Objectives

From heather-lined highlands to the deep blues of the Great Lakes, Michigan's 650 public golf courses combine with the state's natural beauty to create one of the world's premier golf destinations. Names like Fazio, Doak, Nicklaus, and Palmer have each crafted their own unique signatures on Michigan's golf landscape.

Pure Michigan's social and public relations teams together developed an interactive, integrated media campaign to uniquely enhance brand engagement and to achieve the following:

• Position Michigan as a world-class golf destination by highlighting 18 of the state's top golf properties.
• Generate awareness and drive golf travel to Michigan from feeder and in-state markets;
• Engage followers on all social channels, gain momentum with existing followers and inspire new followers; and
• Increase brand awareness and affinity among Pure Michigan's audience, connecting them more deeply to the brand.

Target audience:

• In-state and regional travelers, ages 18-65+, interested in golf and golf courses.

Paid Social Investment:

• $19,400

Strategy and Execution

With more than 650 public golf courses located around the state, Michigan is a golf mecca for serious players and emerging enthusiasts alike. No matter their level of play, golfers are sure to find a course, resort, and packages to create memorable golf experiences - which is exactly what we wanted to accomplish with this campaign. We connected with our social communities through the use of stunning visuals and kept them coming back for more with an engaging social activation.

Landing Page:

• A new landing page was developed to house all campaign details, social activity and content developed.

Earned Media Outreach:

• Tapped golf expert Kevin Frisch for earned national media coverage around campaign, including a video piece featured on golfchannel.com that earned over 8.5 million UVPM.
• The campaign was also highlighted in media interviews conducted by Travel Michigan VP Dave Lorenz throughout the 18 weeks.

Organic Social Content:

• Published a 1-minute video via native upload on the Pure Michigan Facebook page each week, for 18 weeks, featuring a signature hole at one of 18 Michigan golf courses.

• Shared photos of the courses on Instagram and Twitter each Thursday, including the #PureMichigan18 hashtag and a link to michigan.org/puremichigan18 (Twitter only), inviting users to watch the current week's video, learn more about how they can participate in the promotion, and discover other Michigan golf destinations.

• Announced each monthly winner on Twitter following the completion of each monthly entry period, including the #PureMichigan18 hashtag and a link to michigan.org/puremichigan18.

• Announced the grand prize winner on Twitter following the conclusion of the entry period.
  

Paid Social Content:

• Our paid social strategy was two-fold, with a separate objective and budget for both video views and to drive traffic to the Pure Michigan 18 Landing page.
  
  
• With the video views objective, we used $200/video (for a total of $3,400) to ensure the videos were seen by our Facebook target audiences.
  
  
• For our landing page traffic objective, we allocated $16,000 over three types of Facebook ads to test which drove the most traffic to the site: Carousel with still images of the featured courses; Link posts with still images of features courses; and 10 second video cut-downs of the longer form videos that were being shared organically.

Social Giveaway:

• At each featured golf hole, a sign was placed on the tee box that prompted golfers to capture photos of their experience playing the hole and share them via Instagram and Twitter, with the #PureMichigan18 hashtag. Each photo that was shared with the hashtag was entered to win one of three Monthly Prizes: 1 free round of golf for 4 people at a participating Pure Michigan 18 golf course.
  
  
• Winners of Monthly Prizes were selected at random by the MEDC digital team and notified no later than Jul. 3, 2018, Aug. 3, 2018, and Sept. 20, 2018.
  
  
• At the conclusion of the campaign, a winner was selected from all entries for the Grand Prize: 1 free round of golf for 4 players at Arcadia Bluffs Golf Club.
  
  
• MEDC utilized Chute to monitor the #PureMichigan18 hashtag and added photos to the michigan.org/puremichigan18 gallery.

Results

The campaign outperformed known benchmarks, especially for a niche travel topic. The campaign drove over 5.3 million organic impressions and over 4.9 million paid impressions. We also saw more than 99,000 clicks to the Pure Michigan 18 Landing Page.

Through the use of the #PureMichigan18 hashtag and giveaway component of the campaign, we generated more than 800 pieces of unique golf content from fans around the state who tagged their golf photos on social media.

Media