Harpoon 5-Miler: Pushing the Envelope with Marketing 365 Days a Year

Customer Snapshot

• 16: Days to Sell Out in 2025
• 54%: Repeat Participation
• $3.1+ Million: Raised for the Cure & Care of ALS

Continuous Improvement for a Sellout Race

The Harpoon 5-Miler has sold out many times in it’s 24 year history, but that doesn’t mean the race is simply riding on its coattails. After facing challenges reigniting enthusiasm post-COVID, the race has exploded in popularity. In 2025, the race sold out faster than ever (post-COVID) and drove year-round traffic to its host brewery. More than that, they have built a tremendously loyal group of runners. In 2025, more than half of their participants (54%) were repeat runners.

None of this success is an accident: sports marketing company TRACS has been consulting on the event for the previous three years, fully took over the race marketing and operations in 2025. TRACS continues to light fires that spark enthusiasm year round. 

TRACS doesn’t take the sellout status of the race for granted, continuing to promote the event throughout the entire year. Why? They have several goals: 

• Keeping excitement high so the race continues to be a sellout
• Increasing patronization of the host Harpoon Brewery and building participation in other Harpoon Brewing events
• Promoting Boston as a world-class running city and growing participation in races throughout the area
• Boosting the philanthropic impact of the event on its charity partners the Angel Fund for ALS and the Peter Frates Family Foundation
• Reducing the energy and attention on getting registrations so they can put all their enthusiasm into creating the best race (and after-party) experience

Harpoon’s Vibrant and Recognizable Brand

Harpoon 5 Miler displays exceptional and consistent event branding that builds off the Harpoon Brewing brand. Their trademark bold red coloring and frequent use of event photos makes their website, email, and social media stand out. The Harpoon 5-Miler website, built by RunSignup’s Websites V2, is instantly recognizable as related to the brewery’s own website.

Harpoon 5-Miler’s RunSignup Race Website

Harpoon Brewery’s Website

A Website for the Whole Race Lifecycle

The real benefit of Website V2 is the ability to have a truly dynamic website. The information a runner is looking for when they’re deciding to register can be different from the information they need on race week, or what they hope to find after they cross the finish line. Websites V2 makes it easy for Jen Vojt, TRACS Creative Director, to hide and re-organize content based on where they are in the race cycle.

When TRACS initially set up their V2 website, it was shortly after registration for 2025 sold out, and their content was focused on optimizing the experience leading up to and during the race. On race week, the website narrowed in on key details needed for a streamlined race day. Then, on race day, the website made it easy for runners to find their results, photos, and more. Now, in the lull between early registration and the official registration opening, the website will transition into a hub of “why”: stories and resources to get runners excited about the 2026 event.

Compressing the Marketing Cycle to Focus on the Experience

Why would a sell-out race still put so much effort into marketing? Doing so helps ensure a fast sellout, allowing the race team to focus on the event experience instead of getting people to sign up. For 2025, they’ve made a few key changes to shorten the period needed to sell out the race.

First, they changed the date for opening registration. Historically, they opened registration in mid-March, where it could easily be overshadowed by St. Patrick’s day hype. In 2025, they moved the registration opening back to 2/28; in 2025, they settled on an even earlier date of 2/3. This gave the Harpoon 5-Miler it’s own space to shine.

Secondly, they use a bit of an aggressive “email blitz” using RunSignup Email V2. This works to create FOMO by highlighting how fast the race is selling…leading to more selling. Their emails focus heavily on urgency and shortage, starting with a countdown until registration opens, and then moving to a countdown of remaining spots.

Sending emails with such frequency would never work for a race with a 3-month registration cycle; participants would get annoyed and unsubscribe. But because the race really will run out of spots, the blitz only perpetuates the need for immediate action.

To optimize their emails, TRACS took the extra step of using AI to analyze the engagement rates on old emails to better understand what participants respond to and adjust their content accordingly.

Registration Opens in 3 Hours!

Race 80% Sold Out!

Race Will Sell Out Today!

Making Pre-Race Interactive

A race like Harpoon is more about the experience than the speed. This starts well before race day, with multimedia and real-life interactions with participants in the leadup to the event.

Spotify Playlists

TRACS sets the mood for the race with a Spotify Playlist embedded into their Website V2. This playlist was created in partnership with the race DJ. It is chock full of motivating, upbeat tunes (perfect for a 5 mile race). Then, the race uses that playlist in the their social posts to keep the vibes consistent across their content.

Spotify ended up being even more interactive than the TRACS team could have anticipated. Not only did runners enjoy the playlist the race put out, they created their own public playlists for the race. With no prompting from TRACS to do so, they discovered at least 12 public playlists made for the race. Some runners creating the lists were gearing up for their first Harpoon 5-miler; others had run more than 5 times before. One was lacing up for her 10th race.

Next year, they plan to share all the Harpoon Playlists with their audience. They see value in providing a range of options: one runner created an intentional 40-minute playlist to keep them on pace for 8-minute miles.

Strava

Strava helps connect runners outside of race day. They used the Strava Component on their Website V2 to make it easy for participants to visualize the course. And, their newly launched Strava Club started attracting participants, with an engaged feed. The Strava Club is an investment: a social space for Harpoon runners that will only grow over the coming years.

The impact of Strava can be seen beyond Strava: runners shared their Strava overlays across social media. That’s the kind of race promotion money can’t buy – only a good race experience can.

In addition to using Strava to connect with runners, TRACS uses it to understand their runners. They viewed heatmaps of Strava-connected runners typically run in the area to identify common routes to work into their group runs. This made them more visible in high traffic areas for runners. In the future, they’ll continue to use this data to find opportunities to interact with their community.

A Visual (and Social) Experience

As you can probably tell from their website and this case study, TRACS leans heavily into visuals. Photos and video are integral to telling the story of the race, the runners, and volunteers. This year, they included two buckets of photography.

After moving away from their legacy photo company, TRACS hired photographers to take high quality photos of the race and after party. These professional shots are crucial for demonstrating the joy of the day and creating the graphic journey they want. Those more casual photos are shared with runners (free) via Pixieset.

But TRACS understands that volume of photos is important, too. Every runner wants to find a photo of themselves post-race. For that, they used the new photo integration in the RunSignup Mobile Timing App. Those 1,000 or so photos were automatically uploaded to RunSignup, bib-tagged, and added to each runner’s results page. This made for a more interactive photo experience for every runner as they reviewed their results!

It’s not just TRACS that leaned into visuals. The race team was blown away (and excited) by how much organic social media content was put out by runners and volunteers. Across Instagram and TikTok, the best video content showcasing the Harpoon 5-Miler came from the participants!

Charity Partnership

In addition to growing revenue and support for the brewery, TRACS is focused on growing the charity impact of their event. In 2024, they added a co-beneficiary (the Pete Frates Foundation) in addition to their initial charity partner, The Angel Fund for ALS Research.

Selling out early means the team can focus on charity engagement in the leadup to the event. By default, participants become fundraisers during registration; in 2025, more than 600 participants actively participated in fundraising. The race recorded two videos with their charity partners at the brewery, and used the key communication points of registration opening and the sell-out announcement to re-direct attention to the charities.

In 2024, the race reached a milestone $3 million in fundraising for ALS. TRACS used this round (and impressive) stat to encourage donations and fundraising in 2025. In general, TRACS goes above and beyond to promote their charity partners by recognizing and rewarding engaged fundraisers. On race day, it’s not only the fastest runners who get a prize: the top individual and team fundraisers also receive awards.

Additionally, they offer donors some sweet swag for donations of $50 or more. In 2025, 247 donors earned a Harpoon baseball cap, 161 donors will receive a Miir stainless steel cup, 25 donors are taking home a sherpa lined blanket, and 10 people are getting the whole shebang (including a registration for 2026).

While the final total raised for the cure and care of ALS won’t be finalized until the race invoices are settled, more than $50,000 in fundraiser-raised money was presented on race day. Look for a much higher total once the Harpoon donation is calculated!

Year-Round Benefits

When race directors think of growth, they tend to think only in terms of race day numbers. But for Harpoon, a race at max capacity, growth means driving traffic to Harpoon Brewery (and all their other events) year-round. This is done in two ways:

Encouraging runners to join in the fun at additional brewery events (registered or not)

Throughout the year, TRACS hosted an industry party for the Boston Run Show and the Outdoor Show exhibitors at the Harpoon Beer Hall. This brought out both runners gearing up for race day, and the wider endurance community. For the Run Show, booth visitors where surprised with a free “Harpoon Training T-Shirt”. The cost of the shirts is easily offset by the exposure of runners wearing them out, and the increased enthusiasm for race day.

The mannequins also made their way to the Harpoon Beer Hall, acting as ambassadors for the race with rotating outfits until race day, when they were called into (static) action on the main stage.

Driving participants to associated events at the brewery before and after race day

In partnership with Everybody Fights, Friday Night Group Runs started (and ended) at the Harpoon Brewery. Additionally, registered participants received marketing emails (and early access to sign up) for the Harpoon FitFest the day before the race.

And it’s not just events specifically associated with the race: Harpoon hosts a range of events, including a large Octoberfest and a St. Patrick’s Festival that utilize TicketSignup. Getting runners familiar with and excited about the Harpoon 5 Miler also means getting runners interested in the brewery year round.

Beyond Race Day

The connection between the run and the brewery didn’t end on race day, either. Friday Night Runs with Everybody Fights will continue into the summer. Additionally, they have an upcoming brewery night to celebrate the all sorts of Harpoon Runners. Every 100th finisher wins a pair of Puma shoes (to reward all cross-sections of runners). Puma winners, along with those who earned donor swag and winners of prizes from the post-race survey will all be welcomed back to the brewery to gather their winnings in person. This is yet another runner touchpoint on the way to 2026, closing the sponsor loop and prompting more organic social media content.

Continuing to Push the Envelope and Drive (Even Faster) Sellouts

Harpoon reached a sellout in 67 days in 2023, 54 days in 2024, and merely 16 days in 2025. The goal for 2026, the 25th anniversary race? An even faster sellout. To jumpstart this, TRACS is leaning heavily on one of their most impressive resources: loyalty. 54% of the 2025 race participants were repeat participants, and by creating a fun and engaging race day, Harpoon wants to ensure they return in 2026.

While registration won’t open to the general public until February, this year’s participants were given the opportunity to get ahead. The race opened for “Early Access” on race day, while participants were still reveling in the post-race glow. For the 2024 race, Early Access was open only on race day, with 86 people registering that day.

SMS Marketing and an On-Site Marketing Push

To boost the early registrations and re-engage participants immediately, TRACS wanted to push more engagement on race day and extend the early access period. The goal was to kick off an SMS campaign (through 3rd party ClickSend) during the race party, while runners were still enjoying the post-race (and post-beer) glow. Unfortunately, they got tied up in a loop of never-ending approvals and SMS was not ready on race day. Rather than abandoning their plan, TRACS focused instead on amplifying the “register for 2026” messaging via QR codes throughout the post-race party and promoting early access from the stage. Despite the foiled SMS plan, the 2026 race got more than 2.5 as many registrants on race day than in 2024.

Luckily, the SMS plan didn’t have to be forgotten entirely. When the final approvals came through, they were able to send an SMS message to their 2025 participants on the last day of early access, reminding them to sign up. And sign up they did: 27% of early access registrations came following the SMS message. While this year didn’t go quite as planned, TRACS is excited about the proof of concept, looking forward to RunSignup’s upcoming release of SMS marketing, and strategizing for a smart SMS plan for 2026.

Extended Early Access

Additionally, TRACS decided to keep Early Access accessible for longer, through Memorial Day weekend. This gave 2025 participants a little longer to capitalize on the option to sign up before the February rush. By the end of the Early Access period, the race was already 12% sold out, a significant increase in early access registrations compared to the previous year.

Our favorite part of the Early Access campaign? TRACS marketing stays true to their focus on the experience. The Early Access emails suggest signing up, but they really focus on the why: because the race day they just had was so much fun. The email also includes links to finisher certificates, full race results, race photos, and a last chance to get race swag in exchange for donations to their charity partners.

This early rush of registrations has one more benefit: an additional $3,400+ in donations to their ALS partners were collected on race day and in the immediate week after.

Never Stop Marketing: Looking to 2026

As they turn their attention to the 2026 race, the TRACS team already has some exciting plans. First, they plan to capitalize on merchandise by including more Harpoon Brewing merch in the store, and possibly incorporating gear from their sponsors. Additionally, they are always looking for ways to bring their sponsors into the experience of the race.

Second, they’re focused on storytelling to bring the Harpoon 5-Miler to life via their website, emails, and social media. But don’t expect to see TRACS spinning the narrative: they are focused on authentic media and content from real runners and volunteers.

Third, they are doubling down their impressive loyalty numbers. While they’re still working out the details to ensure fairness and make room for new runners, they plan to reward repeat runners with early access to 2026 registration.

We know we’ll be watching to see what innovations Harpoon 5-Miler puts in place next year! If you want to join in the fun, look for registration to open in early 2026.