If you have a foundation, special cause, desire to thank your customers and/or vendor/partners, or a love of the game of golf, a golf tournament may be the ideal way to create a new source of revenue. In this article, you’ll learn fore (Get it? Bad puns/grammar mistakes are free.) things including:
- the basics of hosting a golf tournament (what’s required)
- how to market the event
- tips on branding your golf outing
- last-minute ways to get more people there
Are you ready?
We’ve got a lot to cover.
While we live in a place of perpetual sunshine, where golfing is a year-round activity, we know not everyone does. But regardless of where you live, you can host a successful golf tournament to the delight of all of your attendees.
Are you ready to coordinate one for your company or non-profit? After reading these four easy beginning steps you will be.
The Basics of Hosting a Golf Tournament
Establish a Golf Outing Budget
For every event you need a budget. Calculate what you plan to/can spend so you can figure out if sponsorships are appropriate and what you’ll need them for. Your golf outing expenses could include:
- Green fees and cart rentals
- Printed programs, marketing collaterals, brochures, advertising
- Trophies or plaques, awards/prizes, and/or recognitions
- Customized golf balls
- P.A. system rental
- Promotional products or pieces for sale
Your budget should also include sources of revenue. That way you’ll have an idea of what you need to charge per golfer and the sponsorships and donations you’ll need to cover your budget. These could include:
- Hole sponsors
- Golfers entry fee
- Auction or raffle items
- Corporate sponsors
- Fun hole contests or drives
Consider the Timing
Give yourself 9-12 months, more time if you’re planning on hosting on a popular course in an area of the country where golfing is only possible a few months out of the year. Since you must have a course to have a tournament, this is one of the first things you’ll want to book. Have several dates and times in mind and don’t be locked into the daytime hours. Some organizations have a great time playing glow golf in the evenings.
Also, keep in mind what other events are going on in your area. Social calendar competition is fine but not if you’re going up against the biggest community event of the year. This means keeping an eye out for other golf tournaments. There really can be too much of a good thing.
Think About a Creative Format
Your golf outing needn’t run on a traditional golf game format. There are a lot of fun golf options involving scrambles and ball drops that make it enjoyable for golf novices and long-time players to have a good time. Keep in mind, a mediocre or newbie golf player could be intimidated by a hard-core event. If you want to be more inclusive, use non-traditional rules or handicaps.
Research the Extras
There are a lot of legal and hospitality matters to sort through before you start marketing the tournament. You’ll need a cancellation policy, an inclement weather policy, a sign policy, dress and etiquette recommendations, and contest rules and regulations. You’ll also want to figure out how beverage service will work. Will it be open bar, limited tickets, holes with drinks, etc.
Now that you know how you’ll pay for it, where it will be and when, the format of the outing, and the legalese behind it, you’re ready to start getting the word out. Which brings us to…
4 Must-Do’s in Marketing Your Golf Tournament
In the last section, we went over the things you needed to arrange in order to host a successful event. Now that you have those pieces in place, we need to figure out how to tell people about it.
Enter marketing.
A golf tournament isn’t an open house. You can’t wait until a few days before to get the word out. You need to start marketing your event months out. It’s less overwhelming than you might think when you break the job down into manageable pieces.
Send Out Save-the-Date Cards
Since you’ve secured the course months in advance, it will be too early to send out invites at that time, but if you don’t let people know, you run the risk of having a course with no one there to play on it. That’s why sending out save-the-date postcards is a good idea. It lets people know to keep their calendars open and watch for an invitation closer to time. You can also send a save-the-date email to your list and add information about the upcoming golf event in your e-newsletter.
Update Your Website with Golf Event Info
Websites are handy tools because you can update them regularly. Add the golf info to your website where it can be prominently seen as soon as you have the course booked. Add online event sign-up or, if it’s too early, add a subscription box where they can give you their email in order to let them know when registration open. You can give them an incentive to sign-up for the announcement by offering them “super” early bird pricing.
Use Facebook Ads
Create a targeted Facebook ad to recruit people who may be interested in your golf event. Facebook can drill down geographically to people interested in golf, your cause, the course you’re playing on, and other really nifty things. If you do a good job at targeting, the clicks will have a higher conversion rate and will cost less per click. Since you’re paying for every click, it’s important not to send it out to everyone on the ‘book. Think about who you want at the tournament and advise Facebook accordingly.
You can do this a few months out and build a list or you can direct them to signing up and registering. If your event is huge, consider creating its own Facebook page.
Don’t Forget the Promotional Products
Finally, don’t forget to order your promotional items and giveaways for your golfers and any apparel you need, including staffers’ shirts and sales items. Even though you don’t have an exact number of attendees yet, you do know what you’d like to have. Ordering early will decrease your level of stress knowing it’s already taken care of.
But that’s not the only tip we have for you on golf tournament branding…
Choose Your Promotional Item Based on Customers not Clearance
Many marketers know they have to give golf tournament attendees a giveaway. So they go online and search.
They choose something based on price not impact.
And attendees go home with a pen or a golf pencil that gets lost in their golf bags. Some return on investment that was.
Instead, choose an item that will get used because it appeals to your ideal customer. You should never select a promotional item without thinking of your target market and their lifestyle first.
Create a Big Impact
Branding for your golf tournament goes beyond your choice of a promotional item. Think of your corporate branding as a theme for your event. You want everything to match because it creates a greater impact for less money.
You want attendees to see signs in the distance and know they’re yours before they can get close enough to read them.
Your branding should produce a consistent look and message for maximum impact. Items to consider are:
- An event website
- Promotional items – both tournament giveaways and things they’ll use during play such as bottled water with branded labels or sunscreen in branded bottles
- Brochure or other written collaterals
- Course signage • Trophies or awards
- Employee, staff, and/or volunteer embroidered shirts
- Golf shirts for players
- Scorecards
- Thank you cards or stationery to thank attendees and sponsors
Don’t Forget the Follow-up
A successful golf tournament doesn’t end when the last golfer goes home. Ideally, you’ve created an annual event and possibly cultivated some new business/customers for your company. Send thank you cards (personalized written cards make an impact) and follow-up with prospects within a few days of the tournament.
Other post-event branding efforts include posting pictures to your online social media accounts (don’t forget to tag people), uploading pictures to your website, sharing your golf tournament’s story, and highlights via social media and your newsletter.
Okay, you’re now done with preliminary marketing. The event is almost here. Let’s get those last-minute attendees registered with these crowd-building ideas:
Bring Them to the Course: Driving Last-minute Sign-ups
Pay for It
One way to get people’s attention at the last minute is to pay for it. You can do this on Google adwords or Facebook. As we mentioned earlier, the secret of success in either of these options is the targeting. This is not the time to cast a wide net. Drill down and limit the search geographically, and with any other filters that would be appropriate. This tactic can be very successful in the week leading up to the event.
Learn more about pay per click advertising here.
Use Facebook Invites
You can use Facebook invites also to bring in a crowd but know that “I’m attending” is far less of a commitment from the Facebook audience than an RSVP is. The beauty of Facebook invites is that your invitees’ friends will see if they’ve RSVP’d. Plus the friends will be able to click on your event and discover more about it.
Run an Email Campaign
Assuming you have a list, (remember that handy thing you started when you first booked the course?), send out a reminder email telling people it isn’t too late to register. Make sure you include a URL for easy RSVPs.
Avoid the rookie mistake of sending an invite to anyone who’s already registered by cross-checking your registration list with your email list. You can also add a “Half-Off Bring a Friend” offer if your numbers are lower than you were anticipating.
Call Your Committee or Staff
If you have a golf outing committee or a staff, create a last-minute push to sell tickets through a “most tickets sold wins X” contest. Or challenge them each to sell at least 3 tickets (or whatever number you need).
Publish Your Attendee List
Many times people become interested in an event when they know someone who is going or they want to get to know someone on the list. If you make your list public, you just might sway those last-minute holdouts who are not sure if they’ll know anyone.
As the event draws near, use a lot of engaging tactics on social media. Publish pictures of the greens, post selfies of you wearing promotional products like a golf hat or embroidered shirt, create memes, blog about it, post past years’ pictures, and other ways to get people excited about your golf outing. Social media is one of your strongest tools in publicizing an event and best of all, it’s free and reaches huge numbers.
Now that you know some of the basics of hosting a golf outing, how about a deeper dive? Check out this resource.
Need more help? Call us today.
Leave a Reply