ETR RACE
AMBASSADOR PROGRAM

OPENS 1ST JULY EACH YEAR

Ambassador Program open 1st July each year. Email your application to CTTR and tell us why you want to be an ETR Ambassador for the following year with a couple of photos of yourself out racing. We want you to include what events and distances you have raced before and have you raced the elephant before.

Send emails to run@coastaltrackandtrailrunners.com.au

The 4 lucky people will be notified by the end of July.

2024 Crew ? WILL IT BE YOU

Event ambassadors – 4 people will be selected each year after an application process to help promote the event. A race ambassador is a person, usually an experienced racer with a substantial social media following and ties to the racing community, who undertakes to represent and promote ETR in exchange for certain benefits.

These benefits include free entry to the race of their choice and other incentives.
By setting up a race ambassador program, it is a great way to attract more participants to our event and create the kind of organic word-of-mouth publicity money cannot buy.

How does a race ambassador program work?

The basic principles behind a race ambassador program are simple:

ETR put together a package of perks we are willing to give people in return for their help. This includes free race entry.
We put the word out that you are looking for people who are keen to represent our event as race ambassadors.
We pick our ambassadors and let them get on with the job. We let them know in July after the event and they are onboard for 12 months until the next event.

What we are looking for in a race ambassador

Getting the right people onboard is key for the success of our program. We need to remember that the individuals we choose to represent ETR will be closely associated with our brand. So, we'll need to make sure they have a great attitude and embody the ethos and values we want associated with our event. They have previous ultra-running distance.

Race ambassadors come in all shapes and sizes and keeping the field diverse is a wise strategy. However, regardless of individual circumstances, there is a few things we’d want to look for in all our ambassadors:

Enthusiasm about your race. Cannot fake it and need quite a lot of it to succeed as race ambassador. Usually, the people who will apply to be ambassadors will do so because they feel pretty excited about our race in the first place. So hopefully this will be an easy condition to meet.
Strong social media following. Enthusiasm is nice, but if ambassadors are going to be effective in promoting the Elephant Trail Race they'll need to have a voice online. Check out our potential ambassadors' following on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram (or even more specialised platforms like Strava). If they're active and followed by many we are on to winners.
Good communication skills. This sort of goes hand-in-hand with the social media reach, but extends to our ambassador's effectiveness off-line as well as on-line. Make sure our ambassadors have a good understanding of our race and brand, and can put their enthusiasm into words when it matters.
Good connections in the sports community. That means running clubs, running stores, gyms - basically anywhere where they can be expected to promote our race. They don't have to be presidents of their running club to be effective and sometimes being just a super-engaged regular club member can be a lot more helpful. But we are looking for people who participate in and have connections within the community.
Being based in an area of interest. If our goal is to further promote our race Australia wide and international, so we are looking for people outside our area. We want to reach out to new target areas.
A commitment to our race. If you find a real super-star race ambassador, it's worth trying to get them to commit to working with our race exclusively rather than splitting their time with other events. That means going the extra mile with your incentives to guarantee their full commitment.

What's a race ambassador expected to do?

There's a number of ways ambassadors can help our event:

Promote our event online. This is one of the core missions of a well-connected influencer ambassador. They can write posts about our race on their website, blog, and social media accounts, raising awareness for the Elephant Trail Race with their followers, as well as help share important announcements and press releases and ETR posts. Additionally, race ambassadors can help educate people about the Elephant Trail Race online after their own experiences at the event.
Promote our event offline. Depending on the specifics of our race, promoting the Elephant Trail Race event offline could be an equally valuable contribution for race ambassadors. For example, ambassadors could help distribute flyers at their local running stores, gyms, and university campuses. More importantly, they can show up in races wearing the Elephant Trail Race event race gear and help spread the word in the racing community about how great our event is and why people should register for it.
Invite people to register for our event. Whether offline or online, a big part of your ambassador's mission - and one they can be directly evaluated on - is getting people to register for the Elephant Trail Race.
Contribute content. Taking pictures out on course training or from previous ETR events and videos related to ETR (and then sharing it online

What race ambassadors get in return

Most race ambassadors will likely choose to promote our race for the sake of doing the race itself and because they'd want to promote an event they love.

Free race entry - Each ambassador will receive free entry 100km or less (if you want to race 160km or 217km you pay the difference) into the distance of their choice. Assuming they've earned it and excelled in their role (either putting in lots of work, contributing greatly in time or helping register lots of participants).
Publicity & recognition - This is very important to a wide range of ambassador profiles. Some ambassadors will have a story to share - perhaps about overcoming adversity through sport - and would value the publicity our website or social media could provide. Others, will be sports industry professionals, such as personal trainers, physios etc, and will also appreciate the publicity to show their clients what they are achieving in their personal life.