I live in Connecticut, and it’s the middle of winter, which meansno golf for me. I could hit golf balls into a screen indoors, but I honestly hate that.
So yeah, I’m living vicariously through YouTube golfers.
And not in a casual way, either. Some people see a three-hour YouTube video and think, "I'm not clicking that." Not me. I’ll watch three hours of scramble golf with the same level of enthusiasm as the final round of a PGA Tour tournament (excluding the majors, of course, that's still the pinnacle of golf).
So, Grant Horvat, Bob Does Sports, and the Bryan Bros have basically becomethe center of my golf offseason. They’re also, whether they realize it or not, the reason I ended up on a Zoom with a representative from a Finnish golf company I’d barely heard of a year ago:Takomo.
Let me be clear up front: this isn’t an ad. Nobody paid me to write this. I heard multiple creators I enjoy watching talk up Takomo clubs, and I did the most journalistically responsible thing I could think to do: I reached out to the company and asked if someone would talk to me about their product and marketing strategy.
That’s how I ended up interviewing Joonas Laasila, Takomo’s Head of Partnerships and Influencer Marketing. He's the guy who helps run the influencer machine that keeps putting Takomo in your YouTube feed.
When Laasila joined Takomo three and a half years ago, he was the fifth employee. He says the company is now up to 46. That’s impressive growth in a short period of time, so something is clearly working and resonating with golfers.
A Connecticut golfer’s offseason rabbit hole leads to an interview with Takomo’s influencer marketing lead on why YouTube now drives club discovery and brand loyalty.
He’s also a golfer, which matters more than you’d think in this space. He started playing during COVID and has worked down to a 7.8-handicap, which is both impressive and mildly offensive (because I also really started golfing during COVID, and I'm a 12).
For a direct-to-consumer golf brand, meaning not sold in Golf Galaxy or PGA Superstore, Takomo had to face an immediate problem: people can’t just walk in, grab a 7-iron, and see what it feels like. Laasila even admitted that it's hard for people to test their clubs because while theyoffer a trial period, it's time-consuming and tedious.
Source: The Latest & Most Breaking News With OutKick
