How do you market a virtual challenge? Bryan looks at some of the strategies that are most successful for these non-traditional virtual events.

1. Creating a Virtual
Challenge from Scratch
Step 2: Marketing 101

2. How do you Market a
Challenge?
How do you adapt your marketing
strategy for Virtual Challenges?
● Challenges are similar to, but not the same
as, traditional events.
● This covers marketing strategies that any
race organizer or nonprofit can execute.

3. Our Test Case
Introducing Activity For Good
▷ 1-month Challenge
▷ 3-tiered goal of activity per day (30/45/60 minutes
per day)
▷ Charity Partner: Feeding America
Unique concept (minutes over distance),
geared towards a-typical endurance
participants hoping to maintain a fitness
routine - with variety of abilities/commitment.

4. Define Your Audience
If you followed the Branding Steps from the last webinar,
you have a head-start here.
● Why would people join any challenge?
● What are the reasons for joining your Challenge?
● What groups of people have those motivations for
picking an event?

5. Why do people want to join your
Challenge?
Accountability Health Goals & Achievements
Gym replacement
Share an
experience
Swag
A Cause Try a new Activity Virtual Community

6. Build a Marketing Plan
▷ Build a Tentative Marketing Plan before you open registration
○ Remember WHY people join Challenge
○ More importantly, remember what’s special about your challenge and
focus on that to differentiate your challenge
▷ Use our Checklist (to be sent in follow-up) to make sure you’re
including all marketing channels.
▷ Monitor your marketing channels on a regular basis to evaluate
what is working for your race.
▷ PLAN…MONITOR…REPORT…ADJUST…REPEAT…

7. Preparation
Before you start marketing
▷ Confirm date range and challenge
goals
▷ Set up registration
▷ Review the Virtual Race Setup
Checklist at
RunSignup.com/govirtual (most
apply to challenges)
▷ TEST registration
▷ Create a website
▷ Create a collection of graphics

8. Marketing Budget
Create an estimated budget. For a new challenge, we recommend setting aside
10-15% of gross sales (registrations, add-ons, store items and sponsorships, but
not donations) to market a new challenge. Aside from marketing, likely costs
include:
▷ Annual/monthly costs (Domain, Canva, G-Suite, etc)
▷ Consultants (Graphic designers, video creators, etc)
▷ Swag (per-person cost for swag items, shipping & fulfillment)
▷ Donations (any fixed or per-person donation to a charity partner or your
internal charity)
▷ Revenue (Once all expenses and donations are made, how much revenue
do you need to bring in to make it worthwhile?)

9. First Touch: How Do You
Reach Potential
Participants?

10. 1. Email Marketing: Use your existing participant list to get the word
out (even if they are an imperfect audience for your concept)
▷ Use RunSignup’s Email Marketing platform
○ If you want more flexibility with your email template, use a
builder in a platform like MailChimp, copy the HTML, and
paste it into RunSignup
▷ Export lists of your participants from previous events and
build a custom list to market to
▷ Turn on incomplete registration emails
Email Marketing >> Automated Emails >> Incomplete
Registration
Email Marketing

11. 1. Google (Organic Traffic)
▷ Google is responsible for more than 28% of race website
traffic
▷ Make sure the name of your challenge and titles on your race
page include your Challenge name and what it is about
▷ Google your race name and make sure you come up at the top
of the results
Digital Marketing: Google
(Organic)

12. 2. Event Calendars
▷ National calendars
(Running in the USA, Race
Directors HQ, etc.)
▷ List event with local
running stores or
newspapers
○ Especially for place-
based themes
▷ Reach out to running clubs,
workout groups, etc.
Digital Marketing: Event
Calendars

13. 3. Facebook Organic Reach: Organic reach on Facebook won’t
drastically impact registrations, but is important for adding legitimacy
▷ Create a Facebook Business Page
○ Customize Share Message
Promotion >> Social Sharing
▷ Custom Source Tracking to monitor conversions
Promotion >> Source Tracking >> Custom Source
Tracking
▷ Create a Facebook Group
○ Promote the online community on your website as a perk
of the challenge
Digital Marketing: Facebook
Organic Reach

14. 4. Facebook Paid Ads: Facebook is still the best bang for your buck in advertising
▷ If you have a good list, use Facebook Custom audiences or lookalike
audiences
○ Promotion >> Facebook Custom Audiences
▷ Use demographics (gender, age, location) and targeting (interests and
page likes), and exclusions to build a target audience
○ Start broad for testing
○ Use A/B testing
○ Budget some money to “waste” while you find your strategy
▷ Setup and monitor analytics. In addition to Custom Source Tracking and
RaceInsights, set up your Facebook Pixel
○ Promotion >> Facebook Pixel
Digital Marketing:
Facebook Ads

15. 5. Google Paid Ads: Google Display ads require a larger financial
investment and more time to learn, but if you’re going big, they reach a
large audience.
▷ Custom list targeting has limited availability
○ Must be a customer for more than 90 days, with more than
$50,000 in lifetime spending on Google Ads
▷ Create a Display Ads Campaign
○ Set up an A/B test
○ Monitor closely, change or end campaigns as needed
Digital Marketing:
Google Display Ads

16. 6. Re-Marketing
▷ Re-engaging people who
demonstrated interest by
visiting your website
▷ Facebook Pixel can be
used to create an
Audience of previous
website visitors
▷ Google Ads can be used
to re-market to website
visitors
Digital Marketing: Re-
Marketing

17. Expand your Funnel, Grow
Your Challenge

18. Reach people through the channels they trust.
Social connections are still key - people want to share
an experience with their friends and family, and are
looking for ways to do so from a distance.
Pick 1, 2, or 3 of the following marketing strategies to turn your
participants into informal ambassadors for your challenge
Connect People

19. Back in 2018, we declared that 100% of RunSignup employees recommend
referral rewards as the most efficient marketing tool. And now...
Referral Rewards
Time Period % of Registrations from
Referrals
% of Registration Amount
from Referrals
Jan-Dec 2019 6% 7%
February 2020 7% 7%
March 2020 7% 8%
April 2020 15% 20%
May 2020 23% 28%
Impact of Referrals

20. ▷ Your participants are the most effective advocates for your challenge.
▷ Incentivize your participants to refer their friends & family by rewarding
them with refunds, swag, and recognition.
Referrals: Why and How

21. Referrals Best Practices

22. The most literal way to encourage participants to join together is to have them on
teams together
▷ 30% of participants join teams when they are available
○ This is steady post-Coronavirus
▷ Teams can be:
○ Social: 100% for fun, with no competitive consequences. Enable Team
Goals/Tallies for a sense of group accomplishment.
○ Competitive: allow teams to compete against each other with team scoring
○ Fundraising: focused on raising money
Groups/Teams

23. Automate discounts/refunds for anyone on a team that hits a certain size. This
satisfies the “discount demand” while incentivizing price-sensitive participants to
recruit family and friends.
Example:
○ Regular registration for $39, with a $5 discount
for members of groups of more than 5.
○ First 4 registrants pay $39. The fifth registrant
(and everyone after) pays $34, and the first 4
are refunded $5.
Participants >> Groups/Teams >> Pricing Setup
Incentivize Groups/Teams

24. Your Cause
If you are a nonprofit - or supporting one - that’s a reason for people to join the
challenge.
▷ Younger generations want to know your challenge supports
others. Setup donations at Donations >> Setup
▷ For a for-profit, a charity partner is a mutually beneficial
relationship.
○ Your charity partner is another channel for new challenge participants
○ Your challenge is another channel for your charity partner to get new
donor & supporter contacts (and extra donations)
▷ Set up fundraising for your challenge to maximize money raised

25. Swag
Swag is a huge motivator for any virtual challenge
▷ Offer swag people want to wear. When they wear it, they promote
your challenge!
▷ 3 ways to offer swag:
○ Giveaway
○ Registration Add-Ons
○ Store
▷ Use premium swag as a reward for top referrers and top
fundraisers.

26. Drip Campaigns with
Automated Emails
Enable automated emails at Email Marketing >> Automated Emails

27. Registration Follow-Ups
➢ Set up a series of emails to highlight your main calls to
action.
➢ Set your priorities and keep your messaging concise and
consistent.
➢ Don’t send too many emails! Limit campaigns to 2-3 follow-
ups

28. Drip Campaign Messaging
Hi %FIRST_NAME%,
Make your Challegenge even more fun -
and keep yourself accountable - by
sharing the experience (remotely) with
your friends and family!
When 5 people SignUp using your unique
link, you’ll get your registration fee
refunded. Refer more friends for even
more rewards!
Share your unique link:
%REGISTRATION_REFERRAL_CODE_LINK%
Drip Campaign:
REFERRAL REWARDS
Hi %FIRST_NAME%,
Your registration fee gets you all the perks
of the Challenge; your fundraising gets us
all a better world - a world without cancer!
Share your unique fundraising link with
family and friends and make an impact
today!
%FUNDRAISER_LINK%
Drip Campaign:
FUNDRAISING

29. Activity For Good’s Marketing
Priorities
This is where we’re focusing most of our efforts:
▷ Facebook Paid Ads
▷ Google Ads
▷ Re-Marketing
▷ Referral Rewards
▷ A Cause (Feeding America)
▷ Swag

30. Thanks!
Any questions?
30