How I became a brand evangelist

• October
• 27

I am in the process of training for a half marathon. My girlfriend was told by a coworker about a running group that gets together every Thursday evening for an evening run called ‘Road Runners.’ I thought it was just a creative name but it is actually the name of the store that was putting on the run. I had never heard of Road Runners before that day, but now they are the only brand that comes to my mind when I think of running. If I need a new pair of running shoes or anything else running related that is where I’ll go. If anybody asks me where to get track and field gear I will direct them to the store. Here is why:

• Upon arrival we were warmly greeted by the ‘run leaders’ who also happen to be employees of the store.
• There was an opportunity for Q&A before the run
• During the actual run the leaders would run along side you to see how you were doing
• After the run they provided bottles of water, bagels and cream cheese , and bananas.
• Before we left we were given a bag with energy snacks, a pair of Asics running socks, and more information about the store

To sum it up, my interaction with their brand was extremely satisfying. One of the things that will contribute to this store’s success is that all the employees that I interacted with all genuinely enjoyed running. They are passionate about it and that showed throughout the evening. I was so impressed that at the end of the night I provided them with my contact information and gave them permission to continually market to me, something that I do not do with most companies.

From an SEO perspective, I’m very impressed with their website. Optimized meta tags all around, and you can sort by shoe size, shoe width, type, brand, and other things. They rank in the top 2 for the terms in their title tags. Product pages have unique title tags in the “Buy PRODUCT at Roadrunner Sports” format and are indexed. Site is 11 years old and seems to have plenty of inbound links.

P.S. - No this was not a paid post. I was genuinely very impressed with this brand.