Bryn Mawr Racing Company

Guiding races every step of the way

About Bryn Mawr Racing Company

Bryn Mawr Racing Company started around ten years ago as a timing company partnering with the Bryn Mawr Running Company. The Bryn Mawr Running Company hosted a series of races and began to time their own events. After perfecting the art of race timing, Bryn Mawr Racing Company set out to time other races in the Greater Philadelphia Area. The company now times 200+ events per year. They take pride in how they serve their customers, as they go beyond just timing the race. Bryn Mawr Racing Company acts as a guide to race directors in new races, offering help with course development, registration, permits, and a variety of other tasks.

Making the Switch to RunSignup

Bryn Mawr Racing Company decided to join RunSignup in 2014 when searching for a more flexible results platform. Prior to joining, Bryn Mawr Racing Company was providing runners with results in the typical, static PDF format. When search for a more dynamic, clickable results experience, RunSignup started to come into the picture. The ease-of-use and shareable nature of RunSignup’s results platform was extremely important to Bryn Mawr Racing Company. Since joining in 2014, Bryn Mawr Racing Company has seen tremendous growth in the races they operate, processing over 54,000 registrations in 2019. This is a 25% increase from their previous year. In addition to the results features, Bryn Mawr Racing Company fell in love with RunSignup’s photo and video capabilities. The company now has all of their services moved over to RunSignup and continues to use the platform today.

Taking Advantage of Email Automation

“The automatic emails are a no-brainer,” says Ryan Walsh of Bryn Mawr Racing Company. Like many other races, Bryn Mawr Racing Company takes advantage of this feature to secure registrations that they may not have gotten otherwise. The RunSignup email system is built to automatically track who doesn’t go through your entire registration path. Bryn Mawr Racing Company turns this feature on to remind those who didn’t finish registration to complete all the steps to be properly registered.

“The manual email that is probably most important to us as a timing company is that we set up an email to go out usually about 45 minutes after a race starts of the results link and the awards link.”

While this is not a built-in automated email, Bryn Mawr Racing Company drafts the email in advance and schedules it to be sent out through the RunSignup email marketing platform. “We really like the personalization where you can put their first name in there and their specific individual links.” Bryn Mawr Racing Company has used the email feature extensively to maintain communication with their participants.

Simplifying Check In with RaceDay Suite

Bryn Mawr Racing Company has recently gone completely paperless, and RaceDay CheckIn and Regisration has made it easy for them to follow through with these efforts. The company provides their head timers with tablets for last minute participants to register through the RunSignup system. By using RaceDay Registration’s Expo Mode, Bryn Mawr Racing Company bypasses several questions that take time when typically registering. Once registered, these last-minute participants go directly into the timing system.

“CheckIn App was a game changer for us as race timers. For the first six years or so we were pre-assigning bib numbers,” says Ryan Walsh. The process was a burden on both the timers and the race directors at Bryn Mawr Racing Company. Timers would spend hours the night before a race labeling bibs for race directors to fumble through bibs the next day. RaceDay CheckIn eliminates this problem, allowing them to assign bibs as runners are checking in. Bryn Mawr Racing Company now urges their clients to switch to RunSignup for the dynamic CheckIn app, as it helps eliminate lines on race day simplifies the process for everyone involved.

Donations Quick Tip

Even for races that aren’t for a charity, Bryn Mawr Racing Company still encourages them to enable donations. It gives races an extra call-to-action to pull participants in. “You’ll still get people to donate for a really strong charity and if they market it effectively many of our races do far better by donations than by registration fees.” In 2019 alone, Bryn Mawr Racing Company brought in $290,000 in donations.