Flooding the zone

“How can I grow my race?”

Race directors ask me this all the time. Like there's a big secret. Believe me, if there was a secret I'd shout it from the rooftops!

Increasing race participation would uplift our communities, advance Run The Day’s mission and — selfishly, since our economic interests are aligned with races, it’d be good for business.

The unfortunate reality is, there's no secret. At least none that I’m aware of (if you have one, please reply to this email — I’m all ears 😀).

While there’s no secret, races that grow usually do what we refer to at Run The Day as flooding the zone.

What does flooding the zone mean?

First, lets rewind 10 years to when I worked in investment banking. During my time as a banker, we’d spend weeks crafting a single pitch. We’d carefully build charts, tighten the language and iterate on a presentation hundreds of times to make sure the numbers tied and everything was as compelling as possible.

I assumed that growing a race would work the same way — carefully craft beautiful content, perfect it and release it. Then watch the registrations roll in.

It surprised me — though it probably won’t surprise you — that promoting a 5K race is nothing like building a deck to win a sell-side mandate. The content is different. The audience is different. The strategy is different.

Instead of perfecting charts and revising language to be more compelling, growing a race usually come down to creating simple, attention-grabbing content — and flooding the zone.

Flooding the zone isn't a license to pump out garbage. Quality still matters. But volume matters more than most race directors realize.

The #1 promotional problem that most races face is simple: nearby people just don't know the race exists.

Flooding the zone often fixes that.

— Ian