Four stages, one database
The events that grow year on year don't just sell more entries. They keep the people they already have, and those people bring others with them.
Most organisers put the bulk of their marketing effort into one moment: getting someone to enter. Once the race is over, contact often goes quiet until next year's ads go live. That means paying again to win back people who have already crossed your finish line.
The Attract, Convert, Grow, Return playbook treats every entrant as the start of a relationship. It has four stages, and all of them run from a single contact database:
Attract new people to your events at the lowest sensible cost.
Convert every touchpoint into a contact you own and can market to.
Grow the value of each entrant across your portfolio.
Return them year after year.
The stages connect. Each one feeds the next, and the last feeds the first: loyal repeat entrants become your best referrers and ambassadors. Below, we take each stage in turn and look at how to put it into practice.
Each section below links to step-by-step guides, so you can put any idea into action straight away.
Stage 1: Attract
Attract is about getting new people to discover your events. Each channel has a different cost model, and a healthy mix uses several at once.
Channel | How you pay | Best for |
Search & local PR | No media spend, just time | Long-term, compounding visibility |
Referral scheme | A reward only when a sale happens | Low-risk growth through existing entrants |
Ambassador scheme | Free places, kit and commission | Reaching clubs and running communities |
Marketplaces | Commission on each entry | Reaching people already browsing for events |
Paid ads | Per click, whether they enter or not | Fast, targeted reach when tracked properly |
Search & local PR
Make sure every event is listed on the main race directories, with accurate dates, distances and a link straight to entry. Build pages that answer what people actually search for, such as "10K near me" or "flat half marathon in [county]". Pitch local press with real stories: a first-time finisher, a charity milestone, a new course. None of this costs media spend. It is slow to build, but it compounds every year.
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Referral scheme
Your entrants already train with friends, colleagues and club mates. Give each one a personal referral link and reward them when someone enters through it, with a discount, merch or a priority start. Because you only pay when a sale happens, it is one of the lowest-risk channels you can run.
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Ambassador scheme
Ambassadors are the clubs, coaches and well-known local runners who influence where others race. In return for free places, kit and sometimes commission, they promote your event to their networks. Pick ambassadors whose audience matches your event, and give them their own tracked codes so you can see who is actually driving entries. Bear in mind the places and kit cost you whether they sell or not.
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Marketplaces
Listing on event marketplaces puts you where people are already looking for something to enter. There is no upfront risk, but the marketplace takes a cut of every entry fee. Use them for reach, then bring those entrants into your own database so next year's sale comes direct.
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Additional Sales Channels (runABC, Find A Race, Ahotu, TimeOutdoors and more)
Paid ads and tracking
Social and search ads can deliver fast, targeted reach, but you pay per click whether anyone enters or not. That makes conversion tracking non-negotiable. Install tracking on your entry pages and tag every campaign link, so you can see which ads lead to entries and which only cost money. Then move budget towards what works.
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Stage 2: Convert
Convert is where attention turns into a contact you own. Every name and email you capture, with the right consent, is someone you can market to again without paying for the click.
Event registrations: the main door
Your entry form is where most contacts come from. Keep it quick, so people finish it. Ask for what you need to run the event, plus the few details you'll use later for segmentation, such as date of birth, running club and how they heard about you. Make the marketing opt-in clear and easy to say yes to.
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Register interest
Not everyone is ready to enter today. A register-interest form on your website catches people before entries open, or before they've committed. Use it to announce launch dates, early-bird pricing and course news, so they're first in the queue when sales go live.
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Abandoned entries
Someone who started an entry and didn't finish is your warmest lead. An automatic reminder within a day or two, with a direct link back to their entry, recovers sales that would otherwise be lost. For a second nudge, mention places running low or a price rise coming.
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Results pages
Results pages draw finishers, friends and family, often more than once. Make sure the results page links to your next events and invites visitors to sign up for updates.
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Training guides
Free training plans for your distances are useful content people actively look for. Offer them in exchange for an email address, and you're building a list of runners who are actively preparing for a race like yours.
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Expo and volunteers
Expos, bib collection and volunteer sign-ups all bring people into contact with your event. Capture their details too. Volunteers often become entrants, and expo visitors are likely to know other runners.
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Stage 3: Grow
Grow is about earning more from each entrant across the year, by offering them things they genuinely want rather than more of the same.
Segment-led email
One email blasted to your whole database treats a first-time 5K runner and a seasoned marathoner as the same person. Instead, split your contacts by what you know: distances they've run, how recently, how often, where they live and whether they've opened past emails. Then send each group the event and message that fits them. Smaller, relevant sends usually beat one big generic one, and they protect your unsubscribe rate.
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Cross-sell the portfolio
If you run more than one event, every entrant is a prospect for the next one. Runners tend to progress: 10K finishers look at half marathons, half marathoners look at marathons. Map the natural next step for each event and make it the focus of your follow-up. Event bundles and series entries work well here too.
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Perks over discounts
Discounting your most loyal entrants trains them to wait for a deal, and costs you money from people who would have entered anyway. Reward them instead with things that feel special: free race photos, exclusive merch or a priority start pen. Keep discounts for people who have lapsed and need a reason to come back.
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Add-ons and upgrades
The moment someone enters is when they're most excited. Offer relevant extras right there in the entry process: event merchandise, photo packages, parking, transport or a charity place. A well-placed add-on adds value for the entrant and revenue for you, without extra marketing spend.
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Group and team entries
People rarely run alone. Make it easy for one entrant to sign up friends, colleagues or club mates in a single transaction, and consider a group rate or a team category. When one entrant brings three friends, the value of that single order goes up dramatically, and you gain three new contacts.
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Stage 4: Return
Return is about bringing people back next year, and the year after. A returning entrant costs far less to win than a new one, and they arrive already knowing and trusting your event.
Loyalty scheme
Award points for every event entered across your portfolio, redeemable against entries, merch or perks. It gives entrants a reason to keep your events in their calendar rather than trying someone else's. Recognising milestones, such as a fifth finish or a full series, adds to the sense of belonging.
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Lapsed win-back
Watch for entrants who used to enter regularly but haven't for a while. A falling recency score is an early warning. Reach out while they're still winnable, with a personal message, a reminder of their past results and, if needed, a targeted offer. Wait too long and they've found another event.
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Post-event nurture
The days after a race are when feelings run highest. Send results, photos and a thank-you quickly, and include the next event in the series while the buzz is still live. A short survey at this point also tells you what to improve.
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Early-bird for finishers
As soon as next year's date is set, give last year's field first access at a discounted price, before entries open to the public. It rewards loyalty, brings in revenue early and gives you a strong base of entries to build on.
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Membership scheme
For organisers with several events, an annual membership can work well. Members pay a yearly fee for member pricing, priority entry and exclusive perks. It deepens loyalty and, importantly, brings in revenue before individual entries even open.
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Gift Cards, another way to bring in revenue before entries open
Closing the loop and where to start
The playbook works as a loop rather than a line. Entrants you keep in Return become the referrers and ambassadors who power Attract, which lowers what you pay for each new entry year after year.
What holds it all together is one database. When your entries, interest sign-ups, results and communications all live in the same place, you can segment, personalise and measure every stage, instead of piecing it together from spreadsheets.
You don't need to do everything at once. A sensible order for most organisers:
Fix the foundations. Make sure every entry captures a contact with clear marketing consent, and that tracking is in place on your entry pages.
Switch on the quick wins. Abandoned-entry reminders and post-event emails with a link to your next event recover revenue almost immediately.
Reward your finishers. Launch an early-bird for last year's field as soon as your next date is set.
Start segmenting. Even splitting by distance and recency will make your emails more relevant.
Build the schemes. Add referral, loyalty or membership once the basics are running smoothly.
Before your next launch, run through the Event Relaunch Checklist, and use Year-on-Year Entry Comparison to see whether the changes are working.
If you'd like help putting any of this into practice, get in touch with the Eventrac team. We're happy to talk through how the platform supports each stage for your events.