What we are looking for in a race ambassador

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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.