i am trying to promote my races in Florida, www.gatorhalftriathlon.com
any ideas on how
i would like to give away a Shimano Di2 Kit
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Advertise it as having a prize purse that is more than just “normal” (I believe there was a thread about it a while back?) and you’ll get some of the best triathletes in the southeast coming and telling all their friends.
Door prize!
This may come out as a joke but you give me a complete di2 kit for my tri bike and I will spend countless hours on as many forums and websites as I can to promote this half. I will also make sure to talk about it like crazy at every race I go to this year including the week I will spend at IM FL!
Let me know if you are interested.
i am trying to promote my races in Florida, www.gatorhalftriathlon.com
any ideas on how
i would like to give away a Shimano Di2 Kit
A few ways. I might put out different invitational codes on various forums (TNO, beginner, here, etc.), that would give you an idea of where some of your main subscribers are coming from. Advertise it as “Use this invitiational code to qualify for DI2 giveaway!”. If you have really gung ho advertisers that want to put it as a sig link, give extra drawing slots for their specific code (So if btmagician gets 20 people to sign up with the code MAGICIAN, he gets an extra 20 drawing chances).
Other enticements could possibly include some variant to encourage travel, such as “For anyone that travels over 200 miles to attend, you get 1 extra drawing chance for every X miles extra traveled”, so if they come 800 miles, they get 4 extra slots or some such.
Take advantage of free advertising. Add the link to your race into your signature for forums. Add it into as many race databases as you can (I checked, and it’s on here. It is not in the beginner triathlete database though. I didn’t check TNO or other sites.)
Other off the wall ideas - Have an optional prize for best positive race report posted (Because you’re going to run a great race, right? :D)
Chat it up. You’ve got a lot of good stuff going on, duathlon, aquathlon, half, a lot of appeal there.
What happens though, if one of your relay teams wins? Or are they not eligible? Are only half participants eligible? There’s a lot to consider across races like that.
Oh, and one small pet peeve. You have an established domain name. Why are you using a free MSN account as your main contact? Set up RaceDirector at gatorhalftriathlon dot com, or something similar. You can always add a forward on the back end so that any mail that comes in gets automatically forwarded to your MSN account. It’s a minor thing, but to have a free mailbox advertised for a business site always just strikes me as a bit off.
John
Prize to fastest Age grouper
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Prize to fastest Age grouper
That’s going to have a limited appeal. You might get an extra 15-20 people that think they have a shot at that. And since I didn’t see a pro wave, wouldn’t that just be the race winner? 
ETA: Another thought - Do you already have the DI2 in hand? That’s $2800 of schwag that could be bought, and the male demographic will probably be way more interested than the female. If you wanted to go a slightly different route, then you could do something like 6 $250 spa packages (To be negotiated with spa of their choice upon winning), and then 6 $250 prize packages for the guys, or split it up in other similar ways.
John
I like the door prizes. I’d give out smaller prizes (wetsuits, tribags, shoes etc.) rather than one big prize that way alot of people go home feeling good.