In February, we spent the majority of time focusing on enhancing the platform – aka making things better and easier for you. Most of the updates are tweaks, which are intuitive enough that you may not even notice them. That's perfect. The update which you find very noticiable, is the reworking and expansion of the reports. Now, you have the ability to review a more funnel-like view from actual participants through bag visits and the latest addition of visitor activity. Also, we continue to add more registration providers integration options. The latest integration partner is ZapEvent.com based in Minneapolis, MN.

Here are the detials about the recent updates: 

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We all know social media is here to stay. It’s how millions of people recreationally connect every single day. But, how can social media work for you? If you aren’t already, using social media to market is a great way to reach event participants at a time that’s convenient to them!

According to an article from Entreprenuer.com,

“Leveraging the power of content and social media marketing can help elevate your audience and customer base in a dramatic way.”

So, what’s the right way to use social media to market to existing and potential event participants? Entreprenuer.com lists out the “10 Laws of Social Media Marketing.”

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The IMT Des Moines Marathon has utilized the Virtual Event Bags platform since 2011. Event Director Chris Burch has clearly seen and believed in the logic behind the convenience, performance and environmental care a digital bag brings to his event since Day 1.

Why did you initially decide to incorporate a digital bag into your event?

The IMT Des Moines Marathon is committed to bringing products that feature technology to our athletes that can enhance their event experience. The idea of a Virtual Event Bag not only made sense from an athlete and sponsor perspective, it has been the right thing for our event to do in regards to the environment and our carbon footprint.

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Q&A with Cyndi Glass – Race Director, Jeremy's Run (Jeremy's Run is an annual Walk/Run to benefit The Partnership at Drugfree.org)

Why did you decide to go with Virtual Race Bags?

The reason I signed up with Virtual Race Bags was due to both the enormous undertaking to assemble the bags and dozens of pieces of paper, and hating the thought of where all the paper ended up…the trash.  It was also so much easier for our sponsors as it saved them money and time not having to copy a 1,000 offers/ads for a physical bag. The presentation is so much nicer than wads of paper in a physical bag as well.

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Over the course of 2013, the Virtual Race Bags platform underwent intensive development resulting in the complete conversion into a software as a service platform giving our customers complete control over their bag experience. Since our inception we always believed the platform would become self-serve, but we had to research and experience for ourselves many times over what event directors and sponsors would inside the platform. After two years of walking in the shoes of an event director, we knew the course to take to create and release the tools necessary for events of all types, shapes and sizes to be successful.

While this was a significant move, our development team is continuing to lay the foundation for many more features and capabilities which will continue to make the process streamline and more robust.

The list below outlines the key updates and feature highlights:

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We are huge fans of the distance relay events around the country – partaking as a team ourselves in one event each year. As you would imagine we are proud to share the news that Ragnar Relays, the largest series of distance relay events in the country, has decided to use our Virtual Race Bags platform to deliver digital goody bags to their event participants. Their decision warms our hearts. Being participants (of non-Ragnar events), we always wondered why an event would give a physical bag of stuff to each participant on the team at the start of the event. This old practice led to 6-12 bags of extra stuff in the vans for the 24 hour plus trek – not a great plan for exposing sponsors to participants.

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Want to learn FIRST HAND exactly why and how to successfully implement a Virtual Race Bag? Listen to our panel of race directors, as they share their experiences through a Live Q&A Webinar Session!

These three race directors take us through their journey with the Virtual Race Bags platform- giving valuable insight, tips and advice for incorporating a digital goody bag with your next event!

A special thank you to Ashley Steeves, Sue DeNardo and Kemet Gatchell!

Why wait? Renew now! We just made your decision so much easier.

We have made it even easier for your events to have a smashing digital goody bag. With our array of brand new tools inside the Event Director Dashboard, the rollout of Standard Pricing and most importantly our Renew Now – Pay Later program.

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In the early days of building the Virtual Race Bags platform, we knew there were clearly aspects of savings or conservation which would naturally happen as more events used the platform to deliver their digital goody bags. Our goal has always been to create a platform that would offer tangible "green" benefits while saving time and money for both sponsors and event directors. The question was how deep of an impact would be experienced and in what course of time. 

Now that we have delivered a marked number of digital goody bags to events across the U.S. (and some in other countries) filled with literally thousands of different offers to millions of participant, the impact is quite clear. We thought the best way to share the facts is through fun graphics and references in an ever-popular "infographic".

This infographic is a visual recap of our history charting activities through the end of the year 2012. Keep one interesting fact in mind, we have grown at exponentially progressive rates since day one. While this report is dramatic, just imagine what is possible by the end of this year.

We would like to thank all the event and their teams for sharing in our beliefs. The bottom line is every event regardless of the size all doing their part in concert counts toward making a measureable difference.