Málaga Marathon share their tips for Event Organisers
As you all know, the whole world is facing a health crisis. This has affected many industries and especially, the mass participation industry.
This is why at World’s Marathons we try to keep everything up-to-date and look for new alternatives together with our client base.
How are running events organisers facing this crisis?
Every government has set their own measures to keep the population safe, and event organisers are working their way to adapt to these new procedures.
Zurich Málaga Marathon wanted to share with World’s Marathons and all their fellow organisers how they are handling communication, home offices and more.
Has your event been cancelled or postponed?
No, we will stick to that date while it is aligned with Spanish Authorities measures and the health safety of our participants is not put at risk.
What ideas have you had to reinforce your sales?
Our focus now is not on any commercial goal. Since the “Alarm State” was decreed, our communication has been different. We thought it was the best thing we could do at this time.
To do so, we have changed our Cover Pictures on Twitter, Facebook and rest of our channels, using a positive message such as “We will fly again”.
In fact, a price rise step was scheduled for April but we decided to hold it because of the situation.
What approach have you taken regarding communication with runners?
We try to engage with our public with entertaining challenges, riddles and different games on Social Media… such as these ones:
In this case, we created the hashtag #MarathonChallenge and it was continued by other competitions like Maratón Valencia or Maratón Madrid. And we are glad because runners and competitors liked it.
We also have many Instagram stories topics for our followers based on quiz games about Málaga, for example:
Since our runners appear in the pictures, they can contact us asking for the pictures that they appear in and we will send them for free . It has been very well accepted, because we created more expectation and made them part of our brand. Example:
During the last weeks, we have created a campaign we are very proud of, named #HéroesMaratónMálaga. The idea is to thank our runners who are now working during this crisis. Health workers, supermarkets employees, policemen, pharmacy staff,… All these persons working now for all of us.
We looked for them on Social Media and had a great response with many positive comments on our idea. Privately, we asked them for a picture in their workplace with something representative of our marathon (bib number, medal, T-shirt…) and a brief description about them to let our public know their stories.
The acceptance has been much better than expected. We have received so many cases that, we have posted two volumes, and we still have material for a couple more.
You can see here how we did on Instagram and Twitter.
Is there anything you have learned during these difficult times that will change the way your organisation works in the future?
We are experiencing something that is not new, but it has been reinforced even more in this situation. to keep the focus on your runners.
Working at home it is something new for us and still good results are coming up. Even if we are not able to have usual face to face meetings or brainstorming, our different departments such as production, commercial, marketing, communication… are operating as usual, so working remotely could be something to implement in the future.
Do you have a message you would like to share with fellow organisers or runners?
Patience, patience and patience. There will be a day to return to our routines.
We organisers, runners and everyone are all living a situation we dislike, but all together, being responsible and thinking as a society, will beat the virus and get our lives back.
Connect with us
If you would like to share your experience as an event organiser get in touch with us at customersuccess@worldsmarathons.com
