Rip It Events: Racing Towards Marketing Success 

Feature they can’t live without: Contact list segmentation

Danny Serpico is fast. He’s a fast talker, he is quick with all the going-ons of his business, and oh, yeah — he’s a runner. Danny deals in helping people push their bodies past their known limits. He’s an athlete, a coach, and since 2010, he has been the owner and operator of Rip It Events located in Columbia, Maryland. 

Because of the fast paced lifestyle Danny lives and works with, he expects the tools he uses to support himself and his business to be fast too. It takes a lot of time and energy to host large events, so Danny relies on marketing tools like email to help him stay organized and get to the right people, fast. 

For the love of running 

Rip It Events started out in the nonprofit world. A passion project by Danny, his wife, and their friends, their first races were planned to help bring together athletes and to raise money for charitable causes. Danny put in a ton of work to make their early events successful, and soon he realized that he could make a career out of doing what he loved. That’s when Rip It Events evolved from charitable one-offs into a racing events company with multiple coaching packages. 

A one man show

Because of the nature of his business, Danny spends a lot of time working on marketing — a good workout for his degree in Marketing and Advertising from Towson University. To publicize upcoming events as well as direct registrations and advertise coaching packages, Danny focuses on email marketing, social media, and YouTube to generate buzz and document past races. Motivational stories, short clips, photos, and event graphics populate the company’s social feeds. 

This year, Danny has the enormous task of planning and publicizing 18 racing events, and this is where email marketing becomes the hero of Danny’s day-to-day marketing strategy. Prior to hosting a race, Danny is glued to his email, arranging contractors, sponsors, permitting, and approvals, as well as to manage marketing emails for race participants and potential runners. 

Audience knowledge

Danny pays close attention to the demographics of his racers. This audience knowledge helps him craft content that fits his target audience and to determine who he hasn’t reached yet. “People that come to our races, you know, they’re gonna be folks that are between the ages of 30 and 50. You know because of that range, you’ve got folks that are between 30 and 55, 60 years old that are in a full-time job that aren’t necessarily paying as close attention to email and marketing on their personal stuff during the day.” This demographic information is important not only for content creation but also for sending time. Danny uses the information he gathers from social media engagement rates to select the optimal time to schedule his email sends. This is usually in the evening, ensuring that he gains the maximum amount of opens and clicks. 

Choose your own adventure emails

Danny knows each marketing email he sends needs to provide important information about  safety, event location, pricing, and more to make sure his participants are properly informed and ready to run their best race. Design tools within Constant Contact allow Danny to craft emails that maintain his company’s brand image while still giving him room to customize for each unique event. Additionally, design features like hyperlinks and call to action (CTA) buttons create avenues for email recipients to navigate to frequently asked questions (FAQs), event registrations, and a more comprehensive webpage for event information. 

“The email builder is super easy to use. I love that you can drag and drop items into place, resize and format. The builder has all of the functions I need including the ability to add header photos, buttons and videos from outside sources such as YouTube. It’s simple and user friendly.”

Danny Serpico, founder and owner of Rip It Events

Keeping it all organized 

Eighteen events is a lot to keep up with, which is why Danny uses list segmentation to make sure the right email reaches the right audience. “Each race has its own list so I can market to that particular list,” Danny said.  Additionally, keeping multiple lists means that Danny can review  contacts with ease. “All my lists are all populated by people who have done that race specifically. So race A, race B, race C, race D and so on. But we’ve been doing this for so many years that I’ve got a million race lists.” For general emails, Danny uses reporting features to track attrition — making sure he’s making adjustments for unengaged contacts, which promotes trust and credibility for his organization. 

Building a following 

The success of Rip It Events is based on having a healthy amount of interested participants. To make sure Danny’s roster is filled for each race, he uses Constant Contact to inform his target audience of upcoming events. He designs custom emails, creates segmented lists, and keeps track of the active audience. “Through email, social media channels, and through creative content with the YouTube channel,” Danny is able to build a following for his business.