Hole In One Insurance News from Hole In One International

Even if you’re not a first-time golf tournament planner or organizer, chances are there are some suggestions and tips when it comes to organizing your golf tournament committee that you had never thought of before.  Luckily for you, Hole In One International is here to give you some pointers!

Committee Tip #1 – Size DOES Matter!
Let’s face it: the last thing you want or need is for your golf tournament committee to be short-handed or over-staffed.  If you don’t have enough people, then your team will be stretched beyond their means and easily worn out.  Seeing as how volunteers are a golf outing’s most important asset, you’ll obviously want to make sure they’re treated right — especially since they’ll be dedicating their time and efforts towards the golf tournament.  Too many people, however, and it makes it difficult to get any decision-making done.  For most golf tournament committees, anywhere from 6-12 people are typically sufficient; however, if your committee is feeling overwhelmed, it’s still easy enough to add 1-2 more members into the mix!

Committee Tip #2 - Contacts, Contacts, Contacts!
Before bringing on any volunteers, first make sure that they already have their own external contacts.  Having leads and contacts is crucial if you plan on having a sufficient amount of sponsors and a successful turnout of golfers at your golf tournament.  The less leads you have as a committee, the less likely you are to reach your fundraising goals, sponsorship goals and other important benchmarks within your golf tournament.

Committee Tip #3 – Everyone Does Their Part!
Make sure everyone in your committee is contributing either money, contacts and/or time.  Don’t let anyone onto your committee with the impression that they’ll be able to gain recognition via any of your golf tournament’s literature/advertising.  Only allow an individual to be on your committee if they are adequately contributing in some way, shape or form.   Be sure to divvy up responsibilities accordingly — for example, who will be in charge of keeping track of expenses?  Who will be responsible for creating/acquiring the proper advertising materials, such as golf contest and sponsor signs?

Need more suggestions and tips?  Give Hole In One International a call today at 800-827-2249… or email us at any time!

Whether you’re a first time golf tournament planner or you’ve been coordinating your golf outing for years, it never hurts — nor is it ever too late — to make some major improvements in your planning!  Today, Hole In One International is here to not only stress the importance of assigning different committees within your golf tournament, but also to explain the different types of committees and the responsibilities of each one.

1) The Marketing/PR Chair
While the Marketing/PR Chair’s main focus may appear blatantly obvious to us, there’s one thing to keep in mind: Connections, connections, connections!  Make sure the individual you choose to fill this role has plentiful connections within not only your community, but in the media as well.  The Marketing/PR Chair should actively seek out and seize any/all available promotional opportunities, including activities such as a hole in one contest or putting contest.

2) The Tournament Chair
The Tournament Chair is your golf tournament’s ‘leader.’  Make sure they’re well-connected within your community and are prompt and reliable when it comes to deadlines.  The Tournament Chair is oftentimes also the contact person for people interested in participating and need more information.  Feel free to list their contact information in any brochures, online advertising or any other marketing materials your golf tournament commitee produces.

3) The Sponsorship Chair
Make sure your appointed Sponsorship Chair has sufficient connections within the business community and is a top-notch, experienced salesperson!  This individual will be in charge of acquiring sponsors for the golf tournament and selling them the sponsorships.

4) The Logistics Chair
The Logistics Chair will ideally be responsible for not only budgeting, but managing operations and personnel as well.  The Logistics Chair should ideally be very detail-oriented by nature.  After all, the last thing you or your golf tournament committee want or need is oversight on the Logistic Chair’s part — especially when it comes to your budget and money.

5) The Honorary Chair
This individual will be duly recognized at the golf tournament… and not only through marketing and advertising!  Make sure the person you assign as the Honorary Chair is a prominent figure in your community.  You don’t want just any average joe representing your golf tournament, do you?  Of course not!

6) The Golfer Chair
The Golfer Chair should ideally be a golf enthusiast and will be responsible for recruiting players for the golf tournament.  Being an avid fan of the game and being able to network with other fellow golfers is always helpful when it comes to recruiting players for a golf tournament.

7) The Gift & Prize Chair
The Gift and Prize Chair will be responsible for creating various sponsorship packages and finding deals on the prizes and gifts being offered to them.  Make sure that the sponsorship packages/offers are appealing and that your sponsors are being adequately rewarded for the money they’ll be putting in.  For example, it’s always a good idea to recognize your sponsors with golf sponsor signage.  Remember to clue in the Sponsorship Chair about what your final gift and prize packages will be — it will hopefully make for an easy sale for them!

Have more questions about golf tournament committees?  Call us today at 800-827-2249!

Welcome to part 2 of “Properly Advertising Your Golf Tournament.”  If you didn’t read part 1 earlier this week, make sure to do so before continuing on.

4.)  Sending Out Invitations
It may not seem like it, but something as simple as sending out invitations can be a great way to advertise.  Make sure to personalize them and have them look professional.  Once you’ve fine-tuned the details of your golf tournament, you can then begin sending out those invitations!  You’ll be pleasantly surprised to see how many interested individuals contact you!  Be sure to have multiple methods of contact on your invitation — phone number, email, fax, etc.  Not everyone uses the same one, after all.

5.)  Give Your Sponsors Maximum Exposure
Make sure to properly advertise not only for yourself and your outing, but for your sponsors as well! Purchase sponsor signs featuring the sponsor’s logo (plain text can also be used) and whatever you do, make sure you know where to place the signage to give your sponsors the recognition out on the golf course that they deserve!

6.)  Discounts & Special Offers
Give your players an incentive for registering for your golf tournament prior to the cut-off date by offering a discount on the price of their foursome if they submit payment prior to it.  After the tournament, give players a similar incentive for registering for next year’s tournament on the spot!  And last, but definitely not least, don’t forget to announce if you’re going to be holding any sort of golf contests during your outing – especially ones that involve big prizes, such as a hole in one, Million Dollar Shootout or putting contest!

If you have any additional questions about advertising your golf tournament, or if you’re interested in insuring a hole-in-one or putting contest during your outing, please give us a call today at 800-827-2249.  All of our contest consultants would be happy to help you out!  You can also email Hole In One International as well, if you’d prefer.

Looking to amp up your advertising this year at your golf tournament?  Hole In One International is here to help give you some ideas on how to get the word out about your upcoming golf outing!

1.) Make a Website
Having a website dedicated to your golf tournament is crucial when it comes to spreading the news about it!  Be sure to visibly display when and where it will be taking place, a phone number and/or email for your tournament director in case people have questions, as well as any sort of contests/promotions you’ll be running during the tournament!  You also have the ability to allow players to pay for their event on your website via online payment services such as PayPal.  See if anyone in your tournament planning committee has the capability to set up a website for you — if not, there are some extremely helpful websites out there that will assist you in creating one for free, such as TournEvents.

2.)  Create Social Media Pages
Chances are that your target audience is active in the social media world, so make sure to create a Facebook event page, Twitter account and/or even a Google+ page dedicated to your outing.  Be sure to make mention of your golf tournament regularly on your personal or business pages and link back to the appropriate golf outing pages.  It’s important to keep everyone informed by making frequent updates (for example, if you’ve added on a few new sponsors or managed to grab a local celebrity local business leader as your chairperson).

3.)  Utilize Print Advertising
Print advertising is a tried and true way of spreading the news of your golf tournament.  Whether you plan to send flyers, create an online press release (which you can do for free through websites such as prlog.com) or put an ad about the golf tournament in your local newspaper listing, all are guaranteed to yield results and get your message out there into the world!  Be sure to also work with your sponsors to include information about your tournament in their ads/mailers!

Stay tuned later this week for part 2 of Hole In One International’s “Properly Advertising Your Golf Tournament” blog post.  And as always, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to call us at 800-827-2249 or email us!

Before reading on, if you haven’t checked out part 1 or part 2 of this blog post series, we encourage you to do so now!  For those of you returning, welcome back and we hope you find the final portion of Selling Sponsorships At Your Golf Tournament helpful!

Offer Sponsorship Incentives
Add bonuses and incentives once you’ve gained your sponsorships!  For example, you may want to consider giving your sponsors, or even your players, a discount if they’re able to assist you in acquiring additional sponsors.  For your big title sponsors, use cross promotion incentives (i.e. include a special offer from them on your website, if they agree to promote the event on their site).  Distribute literature about your sponsors and consider the option of offering multi-year discount agreements (i.e If you agree to be our beverage sponsor for the next 3 years,we’ll give you an x% discount off of your total sponsorship package cost).  Consider rewarding your most loyal sponsors by giving them exclusive privledges and perks based on the number of years they have supported and contributed towards your event – or rewarding them with category exclusivity — for example, if a vodka company is your beverage sponsor, give them the peace of knowing that they’ll be your one and only beverage sponsor for the entire tournament.

As you can see, there are many different ways to increase sponsorship sales by offering perks, bonuses and rewards … so get creative!

We thank you for taking the time to read our 3-part blog series on Selling Sponsorships At Your Golf Tournament.  If you have any additional questions or comments, feel free to reach us via telephone at 800-827-2249 or send us an email.  We look forward to hearing from you and hope that the insight you’ve gained through this series of blogs will aid you in selling more sponsorships this season!

For those of you who haven’t read Part 1 of Selling Sponsorships At Your Golf Tournament, we encourage you to do so before pressing forward.  For those who already have, welcome to part 2; we hope you can pick up some valuable pointers!

Teach Your Committee How To Adequately Sell
As silly as it sounds, it’s vital for your everyone in your committee to be on the same page and know the appropriate sales process. Be sure to set sales goals for each member and start selling early! Be sure to use multiple methods of contact, such as personalized letters, telephone calls or better yet,  personal visits to your potential sponsors. Instruct your committee to ask open-ended questions, have an objective prior to each sales presentation, listen carefully to what your sponsor has to say, implement the necessary follow-up steps and last, but not least,  follow up!

The 3rd and final part of Selling Sponsorships At Your Golf Tournament will be posted next week, so stay tuned!  And as always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to give us a call at 800-827-2249 or email us any time!

In this day and age, it’s surprising how many golf committees don’t utilize sponsorships in a way that could get them the most bang for their buck.  Which is why Hole In One International is here to help give you some great tips on selling sponsorships at your next golf tournament!

Offer a Vast Variety of Sponsorship Options
Sure, chances are you’re working on securing hole and title sponsors… but were you aware of all the other types of sponsorships that are out there?  Beverage sponsors, donation sponsors (who contribute to your raffle/auction items), trade/barter sponsors, contest/event sponsors… the possibilities are endless!  It’s important that after you build your sponsorship list(s) that you also build a prospect list and categorize them appropriately — you’re obviously not going to want to approach your favorite locally-owned deli to inquire about them being your Title Sponsor… although you might want to consider having them as your lunch sponsor!  Having issues finding prospects for sponsor leads?  Be sure to consult with individuals who are already advertising locally in your area, previous event sponsors, area chamber members, current suppliers, etc.  Internet research is also valuable, as you’ll gain insight as to any new companies in your area that have opened up.  Be sure to list out all of the benefits and features of each package in detail — sponsor signage is a great addition, as it will give your committee an added opportunity to sell more sponsorships!

There’s more where that came from: stay tuned for part 2 of Selling Sponsorships At Your Golf Tournament for more helpful tips.  If you have any further questions, feel free to give Hole In One International a call at 800-827-2249 or email us any time!