I’m a big fan of golf.
In fact, if you ask my significant other, she might suggest that golf is more than a hobby of mine. Either way you define it, golf is something I find intriguing, fun, challenging, and wonderful.
For the last few months I’ve been following a blog that is new to me, but not new in relative terms. The blog and entire website (two websites actually) was created with a great strategy. I hadn’t realized until today that the blog really has a great business blog strategy for driving actual revenue for the owner of the site.
Wayne DeFrancesco is PGA professional. He has played in the PGA Championship as a playing professional in the past. He’s also played in other PGA Tour events over the years. It appears that today he is mostly an instructor for golfers at various skill levels.
From what I can tell, Wayne has two Websites:
Both sites contain analysis and insight into the golf swing. The basic model of the second site, WDGLC.com, is a tiered payment model where the more you pay the more you’ll gain access to tips, drills, and even full video analysis of your golf swing by Wayne and his team of instructors.
The first site, and the site I follow most, is where Wayne uses his blogging skills.
That’s where I’d like to focus.
Blogging Case Study: Wayne DeFrancesco
The way I discovered Wayne and his websites was via YouTube. I was curious one day about the swing of Fred Couples. He’s been one of my favorite golfers for some time. I was interested in learning about his swing because it’s a little different from the classic swing you’ll see with many of the best players. I searched on YouTube for “Fred Couples Swing Analysis” and a video from Wayne came up as one of the first results.
Now, Wayne does a lot of things right with his overall online strategy.
Wayne is using video analysis of golf swings and posting some of his videos on YouTube. People like me frequent YouTube and look for golf related videos. I found this video from Wayne and eventually made my way back to his site.
Wayne includes links within the description of each post back to his website. I watched the Fred Couples video and many others on YouTube, but eventually I made the jump to Wayne’s site where I not only discovered more videos, but an entire business model revolving around Wayne and his ability to teach the golf swing.
In order for Wayne to get discovered by golfers like me he had to offer some of his knowledge for free. He put in the time and work to create swing analysis videos and publish them on YouTube. It added some real credibility to Wayne’s site because one of the first swings he analyzed was his own. Most of his other videos are analysis of the best pros in the game.
People are searching for their favorite players on Google and YouTube because they want to know how they can play like the greats. Wayne understands this and was happy to provide commentary on the swings of the pros. That is one level of a great strategy, but Wayne is also a great student of the game. It’s obvious in his videos that he knows what he’s talking about.
The business model of Wayne’s golf school is to get discovered with his videos, which are really a form of regular blogging. He writes a little bit, but really provides great insight with the videos.
One discovered, viewers become regulars (like me) and eventually people sign up for Wayne’s online program. You can even send Wayne videos of your own swing and he’ll review them with advice, tips, and drills to make your swing better…for a price, of course.
This is a great online strategy and one I feel other businesses can use.
If you’re selling something and looking for customers online, I think you could learn from Wayne’s great online strategy.
Wayne is obviously smart. His methods are great because they’re so simple and once you realize what he’s doing it seems obvious.
A smart guy with a great blogging strategy.