Posted by Jeremy Scott in Uncategorized | 13 Comments
Guerrilla Search Engine Marketing–Golf Ball Style
Myself and several of my co-workers had the privilege of playing in Monday’s Hendersonville Chamber of Commerce Golf Tournament at the Bluegrass Country Club.
The weather was perfect, the golfers were jovial, and the birdies were flowing–for some teams more than others.
Any of you who participated in the tournament have probably already heard about our guerrilla marketing golf balls. For the rest of you, here’s the Cliff’s Notes version:
See, one of our fastest growing services is Search Engine Optimization–or, helping websites rank better on Google. And we wanted to highlight that service to a tournament field filled with our core demographic… small business owners. So we conceived of and designed some specialty golf balls. They were really nice golf balls, some of the nicest Nike makes. On one side we printed our logo, and on the other side was a catchy marketing message:
“Finding golf balls is easy. Finding your website on Google is hard. We can help. FoundGolfBall.com“
At 8:30, an hour or so before the groups all teed off, Eric and I hopped in one of the spare golf carts and headed out. We drove the whole course, “losing” 7 or 8 of our special guerrilla golf balls on each and every hole. Some were “lost” in the rough. Some were “lost” in the sand traps or near the edges of water hazards. Others were “lost” in the trees and wooded areas. Heck, we even managed to “lose” a few on or near the green on several holes.
The idea was that golfers are always on the lookout for free golf balls. Anytime a golfer hits a ball into the woods and stumbles upon another ball that someone else lost… it makes that bad shot just a little easier to take, because now he got a free golf ball out of the deal.
So we assumed that our Found Golf Balls would be found… often.
Anyone whose interest was piqued went home Monday evening and typed into their Internet Explorer address bar the website URL printed on the ball: FoundGolfBall.com, which took them to this page here on our website.
There they learned that the ball itself was a coupon, good for one free hour of Search Engine consulting with one of our Search experts (a $100 value). We’ve already had a few people email or call to take advantage of that offer.
What’s even more fascinating is the requests we’ve gotten to give estimates on recreating this Found Golf Ball promotion for our clients. Guess we should have seen that coming, as there were plenty of folks talking about it at the tournament’s reception.
So we’ve put together a nice, affordable package for any small business owners who want to make the biggest sponsorship splash of your next corporate golf tournament:
- 2-4 hours consulting time with our concept team. We’ll help you pick the perfect marketing angle and slogan for your guerilla golf balls
- 144 custom printed Nike golf balls
- A free web page to promote a specific service, product, special offer, or just your business in general. We’ll print the FoundGolfBall.com URL and a promo code on the ball, and anyone who visits the site and types in the code will be redirected to your special promotional page. This includes hosting and web design
- A handy PDF guide we authored with special instructions, tips, tricks, and suggestions to help make your golf ball promotion a rousing success
There isn’t a business or industry that these golf balls can’t help promote. Here are some examples:
Churches: “If only peace was as easy to find as this golf ball. Come join us on the journey at First Community Church.”
Golf Instructors: “If you were a better golfer, you probably wouldn’t have found this ball.”
CPAs: “Finding a CPA is like finding this golf ball… easy. Finding a CPA you can trust? Now that’s hard.”
So on and so forth. You see where we’re going here… any business can take this novel approach to marketing and, with the right guidance, come up with the perfect slogan.
Sure, you can sponsor the par-3 17th hole, like you do every year, and sit there giving away bottled water… like you do every year.
OR… you can do something that’s truly unique and totally memorable with the Found Golf Ball promotion from Keystone Business Solutions. Make a lasting impression on the CEOs and decision makers of local businesses in your area, and have some fun with it at the same time.
Give us a shout today to find out what it might take to get the ball rolling on your own amazing golf ball promotion.
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It’s pretty much a given in the Search Engine Marketing world that small business people do not buying advertising. Even though local enterprises truly need to be represented in the Yellow Pages, which is the local business directory with which everyone is familiar, many of them would never change a thing in their listing if their rep didn’t come around once a year and remind them of it.
Henry,
I think you’ll find that small businesses are evolving, albiet at a slower rate than the rest of the business world. The bulk of our clients are small and medium businesses in Tennessee, and we get inquiries on an almost-daily basis about internet and search marketing. They are traditionally slower to take to new trends, but theres’ no doubting that the average small business owner is becoming wise to the need for an online marketing effort.
Ha! Outstanding. Very clever idea, indeed. I wonder how many golfers just stuffed the ball into their bag without even reading it?
Well…that’s the thing. If we had just put the balls in the player “goodie bags,” they would never have looked at them. Because each player found a “lost” ball…they’re forced to pick it up and examine it (or else risk taking someone else’s ball and getting hit over the head with a 9 Iron.) It was truly the talk of the tournament.
What an amazing marketing technique. I worked at a logo golf ball company for about 4 years and never saw any of our customers using this trick!! I applaud your creativity!
This is a great marketing techinique. Someone hook me up with one of those balls!
David-Thanks for the very kind words. We thought we had an original idea, and it’s nice to hear that we did.
Jon-We would gladly send you one, but we used all of them in our promotion (save one or two in our office that will serve as nice reminder). Sorry! If you want to come to Middle Tennessee and play the Bluegrass Country Club course, I bet there are still several out there waiting to be discovered.
I noticed your balls have 5 lines of text. Most places only allow 3 lines. Mind if I ask where you got them from?
I’m not in the office right now, where I could find the name of the company we used. I’ll try to remember to post it tomorrow.
But we didn’t print the second pole as text… we created a “logo” that had 5 lines of text on it, and sent it in as a graphic rather than raw text. That’s how we got the extra lines.
I did the same thing about a month ago, but I’m not looking to sell SEO (I work in-house). Did want to take advantage of the idea though.
http://danperry.com/wordpress/find-a-golf-ball/
Anyone say linkbait? Excellent idea!
Dan, that is outstanding. What are the odds that we’d have a similar idea around the same time? Kudos to you. I kind of like the mysterious angle of what you did… plenty of intrigue for someone finding that ball.
For those interested, we used a company called Specialty Golf Balls to order ours.
That is good linkbait. Just make a bunch of those, and sell them on the corner close to they city golf course. They will get lost, and others will find them to repeat the advertising cycle.
Titleist Logo Golf Balls