Learning the ropes of successful race promotion

As a not-for-profit event, our marketing budget is small. In the last five years, our strongest and most cost-effective marketing tools have been: word-of-mouth, expos, social media and writing for Canadian Running magazine.

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Last year, Halifax recognized Maritime Race Weekend as an emerging event for our city. Twenty-four per cent of our runners come from outside of Nova Scotia. In an effort to strengthen and expand tourism to Halifax, the municipality has committed to helping us with out-of-province marketing for the next three years.

With the financial support of Halifax Regional Municipality, we were able to create this amazing video – which will be used to promote our destination race to a global audience. A picture can say a thousand words, but a video says millions.

We hired a local company: John Saunders Photography & Film. John was completely amazing to work with. I gave him a general idea of the elements that I needed and he ran with it. Saunders brought a professional video crew and equipment, plus he had drones flying along the route capturing our picturesque location and festive atmosphere.

The promotion video he created surpassed my expectations.