Monumental Insights from the Monumental Marathon

The Indianapolis Monumental Marathon is among the 100 largest marathons in the world. The flat, fast course starts and finishes on the grounds of the Indiana State Capitol, highlighting landmarks and historical neighborhoods throughout the city. Since their first race in 2008, Monumental Marathon has made huge strides in global awareness, signups, and understanding their running audience — raising and donating over $500,000 to support public education to boot.

When their internal team switched to Eventbrite to manage registration in 2015, they couldn’t believe how quickly racers signed up, and how much further their reach extended. We sat down with Blake Boldon, Race Director of Monumental Marathon to understand their winning strategy behind branding, registration, and creating a better race experience, year after year. Take a look at Blake’s key takeaways for creating a truly monumental event.

If Your Brand’s Not Working, Go Back to the Start Line

The name Monumental Marathon was originally based on the monuments located throughout Indianapolis, which shaped the course of the race. Over the years, the team realized they could expand that definition to play into the personal feat of finishing a race. By signing up to run a race, individuals are overcoming emotions of self-doubt, and sometimes even physical obstacles. By finishing a marathon, half-marathon, or 5k, these individuals are truly doing something monumental for themselves.

Monumental Marathon started highlighting the many stories of their participants as a source of inspiration and celebration, both on social media and on their website. After heart surgery, Leslie’s doctor encouraged her to exercise, so she signed up for the 5k. The next year, she ran the half. A pre-hypertensive and pre-diabetic grandfather named Brad was inspired by his daughter to run alongside her — losing 36lbs, as well as both threats to his health. Wendy was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma on November 1, 2007. Exactly seven years later, she finished her first full marathon, reclaiming 11/1 as a day to celebrate the triumph of the human spirit. These powerful personal stories are experienced universally, and in Monumental Marathon’s case, have inspired many other non-runners to sign up for their race specifically, train hard to meet their goals, and feel a deep sense of personal pride once they do.

Be Where the People Are — Not Just the Runners

From networking functions to corporate trainings to classes, concerts and more, there are plenty of events to go around in Indianapolis. The one thing they all have in common? Eventbrite.

In 2015, Blake decided he and his team should tap into the people who are already active in the community. By hosting their fun runs, 5ks, half marathons and full marathons on Eventbrite, they knew they could reach people who attend events where they were already looking to find them. Beyond the large event-seeking community on Eventbrite, Monumental appreciated the platform’s simple 2-step registration process, as well as the social sharing capabilities to promote discounts, and let other registrants spread the word to their friends.

The switch has worked in their favor. In 2013 and 2014, the team offered a 2-day pricing sale. In 2015, working with Eventbrite, they reduced their sale to 1 day, publicly offering only 1,000 spots, but selling these out in the first several hours. After just two weeks of selling registrations, the team had already experienced a 75% increase in sales.

If Your Race is Good, Make it Great

Every year, Blake and his team send a post-event survey out to participants. They want to know from the people who ran the course what can be better next year. Do they want clearer signage? A larger staff at the water stop? The answers are typically simple logistics they can continue to improve, thanks to the Board of Directors and logistics team.

This year, the team is also planning to send out a pre-event survey in the spring to ask for requests and ideas from their participants 6 months in advance. Would they be interested in a family giveaway package? Would they attend an after party? By sending out surveys, the team is able to get direct, valuable feedback to put on the best race possible, while keeping their runners returning year after year.

Beyond building strong relationships with the runners of your community, it’s important to maintain positive relationships with Municipal governments as well. Whether you’re in a big or small city, there are plenty of non-running citizens, so a solid relationship with governments for permitting is critical. Sure, races create an inconvenience in the city, but they also provide a tremendously positive impact on the community.

Last but not least, to make a good race great, Blake recommends finding someone in the industry to serve as a mentor or as a friend. While technically you may be competing with one another, there’s nothing like connecting with someone who does what you do, who understands the challenges, and has probably come up with some creative solutions.