Visual Golf Blog

Visibility online is absolutely crucial to the golf industry – if a golf venue or destination really wants to get their messages across to as wide a golfing audience as possible, video needs to be an integral part of their online marketing strategy. If not, even top quality golf venues may struggle to get noticed online and soon find themselves behind the competition in 2010. Here’s why:

(1) Internet ‘shoppers’ are becoming increasingly savvy and have come to expect an abundance of information about a golf venue before making a booking. Video is the perfect medium to deliver this information because it allows potential guests to view the facilities, golf courses, bedrooms and restaurants of a golf venue, providing a much greater insight than still photos and / or static text, greatly increasing the possibility of a booking.

(2) By featuring its staff, video offers a fantastic opportunity to provide golf venues with a much-needed human face. People connect with people!

(3) By providing an authentic, engaging and realistic portrayal of golf venue, video can have an emotional impact that the written word struggles to match.

(4) Videos are far more authoritative than the written word. People tend believe what they can see, far more than what they read.

(5) The human mind is programmed to remember pictures and images far better than the things we hear or read.

(6) Video improves the ‘stickiness’ of a website and increases conversion rates.

(7) Videos are great for SEO. They can be repurposed and propagated online, driving highly-targeted traffic to a venue’s website.

(8) Video production is increasingly affordable and accessible. A high quality video can be made for a relatively small amount of money.

(9) Videos are incredibly versatile and therefore highly cost-effective, allowing any golf venue to make its marketing budget go further. For example videos can be streamed online, distributed to 3^rd party operators, included on e-mail signatures, duplicated onto DVDs, used in one-on-one meetings or at large scale events. The right video can serve a golf venue’s needs for a long period of time and the footage can be easily re-edited for use in future productions.

(10) Free hosting websites continue to emerge and when used in tandem with these sites, videos can become even more powerful marketing tools.

(11) The viral potential of videos means that information can be distributed much quicker and much further than conventional methods.

(12) Video streamed online is an environmentally friendly communications tool. It reduces paper usage, as well as the carbon footprint associated with large scale mail-shots.

However to capture the attention of an online audience notorious for its short attention span, it’s very important to produce unique and creative videos with production values that mirror the standards and facilities on offer. That’s why it’s usually a job best left to the professionals.

Visual Golf produce videos for a wide range of golf venues right across the budget spectrum – clients already include Aphrodite Hills in Cyprus, Emilia Romagna Golf in Italy and Donnington Grove Country Club in the UK. We provide clients with unique services supported by a huge amount of experience within both video production and golf travel.

To find out more about our work and to view a selection of videos produced by Visual Golf, visit www.visual-golf.com

Tim Stansbury
Managing Director – Visual Golf
www.visual-golf.com