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The Positioning and Branding Story Behind Pickleball: Laura Gainor
207 Plays2 years ago
In this episode of Markeitng Spark, Laura Gainer provides insight into how she helped turned pickleball into North American's fastest-growing sport.
Laura talks about how she approached the sport after being hired by USA Pickleball to overhaul its brand, Website, and logo.
We discuss how pickleball has attracted celebrities like Lebron James and why it has become so popular.
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Transcript
Introduction to Pickleball's Rise
00:00:10
Speaker
You may have not heard of pickleball, but it's the fastest growing sport in the U.S. Everyone is whining. A burgeoning professional pickleball league has attracted owners like Gary Vaynerchuk and NBA superstar Kevin Durant. It wasn't that long ago that pickleball was a sport mostly played by senior citizens.
History and Perception of Pickleball
00:00:29
Speaker
Created in 1965, pickleball requires good hand-eye coordination, but not necessarily on-court speed, although I guess my guests will argue against that. Perfect for people who wanted to stay active and be social.
Laura Gaynor's Impact on Pickleball Marketing
00:00:44
Speaker
And things began to change in 2019 when USA Pickleball hired Laura Gaynor, a marketing consultant.
00:00:50
Speaker
A lot has happened over the past four years, so I'm excited to have Laura on MarketingSpark to talk about her work in transforming Pickleball and Pickleball USA. Welcome to MarketingSpark. Hi Mark, thanks all for having me.
00:01:02
Speaker
It's great to have you here. And I've been including the pickleball example in my positioning workshop. It's awesome to be able to have the source of the story on my
Pickleball's Accessibility and Growth
00:01:12
Speaker
podcast. For the uninitiated, what is the definition of pickleball? How is it different from racquetball or tennis? And I guess the $64,000 question is why has it become America's fastest scoring sport?
00:01:25
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, just like you said, I mean, it's fun, social, and it definitely sparks a lot of conversations, assuming when you hear the word ping-a-ball, because it's really for everybody, all generations, all ages, skill levels. So we can usually just find a court nearby in your community while you're traveling, bring your paddle, and you can usually learn the rules pretty quickly as I use like, I'm 20 minutes. I myself learned right after I got introduced.
00:01:48
Speaker
USA Pickleball is my first client and we took a few friends out that night and went out and played just four of us. And yeah, we left that night really loving the game. Fun, social, it's very similar to badminton tennis. The court size is one fourth the size of a tennis court. So you can also pop up a pickleball court anywhere. A lot of people are putting him in their driveways and really can go to usapickleball.org, learn the rules, very simple and play very quickly with your whole family all ages.
Laura Gaynor's Marketing Journey
00:02:15
Speaker
So what about your background and when you started your Vosbergainer pickleball marketing agency? I'm fascinated by the journey because for years pickleball was so low profile. It was essentially a niche sport perhaps played by people in Florida and retirement communities. It wasn't on the radar at all. Talk through that journey from having your new agency to your connection with pickleball.
00:02:41
Speaker
I've always worked in marketings for the last 15 plus years. I've done various marketing roles. I used to run a nonprofit advertising agency. I ran the Milwaukee Advertising Club, which is really involved with planning social events community, which tied in perfectly with my sports marketing background as well. Once I got introduced to USA Pickleball. So as I said, I was working for a nonprofit ad agency out of Milwaukee and I was doing some incredible work, but then we moved to Chicago.
00:03:06
Speaker
in the midst of that as well. So I was kind of going back and forth between Milwaukee and Chicago. And I was like, what am I doing? Like I can launch my own marketing agency, grab a couple of clients. And while that first client I got introduced to actually through my husband was USA Pickleball. George Barn Find had just gotten hired by USA Pickleball to lead their marketing efforts. And they were really wanting to bring somebody in to help with their rebrand when they moved from USA PA to USA Pickleball. So as I mentioned, I utilized my Milwaukee advertising connections and actually
00:03:35
Speaker
brought in one of my ad agency partners and they will talk through like really helps the user pickleball rebrand with a new logo website and obviously we can touch on like all the research and everything that went into it but overall once I got introduced to pickleball I went and learned how to play so I could talk about it.
00:03:52
Speaker
social media and help on their marketing. And for me, it's really tied together my career perfectly the last 15 years from sports on social, bringing that community together. So I definitely feel very fortunate to get to work in Pickleball because I live and work in it every single day.
Rebranding USA Pickleball
00:04:07
Speaker
What was your initial impression of USA Pickleball, the brand, the sport itself? Did you see it as an exciting marketing positioning opportunity? Were you a little daunted by the amount of work that probably had to be done to refresh the brand? What were your initial impressions of Pickleball and the brand itself?
00:04:27
Speaker
And overall, I mean, it was a lot of fun. Definitely when they brought me in, it was USAPA, USAPA.org. Their website and their brand was kind of just outdated. And really, I mean, the sport, as we know, was just fun, social. So the brand should represent that. So I had to not connect it with Belter Lincoln and Ad Agency in Milwaukee. And we had gone out there and done focus groups. It really listens to the players, too. And that's important with the sport. And with USAP Golf being the governing body,
00:04:53
Speaker
They wanted to make sure that whenever they made the branding, the look and feel that they got input from their ambassadors all around the country certified, you know, coaching us and really the recreational players. And we did a lot of focus groups fighting. I'm like, what are those key words? How do you explain Pickleball to make sure that was expressed with the new US Pickleball website, brand, promotional materials and their logo as well?
00:05:17
Speaker
But as a marketer, you're looking at a brand that is very, very niche, very, very low profile.
00:05:26
Speaker
What were their motivations? What were they looking for someone like you to do? And how did you start the journey with them? What were some of the steps that you had to go through to make sure that you understood the sport, you understood the target audiences, and you understood where they wanted to take the brand? Because one of the big challenges for marketers is
00:05:48
Speaker
asking a brand, what does success look like? At the end of the day, if I do my job properly, what does that look like? How did you get a sense of the engagement and how much they wanted you to do and how much latitude you had to reinvent the brand?
Demographic Shift in Pickleball
00:06:02
Speaker
So we did amend all of those focus groups where we made in the new website, logo, we listened to the community, what are those key words, what is our target audience? So really that persona, I think, of all has shifted so much even in the last three years since we did that first initial report because the first persona was, you know, a
00:06:19
Speaker
I'm probably in their 50s, 60s person. I just kind of love to play, as you said, like in their retirement community. So now when I got brought on, it's like, hey, we need to show how fun and social the sport is. Like right through that stigma that it's a senior citizen sport, that it's not young to be athletic. And I mean, all agents go levels and play the sport, but really just showcasing how fun social it is. So at the time,
00:06:40
Speaker
early 2019, that was pre-pandemic when they were still hosting, mostly it was all kind of tournaments all across the country. APP Tour was leading the way with the Pro Tour. People normally know what the pros are yet, but really just introducing that recreational and social side of the sport, which is why I used to think about their main mission as the governing body is to get more and more people playing the sport. What equipment do you need? What are the rules? And then of course,
00:07:04
Speaker
They want to get in the competitive side and the tournament side. And then, of course, breaking into the pandemic, once the pandemic hit in March, I was going out and playing every Friday night in our social community. And just really diving into the sports is important when you're marketing for someone that you're understanding the sport yourself, you're feeling and experiencing every day. So it really helps to kind of get out and play. And that's like when that voice kind of came out through their marketing and kind of helping guide them like, hey, this is fun and social. We need to get people
00:07:31
Speaker
playing in their driveways, playing as a social activity, having a date night, going to play pickleball on a Friday night instead of, you know, out, easy
Pandemic's Effect on Pickleball Popularity
00:07:38
Speaker
drinking. But yeah, so when we transitioned, once the pandemic hit, it actually helped the sport exponentially grow because people were looking for ways to safely stay social. They were putting pickleball ports in their driveway, which we'll kind of talk through as well. And then once the media kind of picked up on pickleball, that's
00:07:55
Speaker
I guess it was from 2020 to 2021, it really exponentially bloomed when I was helping with their media efforts and getting a lot of media news outlets talking about the sport. But what was the initial mandate? Because obviously they wanted to grow the sport, but what were they looking for out of the gate? Did they want a better website? Did they want better marketing? I mean, the sport has exploded and obviously the profile has exploded, but I can imagine that they were trying to take baby steps before they, and maybe they didn't even anticipate
00:08:23
Speaker
that the sport would explode like it has. What was their initials? If you do your job right, this is going to happen. Yes.
Establishing USA Pickleball's Marketing Team
00:08:30
Speaker
I mean, they were starting to really grow their team. I mean, previously USA Pickleball, they didn't have a CEO until two years ago when Stu Epson came in as the first CEO. Everything else, it was all board run and USA Pickleball is a nonprofit. So things were just getting kind of outdated. They didn't really have
00:08:46
Speaker
the full marketing team. This is the first time they had a marketing team as well. So it's kind of starting fresh and new as far as putting the sport out there into the public, getting a new website, getting people interested in how to play, what are the rules. So with that website, Delta Lincoln, they were tasked with kind of really reinventing because they just had kind of a basic
00:09:04
Speaker
website at the time. So looking at like, okay, what do we want to put on that website? We need to make sure because the highest search term is what is pickleball. That's the most reason why people were going to use a pickleball.org. So making sure on the website we had the structural videos, how to play, what are the rules? What is all that content that we're sharing? Doing photo shoots to make sure that we're representing all age and demographic of the sport and then helping people find out information about the tournaments.
00:09:31
Speaker
So the is a pickleball they're the governing body when you sanction tournaments and playing tournaments all across the country So telling them what are those benefits of becoming a member? Why should we become a member of USA pickleball? Here's turns we can play all around the country and then of course with their new partner connections as they were bringing in all these brands and sponsors that really wanted to jump in and be a part of the sport and
00:09:53
Speaker
There are probably two paths you could have taken once you got the brand refresh. One would have been to expand the existing footprint to cement its status as the game played by senior citizens. And there's, given the demographics, given the overall demographic trends, there's a huge audience of baby boomers who are still looking to be active. A lot of them bracket ball players and squash and tennis. And you could have easily gone to town simply
00:10:21
Speaker
expanding the footprint among that demographic. But it looks as though you had two forks here, two paths that you wanted to take on. I don't even know if it was the original mandate. One was to expand the existing footprint, make it even more popular, and make it sexier.
00:10:37
Speaker
And the other one was to attract a younger audience. I look at USA Pickleball's magazine and there's young, attractive people playing the sport now. And from what I understand is that you've got red hot tennis players who are migrating to play pickleball. Was that the original mandate? Is that we really want to expand the footprint from the young demographic to the existing demographic or that just happened along the way?
00:11:00
Speaker
I think it's going to happen. I mean, initially, it was kind of fun when I started working in pickleball. People were kind of laughing, like, oh, my grandpa plays, you know, like, oh, I, you know, that's just something funny. Like, if they didn't really take it seriously, but now, of course, fast forward a little over three years and now people are reaching out to me constantly. Hey, how do I play? What do I get started? Where do I play? And now, as being the fastest-growing sport, there's only nine million players across the country, and a majority of those are the casual
00:11:24
Speaker
recreational players, as you said, I mean the age is skewed younger, where I think the average age is in their 30s, 40s now, whereas before it was 50s, 60s, but now more and more people, as we kind of talked about, they're wanting to know where can they play, and I partnered with the Pickle Play app with My Brands, where when you're traveling, you can actually pull up the Pickle Play app and look and say, hey, here's the courts and the community near you where you're traveling,
00:11:49
Speaker
or here's resorts as to where you can kind of play or play travel destinations and the Baby Boomers are that huge audience and now they they want to travel up they have disposable income and they want to find out where the most unique places that we can play.
Pickleball as a Travel Experience
00:12:02
Speaker
I'm sorry they're going to this destination route which is why I was supposed to talk on is why I started the Pickleball in the Sun brand as a patch of project because not only is it for a sport for tournaments and casual rec players but this destination travel and
00:12:15
Speaker
more and more resorts are adding pickleball cords to get people to choose them for the next destination.
00:12:21
Speaker
As an ex-journalist, I understand I can appreciate how difficult and challenging it can be to get media coverage. But I think the one thing that really fascinates me about Pickleball is it's everywhere. Good Morning America, The Today Show, The New York Times, CNBC, it's like the media can't give it enough coverage. There's so many angles that they're excited about. Can you walk me through those initial days when you've refreshed the website, the logo,
00:12:47
Speaker
really got a sense of your target audiences and how you want to talk to them. What was your initial strategic plan when I went to, okay, now that we've got the base in place, we want to get some earned media. We want to get the story out. Did you hire a PR agency? Did you simply reach out to reporters that you thought would be interested in the story? And what was the angle that you were pitching initially to position it as the legitimate news story?
00:13:09
Speaker
And so, um, you know, Bosburg Gaynor was, um, used to pick up all as a client of Bosburg Gaynor. So I was actually doing all of the above that you just mentioned. So I came in and I really grabbed him in my path of, oh, I just want been eager to like take as many tasks as I want and kind of volunteer, get opportunities and have a lot of fun with them. And as I grew.
00:13:27
Speaker
I found my credibility within USA Pickleball, with them being the national governing body, we had this huge opportunity where media, they were reaching out to us. I didn't have to do barely any outreach. They were kind of like, and with that refresh, with the website, it helped to make it clear like, hey, here's how you contact USA Pickleball. Here's the media information as far as the number of players. All that information was quick access for the media representatives, and then they would reach out to us. I didn't have to do much outreach.
00:13:54
Speaker
Good Morning America had reached out and then kind of with my creative background, I wanted to make sure that those stories were shared in a fun and energetic way. So instead of just talking about it being the best space for like, you know, showcase these kids plans, go showcase like how much fun you can have at a resort. So as you said, Good Morning America did a story. They reached out. We brought them to our local courts.
00:14:13
Speaker
here in Nokoty and we actually had people of all ages coming out to play in our chorus talk about why they love the sport, why it's so much fun. Good Morning America had a good time with it up in New York as well doing a live feed and then NBC Nightly News had reached out. They wanted to showcase for kids like why kids are enjoying the sport from their own voice. But yeah, so from the media's perspective, they all wanted that keyword.
00:14:34
Speaker
on their website because they knew it was driving traffic. People were writing it into like the scripts of their shows because they knew that the students people would share kind of a screenshot or a video clip from a show that they were talking about pickleball to get their community excited. So really what social media is really boosted websites. People wanted that pickleball keyword because they knew it would get people excited to share a link to their website. And overall, I mean, it was a huge media boom or last two years talking about the fastest growing sport. And now into this year, the media is really wanting to talk about
00:15:04
Speaker
Travel destinations, all the celebrities obviously that are investing into major league pickleball is helping us really tremendously grow the sport. How LeBron James like as soon as he hit the mic, he bought a major league pickleball team that people they start really paying attention and these are icons that people I double and they wanted to be doing the same and you can feel close to them in the community.
00:15:23
Speaker
sense as well. I can go somewhere and play pickleball with LeBron James or Drew Brees. You see him out playing pickleball with so many people. So it's just amazing how really the community, the sports for everybody. So you do feel kind of close connections to these celebrities as they help to grow the sport.
Commercial Investments in Pickleball
00:15:38
Speaker
Yeah. Speaking of celebrities in the B2B marketing world, Gary Vaynerchuk is this marketing guru. And for years, Vaynerchuk dreamed of buying the New York Jets of the national football league.
00:15:48
Speaker
That was his dream. He would show up at events where he was speaking and wearing a New York Jets jersey. I think the price tag for the Washington Commanders, which is now on sale is about $5 billion. I think the New York Jets may have got out of Gary Vaynerchuk's price range, but
00:16:06
Speaker
The consolation prize or maybe it's not a consolation prize. Maybe it's the real prize is that he bought a major league pickleball franchise, which I guess talks to the fact that this is a red hot property. People want to be involved. Are you surprised by the number of athletes that are jumping on the bandwagon?
00:16:21
Speaker
And it really gives that, like you said, the sport started in 1965, but right now it's this infancy of growth. People are wanting in at the beginning where it's not as expensive enough to own a major league pickleball team. So yeah, Gary Vee was incredibly excited to get in, buy a pickleball team. Major league pickleball is actually going to be here in the area and Daytona just a little over an hour from my house next weekend when they're at Picktona March 25th weekend. And it's just incredibly exciting to see that team aspect to have all these celebrities rallying behind these teams and
00:16:49
Speaker
People I think at this beginning stage aren't sure kind of where it's going to go as far as their investment opportunity, but they're all jumping in. They're helping to kind of shape like what these teams look like for each event. And then more and more brands, of course, are wanting to come in to be a part of it. Right now, everyone's trying to figure out like, hey, how can I make money on the score? How can we make money off a pickleball? So there's different leagues starting all over the place. And so I just got confusing that.
00:17:13
Speaker
So people that started reaching out to me because they knew on LinkedIn that I've been this credible marketing, pitbull marketing expert. So once they start seeing Gary V, LeBron, investing in Major League title, while they're reaching out to me, like, what does this mean? How should our brands get involved? So again, it's still at the infancy of growth where we're all going to see where all those opportunities, is it events, sponsoring events, is it
00:17:34
Speaker
this general tourism where you're creating your own events at these unique destinations. Right now it's kind of wide open as to where this work can go and I'm honored to kind of be one of those resources that got in at the very beginning working directly with you as a pickleball building my credibility and then now being able to utilize my expertise and knowledge to help other brands get in the game.
Marketing Insights for Niche Sports
00:17:53
Speaker
During COVID, one of the most interesting things was the emergence of niche activities in sports. I think of spike ball, for example, which I didn't even know where it came from. But all of a sudden, young people were playing it in parks. And I can imagine somewhere, someplace, someone has started a spike ball league and championship. And what would be your advice to marketers who are looking to build a brand
00:18:20
Speaker
a niche sport or activity into a bigger brand. Any words of advice of these people? Yeah, so Chris Ruder, he's the founder of Spikeball. He's another great case study as far as being a fun social sport. And as you said, he did a great job. There's actually a pro Spikeball. So there is. Yeah, exactly. There's a pro Spikeball player that now has left Spikeball and it's called Round Net. Spikeball is the brand. But Preston Byes has come from being I did a video on and where we did Pro versus Pro or Ben Johns.
00:18:49
Speaker
taught Preston how to play pickleball and then Preston taught Ben Johns how to play spikeball but they're all both fun social sports where you bring spikeball out to the beach pickleball you can pop it up in a driveway right with the pandemic kit usf pickleball sold out of their portable pickleball nets as everyone was putting up in the driveway and they wanted just to have any reason to get outside and now
00:19:09
Speaker
This has kind of shifted into this, like now people love this sport because you can bring a paddle, go to the court, socialize. We met most of our friends here in the community that we moved to because of Pickleball because you just know when you're going as one single person up to the court, you can rotate and play. It's fun social. So that's kind of why this sport has boomed so much. This is just you're building your community and people now really thrive and love being social since we were shut down for so long.
00:19:32
Speaker
So as you've built, or as you've helped to build Pickleball into this high profile sport, the fastest growing sport in North America, what brands have you had the opportunity to work with as Pickleball has attracted more attention?
00:19:44
Speaker
I guess there's been so many partners that came in direct with us at Pickleball and it was hard to keep up with all the brands that were wanting, kind of they're reaching out. So brands like Franklin, OST for Socks, Self Purf, is your all pedal on Self Purf, this Pickleball specific brand. Franklin obviously being a well-known in the sports industry, now getting into Pickleball and there's new apparel brands coming out. I mean, really it's just endless. So these non-endemic brands too, they're coming into the sport, but Anhydra Bush, a lot of majorly Pickleball team and we're gonna continue to see
00:20:14
Speaker
more and more brands come in, especially with all these updates with the May-July pickleball on their overall events. And then where my expertise lies is, again, since I've kind of been in the middle of understanding all the different pro entities, why the sports brands are so vast, my former colleagues at other ad agencies are reaching out to me to help them because now their clients are all coming to them and saying, hey, we want to do this event. What should we do? Where should we start? What pro athletes should we get involved in? What celebrities
00:20:43
Speaker
you know should we get to be in our events that's not agencies are bringing me in as a consultant boss beginner to help them with their clients and so I'm unfortunate again and work with a lot of different brands a lot of exciting opportunities that people hear about in the coming year as well.
00:20:58
Speaker
It sounds like it's an embarrassment of riches from a brand slash advertising perspective. You can imagine a brand that was so low profile five years ago and now it's the hottest thing since sliced bread. It must be incredible to see it firsthand.
Success of Pickleball Marketing on LinkedIn
00:21:12
Speaker
I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn. I suspect that you are now spending more time on LinkedIn since you launched a pickleball marketing newsletter to take business leaders and brands about the sport.
00:21:25
Speaker
Talk to me about the whole idea of a newsletter on LinkedIn versus a standalone newsletter that you would send directly to people. And what have you learned along the way from the newsletter? Oh, LinkedIn is my very Bible. I actually talked with another podcast before that it's just I can't stress enough like how I'll send that pro players should get on LinkedIn. Just the way that the platform works is really engaging. And as far as the newsletter really was just one morning I was like, hey, keep having people
00:21:53
Speaker
reaching out to me asking, what is Major League Pickleball? What is PPA Tour? And at that time, that's when PPA Tour had actually brought in Mark Cuban and announced their Buy Pickleball League that then, of course, as we know, two weeks later, they just merged with Major League Pickleball and out there as one. The sport was just changing so quickly that people can't keep up with like, hey, what is this? I just wanted to create one news source and the audience on LinkedIn are all these executives of brands. They're all listening. They're starting to pay attention.
00:22:19
Speaker
pick a ball, some are wanting to maybe invest or some are trying to learn how should their brand come into the sport, some are maybe looking for new jobs and just really admire the sport. But overall, it's just been a very credible resource for me. And then I didn't even realize some people were listening and I'll reach out and say, hey,
00:22:35
Speaker
You're the pickle, but first you need to meet this. So just from a networking community standpoint, as well as new business leads, I've got a lot of new projects just from the platform because people are reading my pickle by marketing newsletter and it's helping them. I send it once a week and just general knowledge as to marketing insights. Here's what's happening in sport. Here's some tips.
00:22:53
Speaker
as to an event that you can be a part of in the coming months, or here's just why the sport's so fun. Social, all you can do with your corporate networking events or team building, really the sport, they're just kind of the best networking tool. People were originally going to like golf or, you know, it's like bringing their clients out for like a golf outing, but now the best place to bring your clients for networking and kind of a new business opportunities is to get on the pickleball court. We were at the Platers Championship
00:23:19
Speaker
This past weekend, and again, Pickleball just sparked up all these conversations and these introductions. And then people followed up afterwards, they had to hopefully come to these like bigger business opportunities for me in the months ahead. But overall, my Pickleball marketing newsletter, it's just a great informational, go to my Laura Gaynor LinkedIn profile, you can subscribe to the newsletter, come see your inbox once a week and people comment and engage on it. And it's just, yeah, been very beneficial for me to meet new people.
00:23:43
Speaker
I'm curious from your own branding perspective, you've got a presence on LinkedIn. Do you use other social media platforms, a blog, Facebook, Instagram, anything else that you use to drive the brand and publicize the brand?
00:23:57
Speaker
Really all over, all of the above, because I have this kind of unique, and again, it will evolve. I just am excited to try new things and be kind of a leader in the pickleball marketing space. So I have my agency, Bosburg Gainer, but we talked about launching that in 2019, where now I've been kind of opportunities to work with brands, help them with marketing.
00:24:16
Speaker
on my one anniversary of that agency i made it a niche of pickleball marketing and of course i kept continuing to work with us at pickleball as a client real deal pickleball clubs meet i'm helping them with their marketing so i have the agency side and then since i was playing and living and traveling and playing these girls weekends where we actually had tournament getaways and then of course experience a city that were
00:24:36
Speaker
That's when I got inspired to create that pickleball in the sun brand a little over a year ago. And just like everything else, it's evolving. I'm figuring out what I want to do with it. It's just wide open, which is incredibly exciting. So both two of my brands, I'm on all the social platforms and sharing a lot of content, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Twitter. Each tool kind of has its own unique, as you know, unique
00:24:58
Speaker
audience and different ways as to how to utilize them to connect, see what's going on in the pickleball space. I'm just always listening, always searching, Google alerts and everything kind of really, it's changing so much. I just want to make sure that I'm keeping up with everything that's happening in this space.
00:25:09
Speaker
Provide some more details about Pickleball in the Sun. What was your inspiration for creating it? How have you managed that balancing act between having Vosper Gaynor and having another brand which could take off depending on what you want to do with
Promoting Pickleball-Friendly Destinations
00:25:24
Speaker
it? You've got a two-headed beast right now. Talk to about Pickleball in the Sun and what is the mandate and what are you looking to do with it?
00:25:31
Speaker
Yeah, it's a lot to love a year ago. As I said, we were actually here at our local courts. I was training with our friends, my pickleball partner, Mia, and we were booking pickleball getaway weekends where we would go from Friday to Sunday. State of Resorts would add pickleball courts. You get to play fun social when you're visiting your city and then, of course, participate in the tournament. And as I was doing that more and more, I was like, gosh,
00:25:51
Speaker
My background, again, has always been running clubs and events, so I just really wanted to find love to go on our shirts. I had an advertising friend create the Pickleball-a-Sun brand, and there's a ball from there. It went from us having a shirt spur tournament to, hey, I want to feature Pickleball destinations. I was writing for Pickleball magazine and featuring premier Pickleball destinations. A lot of people know, hey, go stay in the GW Marriott in Desert Ridge because you can play Pickleball. I'm not a first experience in the Phoenix area, so it's grown into now being the source or
00:26:21
Speaker
pickleball destinations that has announced a new partnership with the pickleplay app because as we build I mean it takes time to add as content to your website like what are some partners that can bring in to make it stronger and pickleplay of course is one of those to where Blake Renaud the founder has created this app to where you can search when you're traveling and type in your zip code oh yeah here's all the local courses to where you can play
00:26:43
Speaker
And then just this past week, we announced the Omni Millie Island Resort as our first premier pickleball in the sun. Destination powered by pickle play, which gives opportunities for resorts to let people know about, hey, we have pickleball courts because resorts are adding them knowing that people are choosing their destination. If they don't have pickleball, they're not choosing.
00:27:01
Speaker
You know, they're resort for, so we're hoping to be that brand, those two brands that help people as they're traveling. Go to pickleballandson.com, find where our premier pickleball destinations are, utilize the pickle play app to find easily where they are. If you're choosing to go stay in Phoenix, you know, where are those resorts that we can stay at, play ASL and then resorts, of course, to reach out to us. We'd love to feature them and let people know to spread now more and more building courts. So let us know like, hey, ever opening pickleball courts?
00:27:29
Speaker
this summer, make sure you choose our resort for your next winter vacation. So here's the toughest question I'm going to ask you during the interview. Because over the last four years, I imagine that you've had some pretty amazing pickleball events or stories that you've been involved in. Can you pick something out of all those potential stories that's a highlight something that's memorable that you said, this is something that if I look back 10 years from now or 15 years, that story or that event will always stick out.
00:27:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely, I mean, I just got back from Los Angeles. I was out there to help June Day in Raphael, which I never would have thought. I remember sitting in my house like four years ago watching her show on Netflix, Grace and Frankie, and living this life of like two ladies living in a beach house. I was like, oh, I love to live that way.
00:28:13
Speaker
June Day and Rafael announced she was creating a pickleball event. So I reached out and said, hey, I would love to help you bring in sponsors. And so, again, just kind of reaching out and asking for those opportunities. And I ended up going out to L.A., bringing in some sponsors for June's event and now well connected with her and her friends with their planning.
00:28:30
Speaker
more events down the road and I just had to pinch myself when I was out there in L.A. and just her asking me for my advice, like, hey, what should we do for this event? Be running around for her at that event when I admired her. And she's just a hilarious comedian and actress. And then out to, again, just that community. We're so close to these celebrities through pickleball because it's just such a like-minded activity that, yeah, definitely that June event was the top. And then, of course, getting a chance to interview Maren Morris for a pickleball magazine cover story as well. I just found myself in these incredible opportunities that I feel very
00:29:00
Speaker
fortunate for her. Pickleball has been very very good to you over the last four years and that is the most interesting thing about it is almost like pickleball is just scratching the surface in terms of where it's going.
Engaging with Laura Gaynor and Her Projects
00:29:11
Speaker
If people are interested in learning more about you, boss per gainer, pickleball in the sun, all the different things that you're involved in, where do they go? Where do they go? Where do they find out more about you and how they could get involved with pickleball?
00:29:22
Speaker
Yeah, so for one, it connected me and LinkedIn, and I like that platform, especially connected with other marketing professionals. Laura Gaynor on LinkedIn, and then my website, blossbergaynor.com, pickleballandsun.com, and whether you want some help with your marketing efforts, I'm happy to be a consultant, and I help guide everybody within the sport, understand the sport better, and of course, travel destinations. We'd love to play pickleball in the sun with everybody, and then feature resorts and brands within this unique partnership with the Pickle Play app.
00:29:49
Speaker
Thanks for all the great insight.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:29:50
Speaker
After talking about Pickleball during my positioning workshops, it's finally great to talk to the source of all the inspiration for what Pickleball has become. And I want to thank everyone for listening to another episode of Marketing Spark. If you enjoyed the conversation, leave a review, subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app and share via social media.
00:30:09
Speaker
And to learn more about how to work with B2B SaaS companies as a fractional CMO, Strategic Advisor and Positioning and Messaging Consultant, email mark at markevards.ca or connect with me on LinkedIn. I'll talk to you soon.