Communication with race entrants

[Jay]

Today's question is about communicating with your race entrants: Do
you communicate with people after they've signed up for your race? If
you do, is it via email, e-newsletter, or both? Do you send a
confirmation message? How about race reminders; if you send them, how
many, and how often? If you send these or other types of
communications, how have you found that they help with race
organization, and with people's perception of your race?

By the way, this question was prompted by an "April Fools" message,
broadcast by LOCO, about their upcoming Great Bay Half Marathon being
canceled! (No it's not canceled, but I'll bet that message sure got
people's attention...)

Thanks,

Jay

[Mike St Laurent]

Hi All
Yes, what a fun time I had sending that one out..
all in all we got about 100 - ya got me messages and just one.. "how dare you"

What does LOCO Do.
Monday we will send out a big email with the following information.
(If I forget something important - I do a second one later in the week)

A) Link to see if they are registered
B) Driving directions link
C) Parking Directions and shuttle info
D) NEW Finish  Update
E) NEW - Donation to Pease Greeters for the Expo
F) Reminder about bag check..
G) Reminder to Car pool
H) Last but not least Bathroom updat

All in all we will get 70% or more to OPEN the email
Many will print out the maps and use them.  
Many many follow the directions... Whoooee

the Monday before the race seems to be the perfect day to send.
Mike out.

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--
Mike St. Laurent
LOCO Sports, Inc.
603 659 2824

[Steve Moland]

The races I help manage have emails confirmations automatically sent if the
registration is online. We also send reminders about things they will need
to know about race day logistics. We do NOT do anything for entrants who do
not register online as the email addresses given are wrong half the time and
keying them is way too picky.

Thanks,

Jay

[Stearns, Guy]

Hello,

I think you need to balance the need for information with the need for privacy when deciding whether or not to send out a note to your entire mailing list.

For the Great Island 5K, Active.com sends out a note to everyone who registered online the previous year, letting them know when online registration is opened this year. Additionally, I will generally send a reminder note as we approach our t-shirt registration cutoff and the week prior to the race with last minute parking and registration details.

Two years ago, I followed up after our race with a survey to see how we did. This survey was very helpful. In particular, almost 100% of the ~200 responses let me know that they would be willing to pay an extra dollar or two to get a starting line mat for our timing. Due to the overwhelming response, we went with the mat last year and won't go back.

How lucky we are to have online registration and the ability to easily reach out to the majority of our participants when the need arises. So much for the good old days!

Guy

-----Original Message-----
From: road-race-directo...@googlegroups.com [mailto:road-race-directo...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Jay
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 11:50 AM
To: Road Race Directors of Northern N.E.
Subject: Communication with race entrants

Thanks,

Jay

[Jay]

Hi Guy,

I'm surprised that you raised the need for privacy in this instance.
While I am quite sensitive to that need, I know that most, if not all
online registration services give you the ability to send an email to
all or part of your entire list without identifying any of the
recipient email addresses or names. You can also, as some races do
already, use an email service such as Constant Contact, from where you
can also send e-newsletters to a "blind" list. Other than by revealing
the entrant names and/or addresses, how would their privacy be
compromised?

Are you thinking more of striking the balance between providing enough
information to be helpful and bombarding your entrants with too many
messages? I think that as long as the messages are focused on race
information that is important to entrants, and as long you aren't
sending the same messages over and over again, it would be tough to
get most people annoyed by providing these 'friendly' reminders. Using
graphics/photos and anecdotes or brief stories to illustrate your
points can help to make them entertaining, as well as informative. My
experience is that people appreciate the reminders, and that they help
build excitement around a race, so they are helpful in several
regards.

I appreciate your comment about post-race surveys: It is good to let
your racers know that you care about what they thought about your race
and, as you showed, there can be some good learning that comes from
those surveys. The trick with post-race surveys, of course, is to know
which questions to ask, and to learn how to judge your responses.

Jay

On Apr 2, 4:13 pm, "Stearns, Guy" <Guy.Stea...@LibertyMutual.com>
wrote:

[Stearns, Guy]

Hi Jay,

I guess privacy isn't the right word. What I meant, is striking a balance between enough information and too much information. Most people get too much junk email. We need to avoid blasting our runners with an excessive number of email notes.

Guy

-----Original Message-----
From: road-race-directo...@googlegroups.com [mailto:road-race-directo...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Jay
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 11:36 AM
To: Road Race Directors of Northern N.E.

Hi Guy,

Jay