This month’s PGA Magazine includes a great article entitled “How To Grow Lesson Revenue At Your Facility”. It is a great spread by Don Jozwiak, and features the 2009 PGA Teacher of the Year, Mike Bender.

We encourage everyone to flip to page 40 and read the article in its entirety. For our use, as it pertains to website development, we have highlighted a section from this article that talks directly about the importance of having a web presence.

How are you using the Internet to attract students?

We have students visit from all over the world. I ask how they found me, and they always say “the Internet”. Don’t underestimate the value of a good Web site.

If you have a good Web site company that can change things on a regular basis and keep things fresh, that’s one of the better ways to market yourself.

YouTube is also a big thing for us now. I have my own YouTube channel with a number of 3-4 minute videos on different instruction subjects. My son, films me at the academy, and every time I put up a new video, that’s free advertising and marketing. We’ve had more than 2,500 hits on it, and it has definitely translated into more lessons.

If you are looking to expand your teaching business with a website that is built and maintained by PGA Professionals look no further. We started this business with this exact mindset; get PGA Professionals on the Web! As our client list continues to grow, contact us to find out why more and more professionals are switching to Golf Web Design, the leaders in website development for golf professionals.

We are PGA Professionals working for PGA Professionals.

We are excited for the upcoming MacWorld 2010 show. It takes place February 9 – 13, 2010 in San Fransisco, CA. Macworld 2010 is a five day celebration that will educate, entertain, and immerse you in the Mac community. Macworld offers access to hundreds of Mac products and services, paired with expert advice, demonstrations and instruction. Macworld conference programs feature industry leading minds, presenting cutting edge product training on the topics you most want to see. Whether you are a creative professional or a Mac IT pro, Macworld has the conference content, special presentations, exhibit hall highlights and experiences that meet your specific Mac needs.

We are particularly excited this year because we developed the V1 Golf App website and it will be launched the week of the show! We also provided the V1 Golf App with an exciting poster for display at the show. If you haven’t heard all the buzz surrounding the new V1 Golf App for the iPhone you need to check out the V1 Golf App Website for all the info!

What is a Branded Academy?

Branded Academies transform your V1 Pro software and your business into a powerful digital marketing network, instantly delivering YOUR V1 lessons to your students’ computers, Smartphones (iPhones, Blackberry and others) and Facebook pages where they can be easily shared and seen by more people than you ever thought possible.

Where Does Golf Web Design Come In?

A Branded Academy is a portal for your students to login and view their lessons. This ‘portal’ must be somewhere on your own website. If you do not already have a website, Golf Web Design can show you the way! Whether you are looking for a complete website with newsletter management, video library, photo gallery, and more OR you just want a really simple website to get started, we can provide you with all the tools to get started right away.

Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned veteran, we have compiled a Facebook Social Media Campaign “case study” that everyone will benefit from. Welcome to the Facebook Fan Page!
For many companies a Facebook fan page is an integral part of their social media campaign. But, what elements help fan pages build up large followings and what can brands do to emulate the success of others? I’ve put together a list of specific elements that I believe have helped create fan pages with large, engaged, followings.

Networking Multiple Platforms

Building a large following requires a network of other platforms, working in conjunction to drive visitors to your fan page. One brand that does that well is Victoria’s Secret with their PINK line.
As you can see, on their PINK landing page they have a link to their Facebook fan page and their MySpace profile. Victoria’s Secret leverages the traffic their home page gets and pushes them to their Facebook fan page.

Many companies lack this level of dedication, expecting their consumers on Facebook to find them automatically. However, that’s not usually the case.
When is the last time you went looking for a brand’s Facebook fan page? More often than not, a consumer will stumble upon the page, either through a friend or from a hub, similar to Victoria’s Secret’s PINK page.

Understandably, the fact that the demographic targeted by Victoria’s Secret PINK, aligns exactly with the demographic that is most active on Facebook, has helped grow the group as well.

In A Nutshell: Connecting multiple social platforms and a hub from the brand website, can help funnel consumers throughout the network.

A Resource Center

Some pages are used as connection hubs, but others offer information pertinent to their consumers. They use the information as added value to have consumers create a connection with the brand.
Dell has done a great job with their social media resource for small businesses. Understanding that small business owners buy computers, by offering them this resource, small business owners interested in social media keep Dell top of mind.

Although, Dell can’t explicitly gauge the success of this program in ROI, it is a branding exercise. Also, since they offer deals and updates on new products on the page – the page does have a chance to convert small business owners into Dell consumers.

In A Nutshell: Offering a resource page allows a brand to target a new demographic, outside of those that already know and love the business.

Incentives

For brands that want fan pages to have added value (a reason for users to join the page, aside from brand loyalty), but don’t want to become a resource portal; offering contests and coupons specifically to Facebook users can entice consumers to join.

Sears offered fans a $10 coupon to use in stores, giving consumers a reason to join. Clicking on the coupon takes you to a page where Sears collects your information and sends you information about the coupon, deals, and offers. There’s no way to make sure the coupon is given to only Facebook fans, however like Sears, brands can require an email before receiving the coupon.

In A Nutshell: Offering something to consumers to join can help build a large community. Some examples of things to offer: Coupons, free shipping, weekly deals.

Taking Advantage of Pre-Existing Resources

One of my favorite stories about social media involves the Coca Cola Facebook page. The fan page was created by two users who liked Coke. What started as a fan page for fun, turned out to be the largest product fan page on Facebook.

Coca Cola, instead of taking over the page and making it their own, rewarded the fans by bringing them to Atlanta and giving them a tour of the Coke facility. The fan page remains theirs, but now they have the blessing and help of Coca Cola.

By empowering the fans to keep their fan page, Coke ensures a passionate page owner.

The Coca Cola marketing team was also smart enough to realize that letting others know what happened here would work in their favor. The fan page creators were told to make a video of the history behind the fan page, and how Coke had reached out to them and rewarded them for this.

The video shows future ‘brand enthusiasts’ that creating successful groups around Coca Cola can result in rewards and recognition.

In A Nutshell: Taking over unsanctioned Facebook fan pages isn’t always the best idea. Instead, rewarding dedication can inspire others to do the same.

The Correct Demographic

Sometimes no matter what you do, your Facebook page won’t grow. This can simply be a side effect of Facebook’s demographic. There are just some brands that will not have a strong presence on Facebook.

Understanding the demographic present can help you decide if Facebook is worth it for your business.

From Quantcast estimates, we can tell that Facebook skews towards female youths. Interestingly, 53% of users have kids and a majority make over $60k a year salary. Obviously, over 50% are college kids. The demographics that make up Facebook are changing quickly, as more moms have begun to join and the college market has become saturated — so be sure to keep checking up on demographic changes over time. As Facebook changes, your campaigns may need to change with it for maximum effect.

Armed with this knowledge, Seventeen Magazine jumped on to the Facebook fan page bandwagon. Their brand targets the demographic most prominent on Facebook, meaning a fairly quick and organic growth.

For companies whose brand does not target the optimal demographic, finding a specific line that does, works.

Consider the brand mentioned earlier in this article, Victoria’s Secret. Instead of putting the entire brand on Facebook, they targeted the PINK line, a line for college students.

In A Nutshell: Some brands cannot expect huge followings on Facebook. Brands or product lines targeting the demographic most prominent on Facebook tend to see the quickest growth.

We purposely did not talk about using advertising to increase the size of a fan page, because although it can be useful to jump start a fan page, organic growth can help build a more engaged group.

Creating a Facebook fan page is simple, but getting it to work well takes time, dedication, and some planning. Don’t expect to create a page and then have a huge following instantaneously. Build good content, make it easy to share, and let people know about it, and over-time the community will grow.

Will it help you? This means, is it a benefit to you, your business, your brand.  Will it bring you more attention, more credibility and therefore more income?

Annoyance Factor. How often do you need to update it and what kind of maintenance does it require? Some forms of social media require a lot attention and need to be constantly updated in order to keep a fresh look. This also lets you know how much effort it will take in order to make this effective.

This is just a rough guide to several forms of social media and how they can be applied. Everyone has their own unique situation and may benefit from one, but not the other. Using these tools to help your business may also depend on your personality traits. Some people are very extroverted and love the attention, however some others are more introverted and don’t like the limelight. Either way, take a look at what each of these social media tools can do for you and if you’re ready for them.

Twitter:
Will it help you? Maybe.
Annoyance Factor: High.

Twitter is known as a “micro-blogging” tool. You basically sign up for an account, then login and begin writing “tweets”. You can write as many tweets as you want however each tweet is limited to 140 characters (hence the “micro” in micro-blogging). Now once you sign up for an account, your goal is to acquire a large audience, also known as followers. Otherwise, what good is it to speak your mind if no one is there to listen?

So how do you go about getting people to “follow” your tweets? The first way is to tell other people you know to start following you – word of mouth. The second way is to “be someone,” write a great bio, and hope that people will eventually search for your name or your company. The third and most popular way to acquire a large audience is to start following other people in hopes that they will follow you back. Performing a Twitter search on other people or companies in your industry will bring up an entire host of people that have already established themselves on Twitter. You might also find some very interesting people to follow along the way.

So now that you have started a following and you are following a group of people yourself, what do you write about? Why should you be bothering with a “micro-blogging” service in the first place? People love to see what other people are up to and why they are doing what they’re doing. Bringing people into your personal experiences lets them feel connected to you, even though they may have no idea who you are. Take for example PGA Tour Player Stewart Cink. He has been tweeting for quite some time now and has acquired a huge following. At the time of this blog post, he has ### followers. He is bringing a lot of people into the details of his life – and everyone seems to love that! Now, you’re probably thinking that not everyone has as interesting a life as Stewart Cink. And you’re right. So why would they want to hear about what you’re doing?

The answer is: they don’t care. You could be sitting at home watching old re-runs, yet if you continually post comments on how boring or exciting or uneventful your day is going, people will listen. The need for a connection is there. So, the question is – do you feel like you can “connect” to a large group of people that you probably don’t even know by sending out “tweets” of 140 characters or less everyday?

A little tip about Twitter: a LOT of people use it for business purposes in order to drive people to their website. Many people that are on Twitter are trying to get you to buy something or sign up for something. It can be VERY annoying. I recommend to stop following those type of people – especially if they don’t have anything interesting to say. Also, in order to keep people interested in your tweets, you have to write them often. By often I mean at least once a day. This keeps your content fresh and interesting. If this is too much work for you – then don’t bother with Twitter!

Facebook:
Will it help you? Yes.
Annoyance Factor: Mid.

If you haven’t heard of facebook or you don’t have a facebook account yet, than you can officially say that you are behind the times. This phenomenon has transformed the social media scene. People, pets and companies of ALL ages now have a facebook account. Facebook is basically a place on the internet to interact with other users, post all kinds of information about yourself, play games, look at other people’s photos, comment about what other people are doing, and let everyone know exactly what YOU are doing. This is a much more elaborate process than Twitter in that you can set up an entire profile complete with as many pictures as you want. You can post videos from your recent trip, golf lesson, or whatever. There have been many people who have re-connected to their old friends and past acquaintances through facebook.

So how can it help you, the PGA Professional? Either by starting your personal page or a “fan page” you can start interaction with your current students because there will be a good chance that some of your students have a facebook account. This is a great tool to use for it’s ability to post pictures and videos and have other people comment on them. The use of comments and status updates engages your audience and brings them into your world. Once people become your “friend” on facebook, they are notified whenever you update your status, post a picture or video, or comment on somebody’s profile.

We believe that the amount of interaction started with facebook is a great way to get people interested in what you are doing. It doesn’t require as much updating as Twitter, but still requires your attention at least every other day.

Blogging:
Will it help you? Yes.
Annoyance Factor: Mid-High.

Blogging – this is what I am doing right now. Writing a single blog entry can be as simple or complex as you want. Blogs are generally websites or are integrated into websites (such as this one). A blog entry is time stamped and is viewed in order from most recent to oldest. I would recommend a blog for any golf professional wishing to expand his reach and build his business. It’s basically a platform to give all kinds of information and interesting thoughts to your readers.

Now this form of social media is a little different and a bit more professional than most others. You don’t have to make “friends” or get “followers” in order to start your blog. In fact, this might be a downside to blogging – you don’t really know how effective your blog posts are until you really start getting a lot of traffic to your website.

What makes blogs unique however is the ability for users to comment on your blog. You are given the opportunity to moderate the comments and approve or dis-approve any comment that comes through. Blogs are generally focused at certain niches – yours probably being golf instruction. Here’s a great tip however – if you want to create a blog that will really get noticed, then focus on an even more specific area that just golf instruction. A few examples of getting more specific would include focusing on putting, wedges, short game, mental sides, fitness, ladies golf, golf at upscale country clubs, etc. Basically, the more specific and more interesting your blog is – the closer readers will follow it.

We highly recommend blogging as a tool for golf professionals who want a website. Keeping it up is easy than other social media tools because you can get away with at the very least, 3 blog posts per month.

YouTube:
Will it help you? Definitely!
Annoyance Factor: Low.

There couldn’t be a better place to post your video instruction articles than YouTube. Once you post your video to YouTube, the entire world can view it. There is no other video publishing platform like this, and I don’t see any reason why a golf instructor can’t put his videos on there.

One of the amazing features that YouTube offers is the ability for anyone to embed your video onto their website. This draws even more traffic to your video. You can also analyze all the stats for your videos. You can see who is viewing them, what countries are watching your videos the most, how often they are watched, and a host of other analytics. This is crucial when evaluating the effectiveness of your online campaigns.

And here is a great little YouTube tip just for the golf instructors out there. Make sure that you have your videos professionally edited when making golf tips. If you have a consistent opening and closing message with your logo and your web address, people will remember you well after they watch the video. ALSO, make sure the sound on the video is very clear. Use a microphone to pick up your voice. The worst is when you watch a video that you can hardly hear! Follow these steps when making your video tips and watch your hit count rise!

As for the annoyance factor – there is none! You can upload as many or as little videos as you want without the need to update anything!

Flickr:
Will it help you? No.
Annoyance Factor: Low.

Flickr is somewhat like YouTube, however you can only upload pictures. This really doesn’t have a huge bearing on the PGA Professional (unless you focus on photography) but nonetheless, it still fosters a social environment focused on photography. We don’t really recommend this tool to help golf professionals, but if photography is your thing – then go for it! We are sure that there could be a niche market out there for it!

In closing, contact us if you want to hear more about how we can help your social media efforts. Here are a few good articles for further reading:

Debunking Social Media Myths from Business Week

Social Media will Change your Business from Business Week

Think about your competition for a minute.  Where can the average golfer get a lesson? OR where can the average golfer find advice? I ask this because most golfers want just a simple swing tip or piece of instruction that they can find in a magazine or from the internet. But let’s get back to that in a minute and right now focus on your competition.

Other golf professionals in your area are probably your biggest competition when it comes to actually giving lessons. So how does a golfer in your area find out about you and what services you offer? Let’s say they want a lesson with the possibility of a club fitting. Well, they will probably recall what their golf buddies have told them about where to take a lesson.  Then they might look it up in the phone book.  Then they will definitely jump on Google and do a quick search for all the teaching pros in their area. So the question is – will your name come up?

Now let’s move on to your current students. They take lessons from you on a regular basis because they like the way you teach and you have made them improve. So what is their perception of you? You’re probably a nice person, patient, you’re probably a good golfer with impressive talent, you can explain any part of the golf swing, and you’re just known as the pro. Now let’s say you have a great website – it has lots of information and it shows your customers how great of a teacher you are. It gives a great description of your services and may offer everything about your background that a prospective student would want to know. Students can do their research on what you have to offer without actually asking you – they can find out all kinds of information that they may never ask you in person.

So now their perception of you has changed. People don’t just see you as the place to go to get golf lessons – they see you as a proactive golf professional who is interested in really delivering solid golf instruction to his students. They now know that you were a Division 1 college standout, or that you studied under David Leadbetter, and so on.  Basically, your students and potential clients now have a more positive and re-affirmed knowledge about your background, your teaching style, and what other people have to say about you.

So what do you currently know about what it takes to become a great teaching professional? You probably know that personality goes a long way, that you should be pro-active in promoting yourself, and that becoming a great teaching is all about building your personal brand. What better way to promote yourself than to give your students access to everything you have to offer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

So, let’s recap. The question was, “Do I need a website?” And the answer is a resounding, “YES!” Even if your website is super simple and only offers up a contact form with your email, phone number, and directions to your facility.  This will at the very least ensure that current and potential clients can find you!

Give us a call at 650.469.3255 , send us an email, or fill out our simple Quote Form if you want help building the YOU brand with an online presence.

This is one of the main reasons PGA Web Design was originally formed! We want to help golf professionals & golf facilities jump start their business and get noticed on the web! The internet has officially replaced conventional forms of marketing and advertising, making sure you’re staying with the curve can prove huge dividends for your business!

Contact us today and find out how we can help you to “re-set” your business for 2010!

Some inspiring words from Jim Remy, President of the PGA

“Re-setting is a term used to describe the many ways that industry leaders can reshape the golf business:

This year’s PGA Merchandise Show (Jan. 28-30, 2010 in Orlando, Fla.) is dedicated to sharing best practices, new ideas, and innovative insights to make sure you re-set for success. “

There are several sections of Gale’s site to take note of: the FOG’s (friends of Gale) which is a great little photo gallery that pulls right from her Picasa gallery, the Ask Gale section where anyone can ask Gale about their own game, and the Bravo section where Gale frequently posts her most recent student accomplishments.

Gale has seen a huge rise in YouTube hits on her videos as well as on her website. Check back for more on her website as we continue to upgrade her website!

We’ll let you know when Rob’s site is officially ready to launch!

The new Titleist design reflects a more modern, Web 2.0 feel that is much easier to navigate than their old website. Liz said there were several reasons for the re-skin:

• Reduce the amount of flash on the website to make it faster
• Make the homepage easier to navigate through drop-down menus and tabbed containers
• Keep the brand image consistent with some flash on the website

The main goal was to allow the user to get anywhere on the site with one click. Directly from the homepage you can skip right to the product or product category that you are looking for. With their old website, this was not possible. The old Titleist website had a sidebar navigation that did not allow the user to jump directly to specific products. We also talked about the Titleist website and SEO. Liz said that Search Engine Optimization was not a priority when “re-skinning” the new site. The have such good brand awareness and the best possible domain name for their company that SEO doesn’t rank high on their website priorities.

Titleist’s re-design perfectly shows how the current trend in web design has definitely shifted to a user-based experience. Companies are taking note of how users navigate their website and making the experience more user-friendly. Titleist doesn’t sell anything on their website, but they are committed to giving their customers a great experience while visiting their website.

Case in Point: PGA Web Design creates websites that are 1. Easy to navigate, 2. Offer great end-user experiences, 3. Load fast and are very optimized for Search Engines. Call us and we’ll talk about updating your old website or building a great new CUSTOM website just for you.

Check out the OLD Titleist website images:

Visit the NEW Titleist Website Here.