External Communications – Partnering with a Professional
Palmer Moody - Illinois PGA
 
Summary:  Use local, highly respected sports writers to create content and local human-interest stories for your website and social media channels. Their experience and skill will give you high-quality content and their reputation will get people interested in visiting your website to read the stories. And, on occasion, having them write articles will get your content published in places Sections cannot reach by themselves.
 
The Illinois Section has seen some success and garnered some recognition for our PGA Members thanks to relationships built with a couple of well-known and highly-regarded local media professionals. This was accomplished through contracting with two prominent Chicago area golf sportswriters. The total investment has only run about $2,500 annually (plus a few rounds of golf).
 
The sportswriters, Ed Sherman and Len Ziehm, are longtime, prominent members of the Chicago sports media community. Ziehm is contracted to write the PGA Professional profiles and Sherman is contracted to write a regular column about current golf business and game issues. The content is featured on the Section website and in the weekly newsletter and promoted on its social media channels. When appropriate, it is used in press releases distributed to local media.
 

• Many sports writers are now freelancers and are always looking for work
• Find one or more that have focused on covering golf in your market for a number of years and are regarded as tops in the field, and use the attraction of good stories to cover and getting published on a highly-visited website to gain their interest in working with you

 

• Payment of part cash and golf tee times at clubs/facilities they could not normally play (assuming they play golf) should be an agreeable arrangement to keep costs down and also develop an even stronger relationship with PGA Professionals working at leading facilities
• Rely on these experienced sportswriters for assistance in telling your story and that of your leading members; they are professional writers and know how to frame a story for the greatest impact
• Plus, many times the writers will have their own great story ideas about your PGA Members and angles to cover, especially if they’ve been covering the sport for a long time in your market
• A professional writer will spend less time writing the story than most Communications personnel and it has their well-know byline on the story which will naturally attract more readers

 
Len Ziehm features:
http://www.ipga.com/MILLERS-DEDICATED-TO-GAME-AND-I.news
 
http://www.ipga.com/Chris-French-Reflects-On-Assist.news
 
http://www.ipga.com/Semonick-Working-Hard-At-Two-Jo.news
 
Ed Sherman columns:
http://www.ipga.com/IncreasedOpportunitiesForWomenInGolfThreeKeyLeadersAreHereInChicago.news
 
http://www.ipga.com/PLAY-THE-RIGHT-TEES-AND-HAVE-MO.news