Page 6 - GBC fall 2015

Message From The Publisher • Jeff Calderwood
The First Tee
The Canadian golf industry has never been particularly strong at commun- icating all of the great virtues of our sport. That includes all stakeholders, such as golf course management, associations, media, and suppliers. But, that is now changing.
Our feature story addresses this opportunity head on. The author, Andrew Wood, is considered the world’s leading golf marketing consultant and has a track record of great success leveraging golf messages for his golf course clients. In this issue of Golf Business Canada, he makes the case for broadcasting those ‘stories’ through all of the media channels available to you, ultimately improving your own results while contributing to an industry-wide shift toward the more positive perception that golf deserves.
TEll ThE RIGhT STORY
Wood recommends communicating to your customers with frequent feel good messages about golf, and integrating all of that positive publicity directly into your marketing plan. Content marketing, enabled by such a wide range of cost- effective media channels now available, truly does provide a tremendous opportunity to engage with the golfer more deeply. In effect, every golf course is now a media outlet and with so many positives to promote about Canadian golf, the potential impact is great.
To help deliver on this strategy, the National Golf Course Owners Association Canada has partnered with Andrew Wood to offer individual course operators access to numerous articles, photos with captions, videos, marketing manuals, and related media promotion; all customizable
for your golf course to present as your own. Golf courses who are already using these marketing strategies report tremen- dous results.
Similarly, the National Golf Course Owners Association Canada recently launched a Facebook platform, called golfsocial, for courses to continuously populate their own Facebook pages with meaningful golf content. As a content marketing tool, golfsocial solves the time commitment of sourcing current golf stories, while still allowing for the golf course to generate its own local content as well.
In addition, the industry-wide launch of www.golfcanadagolf.ca plus #GolfCanadaGolf invites golfers them- selves to share and celebrate the various stories that make the game so special. The story telling is directly between golfers and nicely compliments the messaging from golf courses to golfers.
At the end of the day, this heightened focus on changing the story to one of positive messaging about golf should indeed change the results. Golf may still be #1 in Canada but it does require proactive communication strategies to sustain that success and overcome the negative publicity. Andrew Wood’s feature article puts the spotlight on that solution and should be an insightful read for all Canadian golf course owners and operators.
Jeff Calderwood, CEO NGCOA Canada jcalderwood@ngcoa.ca
6 Golf Business Canada