Goodie Bag Ideas

[DanStrutz]

Does anyone have some good ideas of companies I could contact about donating samples to put into goodie bags for participating runners?

[Trailrunnerdude]

yes - your corporate sponsors. Often, many of these sponsors are happy to provide brochures, refrigerator magnets, pens & other marketing materials for these packets - particularly since races will insert these materials for free.

[pstewart]

You are likely going to need some decent numbers to attract signifcant interest. You might look at the appropriate products that are advertising in RW and RT. In fact the race director programs at these magazines (along with the Running Network) may have some leads as they sometimes serve as the conduit between the manufacturers and the events as a service. One company that seems to be doing quite a bit now is Mars candy bars which is featuring its Snickers bars in goodie bags.

[JamesM]

Quite a few manufactures have sample size products.
Focus on things that runners will use or need over the weekend, otherwise it just becomes binned junk. Try:

body glide
sample size sun block
any protean bar

j&j band aids
sample antiseptic
sample hand sanitizer soap
sample sized pack of Kleenex or baby wipes
sample pack of Aleve, aspirin or Tylinol

local city one day buss pass
city map and/or transit map
coupons for local restaurants
city guide / nightlife guide (normaly free)

hat clip with sponsors name on the strap
sponsored pair of running socks (if you can get some one to sponsor them)

discount coupons for local running stores


What's in a goody bag, and if it's even a good idea, depends a lot on your race length. For shorter races I find goody bags are a menace: You have to make a trip back to your car to drop it off.

Much better to have an after the race fair where vendors can setup tents, give out samples and people can hang out waiting for the awards. That way they leave with their stuff after the race and the vendors got some face time with interested people.

I think marketing by goddy bag is over rated. Most times people open it up, take one or two things out and junk the rest. 80% of it does directly in the bin.

It's what's there to eat and have after the race that makes the biggest impression.

[Tom Filippone]

At a race committee meeting for an upcoming race I am involved with, someone mentioned the idea of not having a Goodie bag. I have heard that some races are having registered runners going online to print the coupons they want instead of getting dozens of them in a bag the don't want. I think Shamrock was one race that has gone without a Goodie bag. But one member believed that sponsors want their name in print for visibility. Has any of your races given up on goodie bags? And if so, how have the sponsors responded?

It may be more than just going green. Not everyone wants to carry around a bag full of stuff at picket pick up and drag it back home and then throw out most of the contents.

[joeconn4]

At a race committee meeting for an upcoming race I am involved with, someone mentioned the idea of not having a Goodie bag. I have heard that some races are having registered runners going online to print the coupons they want instead of getting dozens of them in a bag the don't want. I think Shamrock was one race that has gone without a Goodie bag. But one member believed that sponsors want their name in print for visibility. Has any of your races given up on goodie bags? And if so, how have the sponsors responded?

It may be more than just going green. Not everyone wants to carry around a bag full of stuff at picket pick up and drag it back home and then throw out most of the contents.

We went to an E-Bag this year for most of the stuff normally put into a goody bag. 2 years ago we pretty much stopped putting race fliers in our goody bags. A race had to pay a very high premium to put their own flier in the good bag-for everyone else we just printed their info 4 to a page, double sided, to cut down on the bulk of paper in the bag.

Now we've expanded the policy to only put items of value into the bag; product samples, merchandise, etc. The only exceptions we make are when sponsor agreements specifically include goody bag access. The bag might be smaller but everything in there is something a majority of our runners want; lip balm, Clif Bar Shot Blok samples, local soap samples, local chocolate samples, maple syrup. Feedback from runners has been nearly unanimously positive.

Feedback from sponsors has been positive too. By doing an E-Bag it's easy to send your runners multiple goody bags. We did an E-Bag 2 weeks before the race, then another one right after the race, and we plan to do another one a month before we open registration for next year. By sending multiple E-Bags (fine line between enough and too much here, but if the E-Bag has good stuff in it it's not seen as spam email) our sponsors get more breadth of coverage. Usually they would just have the 1 chance for a runner to see their literature and make the connection to the race (in the goody bag) but by doing the E-Bag they get in front of the runner multiple times.