Choosing a niche can be difficult. It is one of the first big decisions you have to make, and sets the foundation for everything else you do going forward.
To make matters even more challenging, it’s not something you can easily switch if you change your mind later on. Therefore, you’ve really got to be certain before committing to a decision.
Through my niche reports, my goal is to give you a deeper overview into the market, lay out some ideas for content and monetization, and help you to picture what your business will be like once you’re running it.
Today, we’re going to be focusing on the golf niche.
Golf Niche – Overview
The golfing niche is quite large, with an extremely diverse set of people partaking in the sport. The demographics of golf players are all over the map, and many players enjoy the sport for different reasons. Therefore, this niche provides a lot of good opportunities to sub-niche down further and serve a more specific market.
However, research has shown that this is a market where a larger-than-average percentage of players become obsessed with their sport – spending large amounts of money to gain even a slight advantage over their friends and peers. This segment of golfers take great pride in improving their score, both on a personal level, as well as to beat those that they regularly golf with.
Although many marketers have crowded this niche due to the large profit potential of the golf niche, there is still room to compete. You will especially do well if you…
- Cater to a more specific sub-segment of this market (I’ll discuss golfing subniches later)
- Actually golf yourself. Taking a look at other websites, it is obvious that many of the website owners do not actually golf and are just trying to scoop up some easy cash. This leaves them in a vulnerable position to content creators that actually partake in the sport themselves. Additionally, the consumers in this market can see through marketing BS, so you really need to understand what you’re talking about.
Interest in playing golf is at an all-time high in the U.S, meaning there is room to cater to any skill level you wish to target.
Golfing – Market Information
Number of golfers in the U.S: 34.2 million
Annual revenue in the U.S for golfing equipment: $3 billion (note this doesn’t include the total economic impact, such as golfing-related tourism for example. The total economic impact is $84 billion.)
Number of major businesses in the U.S: 141
Annual growth rate: 1.4%
Golfing Niche – Market Demographics
Age: 18-34 is the largest segment, with 10 million total participants. However, the segment of golfers aged 65-and-over has increased in recent years, and the National Golf Foundation expects this segment to continue to increase as more Baby Boombers begin to retire.
Gender: 77% male, 23% female. Females represent a disproportionate percentage of beginners (31%) as well as a disproportionate percentage of off-course participants (such as those that visit a driving range, but not an actual golf course.)
Primary Markets: United States, Japan, South Korea, United Kingdom, Canada
Potential Sub-Niches For Golf
Due to how competitive the golfing niche as a whole, you may wish to segment your blog, YouTube channel or podcast further. This will allow you to better engage with a specific type of audience, and become the go-to brand for those people.
- Golfing for seniors
- Golfing tourism / travel (a surprising amount of money is spent here!)
- Competitive golfing
- Golfing for children
- Specific aspects of golf (i.e putting)
- Golfing news
- Pro golfing commentary / discussion
Golfing Niche – Google Search Volume
| Keyword: | Number Of Monthly Searches: | Adwords CPC: |
|---|---|---|
| golfing tips | 6.6k | $0.62 |
| golf swing tips | 5.4k | $0.79 |
| how to hold a golf club | 6.6k | $1.06 |
| golf courses near me | 450k | $1.31 |
| golf simulator | 33k | $1.27 |
| golf cart accessories | 22.2k | $1.00 |
| golf lessons | 14.8k | $2.07 |
| top golf locations | 14.8k | $0.3 |
| golf accessories | 9.9k | $0.41 |
| golf equipment | 9.9k | $0.48 |
Top Websites In The Golfing Niche
These may not be the largest websites in the golf niche, but they are some of the most notable. You may wish to look to some of these websites for insight and inspiration, as well as to take note of the types of content that they release.
1. GolfDigest
GolfDigest covers news, commentary, tips to improve your golf game, and equipment reviews. SEMRush, a search engine optimization tool, estimates that GolfDigest is searched for over 40,000 times each month, and receives over 1.2 million monthly visits from Google.
As the name would suggest, The Golf News Net primarily covers news.
However, they also have sections discussing equipment and general commentary as well.
3. Golf Monthly
Golf monthly is the UK’s leading golf media brand, and also appear to have their own magazine.
It appears that they are attempting to cover the entire market, rather than focusing on any specific niche. They are an established company however that likely is already making a lot of revenue. In this sense, it usually isn’t a good idea to try and emulate what bigger companies are doing just because they’re able to find success with it. You can always start out focusing on a sub-niche, and branch out later.
Top YouTube Channels In The Golf Niche
I also wanted to take some time to analyze some of the top YouTube channels in this niche, as some forms of content are better suited for video than for text.
Brodie Smith is a golfer with 341,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel at the time of writing. His recent videos primarily consist of him playing golf at a number of beautiful golf courses from around the world.
Brodie seems to primarily monetize through merch sales, and travel-related affiliate offers.
With 1.1 million subscribers, there’s no doubting that professional golfer Rick Shiels runs an incredibly successful channel!
Rick’s channel is primarily focused on golfing tips and strategies, with some occasional videos thrown in regarding curiosity-based topics (such as playing with equipment that would be illegal to use in a professional golfing league.)
Considering that he is an actual PGA professional golfer, this obviously adds a lot of credibility to his content and it’s clear to see how he’s amassed so many subscribers.
Still, with so many subscribers to his channel, it is encouraging to see how much interest there is in improving at golf!
3. Meandmygolf
With nearly 1,300 videos and over 650,000 subscribers at the time of writing, this channel is incredibly successful.
It is almost entirely focused around golfing tips and tricks, and I personally find it incredible that they are still coming out with new tutorials to share despite having so many videos published already.
It just goes to show that as simple of a sport golf may seem, it’s really quite complex and you won’t experience a shortage of content working in this niche!
Notable Twitter Accounts
Large Twitter accounts in a niche indicate that viewers aren’t simply reading a blog or watching YouTube videos, but are involving themselves in the niche more heavily and developing brand loyalty.
In competitive niches like golf, building a deeper connection with your audience is important, as you’ll be able to earn from the same visitor over and over again.
Fortunately, building a social media presence in the golfing niche is easier than many ‘boring’ niches, as people are genuinely fans of the sport and care a lot about it.
@GolfDigest – 871k followers
@TigerWoods – 6.5m followers
@CallawayGolf – 357k followers
@GolfWorld – 120k followers
@GOLF_com – 341k followers
@GolfMonthly – 117k followers
Communities
Here are some of the most popular communities for golfers to congregate online. Spending some time involving yourself in these communities will help you better understand your target customer, as well as help to shape your future content / monetization strategy.
Note however that golfing is a niche in which a lot of discussion happens offline.
Reddit’s /r/golf Subreddit – 287k subscribers.
Golfwrx Forums – I couldn’t find information about the number of members, but there are nearly a million posts on the site and new discussion happening around the clock.
The Sand Trap – 61k members.
MyGolfSpy – I couldn’t find the number of members here either, but there are over 600,000 posts on the site and this golf forum appears very active.
Content Strategy
Because this niche is so diverse, your content strategy should be largely tailored to the specific sub-niche that you plan to cater to. However, other blogs, websites and brands are having success with the following types of content:
- Golf tips and tricks
- Reviews of equipment. New equipment in particular seems to do particularly well, especially if it’s something that’s not yet available in local stores.
- Equipment comparisons
- Discussion of professionals
- Golf course reviews / recommendations
- Traveling for golf
- Your personal story / experiences with golf
- Podcast episodes with others in the golfing industry, professional golfers, etc.
- Your insights and opinions regarding golfing and what’s going on in the golfing community
- Q&A
The best way to come up with content ideas is to actively spend time within the golfing community, and craft content around what people are actively seeking out.
However, if you struggle to come up with ideas that actually generate traffic, I offer my ‘Blog Content Blueprint’ that will ensure you never struggle to develop ideas for profitable content. You can learn more about it on my products page.
Golfing Niche – Monetizing A Blog, YouTube Channel, or Podcast
Number of Amazon products: 200,000+
Amazon Product Types:
- Golf clubs
- Golf accessories – bags, balls, tees brushes
- Golf apparel – gloves, shirts, hats
- Training devices – indoor putting mats, rangefinders, chipping nets
- Books
This shows us that there is a diverse set of physical products you could promote to the same person, as there is no reason a golfer wouldn’t be interested in multiple (or all) of these!
Clickbank Affiliate Options:
Clickbank is a marketplace that’s primarily used to sell digital products, such as eBooks or courses. A higher gravity score means that more sales have been made for this product recently, and can indicate how profitable the product may be.
However, a low gravity score may simply mean that there aren’t many affiliates actively promoting the product. It could also mean that the sales pages convert poorly.
| Program Name: | Commission Rate: | Gravity: |
|---|---|---|
| The Stress-free Golf Swing | 74% | 22.35 |
| Simple Senior Swing | 69% | 11.63 |
| Monster Golf Swing | 75% | 5.84 |
| Body For Golf | 75% | 3.85 |
| The New Four Magic Moves To Winning Golf | 75% | 2.28 |
If possible, it may also be profitable to create your own product!
Other Notable Golf Affiliate Programs
There is no shortage of affiliate programs available in the golfing niche, and I’ve put together a table of some of the most popular below. Note that although a product may offer a higher commission than Amazon, you have to balance this with conversions. Consumers know and trust Amazon, and therefore, are generally more likely to actually buy when following an Amazon affiliate link.
| Affiliate Program: | Commission: | Cookie Duration: |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon | 3% | 1 day |
| Trendy Golf | 6% | 30 Days |
| Austad's Golf | 7.5-9% | 60 days |
| The Golf Warehouse | 6.5% | 30 days |
| Callaway | 6-9% | Not Stated |
| Rain Or Shine Golf | 5-10% | 30 Days |
| Golf Outlets USA | 5% | 30 days |
| TaylorMade | 6% | 30 Days |
Udemy
According to Udemy, there are 31 courses with ‘Golf’ listed as their primary topic. Most of these seem to be focused on a specific aspect of golf, such as your golf swing.
Unfortunately, golfing courses on Udemy do not seem to make that much money. However, Udemy is still consists of primarily a technical userbase, and you may have much more success releasing a course on your own website instead, especially if you focus on building a trusted brand in your space.
Monetization Strategy
- Adsense / banner advertisements. I would only recommend this for YouTube, as retaining visitors is key in competitive niches like golfing. This means you should be encouraging people to sign up for an email mailing list, not to click on an ad.
- Affiliate marketing – promoting golfing equipment, accessories, courses etc. and earning a commission whenever you make a sale. Many marketers of this niche also promote affiliate offers relating to travel and tourism.
- Sponsored posts. Brands in this niche will be willing to send you equipment and pay you to discuss it, once your audience reaches a decent size.
- Release of your own product. I typically recommend eBooks or courses to beginners.
- Consulting / coaching, if you are skilled at golfing yourself.
- Selling design-based goods, such as shirts, hats, decals, mugs, etc. If this is something you’re interested in, please get in touch with me once your website is established – I own a factory and can handle order fulfillment for you. This way, you’ll never have to actually touch the products.
- Private label – importing your own accessories from China.
Next Steps
If you still aren’t sure if the golf niche is right for you:
Pick up my Niche Selection Blueprint by visiting my products page. It’s $19 and will help you narrow down your choice until you find the perfect niche. Having read through this article already, you’ll be in an even better position and will certainly get a lot of value out of it.
If you’ve decided that golfing is the niche for you:
I would strongly recommend you to look over this article, which will provide instructions on what to buy based on your budget. It covers everything from a $50 budget up to thousands of dollars, and focuses on tools that will help you build a long-term, stable business as quickly as possible.
I would also encourage you to consider investing into my blogging course, which contains over 60 video lessons covering everything I’ve learned in 10+ years of blogging. It’s guaranteed to save you hundreds or thousands of hours worth of time, and covers topics such as:
- How to get your website online in under an hour.
- Setting up, designing, and working with your website – even if you do not have any technical knowledge.
- Crafting content that will actually get you visitors, and keep people coming back.
- How to develop a loyal and engaged following.
- Detailing and implementing your monetization strategy, to make the most out of each visitor.
You can learn more about the course by clicking here!
Conclusion
I hope that you’ve found this report useful, and it has sparked some ideas for your golfing blog or YouTube channel.
I’d love it if you’d share your plans with me regarding your new business, as I’d love to hear all about it. Additionally, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask using the comment form below.
Thank you, and I’m wishing you the best!
– James McAllister
The post Golfing Niche Report – Market Information, Content Strategy, And Monetization Ideas appeared first on James McAllister Online.
