Manhattan Beach 10K Run
Rachel Judson, Race Director - Testimonial
We are a 39 year tradition in our community; Hometown to the core being volunteer organized & staffed, profits being donated back to our community and for years we just would do print ads in both local papers, posters around our little town and, voila, we would reach or near our 4,000 sell out. That all changed in 2014....
Our race numbers in 2014 & 2015 were in a decline as many races have seen across the country. We studied our stats and the Wall Street Journal published a great article: How Millennials Ended the Running Boom. We knew it was time to change our game plan to keep this great tradition going with enthusiastic community involvement. Molly was referred by a Race Committee Member and we are over the moon we hired her.
Success Thanks to Molly: We closed out registration with 600 more participants this year than last. That is over approximately $20,000 more in revenue vs. 2015 that we can donate back to the community.
We converted a previously heavily weighted local newspaper print ad marketing campaign to a handful of print ads along with some digital online ads through local papers. We did posters, flyers and banners, but it is our digital marketing and social media where we saw the results. We ran weekly ads on Facebook designed by Molly and as they were published we saw a nice increase in registration. Molly also managed our email newsletter and keeps track of our bulk mail account so we 'own' our contacts and can reach out to them in a more targeted way.
It also caused the LA Kings 5K to reach out to us so we cross promoted with their September event as well. We also did a cross promotion with the Downtown Business Association in Manhattan Beach where race weekend participants could show their bib #s at local businesses for promotional value. We played a little social media 'I Spy' showing our posters in various local business and race sponsor windows to further cross market.
Another pleasant surprise was the number of volunteers we had who came to us to say, "How can we help?" Spreading the word of being non-profit and donating our proceeds was loud and clear through this media, and we suspect that is why we had such an outpouring of those offering help.
It has been incredible to be a part of this change and so rewarding that our registration numbers and feedback from the community have been outstanding. Also thankful too that it's given a platform for the participants to make suggestions of how we can improve a few things. Feels like a big breath of fresh air has been blown back into the race. I've been told this was the best year in the history of our race.
Already have a meeting set to plan our marketing for the Oct 7, 2017 and 40th Birthday Party of our race and expect it will be a sell out largely due to Taylor Digital Marketing helping us spread the word.
If you or someone you know needs help amping up their marketing, we cannot recommend her enough. We've learned that social media requires a professional and cannot just be dabbled in, and we've learned so much about the power of cross promoting.