Sub 70 owns a story no competitor can buy: the last clubmaker in America who still knows your name. It's buried three clicks deep while the homepage shouts about price.
Part of an ongoing series where we find the one story a brand isn't telling — and what it's costing them.Here's what greets a first-time visitor to your brand — four claims, one message.
Direct to Consumer Pricing.sub70golf.com
Factory Direct.sub70golf.com
The highest quality clubs at the lowest possible price.sub70golf.com
Expectations Redefined.sub70golf.com
Every one of those is an argument about money — same forged quality as the majors, milled from the same steel, minus the markup, minus the tour sponsorships, minus the hype machine. It's a good argument. It's also the argument a thousand value brands make, and it puts you on the one shelf you can never win on: the price shelf — where the only conversation is "how cheap," and someone will always undercut you next season.
Your "Our Story" page opens with a nine-year-old on the roof of his parents' barn, hitting balls through the trees until the sun went down. It talks about a time when "your golf clubs were handcrafted by a man you knew" — a man who lived in your city, who might be in your Saturday four-ball, who cared not just about the club but about the joy of every well-struck shot. It ends with the detail that says everything: open a box of Sub 70s and you find a handwritten note from the person who built your clubs, with a phone number to call.
That's not a discount brand. That's the last clubmaker in America who still knows your name — filed under "About," three clicks deep, while the homepage shouts about price.
Here's the uncomfortable part: leading with "lowest possible price" actively fights your real story. Price language attracts the bargain hunter — the least loyal customer in golf, the one who leaves the moment something's cheaper. The handwritten-note story attracts the opposite: a person who wants to be known, who'll stay for a decade and tell everyone. You're using discount bait to catch the customer your story was built to keep.
Sub 70 isn't the affordable alternative. It's the return of the clubmaker who knows your name — handcrafted clubs, built by a person you could call, in an age when everyone else mass-produces and disappears.
That reframe moves you onto something no competitor can copy with a bigger budget: intimacy. The majors can out-spend you. They cannot put a human being's handwritten note in the box and mean it. Your low price stops being the pitch and becomes the proof — of course it costs less, because there's no hype machine, no tour budget, no middleman between you and the person who built your sticks. The price is the byproduct of the relationship, not the headline.
Same company, same price, same clubs — a different front door. Conceptual mockup, not Sub 70's live site.
Put the clubmaker on the homepage — the handwritten note, the phone number, the person in Sycamore who built the set. Let "direct to consumer" become the reason it's personal, not just the reason it's cheap. Retire "lowest possible price" from the hero; it's the least special thing about you.
That handwritten note is the most valuable marketing asset you own and almost nobody knows it exists. Film the unboxing. Film the builder writing the note. The moment a stranger realizes a real person made their clubs is the moment they stop comparing you on price — show it everywhere.
The big brands launch five drivers a year and tell you each is the longest ever. You're the rejection of that whole machine — quiet, handcrafted, built once and built right. That's not a value position; it's an identity position. Sell belonging to it, not saving on it.
You already wrote the story — it's sitting on your own Our Story page, and it's better than anything your competitors can buy. The only mistake is treating it like a footnote instead of the headline.
The hero film of the builder writing that note, the rewritten homepage, the messaging system — that's a Founder Story Sprint. We already see the story. Let's make it the headline.
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