How Software Can Make Your Turkey Trot Better Than Ever This Year

Thanksgiving is the biggest running day of the year. Is your turkey trot doing everything is can to reach its full potential? Whether your race is a small operation or a big production, registration and event management software can make the whole experience smoother, more efficient, and more enjoyable for everyone involved.

Seamless Online Registration

Participation is a big factor in the success of your race, and it begins long before race day. Make registration a breeze for participants and offer easy registration from anywhere, anytime with registration software.

The best registration software allows your participants the ability to:

• Sign up on the go.
• Have the ability to invite friends to race alongside them.
• Register for a series of events should your organization put on multiple different races.

Easy Communication and Promotion

Software can help save your staff time and energy when it comes to race communications, whether you’re reaching out to participants or those still looking to sign up.

• Create automated emails based on pre-determined triggers, such as “one week before race day” or “cart abandonment.”
• Segment your audience on any data point, including last year’s participants, geographic location, or even previous race times, to send more personalized messaging and drive better engagement.
• Utilize social media to your advantage with social sharing buttons within your registration flow or even a social referral program.
• Take it a step further by connecting with staff, participants, and spectators on event day and beyond with a consumer-based app, like ACTIVE’s Experience app, which allows participants to receive important updates directly to their phone, spectators to track their friends and family during the race, and more.

Real-Time Data and Analytics

Your race data is only as good as the insight you get from it. And while it can be hard to analyze massive spreadsheets with past participation data, event management software can do the heavy lifting for you.

View traffic on your registration page or activity on your event's results page, and gain insights on how to better grow your events. Plus, many solutions come with pre-built reports on topics from revenue to merchandise, making it easy to analyze many different aspects of your race.

Automated Check-in and Packet Pickup

Race day can be one of the most hectic and stressful times for race organizers. But it doesn’t have to be! With software, you can streamline packet pickup, waiver management, and any other race-day tasks to give staff and volunteers time back in their day to focus on more important tasks, like ensuring participants have the best experience ever!

With race-day software, organizers have the ability to:

• Eliminate lines at the expo or on event day by checking in participants via QR code, name, team, email or phone lookup, before instantly assigning them a bib.
• Capture on-site registrations at the expo or on race day; and, volunteers can register last-minute participants, ensure waivers are signed, and collect credit card or cash payments quickly and securely.

• Mark merchandise as "fulfilled" when purchased or picked up, and easily identify who has and hasn't received their purchases.
• Reduce the need for volunteers at check-in completely by allowing participants to register themselves at the expo or on race day with kiosk capabilities.
• Remotely monitor check-in and registration numbers from a mobile device to make sure the event stays on track.

An All-in-One Solution

While all of the above features sound great, you’re probably wondering if there’s a solution out there that has them ALL, allowing you to avoid buying multiple solutions to get all the capabilities you want and need. Well, we have good news! ACTIVEWorks Endurance and its suite of software solutions has all those features and more. AWE manages registration, the race-day experience, timing, merchandise—even charitable giving. Plus, it’s scalable to work perfectly for any size race. Learn more about how AWE can help your turkey trot find success this year by visiting ACTIVENetwork.com/Endruance.