Last month, as part of an exciting awareness raising PR programme, we held a successful “sneak peek” breakfast event at World of Golf New Malden, a leading golf range in the South of England. The overall aim of our programme is to promote the golf centre and its fantastic facilities following a recent £1 million rebuild. This time of year is also particularly important for businesses in the golf industry, as it signals the start of lighter and warmer evenings and the start of the Masters competition, not to mention Easter, always sure to bring seasonal golfers out of hibernation!
We held a special breakfast event for key journalists to explore and experience the new facilities first hand and we secured attendance from a wide range of target publications - The Sun, Golf Monthly, Sports Management and Parents News to name but a few. The event was planned to allow the journalists time to enjoy the whole experience that World of Golf New Malden has to offer, including a tour of the newly rebuilt driving range bays, the Platinum Club, the Jurassic Encounter adventure golf, the Costa Coffee café and the American Golf store.
Journalists started arriving at 08.30am, for a tea or coffee along with a tasty bacon bap or pastry. World of Golf New Malden has a great Costa Coffee café which looks across both the driving range and the Jurassic Encounter adventure golf. After a few welcoming words from chief executive, Grant Wright, we made our way to the Platinum Club to take guidance from the PGA professionals and perfect our swings!
Once all of the journalists had had a chance to hit some balls, received some top coaching tips from the PGA pros and tried out FlightScope, the new state of the art technology, we held a competition to see who could hit the furthest distance on the range. The winning journalist won a year’s membership to the Platinum Club, with £200 worth of free balls! (Congratulations James!)
Then, we all headed back into Costa Coffee after the competition to warm up and enjoy a comforting cup of tea. This was the perfect opportunity for journalists to ask any questions and speak further with Grant and Martyn Cole, general manager.
To make sure the journalists would not forget their World of Golf New Malden experience and to ensure they could keep practicing their newly acquired skills, we gave everyone a special World of Golf gift, including a set of branded golf balls, a branded golf umbrella and their very own 7 iron.
We also provided press packs, including all the important that we wanted the attendees to be aware of, such as the rebuild press release and facility brochures, all packaged in a lovely leather branded folder. At Westgate, we always believe it is important to make sure all communication is delivered at a level that represents the experience, product or destination that a business is trying to promote.
Now that the “sneak peek” breakfast is over, we are back to focusing on all the other programme activity to support World of Golf New Malden’s local and national presence, which includes securing individual visits with other key trade and consumer titles, organising community and charity events and profiling key members of staff in the local media.