THIS IS A SPECIAL EDITION ON THE PGA MERCHANDISE SHOW
Ken Morton, Jr. is the vice president of retail for Morton Golf LLC in Sacramento, Calif.
Ken Morton Jr. on the importance of live blogging your PGA Merchandise Show experience:
We had 12 staff members go to the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando last January. With the ever-growing popularity of social media and the intimate connection that can bring to your customers, we thought it was time that we shared this experience with them in a whole new way. Armed with smartphones and Flip cameras, the team spent four days at the PGA Show using multiple social media platforms to highlight what we saw and discuss all of the new products that were coming out later in the spring. Our customers long for information about what’s hot in golf, and being able to be the 13th person on the trip proved to not only accomplish that goal, but also get the customer excited to purchase the products when they became available.
Ken Morton Jr. on the business impact of live blogging your PGA Merchandise Show experience:
Besides the financial gains detailed below, the biggest business impact was how personally we were able to connect with the customer. The initiative was spearheaded by our social media marketing manager, Jennifer Morton. She coordinated a multi-pronged effort which included: a headline on the home page of our website linking to the live blog; The “Golf In The City” blog, which hosted the live blog (we decided on one single blog post that was updated continuously with new posts including pictures and video as they were sent her way by the entire team); our Twitter account, which gave customers an up-to-the-minute look at what everyone was seeing on the PGA Show floor; our Facebook account, which featured pictures and specific day-by-day blog posts, in addition to the ability for customers to ask questions about the products we posted about; and our YouTube account, which featured 15 five- to 10-minute videos with the manufacturers talking about their new products. All this added up to big numbers back at home: total independent customer interactions through this initiative totaled more than 13,000 unique hits on our website, leading to more than two dozen clubfittings, plus hundreds of product inquiries in the golf shop, an article in the Sacramento Bee, and an estimated $20,000 in added business from the initiative.
To view a few of the PGA Merchandise Show videos, click here.
If you would like to email the author of this Best Practice directly, please email kmortonjr@hagginoaks.com
