Race Trends 2021

Why do some of your marketing campaigns work and others don’t? Why do you yourself as a consumer respond a lot more favorably to some types of messages and not others? At the end of the day, what makes us all take our wallets out and pull the trigger on that next purchase?
The answer to all those questions more often than not comes down to psychology. We are programmed to respond to certain queues - what our peers say about a product, how scarce that product feels, or how likeable the brand selling to us appears - in ways that we ourselves often don’t fully understand.
Today we have an absolutely fascinating discussion for you on all those triggers that make marketing campaigns work, and how you can bring the best of those lessons to your event marketing. We’re going to be touching, among other things, on using race testimonials as social proof, early-bird pricing & price increases, the role of influencers and celebrity runners, and how you can use freebies to increase your registrations and grow your mailing list.
My guest today is Andy Reilly. Andy is the CEO of event marketing company EventGrow and the President of race listing site, Raceplace.com, and he is super-passionate about the subject of marketing psychology and its foundational importance in developing an effective marketing strategy.
In this episode:

• Why do people buy stuff? What influences their purchasing decisions?
• Robert Cialdini's 6 psychological influence triggers: reciprocity, commitment & consistency, social proof, authority, scarcity, likeability
• Reciprocity: winning over participants by giving something of value to them for free
• Reciprocity in practice: leveraging free training plans and exclusive discount codes to grow your mailing list; using freebies to increase your race survey response rate by 20%
• Commitment & consistency: aligning your messaging with your participants' goals
• Commitment & consistency in practice: supporting people's fitness aspirations; promoting your race's PB potential
• Social proof: converting people through the power of peer influence
• Social proof in practice: making the most of past participant reviews; showcasing testimonials on your site; including social proof stats in your ad copy
• Building social proof: collecting testimonials from race surveys; encouraging participants to leave reviews on race review sites
• Authority: recruiting authority figures to promote your event
• Authority in practice: leveraging the power of celebrity participants; using influencers to promote your race; projecting brand authority through high-profile sponsorships; showcasing event awards
• Scarcity: using loss-aversion (aka FOMO!) to drive registrations
• Scarcity in practice: early birds & price increases; the "100 spots left" playbook
• Likeability: making your brand more likeable
• Likeability in practice: speaking your audience's language; aligning your event with good causes; recruiting likeable personalities to your event; engaging with your participants online

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 25,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more.
You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.
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