Sports tourism - you’ve heard the phrase, people traveling to places to participate in sporting - that’s a whole thing these days. And a very fast-growing thing at that.

So, how can your race capitalize on this trend and how can you position your event to attract more overseas or out-of-state participants?

That’s exactly what we’ll be getting into today with my guest, George Kakourides, Marketing Director for the Logicom Cyprus Marathon. As you’ll hear, George has worked really hard on growing international participation for the Logicom Cyprus Marathon since 2014 with some amazing results, and has tons of tips to share on marketing your race internationally  and reaching new audiences through social media, micro-influencers, specialist publications, race expos, and other channels. So get your notepads out and get ready to take notes!

By the way, we’re going to be using the term “international” here a lot, but the lessons we’ll learn here today apply equally to a race that aspires to attract participants from a different country, as well as, say, a US-based race that wants to attract participants from nearby states. Everything we’ll touch on today basically falls under the category of marketing to participants that will travel to your event - so anyone besides your local crowd.

In this episode:

• Positioning your race brand for international appeal
• The importance of infrastructure (airport capacity, accommodation capacity etc) in being able to attract international participants
• How to pick the most promising international markets to target with your marketing
• Getting buy-in and material support from local government, local businesses and your local tourist board
• Partnering with local hotels and designing custom-made accommodation packages for participants
• Working with international specialist-press journalists and relevant influencers to promote the event in target markets
• Why getting Runners World and other high-profile mags to write about your event is easier that you think
• Measuring ROI on your international marketing efforts
• Why you want to translate key landing pages and your ad copy into the language of your target market participants
• Reaching international participants using Facebook Ads and suitable country/interest targeting choices
• Content ideas for engaging potential participants year-round through your social media accounts
• Lessons in building race partnerships from the Swedish Classic

Thanks to GiveSignup|RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 22,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use GiveSignup|RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about GiveSignup|RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

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