This is my Relays first year to be online and I am having a hard time getting the teams to even look at the page. I even brought laptops to the last meeting. Does anyone have any ideas on what I can do to get them more involved in the page?
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January 18, 2009 - 2:57pm
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It definitely starts out
It definitely starts out slow. Part of the "help" in my county has been the threat that the participants will NOT be guaranteed a shirt in the size of their choice unless they are online.
Sure, there are still plenty of people that don't really use the website, but at least someone ends up registering them online. I try to push for correct e-mail addresses, since they are useful for the e-mail blasts.
This year, to try to make things even EASIER for them, I created an online signup worksheet. On it is all the information they have to fill out when they sign up. They can fill it out and then sign themselves up, give the form to their captain, or turn it into me/my husband.
More teams/participants have already signed up than at this point last year. About a month before Relay is our t-shirt deadline (when the sizes get pulled from the site from our staff partner). In 2009, we had a lot fewer people to get online "last minute". I'm hoping that we'll have even less this year.
My husband is trying a ploy, too - raise $10,000 online, and he'll dress in a purple leotard as the "Power of Purple Man" for an entire day at the local county fair. :) We'll see how that goes!
Online first time
It's not easy to convince people to register their team online. Being this is your first year, it's even harder. But do not give up. Use incentives to entice teams to register online. Have a deadline that by the next captain meeting, any teams that register online will get a small prize. (See your staff person to find out what you can give out.) Maybe your next incentive can be the team who has the most donations online or the most team members registered online, etc...
Remind them that if they register online, that is less paperwork to deal with. They do not have to fill out Participant & Waiver forms if they go online. (If under eighteen, they can register online but still need a hard copy waiver form on file.) They can send emails out to their address book. People can send donations to you via credit card online. This will cut down on the amount of time spent counting and turning in captain envelopes and more time devoted to Relay and to Fight Back!
I like that you brought in laptops. Take it the next step and actually help them register the team online right there. If they are not comfortable with the computer, ask them to select a team member who is and can help set-up the team webpage.
My team captain does not like computers but she always registers the team online because she knows there are team members who are great with online features. She will never use the webpage herself, prefering to send letters out via snail mail but is confident having another team member monitoring the online activities and help other team members use the features.
Highlight the postitives of online. Offer more chances to "train" for teams. Our first year did not go so great. By the 2nd year, we were slowly increasing. Last year was our 4th year online. Out of the 109 teams, we had 99 register online. Not bad.
One thing we do at ours is
One thing we do at ours is to offer incentives - like a monetary prize (transferred from event funds raised) to the team with the most emails sent in one month. To send the emails, they have to be registered online so the emails can be tracked.
tracking the emails?
Debbie - It's funny that I found this here tonight :) We also want to do this incentive, but were not sure how to track the emails. This is my first year working online and I'm slowly learning. Can you send me in the right direction for the information on how and where to track the emails from the EMC?
Thanks so much!
Christi Gainer
Relay For Life of Berkeley County WV
www.relayforlife.org/berkeleywv
Tracking emails
Hey there, if you log into the site under the event manager status, you can go into the reports section and pull reports on emails sent by participants. It's the pretty close to the top of the list of reports. I think you can even choose a date range so you can focus on a certain time period if you are doing contests or things.
Hope that helps,
Brenda
Online vs Offline registration
Actually anyone that is registered will have a participant page and therefore be able to send emails regardless of whether they registered online or not. I'd have to take a look at the available report fields to see if there is a way to differentiate online vs offline registration. You could go by registering with a credit/debit card but that is not required for online registration but can only be use during online registration. I'll take a look and see what I can find out.
Jon
Hello Everyone,
I am new to
Hello Everyone,
I am new to the online side of Relay for Life, but I have been a volunteer and participant for 5 years now. I have decided to enter my paintball team as a team. We have many of us in support of relay. We all are able bodied, and can do all the emailing, and making up webpages etc. My more question, is HOW do we, as a team, have a "relay for life" link, so that donations, can come through us, to Relay for life, and have us Still get the credit?
We do have our own websites (for our paintball teams), but I would like to be able to post a link, from us, to R4L, so R4L gets paid, but we get credit.
Relay for Life has became a very competive competition between teams out here in Columbia County Oregon, we want a peice of that competition! Let us Help you!
I looked around this site, and couldnt find instructions, or links, to instructions on how to set this stuff up.
Jeremy
Links from outside
Jeremy,
If I understand your question you want to ensure you, your team, and its members are properly credited for donations. If you use your participant center online and send out the donation emails they direct the donor back to your page automatically to make the donation. If they use a credit card to donate on your page you will be credited with the donation. If they don't want to use a credit card they can download a form to accompany a check (the link is already on your personal page). The form has your RelayID on it. Your data entry people should use that to properly credit it to you.
You could also add a link to your paintball team page that will direct them to your Relay Team or participant page. You can create a friendly URL when you edit your page so it is easier for people to remember. You can download a number of images and badges right here in relayforlife.org to make an image link rather than a text one.
The main thing is to include a link to your participant or team page in all your regular emails, your paintball emails and pages. Get people on your Relay pages so they CAN donate.
If you have additional questions let me know.
Jon Jack
Joined: 2007-03-02