Retention Is the New Battleground for Endurance Events

Around the world, endurance events are booming. Gone are pandemic woes and declining participation rates. On the contrary, participation is up, first-time runners are flooding into 5Ks, half marathons, triathlons, and trail races, and demand has never looked healthier.

But like with any industry, growth cycles in the endurance space are unpredictable. What feels like a permanent surge is usually a temporary peak. When participation inevitably plateaus or contracts, the events that continue to grow and thrive will not be the ones that acquired the most runners at the top. They will be the ones that kept them year over year.

Despite conventional wisdom that bringing in new racers is the key to financial success, retention is the true king of revenue amplification for endurance events. And this should make sense. After all, endurance events are a marathon, not a sprint. Let’s take a look at why retention can drive so much more value for your race.

Acquisition Is Getting Harder and More Expensive

Costs are rising across every channel, especially if you’re paying for multiple marketing tools on top of registration, volunteer management, and other core capabilities. (And why would you be, when you could be using haku?) 

Meanwhile, perennial challenges are only getting more severe. Whether it’s paid social getting noisier, inboxes growing ever more saturated, or SMS messages becoming associated with spam, it’s harder than ever to stand out. Add on how the rise of AI search is cutting into organic reach, even though AI discoverability is emerging. On top of these technical challenges, runners have more event options than ever before. 

Simply put, acquiring a new participant now requires more spend, more touchpoints, and more convincing. You need to win their attention and convince them to commit even before you earn a single dime of their money. But there is no need for doom and gloom because of one simple fact: retaining an existing participant does not require that extra expenditure.

The math is simple. It is far more efficient to re-engage someone who already knows your brand, trusts your event, and has crossed a finish line with you than to persuade a new runner to take a leap for the first time.

First-Time Runners Are Often One-Time Runners

The industry loves celebrating first-time runners, but the uncomfortable truth is that many of them never come back. Why is that? 

The simple truth is that life happens. When motivation fades, then training cycles feel more intimidating, and the idea of putting in so much effort seems less appealing. That’s why, if an event does not actively nurture that runner after race day, someone or something else will all-but-inevitably take their attention and effort. Finishers are deeply invested in the event and they have to dig deep and complete the race, but if you don’t keep them engaged the finish line becomes the end of the line for their running journey with your event.

Fair warning: retention is not about sending one post-race email. It is about turning a single experience into an identity that persists year over year, event over event. If you can turn “I ran a race once” into “I am a runner and this is my event” then you have not only enriched that participant’s life and given them a powerful identity, but secured your own revenue stream as well.

Loyal Runners Build Stronger Events

Repeat participants behave differently from first-time runners in a few key ways. Compared to first timers, the participants that you retain: 

• Register earlier and with fewer reminders.
• Spend more on merch and extras.
• Bring more friends to the event as participants.
• Forgive small mistakes more easily.
• Advocate on your behalf without being asked.

What this demonstrates is that a retained runner is not just one more registration. Every participant that you retain contributes to your marketing, community, and stability, all without significant extra cost to your organization. 

Retention is The Endurance Industry’s Biggest Blind Spots

One of the biggest issues in the endurance events industry is the narrow view that organizers and race directors have of their participants. 

If your participants are only an email address for most of the year, then you won’t retain them. The events that thrive and grow year-over-year-over-year are the ones that look beyond registration deadlines and race weekend logistics. Instead, these successful events put effort into treating their participants like part of a community. 

Consider the iconic Bix 7, which we covered in a recent blog. Their community emphasis meant that even during the disruptions that came from COVID-19, they had people participate in their race virtually and as Michelle Juehring said, “sending pictures from China and Germany saying, ‘Here we are doing the Bix,’”.  When you foster that community spirit, retention comes naturally.

The flip side that we can’t ignore is this.  Runners are also customers. Not in a cold, commoditized sense, but in the truest business sense. Your participants choose where to spend their time, money, and energy. They fully expect experiences that reflect that choice.

Events that fail to acknowledge this fact, often let the customer relationship drop off rather than investing in rewards, retention programs, or enhancing their community. If your participants only hear from you during registration season, you’re not actually engaging in a retention strategy, but rather a re-acquisition strategy.

This is a critical distinction. 

Why Retention Efforts Fall Flat for So Many Events

Most organizers know retention matters, but don’t have the right tools or processes in place to succeed. In some cases, the tools they use are subtly working against their retention efforts.

You are outsourcing your brand equity

When your registration, results, participant accounts, and communications live on platforms that are not fully and truly whitelabeled, your brand becomes secondary. Be sure to create a cohesive brand identity across channels and communications. 

This truly matters because runners remember where they registered and logged in. If that experience feels like someone else’s product with your logo layered on top, you’re missing out on an opportunity to build your brand.

You cannot scale personalization without a full view of the runner

Many tools store data, but very few turn it into something actionable. Without a true 360 degree view of each runner, it is impossible to understand lifecycle stage, intent, or risk of churn. In turn, this means communications are often generic, particularly if you use a registration tool  that isn’t built with a CRM at its core. 

When you communicate with your customers, show them you know who they are and what they care about. This is easier when you have a platform that goes beyond mere registration to also enable rewards, analytics, marketing, and more. 

Your tech stack is fragmented

If you’re like most endurance event organizers, chances are you have many tools for running your event. Maybe you use a registration tool, but deploy another tool for email, and a third for your ecommerce. You may even have a separate CRM, with volunteer management in some other tool, and  post results using yet another. When this happens you have a disconnected view of your customers. That’s because each system knows a piece of the runner, but none of them know the whole story.

While integrations can reduce manual work, they are not a silver bullet. Connected systems still operate as separate products with separate data models, timing, and limitations. Data may move between tools, but it rarely arrives in a way that enables real-time understanding or meaningful personalization.

Without a single, unified platform serving as the source of truth, organizers cannot easily re-engage runners, reward loyalty, or intervene before someone churns. Those moments are missed not because organizers are inactive, but because the systems they rely on were never designed for retention in the first place.

You only engage around race day

Unfortunately, many platforms are optimized for transactions, not relationships. Even with a great registration tool, that's excellent at getting someone registered and processed on race weekend, you still need to build year round engagement. If you aren’t building your relationship with your racers between races, then you’ll struggle to gain their repeat business. 

Why haku Changes the Retention Equation

At haku, we believe retention is not a side effect of great events, but rather the result of a dedicated strategy. 

That’s why we help event organizers truly own their brand, their data, and their participant relationships. 

By unifying participant data across events, fundraising, memberships, loyalty, results, merchandise, communications, and more, organizers gain a complete view of each runner as a customer with a lifetime journey, not a one-time transaction. 

That greater insight enables scalable, personalized engagement before, during and long after race day. 

The results speak for themselves. Events that partner with haku see 18 percent higher retention rates than the industry average. Not because they market harder, but because haku, unlike any other platform, enables deeply personalized, year-round engagement without adding staff, complexity, or operational costs.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why should endurance events prioritize retention when participation numbers are still growing?

Because growth cycles peak and fade. Events that win long term are the ones that keep runners year over year. Retention costs less, compounds revenue, and creates stability when acquisition inevitably gets harder.

What factors cause runners to stop coming back after their first race?

Life happens. Without ongoing engagement, motivation fades, training feels daunting, and participant attention shifts. If you stop communicating after the race, the finish line becomes the end of the relationship instead of just one part of a runner’s journey.

Can small or mid-sized events realistically run a retention strategy without adding staff or cost?

Yes, but only with the right systems. Retention efforts are far more bandwidth intensive when tools are fragmented. A unified platform automates personalization and engagement, so organizers can retain runners without adding complexity or headcount.

How is retention different from just sending more emails or marketing year-round?

Retention is about relationships, not volume. It means understanding the full runner journey and engaging them personally across the year. More emails without insight is re-acquisition, not retention. 

How can haku help me increase retention for my endurance event? 

Retention is not something you fix with one campaign or one feature. It is built into the systems that power how you engage runners before, during, and long after race day.

haku gives you the infrastructure to turn retention into a repeatable, scalable strategy without adding staff, complexity, or cost.

Explore how the haku platform helps you build lasting runner relationships:

• Rewards - Automated rewards and recognition programs drive repeat participation and long-term loyalty.
  
  
• Automations - Lifecycle-based automations enable personalized, timely engagement at scale across the full runner journey.
  
  
• CRM - A unified CRM gives you a true 360 degree view of every runner as a customer, not just a registrant.
  

• Marketing - Built-in marketing tools power segmented, highly personalized campaigns that keep runners engaged beyond race day.
  
  

If retention is where your growth strategy is headed, haku is how you get there. Ready to talk?