{"id":10008,"date":"2019-05-10T08:21:41","date_gmt":"2019-05-10T12:21:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/?p=10008"},"modified":"2019-05-02T20:01:45","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T00:01:45","slug":"bigger-tires-equals-bigger-smiles-all-thanks-to-public-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/2019\/05\/10\/bigger-tires-equals-bigger-smiles-all-thanks-to-public-relations\/","title":{"rendered":"Bigger Tires Equals Bigger Smiles, All Thanks to Public Relations"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Courtesy of Kent Maos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fat biking is a relatively new phenomenon among the biking world. While its popularity is gaining momentum, its riders still make up a small number of the cycling community. For decades, the snowy months of winter meant it was the \u201coffseason\u201d for many riders and time to trade in their bike for alternative training options such as indoor trainers or spin classes.<\/p>\n

While those are still viable options for winter fitness, nothing can replace the pure exhilaration that comes with actually riding a bike. Fat biking has made that feeling possible all year long.<\/p>\n

Frosty\u2019s Fat Bike Race Series\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>started in 2014 as a Utah-based event to help build the sport\u2019s popularity. Over the past half-decade, Frosty\u2019s has hosted races in locations such as Powder <\/u><\/strong>Mountain<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<\/strong>Nordic Valley Resort<\/strong><\/a>, Wolf Creek Ranch<\/strong><\/a>, Sundance Mountain Resort\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>and many others.<\/p>\n

While the sport continued to grow and fat biking become more commonplace, Randal Gibb, owner of Frosty\u2019s Fat Bike Race Series and Mad Dog Cycles, had bigger dreams in mind. \u201cI would love to see the sport in the Olympics someday!\u201d he said. Growing the sport on an international level would be fantastic, to say the least.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where public relations comes in.<\/p>\n

Think big, then think BIGGER<\/strong><\/p>\n

As I mentioned above, merely growing the sport locally wasn\u2019t going to make an exponential impact on the sport\u2019s growth. Setting high, yet realistic and measurable, objectives can make all the difference.<\/p>\n

In the case of Frosty\u2019s, it took goals not only to increase the sport locally to help drive fat bike sales into the shop but to help elevate the status of the sport as a whole. This strategy not only grew the sport, but it also helped Frosty\u2019s and its partnering shop, Mad Dog Cycles, become industry experts and opinion leaders in fat biking.<\/p>\n

This sort of rebranding the image is at the heart of public relations and is what jump-started the race series\u2019 expedited growth.<\/p>\n

Think collaboration, not competition<\/strong><\/p>\n

A few years after Frosty\u2019s had begun hosting fat bike events, the perfect opportunity presented itself. Tourism Jasper<\/strong><\/a>, the primary travel and commerce branch for the Alberta, Canada, National Parks, reached out in hopes of bringing Frosty\u2019s up north.<\/p>\n

After a few initial meetings, a three-year contract was signed to bring Frosty\u2019s Fat Bike Race Series to Jasper National Park.<\/p>\n

While the opportunity to start growing the sport outside the U.S. was exciting, planning such a large-scale event across borders presented challenges. The best strategy was to partner with Jasper-based businesses to help support and promote the event.<\/p>\n

Instead of trying to rent bikes through Frosty\u2019s Utah-based shop, it partnered with local bike shops in Jasper to participate in the events and negotiated exclusive discounts of fat bike rentals for Frosty\u2019s racers.<\/p>\n

This strategy not only provided the racers with a more affordable rental option, but it also gave the shops a chance to promote their business. This sense of belonging that the shops felt with the event led to them exceeding expectations of them supporting the events.<\/p>\n

This formula was repeated for hotel and restaurant partners as well and saw similar effects.<\/p>\n

Get the right influencers on board<\/strong><\/p>\n

While brand ambassadors were crucial to Frosty\u2019s growth, getting pro riders and influencers on board was the next step to taking this event to the next level.<\/p>\n

Pro riders such as Bend, Oregon\u2019s, Emma Maaranen were eager to participate in such an event. By providing them with a VIP experience, they, in turn, helped promote the event through their various marketing channels and participated in all the activities.<\/p>\n

When speaking about the growth and potential of fat biking, Maaranen stated, \u201cI\u2019ve found that fat biking is the most approachable bike that\u2019s out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

While fat biking may still have a long way to go before we see it in the Olympics, you can see the impact that public relations had on Frosty\u2019s, taking it from a small, slowly growing local event to a can\u2019t-miss international fat biking experience.<\/p>\n

The good news: These tips can be universally applied for similar results across different industries. Give them a try and let us know in the comments below.<\/p>\n

For more real-life public relations tips and tricks, subscribe to our weekly digital newsletter to make sure you are always up to date!<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Tyler Thorpe was born and raised in America\u2019s best city, Ogden, Utah, and is a recent public relations and nonprofit management graduate from Brigham Young University. He currently works full-time as the communications director for Mad Dog Cycles and part-time as the assistant marketing director for his family\u2019s nonprofit, JUST-a-BREAK from Cancer. In his free time, he loves traveling and hanging out with his wife, Ashlyn, and dog, Zion. He also enjoys mountain biking, making videos or watching the Eagles and Jazz #GoBirds!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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Fat biking is a relatively new phenomenon among the biking world. While its popularity is gaining momentum, its riders still make up a small number of the cycling community. For decades, the snowy months of winter meant it was the \u201coffseason\u201d for many riders and time to trade in their bike for alternative training options such as indoor trainers or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":10010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2896,13],"tags":[300,566,2133,2065,1568,615,2851],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10008"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10011,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10008\/revisions\/10011"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}