What your race directors see is a timing clock and a results page. What you deliver is a multifaceted operation and services they aren’t fully aware of. If your races don’t know what you do or can do, the door is open for competitors to come in and outbid you.
That’s the challenge this installment of Keep Your Races focuses on closing the perception gap. Make your value visible by making the invisible visible.
The apples-to-apples problem
When a cheaper competitor bids on your race, the director compares line items. “Chip timing — $1,500” versus “chip timing — $1,000” becomes a price conversation. Timers can build loyalty with their races and reduce the likelihood of losing to competition by ensuring they know the full picture before anyone else shows up.
Choose What’s Remark-able
Not every service upgrade earns equal return. When deciding what to add or improve, prioritize things that are remarkable — services with a concrete stat behind them, services participants will notice and mention, services you can point to and say: “Here’s what that delivered.”
Remarkable services also leave a data trail, and that data becomes the foundation of your post-race report.
Also think about branded visibility on race day itself. Is your logo on the kiosk display? If you’re using RaceJoy, are you using banner ads that say “Live tracking delivered by [Your Timing Company]”? The post-race report reinforces value after the fact — but branded touchpoints at the event connect your name to the experience in real time.
Places to Make Your Value Visible
Your Website & Social Media Sites
Most timer websites and social media sites have an “About Us” section with a paragraph about the company’s history that may include a general list of services. The problem: race directors scan, they don’t read.
Help races understand the full value you can bring by creating a dedicated Services page that breaks down what you offer into scannable categories — Official Results, Participant Tracking, Check-In & Packet Pickup, Race Photos & Video, Equipment Rentals, and so on. From a design perspective use cards or grouped bullets, not paragraphs. List the specific technology you use. If you use MYLAPS or RACE RESULT timing equipment, say so. If you use RaceDay Scoring, RaceDay Check-In, or RaceJoy, name them explicitly.
This matters for two reasons. First, race directors putting on one event a year often don’t know the ins and outs of what timing actually entails — when you list your timing mats, readers, tablets, and backup systems, you’re helping to educate them. Second, specificity signals expertise. “MYLAPS chip timing with redundant secondary mat and RaceDay Scoring” reads very differently from “accurate timing.” It gives evidence of the value you are providing.
And if you’ve earned RunSignup Timer Certification badges, display them prominently. They signal credibility and show that you’ve put in the work to be recognized.
Your Email Signature
Your email signature is soft marketing that works on autopilot. Every email you send to a race director — before, during, and after a race — is a touchpoint.
Use your signature to list the two or three services you most want to grow. For example; integrated photos at the finish line, chip-based tracking in RaceJoy, new equipment rentals, or Starlink for race day connectivity. This is especially valuable for services your race directors might not know you offer — the last thing you want is a competitor walking in and offering something you already provide that your client didn’t know about.
And again, showcase your RunSignup certification badges here.
The Post-Race Report
This is the most powerful tool in your race retention toolkit — and the one most timers aren’t using.
A post-race report, sent within 24 to 48 hours of the event, does something nothing else can: it makes the intangible tangible. Text alerts, photo views, RaceJoy usage, check-in volume by hour, redundancy systems deployed — these things happen and disappear. A report with clear stats and visuals makes them real.
Beyond reinforcing this year’s value, the report gives you a paper trail. When renewal season comes, you can resend it with a note: “Here’s last year’s report — and here are the services we could add this year.” When a new race director takes over, you have documented proof of what your company delivered, not just a verbal reference from someone who may have moved on.
Example Post Race Report
This is an example of potential post race report highlighting key services provided, important stats, and suggested new services for next year.
Quick Report vs. Full Report: Matching Depth to the Race
Not every race needs a 10-page document. Match the depth of the report to the scope of the event.
Quick Report (5–10 minutes to build) For smaller races or events where you’re providing fewer services, a quick report might just be a one-page summary with your key stats called out — finishers, RaceJoy alerts, photos delivered, check-ins — plus a brief equipment list. This is better than nothing, and more than what most timers are sending. If it’s clean, branded, and consistent, it does the job of adding visibility to what your timing company did for the race.
Full Report (under 20 minutes with a template) For larger events or races where you’re delivering multiple services, a full report is the opportunity to tell the whole story.
How to Build It
To build your report, pull together the data from RunSignup’s timer dashboard and various features you used and use AI to build out a custom report that is branded to your company. Any AI tool will do, but we have found Claude AI to be superior in visually displaying stats.
Key Elements to Include:
- Header: Your company name and logo, race name, distances, and date
- Top-line stats: Finishers, check-ins, photos, alerts — big, visual callouts
- Timing & results: Finisher counts by sub-event, scoring software used, timing equipment deployed, backup solutions, any notable redundancy situations handled
- Check-in: Total processed, dynamic bibs assigned, peak check-in windows, equipment deployed (tablets, stations, connectivity)
- Announcer data feed: If you delivered live athlete data to an announcer tablet, say so — many race directors don’t realize this is something their timer is managing
- RaceJoy / live tracking: Progress alerts sent, spectator app users, cheers delivered, any notable usage by participants or sponsors
- Photos: Total captured, number auto-tagged, delivery time, photo views (if available)
- Equipment provided: List out any equipment provided to the race.
- Other services: Include sections on any other services provided and associated data.
- Visual evidence: Real photos from the event. Show the finish line setup, the kiosk, the results display. This makes everything concrete.
- Sponsor ROI: If sponsors activated through RaceJoy banner ads or photo watermarks, include the data — impressions, photo count with watermark, banner clicks. This helps your race director justify the sponsorship to their partners, which means they’re more likely to renew it.
- Notes and next year: What went well, what could be improved, and what services you recommend for next year that they’re not currently using.
Gather the Data: Where to Find the Data in RunSignup
You can access key data in your Timer Dashboard on RunSignup and gather data for the various features and functions you provided on the race’s dashboard on RunSignup. Below provides instructions on how to find specific data points on RunSignup.
SMS and Email Result Notifications Race Day Tools → Results → Result Notification Reports. This shows exactly how many notifications went out. If you had splits, show that spectators received multiple touchpoints — not just one finish notification.
Timing and Scoring Stats Pull from RaceDay Scoring (or your scoring software of choice). Include finisher counts broken down by sub-event. Consider going further: when was the first finisher? When was the last? What did the finish-line density curve look like? This kind of data helps race directors plan better — stagger starts, adjust water station timing, optimize volunteer scheduling — which makes you a strategic partner, not just a service vendor.
Check-In Stats Race Day Tools → RaceDay Check-In → Check-In Stats. Show total check-ins and, importantly, chart the volume by time window. This tells a story on its own — it shows race directors whether they’re overstaffing early morning lulls, whether they could shorten their packet pickup window, and how many volunteer hours could be saved with better planning.
Photos Usage → View and Manage Photos → Advanced Mode. Don’t just show how many photos were taken — show how many were tagged. Tagged photos are the ones actually reaching participants. If you’re year-over-year with a race, show the growth in photo volume and tagging rates to demonstrate the impact of your evolving capabilities.
RaceJoy Usage Race Day Tools → RaceJoy → Usage. Share total participants using the app, total spectators (these are people beyond the expected audience who are being engaged), total progress alerts sent, and banner ad clicks if applicable. Break out participants from spectators — spectators represent reach beyond the race itself, which matters to sponsors.
Watch the webinar for further instructions on gathering data. Note: we are continuing to add data to the timer dashboard so timers can easily gather the data they need.
Building This With AI: Faster Than You Think
The Flying Ace Timing example above was built in Claude in under 20 minutes. Here’s the workflow:
- List out your various services you provided, the associated stats, anything you want to call out like New Services provided this year, potential new services for next year. Gather images you want to include in the report
- Open Claude and paste the content and upload your logo, company name, contact info along with the graphics you’ve chosen. Be selective on the graphics. Too many can detract from the message.
- Ask Claude to build a branded post-race report and provide any instructions such as the order you’d like the information to appear.
- Refine with a few follow-up prompts for layout, color, or section adjustments
The key to making this fast is building a template once and reusing it. Drop in the new numbers, adjust any section-specific details, and you have a consistent, professional report for every race. If you’re building a reporting workflow in Claude, you can even set up a custom skill that accepts a spreadsheet of your race stats and automatically generates a formatted report.
The Shift You’re Going For
The goal is a shift in how race directors think about you — from “they scored the race” to “I can’t imagine race day without them.”
A timer who sends a detailed, branded, data-driven report the Monday after every race is not the same as a timer who just sends results. They’re a strategic partner who is engaged with the race and its goals. The timers who will still be growing five years from now aren’t the ones who competed on price — they’re the ones who made themselves impossible to replace.
Keep Your Races: Timer Retention Series
Make Your Value Visible Webinar