Malcolm Sutherland
Event & Race Director of the Loch Ness Half Marathon

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Marketing

This section aims to give those who are new to event marketing a basic guide to refer to, and to share experiences and common practice regarding all aspects of promoting an event to the public. We encourage you to contribute to the portal, sharing your experiences on what has worked for your event and what was less successful. The end result should hopefully provide us all with a better understanding of what is involved and the knowledge and confidence to maximise the effectiveness of our marketing activity.

We are experiencing massive growth in running and running events (both road races and multi-terrain) at this time, and the competition between events is considerable. All events irrespective of size and format require promotion. This could be simply to increase entry numbers, or to raise awareness of the event and raise the profile of a sponsor. Many of the most successful events are those with a market-led approach. They have a clear vision of what they are trying to achieve and how they will achieve it.

We plan to cover the following in this section:

Where to Start

•  Setting clear and achievable objectives
•  SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses,
   opportunities and threats)
•  Identifying your target market
•  Identifying resources (time, budget and
   personnel)

Marketing Strategy

•  Drawing up a marketing plan
•  Marketing tools (materials and actions)

Media Relations

These sections will be updated throughout the coming year and I look forward to engaging in conversation about each topic.

Malcolm Sutherland