Some Thoughts on Sponsorship's & Marketing Your Race

We tell new race directors that you can put together the most awesome race ever, with incredible scenic vistas, the coolest sport-tek shirt you’ve ever seen and a post-race food spread that would put the NYC chefs to shame, but if you don’t raise funds through sponsorships sufficient to underwrite your event as well as properly market your race you drastically decrease the chances that your race will become a financial success.

In our experience many new race directors (and race committees) prefer to spend the majority of their time on what we call race “logistical“ issues: designing the course, selecting the the race shirt logo or assembling volunteer lists for your water stops. Don’t get us wrong, those are all important things but as a general rule of thumb a race director should spend about 3/4 of his/her time in the six-nine month period before the race focused on two critical issues: raising funds through sponsorships and marketing your race.

Over the next 8 posts we will give you 8 great tips on raising funds through sponsorships and how to best market your race.