Drive Your Event Forward By Controlling Your Messaging
The Bank of America Chicago Marathon sent out a press release this morning to media members announcing their2014 elite athlete roster. The roster comprises of many of the very best distance runners in the world, including the greatest distance runner of all-time, Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia.
While the general media picked up the release and ran with it, and Twitter was on fire for fans of professional marathon running, the Chicago Marathon by and large kept quiet. Yes they produced their press release and distributed it, but they did absolutely nothing else to build interest in their field. No social media posts were made around the announcement, no video, no slideshow, no athlete features, nothing!
Some large running events do a great job developing their own content and distributing it. The New York Road Runners, who stage the TCS New York City Marathon, do a tremendous job of driving interest. Just today, they had a dozen professional athletes tweet out clues (here's a great example) as to their next race, all of whom are set to compete in the Fifth Avenue Mile next week. Talk about a unique way to engage athletes with their fans, thus driving interest to the race.
These two examples center around the idea in which businesses and events need to control their own messaging. You can write a press release and send it out to 1,000+ reporters, hoping a few pick it up, or you can craft original, unique content pieces, share them through social media and email with your fans, only to generate more content pieces around your news and drive folks back to your website.
If you have news to share, why wouldn't you want to maximize it and drive your business forward by crafting unique content pieces that will inspire and inform your fans?
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About Scott
Scott Bush is a digital marketing professional & Owner of Flow Experience Marketing, a Portland, OR based company focused on experiential marketing for events, athletes and small and medium-sized businesses. He writes on the topics of small business, mobile, event and sports marketing, as well as professional track and field.