Charity Golf + Macallan 12 = A Lesson in Lead Generation

May 25, 2021

A few weeks back I played in the Westlake Chamber of Commerce Golf Tournament here in Austin, TX (unfortunately not the Masters, as pictured above). 

Thankfully for me, this post isn’t about the way I played, it’s about a great reminder I received on lead generation.

If you have played in a charity tournament like this before you know sponsors set up tables on each tee box, typically with games, free drinks, or other promotions to offer golfers coming through their hole.

On hole #5, there was a familiar lead generation tactic being used – drop your business card into the bucket for a chance to win a bottle of Macallan 12 year scotch. It’s a solid, but not remarkable bottle – retailing about $60 – but just expensive enough to motivate golfers, including myself, to drop a card in for a chance to win. 

We continued on with our round and I figured, as with most contests like this, that I hadn’t won.

Roughly two weeks later I got this email out of the blue:

Subject: Macallan 12 Drawing Winner

Rusty,

I wanted to let you know that although it has been a bit since we met at the Westlake Chamber of Commerce Golf Tournament a few weeks back, you are the winner of the scotch that we are giving away!

When you have a moment, please send me a good address to send the scotch to and we will make it happen. 

If you are interested, I would also like to introduce you to “John Smith” who is one of our market leaders. He was at the tournament that day, but was playing so I am not sure if you had the opportunity to meet him. I think the two of you would get along great!

Best,

Nicole 

I was pretty pumped to get that news and, based on winning, I felt like I owed it to them to take a meeting with their Austin market leader, although I did let them know I’m not a great lead because I have an accountant I love. 

Then I sat back and thought more about it.

Did I actually win the drawing? 

Probably not. 

In fact – there may not have been a drawing at all. 

It’s much more likely that a super smart marketing team decided to think differently about an age-old lead generation tactic. 

Instead of doing it the same old way – generating one winner and throwing everyone else on a generic email list – they decided that there was a much smarter way to engage with a highly targeted group of prospects and knew $60 per meeting was a price they would gladly pay for a sit down with a potential buyer.

So they sorted business cards to identify titles that were most appealing to them as prospects and then sent all of them a note declaring they had won. 

It’s a brilliant reminder that “old school” marketing tactics can always be improved upon if you think creatively about how you can make them better. 

What tactics are you using right now that could be improved with one small shift like this?

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