Digital Marketing on a Budget
Creating a strong digital marketing presence for your golf business doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Here, we’ve provided some no-cost, low-cost solutions for marketing your golf brand.
Create videos
Visual content is key to greater engagement, in fact, audiences are about 10 times more likely to engage, share, or comment on video content than blogs or related social posts. It doesn’t have to be a fancy, costly production—Facebook Live provides an opportunity for your golf business to live stream events as they’re happening. It could be a live demo of a spokesperson using your product to play a round, live training tips, showing off new equipment, or simply sharing exclusive content. And, you get to choose your audience—whether its public or just a small group of followers. This video content will push your business page higher up on your customer’s news feeds.
Provide kick-ass content
Your content needs to be amazing if you want people to keep engaged. It should be relevant, entertaining, educational, and most importantly, shareable to attract and retain your audience with the goal of driving profitable customer action. It drives sales, improves retention, and provides golf businesses with cost savings. It could be a blog, video, vlog, or special offer content that is directly related to your customers wants and needs and positions your golf business as the expert.
Build an email list
Email marketing is a high-impact, low-cost way of delivering your marketing message to current customers and prospects — if you have a great email list. If you don’t, start building your list now. Email capture is a great way to keep the conversation going with your prospective and current customers. Provide an opt-in option and offer your current and prospective customers something of value—upcoming events, sales, newsletters, blogs, etc. Calls to action should be applied across all channels of marketing—whether it’s the push in an email, the buttons on your website, or an image posted to your social channels. Not only do they drive your customers to act, they allow your golf business to set quantifiable goals—such as increasing sales, expanding market share, or improving retention—and measure the results.
Develop a customer referral program
Offer existing customers a discount or special incentive for referring new customers. Remember, word-of-mouth is powerful, so friends telling friends about your business is incredibly valuable.
Facilitate consumer reviews
Product reviews play a significant role in the consumer purchase process. Online reviews drive the customer purchase process, as 92% of online shoppers read reviews, and 88% make a purchase decision based on these reviews. Provide opportunities for your golf business to collect this valuable feedback along the purchase journey—from product satisfaction to the overall customer experience.
Recruit Brand Ambassadors
General consumer reviews are a great opportunity to discover future brand ambassadors for your golf product or service. Brand Ambassadors are those who strongly believe in your golf product. Invite these special customers to provide testimonials and share their customer experience. Utilize these messages throughout your marketing campaigns for an authentic voice.
Build and maintain loyalty
Keeping an existing customer is easier and more cost-effective than recruiting a new one. Taking the time to establish strong bonds with your existing customers and giving them a reason to be loyal is incredibly important. They must know they can trust you, and that you’re there for them no matter what. Provide special offers or content that is unique to existing customers to thank them for their business and encourage repeat purchases.
Develop a social presence
Social media for business is no longer optional. Using social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter as a marketing tool can help you grow your golf brand while allowing for interactions with your customers. When you have a presence on social media, you make it easier for your customers to find and connect with you. And, by connecting with your customers on social, you’re more likely to increase customer retention and brand loyalty.
Listen up!
Social media isn’t just for engaging customers. It also provides a great opportunity to listen. Utilize social monitoring tools to get an understanding of what your target audiences are talking about. It’s not what YOU say about your golf product—it’s about what prospective customers are saying about you. Own the conversation, solicit feedback and participate, and evolve or tweak your messaging from it.
