{"id":3276,"date":"2022-12-01T17:48:43","date_gmt":"2022-12-01T15:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/?p=3276"},"modified":"2022-12-01T17:48:43","modified_gmt":"2022-12-01T15:48:43","slug":"early-bird-pricing-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/event-marketing\/early-bird-pricing-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"How An Early Bird Pricing Strategy Can Power Up Your Race Entry Numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Early Bird pricing is a limited time offer encouraging participants to book with you now. It comes from the phrase \u2018the early bird catches the worm\u2019, meaning if you buy now, you get the best possible deal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A simplified version of this would be, if your race costs $50 to enter at full price, you offer an early bird price at $40, which lasts for a short period encouraging participants to make an immediate purchasing decision.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Deployed correctly, it can be a powerful method for converting sales, conveying urgency and bringing in early cash commitments to your race.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Early Bird Pricing Strategy: What Discounts To Apply<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Your discount needs to be sizable enough to encourage early purchases while still offering incentives for participants to book at different stages of the sales cycle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Twenty percent off the full price is a good starting point, which drops down to 5% when certain thresholds are met (more on this later). This simple tiered structure is highly effective:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Super early bird: 20% off full price<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Early bird 1: 10% off full price\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Early bird 2: 5% off full price\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Full price: no discount\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Early Bird Timings Strategy \u2013 When To Apply\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since early bird pricing relies on creating urgency and scarcity of product, there are two methods for encouraging action.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Method 1: Allocate ticket numbers to the early bird pricing tiers. For example, if you expect to sell 200 tickets, the following will apply:\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Super early bird: first 25 tickets allocated\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Early bird 1: next 50 tickets allocated\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Early bird 2: next 50 tickets allocated\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Full price: 75 tickets allocated\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Method 2: Plan timings to create urgency. For example, if you have 6 months between the race launch and when the race is set to run, you can plan an approach as follows:<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Super early bird: 6 hours only after launch\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Early bird 1: runs for 1 month<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Early bird 2: suns for 2 months\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Full price: kicks in at 3 months\u00a0before the race<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Generally, the earlier in the year <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/the-best-time-to-open-registration-for-your-race\/\">you open registrations the better<\/a><\/strong>. If you open for the following year\u2019s edition already during your current race weekend, it can be a good idea to also run an exclusive offer for athletes on-site if they sign up for next year right away.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>How To Communicate Your Early Bird Pricing\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Your Early Bird discounts are of little use if you just activate them on your registration page and don\u2019t do anything else about it. You need to make a marketing &amp; promotional plan to communicate your Early Bird prices to your audience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Make sure you <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/how-to-succeed-with-endurance-race-marketing\/\">plan communications in all your channels<\/a><\/strong>, such as count downs and reminders, a week or two before every pricing increase. Social media can be a great tool as you get closer to the pricing change, for example \u201824 hours\u2019 and \u20181 hour\u2019 left of Early Bird pricing encourages customers to make a purchasing decision now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the most efficient ways to promote your race and Early Bird pricing is to email your past participants. Make sure you keep a list of all your previous participants, and schedule email send-outs to them regularly &#8211; especially when you launch your registration and the\u00a0 best Early Bird price!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Is Early Bird Pricing Really Worth It?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We leave this one for John Paul Lacroix who is Race Director of <\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/humanpotentialrunning.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Human Potential Running Series<\/a><\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to answer: \u2018\u2018Our early bird pricing lasts just three days and on the night of the third day I host a live show on Facebook. The show is 3 hours long and folks can save an additional 10-20% off during the 3-hour window. Then at midnight, every race sees its first price increase. It\u2019s our biggest night of the year financially\u2019\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As you can see from this example, an Early Bird pricing strategy combined with an efficient launch and promotional plan can make a huge difference!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, for Early Bird Pricing to be really worth it, it must also be enough of a discount for athletes to care about it. If you discount too little, participants may not care and prioritize the convenience of signing up late over saving a few extra bucks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To make this strategy work even better, especially in current difficult times, consider also offering some kind of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/refundable-booking\/\">refundable booking insurance<\/a> <\/strong>for your athletes. This way, they can feel secure at the moment of booking, knowing that they are covered in case they get sick or injured on race day, and can still go for the early bird price while there\u2019s still time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Need to open registrations quickly, with early bird pricing built in? <a href=\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/get-started-with-raceid\/\">Get started with RaceID<\/a> today!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Early Bird pricing is a limited time offer encouraging participants to book with you now. It comes from the phrase \u2018the early bird catches the worm\u2019, meaning if you buy now, you get the best possible deal.\u00a0 A simplified version of this would be, if your race costs $50 to enter at full price, you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22,123],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.11 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Get Your Race&#039;s Early Bird Pricing Right | RaceID Organizer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"See how you set up your early bird pricing strategy to get the most out of it - grow race and entries in earlier!\" \>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/event-marketing\/early-bird-pricing-strategy\/\" \>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Get your race&#039;s early bird pricing right | raceid organizer\" \>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"See how you set up your early bird pricing strategy to get the most out of it - grow race and entries in earlier!\" \>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/event-marketing\/early-bird-pricing-strategy\/\" \>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"RaceID organizer\" \>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-12-01T15:48:43+00:00\" \>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/earlybird-featured-image-blog-18.png\" \>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"762\" \>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"372\" \>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred newton\" \>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred newton\" \>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/event-marketing\/early-bird-pricing-strategy\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/event-marketing\/early-bird-pricing-strategy\/\",\"name\":\"Get Your Race's Early Bird Pricing Right | RaceID Organizer\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-12-01T15:48:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-12-01T15:48:43+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/#\/schema\/person\/9242a354333eea2c5dcd0a7d141e6725\"},\"description\":\"See how you set up your Early Bird pricing strategy to get the most out of it - grow your race and get entries in earlier!\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/event-marketing\/early-bird-pricing-strategy\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/event-marketing\/early-bird-pricing-strategy\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/event-marketing\/early-bird-pricing-strategy\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How An Early Bird Pricing Strategy Can Power Up Your Race Entry Numbers\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/\",\"name\":\"RaceID Organizer\",\"description\":\"Inspiration, tips and resources for planning spectacular endurance races\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/#\/schema\/person\/9242a354333eea2c5dcd0a7d141e6725\",\"name\":\"Fred Newton\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/raceid.com\/organizer\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53eb894d1276617a11e3e2a6e832a2b2?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53eb894d1276617a11e3e2a6e832a2b2?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Fred Newton\"},\"description\":\"Fred used to run the Breca Swimrun race series and regularly participates in ultra endurance events. 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