Developer’s Guide USING CONTENT MARKETING TO YOUR ADVANTAGE BY HENRY DELOZIER, GLOBAL GOLF ADVISORS
Content Marketing was unknown in late 1956 when wily Sam Phillips, the Memphis-based musical producer who launched Elvis Presley on his path to stardom two years earlier, realized he was hosting something worthy of attention…four Hall of Famers singing together. Many golf course builders may be missing similarly engaging, news-worthy and interesting events that show the capabilities and interesting experiences of the builder through online messages and images intended to stimulate interest. Like many small businesses, Phillips’ Sun Records Studio was a news making place. On this day, rockabilly legend Cark Perkins was in the studio to record a follow-up to his “Blue Suede Shoes” hit. Hanging out with Presley and Perkins was his friend, Johnny Cash whose “Folsom Prison Blues” and “Walk the Line” had made him a star. The fourth member of this coincidental foursome was a brash pianist by the name of Jerry Lee Lewis, who was working recording sessions for Phillips at $15 per hour. Phillips, ever the promoter, sent for a photographer at the nearby Memphis Press-Scimitar whose image of the four ran with the caption that has become legend…”Million Dollar Quartet”. That is content marketing. Golf course builders have stories to tell and activities that may be of interest to members and the broader audience of potential members. Most small businesses need to fortify their brand awareness for prospective customers. Those prospects are often friends of current clients. Here are a handful of ways for you to put content marketing to work: 1. Build and share a photo library. Develop a ready supply of professionally produced photos of the courses your firm has built. Inform local, regional, and national real estate, golf, and lifestyle publications that you will share these images when needed – you only ask for attribution. Most of these publications have budgets that are stretched and unrelenting deadlines so they benefit from knowing of ready-to-use content. 2. Curate interesting content that helps others get to know your business and its capabilities. Tell stories about projects on which your company has worked. Bring emphasis to the beauty you have created, merged with nature using environmentally sensitive methods. Provide people with opportunities to connect with your company and its experience. Provide worksheets and planning tools that enable greens committees, developers and golf course owners to understand what you do and how to renovate or develop in a cost-effective manner. Experience and expertise are important to the uninitiated. Show that you have both. 3. Reward loyalty with “touch-ups”. Return to past projects and conduct inspections and updates. Show new methods that open the door to renovations and upgrades. Over the past few years, new sand bunkers have been all the rage. Show your past clients how they can further improve their course with a new round of touch-ups. The generosity that you show will be reciprocated. 4. Increase engagement efficiency with infographics. Your customers are busy. Brief them and make it quick! Use images collected in one format to provide quick snapshots of new methods for course construction, more efficient practices for drainage and / or retention basins. Provide financial metrics that are easy for potential customers to use for calculating before they call you. 5. Expand the social reach of your business. Use social media in the ways and to the extent appropriate for your company. The great force of social media is its connectivity and expansive reach. Create focused social media messaging that reinforces the core values of your company. The keys are that (a) all communications should be planned in advance so that no messages are spontaneous; (b) photographs of new projects and finished work tell the story that your company is always involved in interesting projects; and (c) nature-oriented stories and photographs serve to reinforce your commitment to environmental stewardship and engages customers with the work being done. The musical greats entertained themselves singing their shared roots in gospel music during production breaks. While content marketing you can create brings immediate impacts, the splashy nickname given them quickly caught on with rock-and-roll fans who would not actually hear the music made that day for 25 years when the first portions of the lost tapes were discovered and released.
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