Golf marketing: setting your course on fire!

Mention of golf, many people’s impression is that this is an aristocrat and business tycoon exchanges of sports, the course operator is very lucrative. But in fact, operating a golf course, is not an easy thing, golf course real estate investment is too large, a stadium investment of at least ten million dollars, or even a lot of courses and many courses in Canada and the United States at present, but many courses are not very profitable, this is because some of the golf course marketing methods and levels are still in the primary stage.

It’s a mistake to emphasize hardware over software; hardware facilities are important The The vast majority of golf courses repeat the same communication themes: course access, environment, amenities, and so on. It is difficult for audiences to form unique perceptions when competitors do not have any differences from each other. Therefore, to break through the current bottleneck, golf courses must look for differences between themselves and their competitors, find their own niche market, highlight differentiation advantages, and allow the course brand to occupy the minds of consumers.

Successful marketing can bring tangible benefits to a course and can make it very profitable. As technology advances, the ancient game of golf needs to evolve to attract more guests, and the best way to keep up is to keep honing your marketing skills, especially Digital Marketing, to maximize your “eyeballs” and avoid your shortcomings!

• Discovery Stage- Researching Your Course Membership

Usually, there are two types of people who visit the course, members and non-member guests. For a course to generate a lot of revenue and marketing to gain longevity, both groups must be worthy of being taken seriously.

A stadium can start with the visitor data it already has. Of course, understanding visitors to a stadium using only this existing data is only the first step, but it’s not enough for a stadium to gain further detailed information to benefit from it – the age of the stadium’s customers, their hobbies, how long it takes them to get to the stadium. What’s more, it’s important to know as much as possible about their lifestyles so that the course can purposefully tailor its business to the needs of its customers. For example, an older member may be retired and have a lot of time to play at their leisure without having to rush around. Younger members, however, may only have 90 minutes to enjoy a round of golf, and golf is just a “break” from their busy lives.

In addition, are visitors to the course local residents or out-of-towners? If your course’s visitors are predominantly local guests, you need to step up your marketing efforts to attract customers from further afield. On the other hand, if the majority of guests at your course are out-of-towners, it’s likely to be a one-time visit, which will require the course to make an effort to bring them back using some Digital Marketing methods. For example, offering membership discounts to occasional guests can entice low-frequency guests to visit more frequently, increasing club revenue.

The course has to be clear on its own as to who are its target member customers. If it is mainly local, but due to geographical reasons, the customer source is insufficient, then we can take one of the Marketing strategy is to unite the neighboring areas as a supplement, sales in addition to tapping the existing customer resources, but also actively cultivate their own market.

In addition, when golf clubs are desperately trying to develop new members and retain guests, they are likely to neglect the needs of their existing members. But the fact is that the number of members who come to play at a course usually far exceeds the number of non-member visitors, which also means that members make up a larger portion of the course’s playing guests. Therefore, the first priority of a course is its existing members, who should be made to feel happy and comfortable, which in turn encourages them to become long-term stable customers of the club.

A great way to keep members in a stable relationship with a ball club is to foster loyalty. There are many marketing methods to do this, but one of the most basic marketing strategies is that the course can consider establishing a loyalty program, based on the number of times a member has been to the course, and after reaching a certain number of times they can receive rewards, such as free food ordering, free drinks at the bar, a free game of golf, or free lunches, and so on and so forth. This not only allows existing members to feel the care and loyalty of the club, but also allows existing members to introduce potential new members to the club.

In addition to loyalty programs, clubs can also use old members to introduce new members to enjoy the benefits of membership to expand their customer base. Although this is less common than the loyalty programs mentioned above, in the long run, this “bringing in new members” approach will benefit the club by developing more members, and on the other hand, the members will be more friendly with each other and willing to stay in the golf field for a long time, and less likely to divert their interest so that the golf course can gain a long term clientele. Either way, clubs will benefit and in the long run, will generate more revenue.

• Developing a Marketing Plan – Tailored to the Marketplace

After outlining your stadium consumer profile, we’re going to talk about stadium price positioning. Should we go high-end niche or flat-name? Success does not indicate that golf marketing must take the high-end niche route, the golf club’s business model is determined by the regional economic conditions, consumer spending habits, the consumption level of urban residents and the competitive situation of the golf club, therefore, the golf club must be based on the objective reality of the product strategy, brand communication strategy, sales channel strategy, customer service management strategy to make the right choice.

For example, in North Dakota, the level of economic development is not as high as that of New York, Boston or Washington, D.C., or for example, only 20% of local consumers play golf at the Hawaii Island Golf Club, while 80% of consumers come from all over the country and abroad. In this case, MiApple believes that the only correct marketing idea is to establish the overall image of “Hawaii Course” in the country (spread the concept of beauty + food + vacation + course), and make the cake bigger together. One of the most basic marketing methods is to adopt a three-dimensional communication strategy that combines television, Internet and print media, and to join hands with organizations related to the golf industry in order to market the overall image to the outside world, thereby attracting more external customers.

We are familiar with a golf club that has also adopted the above digital marketing communications. According to reports, with the expansion of the course, this club’s original 18-hole course is to be expanded to 36 holes this year, and the price of membership has risen from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. “For us, there is no extensive branding and communication, relying more on the inherent quality of the club. Our courses are designed by very experienced golf architects and the quality of the club is still quite good. On the one hand, we make more members satisfied through the quality of the club as well as the management and service, so that the members can bring us more members through word of mouth; on the other hand, we also pay attention to the brand effect as well as the brand promotion, and through the brand effect to drive more people to join the club.” This club CEO said. He believes that in today’s increasingly competitive world, golf clubs must make great efforts in branding, which involves whether they can set the club’s core brand value as well as a good brand image from the needs of the target group.

As tourist resort golf courses, many golf course owners should be themselves have tasted the sweetness brought by the deep cooperation with travel agencies and professional golf organizations. “This has brought us a lot of sources of customers, but also allowed us to quickly build up our own consumer base in two years’ time.” , the general manager of a golf club believes that, as a tourist-oriented golf club, the most important thing is to bring customers more travel vacations, social activities, and leisure experience, rather than just playing golf. For example, in Halifax, Canada, many courses have joined forces with local restaurants with specialties, such as seafood and prawns, and tourist attractions, and launched horseback riding and hunting, as well as vacation homes and couples’ tours. Many golf courses are also thinking about how to interact with other city-based clubs, integrating the membership resources of different courses and taking advantage of their closed or off-season to attract their members to play golf in Halifax. With the further maturation of the golf industry and the segmentation of the consumer population, North American golf clubs will also move towards differentiation, forming their own clear positioning and business model. In this process, for the North American golf clubs, the most important point is not to follow the cat and draw a tiger, completely applying the business model of others, but according to their respective market environment, the resources they have, and different stages of development, choose the appropriate marketing route and business model.

• Building brands and spreading culture

Branding is a crucial starting point for course operators.

Why do some courses sell memberships for tens of thousands of dollars, and why do some courses offer memberships for a fraction of that? Why do some courses attract high-end visitors to the same course? Why do some courses struggle and are not taken seriously?

Would you say there is a difference between their products and services? Of course there is, but if it’s just a difference in the functional attributes of the product, it’s certainly not worth it for the consumer to pay several dozens of times more for it. If you want to talk about the quality of service and value for money, there are times when it may even be better!

So it’s not just the physical attributes of the product that really make consumers willing to pay a premium, it’s the emotional value given by the brand behind it:

• Symbol of identity and status
• Lifestyle Leadership
• esthetic identity
• Emotional resonance
• Cultural recognition

It makes consumers feel respected, recognized and needed, giving them a sense of belonging. It makes consumers willingly buy and pay a high price, which is the premium role of the brand.

Having a branded pitch is what makes it highly profitable.

Like diamond rings and other high-end goods, golf represents a cultural concept, a concept of life, a kind of leisure and entertainment, a kind of taste and a kind of design oh ah activities. It is not difficult to see that in Canada and the United States in many places there have been a batch of new rich class has become the advocate of cultural consumption. These people often have a high degree of education, high income and high grade, they are on the leisure and entertainment venues, socializing and making friends, life concepts, food and culture, wearing jewelry and so on have a very picky and unique vision. Accordingly, their consumption is often dominated by a culture of inculcation, they demand to be different, they demand to show their personality and fashion, they love life and are keen to consume, they are more representative of the cutting edge of cultural consumption. They represent the cutting edge of cultural consumption.

Golf advocates not only sunshine, air and green space, it also advocates a kind of North American health and happiness. This kind of consumption comes from the emotional experience of consumption, is a set of fitness, mood and high emotions in one of the highest sports. And this is exactly where the core concept of golf sport communication lies! Therefore, in addition to carrying out relationship marketing, the dissemination of fashion culture is also a great trick to expand the marketing surface! After all, the era has now entered the era of cultural marketing.

Regarding how to brand well, these can be discussed with a Digital Marketing Agency like MiApple Inc. We’ll help you develop a customized strategy for brand packaging, cultural communication, and more.

• About Must-Do Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the most basic and commonly used forms of Digital Marketing.

He can also encourage people to visit your golf club, but first, the golf course needs to get the guest’s e-mail, otherwise sending e-mails without the guest’s permission is illegal in many U.S. states. But people today are averse to electronic harassment, so how do you get a guest’s email address without making them feel harassed? The easiest way is to offer some information in return or in exchange for something like a free perk, like a coupon for signing up, or a free e-book for signing up, so that they can actively participate without feeling coerced.

Thinking about it from a marketer’s point of view, the first thing to think about is not when to send something to a user, but when the user needs that something, and it’s easy to find that point in time and string the emails together.

MiApple will help you develop your email marketing strategy so you can realize a low investment with a high return. A basic Digital Marketing strategy could be that the course could start with non-members by offering them a free game on their birthday. Often, such a perk will easily interest them, so the club can logically obtain their details, which include name, address, date of birth, email, and ask if they can be contacted with the offer. Usually, they will agree, but there are exceptions and if they are not interested, leave them alone or you will surely lose the guest. If the guest is more than happy for the club to contact them, then send them a personalized follow-up email thanking them for their visit to the course and drawing the relationship closer, the email can also affectionately address them by name to show that the club values them, which also makes it more likely to get a positive response from the guest.

At this point, the ballpark has opened up a channel of communication with potential customers. The course can now email their guests with special offers and event details. All the effort and hard work that the course has put in before can now pay off! These offers are valid for those who are notified by email, and when other members hear about it, they will provide their personal information, making the club’s job of collecting targeted customers much easier.

When you have these target customers’ mailboxes, the next step is to choose the right email software to send the emails, and carry out email content design, sending and post data analysis. To understand the marketing effect and achieve the optimal marketing effect, you need to optimize your marketing strategy according to the data. Generally speaking, many email software have email tracking and data statistics function. In addition, mature email marketing should be to determine the frequency of sending emails, to establish the psychological expectation of receiving emails within a fixed period of time, which is very important for retaining subscribers and building trust.

5. Online marketing – the website is the centerpiece

Websites are now so commonplace that in addition to the offline stuff, basically online it represents the vast majority of your image, and the first thing people see in the online world is your website. All online advertising and mailings lead your customers to your website. The image of your website is how your customers see the strength of your course, the size of your membership fees and how you operate.

A lot of people go online to find out what’s going on before they spend their money, and people interested in golf are no exception; people will check out the course first, such as whether it’s open today, what services are offered, how much it costs, etc. According to MiApple’s experience in Digital Marketing, the most frequently searched information is the price of the golf course, its opening hours and the services it offers, so the customer wants to make sure that the price he is going to pay and the services he is going to receive are good value for money. This is exactly what a website can provide.

In addition to the basic information about the course, the course owner has to find a way to keep the site fresh and often have some content updates based on the season that will play to people’s appeal. One great way to do this for Marketing is to create a blog section on the website. All kinds of interesting content about golf can be put in there so that fans can read it whenever they want and get information while increasing the number of visitors to the site. High-quality articles can encourage people to get more involved with golf and develop a new perception of the course.

Regarding how to make a good website and increase the conversion rate, these involve some expertise related to User Experience, Web Design, Digital Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization, and these I would suggest that the course owner would be better off hiring a professional to help make a professional website rather than just getting a friend to make a website on their own. This website will track all your viewer data, and the analytics will be used to optimize your website content and attract more viewers.

I see a lot of traditional golf course business owners who don’t understand, how to utilize websites and the internet to run their course business. By the time they realize the importance of a website in this day and age, it is often too late. They may already be uncompetitive. As a result more and more courses are closing down.

In addition, in case of special epidemics, or during the off-season of the course, the course is closed offline. Each course is even more compelled to need a website, through the online means to help you provide 24 hours without rest publicity, for you to maintain existing customers.

Remember, the website represents all of your online presence, and all of your online viewers will eventually come to your website through various channels. Their impression of the website determines whether or not they go to your stadium to spend money, and their consumer perception of your products and services.

6. Social Media Feast

In today’s world where traffic is everything, social media is one of the most important presences in people’s lives. However, we have noticed a phenomenon that many golf course owners don’t seem to utilize this channel very well, and very few golf courses are successfully promoting their business on platforms such as Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, and Twitter, etc., but there is no doubt that the benefits of registering an account on these social media outlets are obvious, and information can be communicated to a large number of users.

In the same way as email marketing, courses can use the same methods to regularly publicize offers on social media and gather useful information. The beauty and cozy scenes of a golf course on social media will give more people insight into the sport and can spark the interest of regular guests.

For example, let’s say you sell to golfers. And you write a blog entitled “Seven Ways to Improve Your Golf Skills”. Then you can break that content down into seven small sections on social media, each containing one training method. This should be more effective than cramming it all into one post.

The focus of a company’s communication should no longer just be on exposing its products, but on figuring out what kind of content will make potential users want to interact with it. This has given rise to a whole new industry called “content marketing”.

Or, the course can also make full use of social media most as a forum to utilize the user’s fragmented time to promote the course information in depth, can also consider using social media as a platform to do golf-related topics of the survey, so that the course to get more information. The number of fans can also be another aspect of the popularity of the course. And if there are guests posting photos or videos of their playing on the course on social media, then it will be more helpful for the promotion of the course.

If you have already signed up for a social media account, keep in mind that fans are important in the age of the internet, and it may not be difficult to attract the attention of your fans, but you need to update regularly to keep a steady number of followers if you want to keep from losing them. If you don’t update for a while, then fans will be lost like running water.

　7. Integration of the industrial chain and implementation of intensive marketing

Golf belongs to the tertiary sector when divided by industry. To put it more plainly, golf in Canada and the United States is not just a sport level, exactly he should also belong to the entertainment and leisure level. Therefore, as far as the current golf consumers are concerned, there are not many people who play golf simply for the sake of playing golf. More people regard golf as a leisure and social activity. From this point of view, golf needs a lot of supporting activities to support it.

Personally, I thought that if golf can be combined with catering, SPA, hunting, fishing, horseback riding, vacation, wedding and other industries, the implementation of intensive marketing can amplify the effect of leisure.

Of course, where conditions permit, golf clubs can integrate the industry chain in conjunction with group configuration. If there are no conditions for the time being, then tactical alliances can be made to implement a charter system for some high-end restaurants, SPA, hotels and other venues to facilitate the needs of golf consumers on the system of leisure.