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Digital Engagement Kits are here!
If you’ve been looking for a way to take your race kit to the next level, this is it. Digital Engagement Kits have been designed to offer so much more than a physical race kit can allow. Think beyond physical coupons and sample products! With Digital Engagement Kits, you can connect and engage with your participants like never before.
In this article, we’re covering what digital engagement kits are, why they are beneficial to you, and how to get started with using them.
Already familiar with digital engagement kits? See the latest updates!
What is a ‘Digital Engagement Kit’ (DEK)?
Digital Engagement Kits are custom pages containing various “cards”. These cards can contain one powerful and dynamic call to action, allowing brands, partners, sponsors, and other contributors to engage with participants through exclusive content, contests, discounts, offers, and more. Think of your engagement kit as a “DEK of cards” — get it?
Each card can be fully customized to include videos, photos, links, text, and other content. DEKs allow you to continue your relationship with participants leading up to the event by providing you with a one stop platform to share valuable content with them.
What could be in your DEK of cards?
There will be three call-to-action options to choose from:
- Document download – This could be a brochure, printable coupon, or any type of file that the viewer can download.
- Link to website – Link the viewer out to any webpage. For example, this could be a link that takes them to a contest entry page!
- Code display – A code can be revealed and copied to clipboard. For example, this could be used to provide participants with an access code for early bird entry into another event, promo codes for discounted registration on future events, discounts on sponsor products, etc.
With these call-to-actions, you can explore so many opportunities to present your participants with valuable content. This doesn’t just have to be a packet full of coupons (although coupons are still great to include and a fantastic way to provide more value to your sponsors).
The value of your DEK depends on the cards you put in it. For example, your DEK could be a pre-event portal for your participants to access training information, recovery strategies, nutritional recipes, purchasable training gear, and more.
Here are a few more ideas on how you could use your DEK of cards:
- An online event packet: Go paperless and create a kit filled with promotional materials, goodies, brochure information and FAQs for your sponsors, partners, and fundraising organizations.
- An FAQ page: This tool will allow you to show important event information in a really engaging way. Instead of describing your parking situation on a static map, why not include this information in a video?
- Training plan / challenge kits: Engage with your participants leading up to your event by creating a custom training plan. Create one card per training activity, link out to a third party training app, a YouTube video or add a PDF of that day’s challenge. This keeps your participants coming back! Because each DEK can have it’s own customized branding, this is a fantastic way to promote a training plan being put on by a key sponsor.
- A dynamic story page (coming soon): In the future, you could allow participants to contribute a card towards the DEK. This is a great way to let participants share their story, especially if there is a fundraising component. Each card could link directly to that participant’s fundraising page to really help their campaign.
Why use Digital Engagement Kits?
- Increase participant engagement: Your DEK will be the most streamlined engagement opportunity you have for virtually managing the participant relationship. You can include various cards in your DEK to connect with participants at every step of the participant journey – before, during, and after your event.
- Content for before the event:
- Training tips & tricks (e.g., what to eat, discounts and links to purchase gear to train in, recipes for nutritional meals, training plans, recovery strategies, links to helpful articles)
- Fundraising links (e.g., links to donate or learn more about fundraising organizations)
- Training tips & tricks (e.g., what to eat, discounts and links to purchase gear to train in, recipes for nutritional meals, training plans, recovery strategies, links to helpful articles)
- Content for event day/weekend:
- Frequently asked questions (e.g., where to park? What does the course look like? Where to start and finish?)
- Frequently asked questions (e.g., where to park? What does the course look like? Where to start and finish?)
- Content for after the event:
- Sponsorship offers (e.g., discounts on sponsor products, memberships, etc)
- Results (e.g., link to results leaderboard, event photo gallery, photo contests, other events to sign up for, etc.)
- Drive registrations for other events (e.g., Include a call-to-action encouraging participants to register for next year’s event or other upcoming events)
- Content for before the event:
- Convenient & easy to access links: Printed materials inside race packets usually require a URL to be manually typed in or a QR code to be scanned. Since DEKs are digital, the call-to-action is just one tap or click away and you can drive instant conversions.
Example: Instead of including a printed brochure containing information about your fundraising partner inside a physical packet, you can include a “Donate now” call-to-action in your DEK, allowing them to make a donation right away!
- A rise in digital offerings: Our world has been going digital for quite some time and online shopping has drastically increased. According to Digital Commerce 360, “Online retail sales increased 32.4% year-over-year in 2020” and went “up 39% in Q1 2021”. Many shops now offer digital discount/gift codes and global shipping options, making it easy to make purchases from anywhere! This means your sponsors could also be anywhere, and you can include their offers in a DEK!
- Eco-friendly: You can be kinder to the environment by bringing your race packet online! Make it easier for your participants to access content while saving trees!
- Reduce costs: In addition to saving trees, you can also save money by delivering offers, discounts, information, and more to your participants digitally!
- Save time: You can also update info on the fly – so you don’t need to spend valuable time agonizing over the details. Simply update them as you need! Typos don’t need to live on!
- Enhance your virtual event experience: If your event is virtual, DEKs grant you the opportunity to make your experience even better! It’s also a great way to offer more value to the sponsors of your virtual event.
- Expand your expo experience: Everyone is always excited about event expos! What if you could take your expo beyond one weekend and keep that excitement going year-round? With Digital Engagement Kits, you can include all the goodies, information, and more, and deliver it at different times throughout the year to continue engaging with participants.
- Increase value for sponsors: Within your DEK, you can change the layout, size, and ordering of your groups, allowing you to select the number of cards that will be shown in each row when being viewed on a desktop. You can place more prominence on sponsors by displaying specific ones larger. This is a great way to create visual hierarchy and offer more value to your top sponsors!
Are you ready to build your DEK of cards?
Deliver exclusive content, contests, discounts, offers, and other information directly to your participants in an easily accessible and digital kit.
Setup a DEK now to offer a valuable engagement kit requiring minimal effort to build and distribute.
What’s new at Race Roster?
See all of our releases or visit our what’s new page for the most noteworthy Race Roster updates!
