It is a hot topic. It is a key talking point. It is a focal point of many. But it has to be more than just talk. Bringing more women and girls into golf and making the sport more inclusive in general must be a fundamental thread of any golf stakeholder’s activity.

Together, the CPG and its Member Country PGAs are fully committed to working in a variety of ways to achieve this and are proud signatories of The R&A’s Women in Golf Charter that aims to inspire an industry-wide commitment to developing a more inclusive culture within golf.

Furthering inclusivity in golf is important for multiple reasons. From a moral standpoint, it fosters better and more equal opportunity for all, removing the barriers to entry that are often faced by women and girls. From a social perspective, it enables more women and girls to benefit physically, mentally and socially whilst playing golf. And from an economic perspective the maths is simple: more women and girls playing golf = more players playing golf = further revenue and growth.

The CPG is an individual signatory of the Charter, whilst a number of PGAs have committed one step even further by creating their own tailored charters, specific to their markets and their activities, that will inform and direct their strategies and activities in the future.

As part of the CPG’s own charter, and acting as core threads within individual member Country PGA charters, there are five key areas of commitment and action.

Benchmarking and increasing numbers of female PGA Professionals

Understanding where we are right now is as important as understanding where we want to get to – Member Countries have been measuring the demographics of their memberships for a long time and the data shows that on average 7.8% of PGAs’ memberships are female.  This is trending up, but until recently has been very slow.

A number of countries are seeing an increase in female membership following conscious efforts to make the profession a more attractive and relevant career path for women and in highlighting the experiences and work of existing female Members.  The PGA of Nigeria recently saw its first ever female Members join; the PGA of Poland previously had four female members for a number of years but currently has six women in training; the PGA of Ukraine also has four members currently but are committed to doubling this by 2024 as part of their strategic plan and regularly showcase their female Members across social media channels and media activity.

Supporting and promoting programmes for female participation

Member Countries are committing to work with the CPG and various other stakeholders on the delivery / activation and promotion of programmes that encourage female participation in golf in general, as well as those that look to increase the number of women in leadership roles in the sport.

The PGA of Poland has an official cooperation with the national Polish Women’s Golf Association to work with them on initiatives; the PGA of Ukraine and Ukrainian Golf Federation work with the National University of Physical Education Kiev (NUPES) which helps in part to expose golf as a career path to women and girls through an academic route; and the PGA of Belgium and PGA of Holland have each requested information and knowledge directly from their memberships to better understand the activities that are taking place across the countries.

Increasing involvement in workforces and governance of organisations

Highlighting the possibilities for women to not just be a part of workforces, but in fact leaders of golf workforces is vital. As tennis legend, Billie Jean King, put it “You have to see it to be it” showing it is hugely important to foster those who have the desire to be in leadership positions and ensure that their examples are shown and promoted to future leaders.

The CPG and its Member Countries are passionate about identifying and shining a light on these individuals whilst ensuring

The PGA of Belgium has had at least one female Board Member since 2012 and PGA Professional, Sophie Leten, was the first ever President of their PGA from 2017-19; The PGA of Holland have always had at least one female Board Member since 1995 and are seeking additional representatives; the PGA of Ukraine aim to have at least one Board Member by 2024 but already have three women on the Board of their sister organisation, the Ukrainian Golf Federation, with 9 women on various committees as well.

Sophie Leten, 2017-2019 PGA of Belgium President

Educational activities sharing good practice and fostering environments

Education is key in encouraging more women and girls to play golf, to create welcoming and enjoyable environments and in ensuring good practice is shared. The CPG and its Member Countries are addressing this in various ways through the addition of related content within education programmes to the creation of specific Continuous Professional Development [CPD] events and activities.

The PGA of Poland have partnered with love.golf for a pilot of the popular programme and proven approach to women’s coaching that is backed by research to help educate their Members and create new opportunities to bring women and girls in to the sport; the PGA of Belgium have already hosted webinars on coaching women and girls and, similar to the PGA of Holland, have made conscious efforts to create communications campaigns around this topic for Members to engage with and learn from.

Enhancing playing opportunities for female Members

For many years PGA events have often had mixed components allowing male and female PGA Professionals to compete against each other on an equal footing.  The CPG’s own events are played with the commonly-agreed standards of a course of 10-14% shorter length for female PGA Professionals to ensure they can compete for the same prize fund as their male counterparts, with most Member Countries following suit.

For example the PGA of Sweden and PGA of Nigeria, like many, operate open golf events allowing male and female Members to compete alongside each other, often with events including amateur golfers as well helping to build their experience; the PGA of Belgium operate both mixed events as well as those specifically for female Members to compete in; the PGA of Holland again allow male and female members to compete together and in the last few years PGA Professional, Marjan de Boer, won the Senior PGA Championship, its first ever female winner.

Whilst these five broad areas show significant efforts and steady progress there is clear understanding and commitment from across the CPG’s network of 42 Member Country PGAs that more should and will be done to create better playing, learning and career opportunities for women and girls.

RECEIVE FUTURE CPG NEWS

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE CHARTER

But this is set to become the new norm for many – short-term for most but may even become more of a long-term solution for others as well considering the current Coronavirus [COVID-19] circumstances we all face (especially as working from home may enable better working than ever in some cases).

The CPG network is a wide one across 31 countries with over 12,500 PGA Professionals. Of those 31 PGAs then a number already work remotely, or at least are able to relatively normally under the current circumstances, whilst others are working out how to be effective given their new situation.

For the vast majority of the 12.5k+ PGA Professionals, and all PGA Professionals in those countries where the virus restriction measures have taken hold, then this is will be a different and possibly unnerving experience.

The following are just a few useful links and resources that can hopefully a) help you to work and be productive at home, and b) utilise the time proactively to develop yourself and your business/organisation. None of this situation is ideal, but, as we are often told in golf, we must focus on the positives.

WORKING FROM HOME PRODUCTIVELY:

Communicating From a Distance: How to Ensure Remote Working Works Best For Your Organisation | Thomas International

The great team at Thomas International explain how “…a greater understanding of how you, your managers, colleagues and teams prefer to communicate can help with the transition to a greater degree of remote working than your business may currently be comfortable supporting…”

Read More – https://cp.golf/33SUzto

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Three Secrets to Effective Remote Working For Your Employees | Thomas International

The Thomas International folk follow up with a 3-point plan to ensure working remotely is as effective for the people in your organisation as possible.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2UMKUjN

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Coronavirus and Remote Working – A Practical Guide | Medium.com

iubenda have had remote workers since 2011 – here Andrea Giannangelo explains how to organise teams, use software tools, provide clear guidelines, and keep workers healthy and engaged.

Read More – https://cp.golf/3dy3GnA

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Online Business Tools to Work From Home | JotForm.com

JotForm, an online form building tool, give examples of tools for project management, remote document access, video conferencing, internal communications, and online payments, along with how JotForm itself is useful when working from home.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2UJQvHO

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Why Working From Home is Good For Business | Ted.com

Matt Mullenweg uses just 4.5 minutes to explain how useful working from home can be and how he does it effectively.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2ykPdvh

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New to Working from Home? Here Are Some Tips to Help You Meet Like a Pro | Zoom.us

Using Zoom for video calls, meetings, etc. is a must – engagement is key to keep workers up to speed and involved (although Skype, WhatsApp, FaceTime, etc. of course have their uses too). This guide from Zoom shows how to get set-up and then use Zoom effectively in your organisation.

Read More – https://cp.golf/3atTVoF

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USING YOUR TIME TO DEVELOP YOURSELF AND YOUR BUSINESS:

ed.TED.com – Online Lesson Building

TEDed offers a fantastic service [FOR FREE] where you can build an online lesson around any TED or YouTube video. You can add notes and questions to help guide a student through the lesson and all you have to do is share a link/URL with the student for them to take part (no registration necessary). A great way of engaging students no matter where you are.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2xvLlai

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TED.com – Ideas Worth Sharing

TED’s main video service contains hundreds if not thousands of TED Talk videos of 18 minutes or less that allow people to get their ideas across. Whatever subject you can think of then it’s likely there is a video on there about it. Great for developing your own thoughts and ideas.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2vZ0bpj

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How to Stay Active While You’re Home – SportEngland.org

Developing yourself is not just about being mentaller active – when working from home (especially in cases where social distancing/self-isolation is in place) then you need to stay as physically active as possible. Sport England have brought together useful tops and advice on staying as healthy as possible when at home both for adults and for kids.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2Uq4L9A

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Work Smarter Playlist – TED.com

This playlist brings together a series of TED Talk videos that offers unconventional advice on working more effectively.

Read More – https://cp.golf/3bCie40

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Work Happier Playlist – TED.com

This TED Talk playlist looks at how being happier at work actually comes from focusing on the happiness part rather than the work part.

Read More – https://cp.golf/2JoyhGj

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LinkedIn Learning – LinkedIn.com/learning

LinkedIn’s Learning service offers a huge number of online courses that can help develop your skills in a variety of areas. You can enrol in various courses and then once complete add certifications to your LinkedIn profile.

Read More – https://cp.golf/3asCmoN

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Working From Home Learning Path – LinkedIn Learning

During this time when more and more people are having to work from home then LinkedIn Learning have opened up their ‘Remote Working: Setting Yourself and Your Teams Up for Success‘ course, including time management, productivity tips, video conferencing, and more.

Read More – https://cp.golf/39q1n2F

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p.s. The real working from hero tip is to make sure you choose the right snacks. Shoutout to gingerbread men and blueberries.

Graphic Designed by macrovector / Freepik

Because of this I sit in the middle of various areas of the industry where I can get a good view of what is happening when it comes to embracing technology and looking at innovative ways to continually advance our profession and the coaching process.

Barely a day goes by without an announcement of an upgrade or introduction of a new piece of equipment that could make a golfer better (or ideally simply enjoy themselves more), and it’s exciting to think where this could go in the future.

Now, as an opening caveat, I no longer coach students as part of my job, but I am exposed to a lot of great coaches who have dedicated their lives to improving golfers’ experiences. So whilst I may not be directly using coaching equipment on a daily basis, I can appreciate the technology behind them and their practical applications.

In speaking with many of these coaches, there is something that continually comes up when you discuss technology – data capture.

The level of detail and sheer quantity of data that we can capture about a golf swing is incredible. Technologies such as launch monitor/radar flight and ball-roll tracking devices, hi-speed camera analysis, and the myriad of other options on the market, mean you can now analyse every parameter imaginable when getting the ball into the hole. And, assuming the user is appropriately trained, this can turn into a very tangible benefit to the end-user.

Previously we featured the Strokes-Gained metrics developed by Dr Mark Broadie that utilises the PGA Tour’s ShotLink® data in which every single shot played in PGA Tour events is recorded into an open-access pool of information that academics can make use of.

This detailed level of data capture has meant that every single aspect of a player’s round can be analysed and new and improved metrics for performance have been created.

With the continued rollout, pun intended, of golf simulators and intelligent, customisable simulated environments, combined with Augmented Reality (AR) technology, we now have ways of mirroring golf course conditions like never before, making coaching more realistic and contextually applicable.

Where Next?

Simulating golf course conditions leads nicely into the potential innovations that we could see in the future.

One thing I think could have huge potential uses would be virtual reality (VR) – imagine standing in a bay, putting on a headset and methodically planning your way around your next golf course of choice.

This could be something that helps the transition of elite amateurs to tour events – often players with little experience of the ‘big stage’ can let things get on top of them. The incredibly immersive experience of VR could help train players to overcome their nerves, ignore the distractions and perform better under pressure by recreating the conditions they could feel. Granted, nothing will ever replace the real thing but this would be a great start.

The future of data-capture looks to be about expanding our awareness and knowledge of areas of the sport that were previously nothing more than theory. We already have equipment with built-in sensors but I can see a future [that is not too far away] where there are completely non-invasive methods of gathering the same data Trackman can for example, but without the need for any external equipment to be setup, with data streaming live and wirelessly to receivers both on and off the course.

I can also see this extending to more wearable equipment that is less intrusive in the practice or practicing or playing (think a biomechanics analysis product that is nothing more than a normal base layer for example with no discernable difference to a normal item of clothing).

Right now anyone can go out and measure their vital statistics using something like an Apple Watch and the relevant apps, but perhaps in future we won’t even need to put anything on, or if we do it will be more akin to wearing a temporary tattoo than an accessory like a watch.

Perhaps a much bigger question to pose from all of this is what will be done with this data – the more you capture, the more you need to process it, and ultimately it needs to be useful to coaches and then to their students.

What will certainly need to happen, no matter what might come in the future, is for the education of coaches to go hand-in-hand with the technological advancement to ensure these fantastic tools are not purely a marketing ploy but are actually beneficial and valuable to their students.

PGA Professionals have a responsibility to keep up with the latest changes in coaching methods to ensure they a) provide what their students want and need, and b) they don’t get left behind when others could be helping golfers play better and enjoy themselves more.

This article originally featured in International Golf Pro News. Visit the IGPN Page to find out more and subscribe for free.

Whether it is promoting a tournament, curating content from contributors, adding posts to our social media presences, or creating content around our education and golf development work, it is undoubtedly marketing.

We see, hear and touch (and often taste smell) marketing all the time, and the world of golf is no exception to this.  Ever walked into a pro shop and been hit with offers on the latest gear?  Ever been playing and at the halfway house you wonder why there is a fan directing the smell of bacon out across the ninth green?  How about winning a prize in a tournament that’s been donated by an equipment manufacturer?

What I really like about marketing (to talk about it in very general terms) is that it can really be simple, clean and effective.

PR stunts and activities are often some of the simplest (and most fun) ways of generating interest in something and getting people talking – and that’s what PR is really all about.  Here are some examples:

The ALS ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’

Simple concept – you film yourself being doused in ice cold water, you donate to the cause, and you nominate three others to do the same and so on.   [You can view our Chief Executive, Ian’s challenge below:]

Here the marketing focus was on generating funds and encouraging people to share that message through social media.  The ALS Association went from a previous year of $1.7 million in donations to $13.3 million.

Tiger Woods Hits a Ball From Europe to Asia

To promote the Turkish Airlines World Golf Final in 2013, Tiger took to Istanbul’s Bosphorus Bridge and after closing one side from traffic he launched a ball across the bridge.

It might have caused chaos at rush hour in Istanbul but the stunt went all over the world generating a huge amount of PR for the event and for Turkish Airlines who are renowned for working with the biggest stars.

Bubba Watson and Oakley Make a Hovercraft…

Bubba has form in this area – barely a week goes by where his sponsors have made use of his personality and liveliness to promote products and services.  Two years ago Bubba teamed up with Oakley to create Bubba’s very own fully operational hovercraft golf cart.

In the video he wears Oakley product but, as with many things like this, it’s not about the product.  It’s about creating something that is fun, shareable and gets people talking.

It was released ahead of the 2013 Masters where Bubba would hope to defend his 2012 title and to date has had almost 9 million views.

Creating your own hovercraft might be a step too far but it is always worth looking out for examples and see how you could apply the principles to your business, club or brand.

You might not reach millions but it can be a cost effective way of showing a fun and innovative side to a business and activating PR (stunts or otherwise) could well generate excellent quality interest in what you do.

Seen any good examples of golf PR?  Feel free to send then to aw@CPG.com.

My Reading List

• ‘How Topgolf Flipped The Traditional Driving Range Model And Created A New Category Of Entertainment’ [Forbes.com] – http://eur.pe/1wUdQI6
• ‘Donald Trump: I’m Huge!’ [GolfDigest.com] – http://eur.pe/1MlTxoy
• ‘Public Relations Tips and Tricks for Your Business’ [Inc.com] – http://eur.pe/184KH13
• ‘My top tip for a great speech – Richard Branson’ [Virgin.com] – http://eur.pe/1x8Y2f7
• ‘The psychology of Web design: How colours, typefaces and spacing affect your mood’ [TheNextWeb.com] – http://eur.pe/1ELQs06
• ‘7 Goal-Setting Tips and Strategies for Social Media Marketers’ [Blog.Bufferapp.com] – http://eur.pe/1GyBrkH

This article originally featured in International Golf Pro News. Visit the IGPN Page to find out more and subscribe for free.

In the 21st century the job-seeking process is complex and quick.  A career path can present itself to you in the blink of an eye, and can disappear just as quickly.

The development of platforms such as LinkedIn have shown that it is not just a paper CV that shows off who you are and what you can do.  It’s now possible to find out every bit of detail needed about a potential employee to make an educated decision as to whether they should get a job or not.

It is widely accepted that employers will likely Google an applicant as soon as they get their name.  What comes up in the search can be a window into their lives – whether you like it or not.  To ensure your results are ones that play in your favour, here are some tips to promote yourself better online and ensure a search of your name makes it more likely that you will be hired…

1. Google Yourself

The best place to start – do what an employer might do (ideally on a different computer than your own to see what someone else might see).

This will show you what they might see and could give you a good place to start when identifying where you are visible and what you should do about it.

2. Optimise Your LinkedIn Profile (Or Create One First!)

Firstly, if you are not on LinkedIn then you’re doing it wrong. Join LinkedIn.  It is a fantastic [FREE] resource where you can lay down as much or as little information about yourself, connect with people you know and people you want to know, and ultimately use as a live, digital and interactive CV.

Second, make sure your profile is complete using LinkedIn’s built-in step-by-step guide, add a great photo and take your time on your bio.  Then get connecting – sync your account with your phone or contacts and start by adding people you know.  Then once you have a network the platform will automatically start suggesting jobs and new connections for you – then you can start to action these connections and see where leads might come from.

3. Write a Blog

What better way to express yourself and show-off your expertise and knowledge in your area than writing about it.  You can write anything you want and tailor it to your intended are of work to show a) that you care about what you do/want to do, b) are knowledgeable and have an opinion on it, and c) you are computer/digitally savvy enough to get out there and set it up [but don’t worry it’s actually pretty easy to do with services such as WordPress and Tumblr].

4. Check Your Settings

Go through all of your social accounts and check your privacy settings – you may be happy for someone to discover your Facebook profile through a Google search, but are you happy that they can look at your 10-year old photos from University parties? Probably not.

Settings can often be tucked away or a little tough to root out, but platforms nowadays have great flexibility and control for their users when it comes to privacy – take time to work out what the different on and off switches mean.

5. Make the Most of Your Biography

Your Twitter bio, LinkedIn short biography and any other place where you can add a public biography are what people will see first.  Take time to make this as good as possible – you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but people often do anyway so make sure yours looks great.

6. Reverse Engineer The Search

Work out what an employer might look at that is connected to you – go through the process yourself and make sure everything is as you wish at each stage of a search.  Think about what they want to see and tailor your profiles to that.

Plus, turn the tables on a potential employer and look at their company profiles, connect with people from that company, or even explore their LinkedIn profiles.  They will no doubt do it to you, so you can do it to them.  Going into an interview with knowledge and info on the bosses, co-workers or interviewees will almost certainly be useful in your search.

This article originally featured in International Golf Pro News. Visit the IGPN Page to find out more and subscribe for free.

One of my previous jobs was at Precision Golf in Surrey, UK, as Marketing Manager. During that time I learnt some useful lessons about how to promote/market custom fitting as a service that I will share here.

1. Focus on Improvement

Ultimately the biggest benefit a person will get from having their equipment fitted to them is improvement of their game – they should be better able to play to the best of their ability knowing that the equipment they are using is not holding them back.

But improvement means different things to different people – make sure you look at all the benefits they could get. It could be that they achieve better performance, which could ultimately lead to a drop in their handicap. But equally the most important thing to someone could purely be the ability to enjoy their game – increased likelihood of hitting good shots or doing what they plan to do might not necessarily make them score massively better but it might allow them to have more fun. Speak to your clients to find out what their motivation was and align your marketing with these.

2. Promote Skills, Knowledge & Experience

Whether you have PGA Professionals or professional club fitters carrying out your fitting sessions you should shout about their knowledge, their certifications, their amount of experience and successes. Framed in the correct way, shouting about all of this does not have to be big-headed, but can be a genuine reflection of the service you can offer.

3. Case Studies

As has been shown throughout many areas of marketing and advertising, you can say how good you are as much you want, people will still give value to the views of their peers over what you say.

Case studies are a great way of showing how your services have benefitted people just like your prospective customers. Focusing on different types of players (e.g. male/female, pros/amateurs, etc.) allows you to develop examples of how you have helped people before and the types of benefits they can achieve.

This shows that you can practice what you preach and there are real-life examples of people who will support that.

4. The Gift of Choice

Tell people about how many options you have to offer them. Clients interested in custom fitting want to know how many options you can offer them because this is a good indicator of how specific you will be with their specification choices.

5. Show You Care

Something I think many custom fitting outfits could improve upon are their aftercare services. If a customer is engaged enough to want to have their clubs tailored to them then it is likely they will want this to continue in the future, especially in order to get the most out of what are often substantial investments.

Do not just sell a custom fitting session – combine it with a follow-up appointment of some kind – even a 10 minute check when they have received their new equipment and have had a chance to get used to it. You can promote that a) you care about their game and b) they will get the most out of their investment.

If you have any other ways of promoting your services then I would love to hear about them – you can contact me at aw@CPG.com.

This article originally featured in International Golf Pro News. Visit the IGPN Page to find out more and subscribe for free.

Publicity and brand value, as well as potential avenues in sponsorship and funding are just a few reasons that show why effort should be invested in communicating sustainability initiatives as effectively as possible – here are some ways to promote and market your activities:

Address Perceptions

Sustainability means different things to different people. Most will often automatically default to thinking of the environment, but there are various other dimensions such as societal and economical elements.

Their views on sustainability efforts may also be focused on the initial cost implications or potential lack of impact for the effort that goes into the activities.

Focus comms on explaining what sustainability is, how it affects your stakeholders, and what benefits will come from the activities you are undertaking. You could do this through FAQ (Frequently Asked Question) pieces, external case study examples of similar activations that have been successful, question and answer sessions, or video walkthroughs of plans/ideas.

Engage All Stakeholders

Create clear, easy to consume communications channels to engage with the stakeholders that will be influenced by your initiatives such as local governments, your customers/members, academy pupils, local residents surrounding your facility, the local golf community, etc.

Your best approach here would be to initially identify all the different stakeholders involved and find out what they want, what their concerns are, and how you can communicate with them effectively. Then you can build a plan about what messages go to which stakeholders and when.

You could then take that a step further and involve stakeholders at key points (e.g. inviting local government officials to milestone events, or running open evenings with members).

Be Transparent

2015 is seemingly a turning point for transparency in business – keeping people in the loop on what is happening and why will help them feel involved in the process ensuring understanding of actions and their impact.

Publishing reports or findings, regular updates by email, in-depth explanations of actions authored by key decision makers, and clear policies/standards will help your stakeholders stay informed.

Be Prepared

Prepare in advance for questions, queries, challenges and more from various stakeholders. Use the information gathered during stakeholder research to create a library of answers for people to use and tap in to.

The other key here is to make sure your entire team/staff are on-board and understand what is happening, how to explain it, and how to answer consistently so everyone is on-message.

Shout About Your Good Work

Lastly, make sure you shout about the outcomes of the work as much as possible through articles, features, interviews and more. Contact local authorities or media outlets to show off how your business is promoting sustainability – you never know what sort of assistance, funding or business could be attracted when you get good PR and marketing behind your activities.

If you have any other ways of promoting sustainability initiatives then email them to aw@CPG.com

This article originally featured in International Golf Pro News. Visit the IGPN Page to find out more and subscribe for free.

These stakeholders include your very own army of students that you coach and members/visitors to your facilities, and leveraging this band of merry golfers can help golf’s cause, as well as your own.

As you will read in this issue of IGPN, there are many health and well-being benefits that come from taking part in the sport, so we’ll use these as a basis for getting your army on-board and spreading the gospel of golf…

Get All Your Staff Involved

You and your facility’s staff all need to be aligned with your plans and also embody exactly what you are after from your ambassadors. They need knowledge and information in order to reflect what you want to portray.

Every staff member that could have an interaction with a client or customer (and even those who might not) can be educated with top-line information about the benefits of golf to different demographics’ health and wellbeing.

Short, sharp bits of info that they can be armed with when speaking to people about the sport and why they should get involved.

Promote the Benefits in Your Facility and to your Clients

A key thing with getting people on the same page as you is ensuring they are aware of information and engaged with it.

Create some resources [the Confederation of Professional Golf will have some soon for you to use as well] that you can use on noticeboards around your facility, or in your Pro Shop for example, that show the benefits of the sport. Materials like posters, infographics, leaflets, etc. are great items to get in front of people.

Having on-site information is the first step – then you need to get people engaged with the materials so including a section in regular email blasts to your databases can help support your actions and activities and can also allow you to share great examples of how golf is benefitting people in various different forms such as news items, feature articles or videos.

Create a Programme or Team

A great way of getting the message out there would be to build a team of ambassadors from your facility with people from key demographics represented.

A good place to start could be with you in the middle as the group leader and include a couple of members of staff from around the business along with a couple of males and females from differing ends of the age spectrum. Ideally these people will be the opinion leaders from the facility – when these people speak or act, others pay attention.

The individuals you pick should be willing to join in with the activity and embody the message you are trying to get across. They can act as on the ground troops for your armies to infiltrate their demographics and get the messaging out there to educate others and spread the word.

Activate Your Ambassadors

Once you have a team of ambassadors who are exemplifying your message then you need to activate them and leverage their knowledge, peer groups and influence within them.

For example you could have your more ‘youthful’ ambassadors promote a fun day or charity fair at the facility to their social groups and make sure that the event is on their level and of interest.

Or you could record some interviews or write a short blog post using your ambassadors as case studies to show how their social, mental and physical health might have benefitted from playing. This could go on your website, blog and shared on social media and you could even contact your local media to see if they would like to use the information in a piece about golf’s health benefits.

Once you have some ambassadors on your side then they can be a really useful asset to you to help promote the benefits of the sport as well as your own facility and services.

This article originally featured in International Golf Pro News. Visit the IGPN Page to find out more and subscribe for free.

As Communications Manager for the Confederation of Professional Golf I am always looking to ensure our messaging is as effective as possible and to do so we often take a step back and ask ourselves some questions.  Here are 6 questions that you can ask to help establish if you are on the right track…

1. What is your brand and what does it stand for?

Have you ever really looked at your brand in detail?  Having a grasp on this is a real key to knowing how to communicate a message to your various stakeholders.  It provides things like context, tone of voice, direction and clarity.

Take the time to assess what your brand is from an overall ‘visionary’ and strategic outlook, all the way down to the nuts and bolts of what it looks and feels like.  This will help frame your comms and keep things consistent no matter the business’ size.

2. Who are you targeting?

Looking at your target audience broadly is sometimes overlooked, as it is often obvious to you who you are targeting.  But is this true throughout the business and with each and every piece of messaging that is sent out?

Messages that seem clear to you may not actually be clear to the desired recipient so be sure to assess the clear reasons that a message is going to someone, whilst also making sure it can be understood from their end.  This is where your research should come into play to help tailor information appropriately and fit in with your overall comms strategy.

3. Are you acting responsibly?

Corporate Responsibility has become more and more of a buzzword in recent years – it could be argued that in the past a business’ focus was quite often on the bottom line and very little else.  Making money was seen to be the ultimate goal above all else.

But in a world of complete connectivity and increasing transparency, businesses have been forced [and rightly so] to look at the social impacts to their operations and work.  Rather than pleasing the shareholders and few others, businesses now need to look at how what they do affects their customers, the environment, the community and employees.

Think about how each of your messages affects these groups not only financially but also socially.

4. How do you communicate internally?

Communicating to your internal stakeholders is just as important as communicating to the external ones.  Your employees are the action and mouthpiece of a business and they should all be on board.

How do you pass your key messages to employees, your board, or your managers?  Are they in the loop as much as they need to be and aware of what the overall organisational goals and strategy are?

Creating a corporate culture where sharing of information is central can lead to greater efficiency, shared understanding and ownership, and overall satisfaction.

5. How are you managing your Public Relations?

Are your messages getting to the right people?  Do you have someone who is getting those messages to the right people at the right time?

The delivery of your message to the outside world in the most effective way is key to serving your business’ interests so you must ensure that whomever looks after your PR is getting the right message across to the right people, whilst also reflecting a broader corporate message about the business’ overall strategy and positioning, along with its value to its stakeholders.

6. What happens if there is a problem?

Your business should have guidelines in place for your brand – how it can and can’t be used by various stakeholders in various forms – but are there guidelines for how the business and its stakeholders should something happen involving your business?

Again with information being more readily available and transparent, corporate communications has become more frequently associated with dealing with issues that affect the business and its stakeholders.  Make sure you have a plan (even if it is simply a checklist of actions to complete if something happens) should something happen that involves your business.

This article originally featured in International Golf Pro News. Visit the IGPN Page to find out more and subscribe for free.

1. Continued Use of Mobile

Global usage of mobile Internet devices crossed over desktop usage in 2014 and continues to grow at a higher rate and there are now more devices on Earth than humans. By the end of 2016 Tablets will exceed 10% of global mobile data traffic, and by 2019 smartphones will reach the 75% of mobile data traffic milestone.

What does it mean?

• Optimise your website for mobile/different screen sizes and orientations and think about how people will interact with it.
• Any message you communicate, be it via email, website, social media, forum, intranet, etc. should also be easily read/consumed on any device.
• Test, test, and test. Have due diligence in checking web pages, email communications, and social media updates across devices.

2. Marketing Automation

A trend expected to grow this year is automation (and to some extent personalisation) – the 2016 consumer is more attuned to messages that are personalised and relevant to them; they want to be engaged with, not sold to.

What does it mean?

• You need to be collecting the right information, not necessarily more. When users sign-up/register/join you need to ensure you gather accurate data and also the information most relevant to you? Take a step back and ensure you gather only the relevant information you need and will actually use.
• Look at the small things within your communications – for example can you add users’ names to mass mailouts (e.g. merge tags in Mailchimp) to personalise a message?
• The importance of targeting has never been more important – is the message you’re sending relevant to all the people in your audience? If not then how can you break it down?

3. Content Continues to Dominate

The content marketing area of communications has really grown significantly showing people want to develop a relationship based on trust and relevancy with a brand or organisation. A survey in 2015 showed that 86% of B2B organizations have a strategic content marketing strategy, whilst another showed only 23% percent of consumers trust content from companies who they are not involved with, but if the source is a company they have a relationship with, that number nearly doubles to 43%.

What does it mean?

• Develop a strategy to give direction to what you do. A strategy will let you work out why you might need to develop content, who it is targeted towards, and what it should do and be in order to meet those requirements.
• Make sure you appeal to your users’ needs and wants (and do the research to find out what they might be).
• Have patience – it takes time to build trust with an audience even if they are heavily invested in your brand or organisations already. Keep it consistent in terms of subject matter, frequency and distribution.

This article originally featured in International Golf Pro News. Visit the IGPN Page to find out more and subscribe for free.

We have many people working on various elements of developing golf across the continent and further afield including coaching, development of programmes, monitoring of standards etc.  But something I can assist with in my capacity as Communications Manager is two-fold:

1 – Communicating Best Practice Examples and Initiatives

Golf development activities are taking place all the time all over the world but it is safe to say that very few of them will be exactly the same.  Of course general concepts and ideas are followed but locally they will be heavily tailored to the market.

Where communications can help is in developing a library of good practice examples that can then be applied to other places – the best bits of one programme and the best of another could mix and be adapted to create a very effective activity somewhere else.

These resources can be collected and shared effectively with organisations that are interested in creating an initiative or programme with, for example, the assistance of the Confederation of Professional Golf’s Golf Development Professionals and Education Committee.

2 – Raising Awareness of Development Activity

Communications then plays a part in sharing information and updates about development activities.  Using case studies and sharing success stories helps to bolster the resources mentioned earlier but it also gives coverage to specific initiatives that can help them.

A project or programme may also want to gain coverage to promote their work and its outcomes, promote the host facilities, the key supporters, etc.  Often programmes will be supported by commercial entities so promotion will give them coverage and hopefully spur on continued investment and support.

There are some excellent examples of golf development activities out there and plenty put a strong emphasis on promoting what they do.

A good example of strong promotion and coverage from an initiative is this week’s Drive, Chip & Putt Championship – The PGA of America, USGA and Masters Tournament’s nationwide youth golf development program final.

Of course three major organisations in the game have a lot of resources behind them but their methods of communication can still be learnt from and replicated.

Daily articles from the finals, blog posts, interviews with competitors, videos of the event, and fantastic imagery all make for a well formulated comms plan – take a look at www.drivechipandputt.com for examples of how to build content and communicate it around an initiative.

This article originally featured in International Golf Pro News. Visit the IGPN Page to find out more and subscribe for free.

A recent example was spending 10 days or so in Bulgaria at Pravets Golf & Spa Resort just outside Sofia. During that period we hosted around 50 people for various reasons tied into our education operations and I was lucky to spend much of the time interviewing these people and generating content.

During this trip and others before it I’ve picked up a few tips for travelling in a communications context that I think could easily help others heading to foreign climes:

Ask Questions

Never be afraid to ask a question – when I first visited countries outside of my ‘comfort zone’ (Britain), I always held back when I needed to find something out. I assumed people wouldn’t speak English and even if they did they wouldn’t want to help. Well it turns out, oddly enough, that they’re just like you and me. There are always people out there willing to help.

Asking questions also has other advantages – a whole world of culture and idiosyncrasies opens up to you and you often find out some enlightening things. This is especially important in what we do at the Confederation of Professional Golf – you would be amazed at what you can find out when you ask the right questions and listen properly.

Learn Your Ps & Qs (phrases)

One of my only regrets is not having paid more attention in language lessons at school. Admittedly I am in an interesting position where we have 36 member countries that speak approximately 39 languages so it is more relevant to me than perhaps others, but I really wish I had at least one fluent second language. It is amazing to visit other countries and be able to speak to them in English and communicate effectively, but it would be better if the visitor could adapt to the host rather than the other way around [although something that can help is Google Translate’s amazing app that instantly translates printed text in 27 languages].

Because of this my advice is to try and learn just a couple of phrases and words that could help during the trip. Easier said than done of course but it is genuinely worth it. And don’t be afraid to test out your phrases when you are there. Again I’ve often hid away from using some snippets of languages I do know, but a) how will you get better if you don’t practice, and b) the natives don’t mind if it’s a little wrong…at least you are trying!

Organise Yourself

Always having documents to hand is great – I love to travel using Apple’s Passbook functions on the iPhone, but I always have backups somewhere in my hand luggage. And then I tend to have digital backups available offline in the app Evernote.

Then there’s your kit – more or less every time I travel for work I will have a bag of camera gear, computer bits and pieces and a mass of cables with me. The key here is to make sure your gear is secure and safe, easily accessible (especially for the times when you get a tear-down from security) and in its place. Amongst other things I use a ‘Cocoon GRID-IT!^®’ – this is a great organisation system that uses elastic straps to hold anything and everything together so you can get to it easily and also keep a variety of items in one place.

Backup! Backup! Backup!

The last tip (for now anyway) is to backup. That’s it. Simple. Always, always, always back your files up before you go anywhere. I have various hard drives and memory cards with me when I go away but I always have another back at home with a very recent backup ready to go if I ever need it. I haven’t needed it yet, but you never know…

This article originally featured in International Golf Pro News. Visit the IGPN Page to find out more and subscribe for free.