U.S. Womens OPEN

The challenge

While the United States Golf Association (USGA) may very well have selected Lancaster to host the 2015 U.S. Women’s Open tournament solely on the merits of the pristine course at Lancaster Country Club, it’s likely that their decision was more strategic than that. Not only is Lancaster a short distance from cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore and Harrisburg, the county is also home to nearly two dozen public and private courses. The question was – how do you reach and mobilize these communities to volunteer at and attend the Open?

The resolution

As the marketing partner for the 2015 U.S. Women’s Open, our directive was clear and simple: sell tickets and enlist volunteers. For starters, the 2015uswomensopen.com site was established as a digital homebase for the event, complete with event information, sponsorship opportunities, volunteer signups and, of course, online ticket sales. The site was built to accommodate a high volume of traffic, with a responsive framework to ensure that all site content displayed as intended across all devices and screen sizes. As the year-long marketing push unfolded, the site’s copy, imagery and calls to action were systematically updated to correspond with each individual marketing campaign and promotional event. These pushes included targeted print mailers, digital signage, ticket contests and even a live music event in the center of town featuring a brass band and legendary golfer Arnold Palmer awarding the very first ticket. By the time 2015 U.S. Women’s Open tournament opened its gates, the event had set new USGA records for both the number of tickets sold and number of registered volunteers – metrics that helped earn our team the opportunity to partner once again with the USGA to develop the website for the 2017 U.S. Women’s Open tournament.