Redcar Racecourse is a horse racing and events venue based in the seaside town of Redcar.
A hub for racing in Northern England, the racecourse has a history spanning more than 200 years and is affectionately known on the racing circuit as Yorkshire’s seaside track.
We worked with Redcar Racecourse from April 2014, managing PR and social media activity to promote the racing season, raise awareness of key fixtures and build stronger engagement with local audiences.
The aim was to increase awareness of Redcar Racecourse across the North East and parts of North Yorkshire, using PR and social media to promote fixtures, events and the wider racecourse experience.
The campaign focused on reaching people aged 18 and over across key areas including Redcar, Middlesbrough, Yarm, Stokesley, Thirsk, Hartlepool, Darlington, Northallerton, Newcastle and Sunderland.
Alongside promoting race days, the campaign also aimed to show that Redcar Racecourse offered more than horse racing, positioning it as a lively events venue with family-friendly activities, themed fixtures and a strong local community feel.
We developed PR activity to support the racecourse’s fixtures, feature meetings and key events throughout the racing season.
This included writing and distributing pre and post-event press releases for important race days and events, helping to build awareness before fixtures and celebrate the atmosphere and results afterwards.
Across the campaign, we secured coverage in regional press, local radio, online outlets and specialist racing publications, helping Redcar Racecourse maintain visibility among local communities and racing audiences.
Key publications included The Northern Echo, The Gazette, The Darlington & Stockton Times, The Journal, The Sun on Sunday, The Whitby Gazette, Eclipse Magazine and Go Racing.
Alongside PR, we managed Redcar Racecourse’s social media activity across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
We created regular content to promote fixtures, share racecourse updates, highlight activities taking place at the venue and connect with local communities and horse racing enthusiasts.
Content included event promotion, photographs from the racecourse, racing updates, local interest content, competitions and live social media during key fixtures.
This helped keep the racecourse visible throughout the season and encouraged audiences to engage with the venue before, during and after race days.
For the 2016 racing season, we delivered an eight-month PR and social media campaign, including detailed plans for each of the racecourse’s seven Premier meetings.
For each event, we developed the existing raceday theme and planned content around it, helping every fixture feel distinctive and engaging.
Activity included regular social media content, target-audience engagement, live coverage from Premier meetings, Facebook Live videos, social media competitions, event page set-up and social media advertising.
This gave the racecourse a consistent campaign structure while allowing each event to have its own personality.
As part of the campaign, we helped establish the racecourse mascot, Redcar Rocky.
In the first month of activity, we introduced the mascot to followers on social media and asked them to suggest a name.
This created an immediate opportunity for audience participation, generating a strong response from followers and helping to start the season with a more interactive, community-led feel.
Redcar Rocky was also used during race days, with live social media content featuring pictures of racegoers with the mascot to encourage sharing, tagging and online interaction.
Live social media formed an important part of the campaign, helping to capture the atmosphere of race days as they happened.
At key fixtures, including Ladies’ Day and the seven Premier meetings, The Pack attended the racecourse to share live updates, photographs, videos and competition content.
We also engaged with attendees by retweeting, replying to messages and encouraging racegoers to share their own content and tag the racecourse.
This helped create a stronger sense of community online and extended the buzz of each event beyond the racecourse itself.
Ladies’ Day was one of Redcar Racecourse’s most anticipated events, and we supported the 2015 event with a focused PR and social media campaign.
Following a creative brainstorming session, we developed the theme “Ladies in Red” and created the event hashtag #LadiesInREDcar, alongside the wider campaign hashtag #RacingToRedcar.
PR activity secured pre and post-event coverage, while social media content and live updates helped build excitement before and during the event.
We also used Facebook and Twitter advertising to reach target audiences and support attendance.
Throughout the campaigns, we created and managed social media advertising across Facebook and Twitter.
This included boosted posts, page-like campaigns, event page adverts, promoted tweets and promoted account adverts, all designed to reach the racecourse’s target audiences and increase awareness of specific fixtures.
We also created and managed several social media competitions to promote key race days and encourage audience interaction.
One example was the Pirate Pet Competition for Caribbean Carnival raceday, where followers were asked to dress their pet in a pirate or Caribbean-themed outfit for the chance to win VIP tickets.
Our PR and social media activity helped Redcar Racecourse increase awareness, grow its online following and strengthen engagement with local audiences and racing communities.
During the 2016 campaign, the racecourse’s social media following increased significantly across all three platforms:
Twitter followers increased by 918, Facebook likes increased by 2,364 and Instagram followers increased by 195.
Social media advertising also delivered strong reach and visibility. Facebook adverts achieved a total reach of 358,669, while Twitter adverts generated 292,774 impressions.
The campaign’s pre and post-event press releases generated 125 pieces of coverage across print, online and radio outlets.
Coverage was secured in local newspapers including The Northern Echo, The Darlington & Stockton Times, The Gazette and Yorkshire Evening Post, as well as local radio including Zetland FM, TFM and BBC Tees.
Online coverage appeared in outlets including Local Answer, Redcar Observer, What’s On In The North East, Redcar Town Talk, NE Connected, The Teessider, Welcome to Yorkshire, Living North, Express North, Luxe Loves The Weekend and In & Around.
The racecourse also received coverage in racing publications including Racing Fixtures, Go Racing and Eclipse Magazine.
Ladies’ Day 2015 was also a major success. The campaign helped generate strong media coverage, including front-page news in The Gazette, special features, online galleries and wider online coverage.
Despite the weather, attendance at Ladies’ Day increased by nearly 1,000 people, supported by the PR and social media activity around the event.
Together, the campaigns helped Redcar Racecourse build a stronger online community, increase visibility for its racing season and create more excitement around key fixtures.
“Thank you for all of your help over the past few years. We’re in a much stronger position thanks to Harvey & Hugo’s PR and social media support.”
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