricing. To get started, you need to create a priority registrant list. When registering, we will match participants on either:
- First name, last name, and date of birth match
- First name and email address match — This reduces issues with maiden names.
The setup has two pieces – setting the lists and setting the signup settings. Adding lists is like other places in RunSignup – you can upload CSV files (like the Repeat Participants report from above, or perhaps other lists like people who donated last year, or using the CRM search a list of people within 50 miles of the race who have done 3 out of the 10 races your organization puts on).
Setting up the Loyalty opening is simple. Note the ability to allow buddies to be brought along if you are trying to grow a race beyond past participants. Advertising the ability to add friends and family for the opening, especially if there is a price discount, is a good strategy for growth.
The ability to add multiple settings allows races to have different groups treated differently. Think of setting up the 5+ Time people with a $50 price from March 1-5 (including buddies). Any repeat people from March 6-10 for a price of $55. And then open for everyone on March 11 at $60.
Membership
The RunSignup Membership product offers tools to make your loyal customers even more loyal. Playmakers and Go! St. Louis are two good examples of organizations using Membership to provide a set of rewards to their loyal members – and it also becomes a revenue generating mechanism if desired. Here is the benefit page for Playmakers:
The Membership product makes it simple to reward members with discounts to races. For example Go! St. Louis Marathon offers a 15% discount to members (and people are encouraged to join when they signup for the race). They have also partners with about 20 other races in the St. Louis area who all offer a 5% discount. The Membership website has a component that keeps the list up to date so any race can give members a discount.
Summary
Events have a variety of tools to help reward and grow their loyal customer base using RunSignup. Feel free to work with our Account Management and support team to talk about the right program to use for your event.