Tips & Tricks | Estimated Read time – 5:01
This fall, you may be thinking about welcoming your turkey-trotters back to the start line. Hosting a Turkey Trot in 2021 is a great way to reunite families and friends in a fun and meaningful way. Last year, many Thanksgiving-based events went fully virtual or cancelled entirely, making this a great time to introduce new concepts and make a strong comeback in the event space.
We’ve put together 8 great ideas to gobble up for your next Turkey Trot, whether that be in-person, virtual, or both!
1. Create digital fundraising badges
If your Turkey Trot is in support of one or more causes, digital fundraising badges are a fantastic way to motivate fundraisers. The design of your digital badge is completely up to you! You can create badges that are in-line with your event branding and makes fundraisers excited to earn them! Badges can be awarded based on a dollar amount raised (e.g., $100 raised!) or by a percentage of completion towards a goal (e.g., 50% of your fundraising goal completed!). You can create a fun graphic of all possible badges and display it on your individual and team fundraising pages to provide additional excitement and motivation.
2. Set up a custom domain
A custom domain is a great way to present your event in a professional way. It shows that you are invested in your event and serious about your brand! You can eliminate ‘raceroster’ from your URL and make your event pages cohesive with your event’s website. For example, if your primary website is ‘seawaterstride.com’ and you want your registration form to feel unified with this URL, you can create a subdomain and make it ‘register.seawaterstride.com’.
Additionally, In light of the recent changes to cross-domain tracking, organizations have been limited in how they track Facebook Pixels on Race Roster. The custom domain solution gives you the opportunity to use Facebook Pixels to track activities as if they were for your own domain. Once your domain is set up, you’ll have the ability to link and manage your pixels and events within the Facebook Business Manager.
You can book a custom domain set up call now, or contact organizer@raceroster.com if you have any questions!
3. Introduce virtual options & challenges
Last year, we found that many participants enjoyed the flexibility of a virtual event option. Virtual options gave them autonomy to choose where and when they participated. If you are planning an in-person Turkey Trot, you may want to consider including a virtual option in addition to an in-person registration. This will give those who are unable to travel or attend your event in-person the opportunity to sign up, fundraise, and participate wherever they can!
To learn more about our virtual tools, take a look at our article on 8 great tools for a successful virtual turkey trot.
If you are looking to increase engagement with your participants leading up to event day, virtual challenges are a fantastic way to achieve this. You could set up a training challenge and invite participants to work towards a specific goal or just do as much as they possibly can within a specific time frame. This can be a challenge based on distance, elevation, a numerical tally, or time.
4. Customize team language
Our team functionality is not only great for allowing individuals to participate on a team, but for fundraising as a group as well! Participants can create a team and invite others to join. A fundraising page is created for each team and allows people to donate directly to the team instead of an individual. In some cases, the word ‘team’ may not accurately describe how you or your participants are using this functionality. Our ‘team’ language can be customized and changed to whatever suits your event best. For example, any reference of ‘teams’ could be changed to ‘families’ or ‘fundraising groups’ if your participants are using teams for the sole purpose of fundraising together.
5. Enable custom pages & links
Limiting how much information you include on your event details homepage is a great way to get the most important information in front of your page viewers. If you have a lot of detail to include, you can create custom pages and links to keep your main page clean and concise. This will help make other key information (e.g., FAQs) easier to find and will reduce the risk of having important details lost in a long scrolling page.
To set up custom pages and/or links, enable the ‘custom pages and links’ add-on! You can find this under the ‘Add-ons’ section of your event organizer menu, or simply search ‘custom pages and links’ in the search bar at the top of your menu!
6. Design share-worthy digital medals
Many participants look forward to the moment they receive their medal and wear it around as a badge of honour. However, there are also many participants who just don’t want any more things to find a place for at home. In this case, it may be beneficial to create ‘digital medals‘. Perhaps you could allow participants to choose whether they would like to receive a physical or digital medal after completing your event!
The design of your digital medal is completely up to you. You can create an outstanding Turkey Trot themed medal that participants will hold onto forever and are excited to share. Participants can instantly share their medal with friends and family on social media, increasing visibility around your event online!
7. Utilize results page customizations
There are many things you can do to create a stunning and engaging results page. You can add a background image, create multiple banner types with ads or custom messages, customize your finisher certificate, and drive viewers to other places of your choice. These customizations are a great way to drive participants to sponsor websites, your running store partner’s products, or event related call-to-actions, such as viewing your photo gallery or visiting your event store.
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