Tips & Tricks | Estimated Read time – 3:10
Creating an impactful and consistent brand is key to ensuring your endurance event stands out from the crowd.
Successful event branding can help you attract more participants, set the tone for your event, and deliver a memorable experience that will keep people coming back.
Building a great brand for your event doesn’t have to be expensive, complicated, or overwhelming. In fact, it should be fun and rewarding.
We’re here to walk you through the essentials of event branding – what it is, its importance, its biggest benefits — and how you can create a brand for your event that your participants will love.
What is event branding?
Branding is the process of creating and establishing a distinctive identity unique to your endurance event that connects emotionally with your target audience.
Branding is more than a beautiful logo, eye-catching color scheme, and distinct typography. Successful branding is built around your event’s purpose and how that purpose aligns with what your target audience gets out of your event.
Why should your audience spend their money on registering for your event and spend their time participating? Your branding has to explain that simply, efficiently, and emotionally.
For example, you organize an annual 5K family fun run. Your event’s branding should speak to families who enjoy exercising together in a friendly and welcoming setting.
Or let’s say you coordinate a marathon every year for cancer research. Your event has to connect emotionally with experienced athletes who are passionate about this cause.
Think of the best-branded endurance events you’ve seen. What do they have in common?
The best event branding rallies its target audience around a single purpose with an emotionally driven message that’s clear, meaningful, different, authentic, and likeable.
Why event branding is important
Your event’s branding plays a crucial role in shaping the perception of your event and influencing the overall experience for your participants and other attendees.
Here are three reasons why branding your event is important:
- Attracting Your Target Audience:
Effective event branding tells your target audience why your event is relevant to them. By aligning your event’s brand with the interests of the participants you’re targeting, you’ll attract the right people, market more effectively, and increase your registration. - Establishing Identity and Theme:
A strong event brand conveys the purpose, values, and/or theme of your event. It sets the tone and expectation for your participants, helping them understand what to anticipate and creating a cohesive, immersive, and memorable experience. - Differentiation and Recognition:
Your event branding will help distinguish your endurance event from similar events in your area. With unique and well-crafted branding, your event will stand out so potential participants in your target audience choose you over others.
The Benefits of Event Branding
Effective branding can provide a range of benefits, contributing to the overall success and impact of your event as well as boosting its potential for growth in the future.
Let’s explore a trio of important benefits of event branding:
- Increased Attendance
A strong and attractive event brand can capture the attention of your target audience beyond your current participant base, leading to a wider reach and increased attendance. Potential participants are more likely to be drawn to your event with a well-defined and appealing brand. - Improved Participant Engagement:
Cohesive and engaging branding that connects with your participants at every level can improve the overall event experience. People are more likely to actively participate in activities, share experiences on social media, create UGC you can use for promotion, and interact with your content when your brand resonates with them. - Enhanced Sponsorship Opportunities:
Sponsors often look for events that align with their brand values and objectives. If your event is well-branded, it can attract more sponsors, leading to increased financial support and the potential for long-term partnerships.
How to effectively brand your endurance event
We’ve covered what branding is, why it’s important to your event, and how your event can benefit from it. Now let’s talk about how you can create your endurance event’s branding quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively.
Creating your event’s brand should be a fun learning experience. Get your team involved, research other events and brands to see what you like (and what you don’t like), and explore a variety of different creative approaches.
With that said, here are four easy steps you can follow that will help you create a brand for your event that your participants will love:
1. Define your event’s purpose
Your event branding should tell your target audience the purpose of your event and why participating is worth it for them. That’s where a mission statement is valuable.
How do you develop a mission statement that aligns with your target audience’s “why”?
Start by asking yourself why your event exists and what impact you want your event to have in your community. Next, determine the core values that are essential to your purpose and mission. Finally, consider your target audience and tailor your mission statement to resonate emotionally with the people you’re trying to reach.
After you’ve crafted a great mission statement, the other elements of your event’s brand should fall into place easily. Your mission statement can act as a guide that helps drive every decision you make for your event, including branding.
If you have the time, another option is to host a branding workshop.
A branding workshop is a collaborative and interactive session with important stakeholders who help you uncover the core values of your brand, pinpoint your target audience, identify your event’s unique selling points (USPs), and make decisions about your event’s branding strategy.
11 questions to ask at your event branding workshop:
- Why does our endurance event exist?
- Who is our target audience?
- What values are important to our event?
- How do we want our event to be perceived?
- What makes our event unique or special?
- What emotions do we want to evoke in participants?
- How should our event be visually represented?
- What are the key messages we want to communicate?
- What are our competitors doing, and how can we differentiate ourselves?
- How can our sponsors align with our brand?
- What are the long-term goals for our event’s brand?
2. Create a wordmark for your event
Creating a logo can be a daunting task, especially if you don’t have any experience in marketing or design. The good news is there is a simpler option that can be just as effective: a wordmark.
You can build a great brand with a wordmark that aligns with your event’s purpose and values.
A wordmark is a textual representation of your endurance event’s name. Wordmarks are simple, versatile and powerful for building brand recognition. The “Coca-Cola” and “Google” wordmarks are among the world’s most recognizable examples.
How do you create a wordmark? If working with a professional designer isn’t a viable option, you can use online tools like Canva or Logo Maker to create your event’s wordmark. These and similar online tools offer free or tiered pricing options.
Once you’ve picked an effective wordmark for your event, apply it consistently throughout your participants’ event experience. Consistency will help you drive brand awareness, event loyalty, and deeper connections with participants and attendees.
3. Write a tagline that communicates your mission
A tagline is a short phrase that concisely conveys your event’s purpose and makes a connection with your target audience. The best taglines are easy to remember and evoke emotion in your audience — think Nike’s “Just Do It” or “I’m Lovin’ It” from McDonald’s.
Your event’s tagline should be somewhere between 3–5 words. It’s also impactful if a tagline has a double meaning but don’t sacrifice a clear message for a clever one. Anyone who reads your tagline should be able to understand it instantly.
To get started on your tagline, we recommend referencing your event’s mission statement and distilling it down into a memorable slogan. That way, you know your tagline aligns with your overall branding strategy and resonates with your target audience.
4. Pick colors that align with your event’s purpose
Like a wordmark or tagline, colors play an important part in creating a brand that connects with your audience. Colors convey emotion, set the tone, and create a visual identity that resonates.
Does your event have a purpose or a cause that already has a specific color palette associated with it? If so, align your event’s brand with those colors.
If there are no previously associated colors, pick ones you like! Consider a color palette that will be impactful to your event’s participants, as well as the psychological associations of colors. Using online tools like Coolers and Colormind can help you find the right color palette to fit your event’s brand.
With your big branding decisions made, start implementing your brand consistently everywhere that you interact with your participants.
Update your event website, promotional emails, and event signage. Introduce your new branding on social media. And don’t forget about swag!
Conclusion
Creating a branding strategy is important to the success of your endurance event and it doesn’t have to be an overwhelming process.
By following these tips and strategies, you can easily create a memorable and consistent identity for your event that will leave a lasting impression on participants, attract new sponsors, and catch the attention of more potential registrants.
Remember to always keep your target audience in mind when making decisions about your event’s brand, stay true to your purpose and values, and be creative in your approach.
With the right branding strategy in place, your endurance event will stand out for years to come.
