26 Mar
Club Marketing Ideas

A Strategic Approach to Membership Growth When Re-Opening Your Club after COVID-19

10 Tips to Gain Members during your Club Re-Opening

Make no mistake: The world of private clubs will never be the same again. Just as 9/11 changed how the world flys, the COVID -19 pandemic will change how members enjoy their leisure time. These changes will extend to how individuals commute, enter your club, interact with others, manage tasks, and more. In a post COVID-19 world, private clubs not only have to be safe, it has to be “clean and assured.”

We have identified ten broad topics that clubs and other organizations can use to grow their membership and usage as they re-open for business:

  1. Take Advantage of the Itch

Everyone is itching to get out and golf. Now more than ever your members will be out taking advantage of the beautiful weather and the ability to golf at their club. They will be more inclined to bring their friends who do not have a club to go to on their own. This is a perfect opportunity to interact and gather information of the potential member(s).

  1. Communicate to your Neighbors

It is a good time to reach out to your neighbors. Your external outreach to those who reside around the club that you may have had paused since March should be back up and in full force. Now is the best time to let them know why being a part of your club is the best choice for them and their family.

  1. Pull out from the archives – Member Referral Plan

Have a membership referral plan that is your ACE? Now is the time to use it! Your members miss their friends and family who are most always their golfing buddies. Use it to your advantage!

  1. Engage with the Membership

Remind your members why they love their course so much. Do something a little extra to show them you miss them just as much; nothing says that better than a complimentary transfusion station at the turn!

  1. Internal Communications

It is vital to stay connected to your members and let them know your revised plans for “golfing with precaution”. If they know what to expect before they get to the course there will be less confusion and unhappy members in the golf shop.

  1. A United Message

Come together as a team and create the message that you want to portray to the membership. This is where upbeat optimism is needed. Remember as a club you want to be the place your members go to escape reality “pandemic” don’t make it the topic of conversation.

  1. Operations Plan

Although you may be running on a tightened budget or not have as many staff members as you normally would; come up with a strategic plan to make sure there are no holes in your operations.

  1. Retention

Believe it or not, how you react in these next couple months are going to directly affect your retention rates. Anything you do to enhance the member experience during this time will be talked about for years to come… so will what you don’t do as well!

  1. Follow The Golf & Heath Project, supported by the World Golf Foundation safety guidelines for Clubs and players:

Coronavirus [COVID-19] Update | Golf & Health

Message to Golf Clubs and Management

·    Organize online booking to reduce congregation around the Clubhouse

·    Allow shoes to be changed in the car park

·    Follow general hygiene advice and e.g. make hand sanitizers available in the clubhouse

·    Golf buggies should be used by single individuals and cleaned afterwards

·    Take drinking fonts and ball cleaners out of play.

·    Close air pressure cleaners for cleaning shoes following the round

  1. Smile

Be the light in their day. They are doing something they love and have been longing to do. Make sure to enhance their experience as much as possible. Everyone is going through a tough time right now. Be the smile that makes a difference to your membership!

 

02 Oct
Club Marketing, Club Marketing Ideas, Export

Tips for Creating a Successful Private Club Membership Marketing Plan

Want to realize membership strategies to market your private club more effectively? Here are a few tips for creating a successful membership marketing plan

Why would I need a membership marketing plan?

Whether you run a small, single club, a medium sized one, or a large management company, whether your club is newly founded or well-tried, there are certain daily challenges that you, as a club marketer, must inevitably face. These include driving member referrals, satisfying member demands, and achieving business goals. Such business goals should not come into being randomly or just by gut feelings. Rather, your marketing plan should be the basis of your corporate agitation. The process you should follow, in creating your marketing strategy, will be outlined for you in this article.

Make sure your membership marketing plan doesn’t become a monster, but rather is constructive and focused on the most important elements. There is no point in investing hours and hours of work into a plan just to disregard it in the end. In order to achieve your personal business goals, the membership marketing plan you devise should be something you can use in your daily operations. There are several things you should pay attention to when composing it. This means that full concentration and sufficient time are required when you sit down to devise this plan. However, the act of creating the plan alone is of course not sufficient. Your membership marketing plan should at the very least be updated regularly (say once a year) and be coherent with the general business strategy. This brief article should give you a rough understanding of how to create a private club membership marketing plan, and eventually serve you as a tool to sustain your position within the harshly competitive private club business.

Preconditions for a membership marketing plan

In order to determine precise marketing goals, you should already have formulated a clear business strategy. To do so, it is important to observe your club from a bird’s-eye view and to ask yourself the following questions:

  • Who are our members and target audiences?
  • Why should prospective members join out club verse our competitors? What advantages do we offer our members?
  • Who are our competitors?
  • What are we specialized in? How are we differentiating ourselves from our competitors? In which departments and amenities are we better?
  • What are our products and services – and for which of them did we receive positive or negative feedback?
  • What are some weaknesses of our club?
  • What is our philosophy / our vision?

You should have convincing answers at hand for these questions. Only then can you begin drafting precise goals for your marketing strategy, defining concrete demands to be achieved over a specific period. Those goals must be formulated in such a way that they are verifiable and controllable. Maybe you want to increase membership inquiries from your website by 5%, or you want to strengthen your presence on social networks. By choosing specific targets, you can later measure your performance. Do not forget to define and include budgets for marketing measures into your calculation. In the end, it’s all about making those measures worthwhile for you and your club.

Create specific marketing measures

You have taken an important first step by doing a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis as well as defining a business strategy. By now, you are getting ready to actually start working on your membership marketing plan. That includes developing certain measures for the following categories – the so-called four P’s.

  • Product
  • Price
  • Promotion
  • Place

It is highly recommended that you do some sort of brainstorming with different managers from respective departments of your club. Hear everyone’s opinion, let them speak, and be open and even eager for new ideas. Afterward, you can – either on your own or with your team – make a cost-benefit analysis of the various ideas. Those measures that show great promise for your budget can then be included in your membership marketing plan. Concrete examples of frequently used elements could be:

  • Club logo / business cards
  • Direct mailing / Club Newsletter
  • Presence on social networks
  • Online Advertisements

Concrete measures must be formulated precisely and be achievable within a certain time frame. Do not hesitate to be ambitious here, but do stay down-to-earth. Often, multiple small steps are necessary if one wants to achieve a single, bigger goal. Always keep your target audience in mind and set up a logical agenda, coherent with your business strategy. Share your membership marketing plan with all of your employees, letting them know that they are a part of this plan and have contributed to its development.

This process also has the advantage of giving different departments the chance to better understand the work of their colleagues, as they search to include everyone into a general business strategy.

Performance review

Your membership marketing plan should be your guide into the future. As such, you should constantly challenge the goals determined within. In the fast-shifting club business, a correct analysis of the situation and the related goals one day can be outdated and irrelevant overnight. Internal changes can have an impact on a club and its marketing efforts, of course, but so can shifts in the social, political and economic environment your club is attached to. Keeping your plan up to date doesn’t mean that you need to hire economic and political experts, but you should pay attention to external events and be ready to adapt when necessary.

A performance review offers valuable clues as to the effectiveness and profitability of your business strategies and marketing efforts.

Somewhere between the constant optimization and adjustment of your strategies and the necessary patience to let your ideas come into being, you might find the secret to an effective membership marketing plan. Control your success regularly by looking at numbers and stats, as well as by organizing team meetings. It is the only way to ensure that you achieve the goals as you’ve set them out in your membership marketing plan.

Final words

A membership marketing plan supports you and your club in different ways. Not only does it help you gain new prospects and turn one-time guests into new members, it also helps you embed unclear and indefinite business goals into concrete frameworks, and eventually to implement them with well thought out measures.

As a first step, it is important to develop and formulate a general business strategy, essential for your club to position itself properly. In due course, you and some handpicked coworkers should also determine some clear business objectives, from which you can deduce certain marketing measures.

From there, things get more elaborate as you have to put your – to this point still purely theoretical – membership marketing plan into practice. From here you need to be patient, as well as vigilant of how your strategies will fit your day in, day out work processes. Ideally, you want to create an action plan for and with your employees to describe how exactly you want your ideas to be applied.

Once you’ve managed to successfully implement the membership marketing plan into your daily workflows, you must not forget to carefully observe the impact of your measures. Not until your strategies bring about real improvements, your employees work together to realize objectives, and you’ve managed to prove a profit, can you consider the implementation of your membership marketing plan completed successfully. Until that happens, be critical, do not hesitate to challenge formulated goals and adapt them to altered circumstances. This is the only way for you to guarantee – whether you happen to run a small single club, a medium sized one or a large management company – that you have done everything in your power to tap into the full potential of your club and membership.

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01 Nov
Club Marketing Ideas, Export

10 Creative Club Marketing Ideas for November

November is upon us, and what better way to kick off a new month than with a list of great creative club marketing ideas? Here are some ways to boost your marketing efforts for the month of November!

1. Movember/No Shave November

Movember or No Shave November is a movement for men’s health issues. Participants can sign up here and are encouraged to grow a mustache for November to bring awareness and raise donations for men’s health and cancers. Some clubs host Movember competitions among members and outside guests. Movember is a fun way to host contests or showcase your facial hair for men’s health on social media. Get involved with the many millennials who participate on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Palos Verdes Golf Club will play host venue for South Bay Mo Bros golf tournament on Movember 13th.

2. Veteran’s Day (November 11)

Vereran’s Day is November 11 and comes up fast! Schools may have off, and many workplaces close. This is an excellent time for your club to make a push on social media thanking veterans for their hard work and sacrifice for our country. If you have a veteran who works for you, showcase them on your website. A simple “Thank You” goes a long way and lets members know that you care about people, not just sales.

3. America Recycles Day (November 15)

November 15 is America Recycles Day and a great day for showing that your club cares about the environment. Does your club recycle? Include some facts on your social media or suggestions on your website on how to recycle. If you don’t already, now is a great time to start! Get a recycling bin out on the golf course or tennis courts and let members know that you’re taking steps to help improve the environment for everyone! Participate in America Recycles social media efforts (#AmericaRecyclesDay and #RecyclingSelfie) to showoff your recycling efforts and encourage others to do the same!

4. Charity

Movember gets a lot of attention, but November is also host to other awareness efforts like lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and adoption awareness. Have your club members been affected by any of these issues or do they feel strongly about these causes? Make a difference and help raise awareness this November using social media. Some club marketing ideas have taken on the Great American Smokeout where people pledge to quit smoking. Help support someone you know who is trying to quit!

5. Sports

November is a time when the NFL, NHL, and NBA are in full swing! Show off your team spirit by dressing up in team jerseys or decorating your club on game nights with team colors. Know of members to the game? Ask them to tweet about it or share pictures from a game. Showing personality and friendly competition is a great way to market your club!

The Charlotte City Club has a unique amenity called the Gridiron Club, where former NFL players (including Superbowl champions) form a panel to discuss the games every Monday during the season.

6. Be Thankful

November is the month of Thanksgiving so don’t forget to give thanks. Post what you’re thankful for on social media and ask members to participate–make sure thank your members for their support!

7. Holiday Buying Guides

December will come soon enough, and members are starting to shop for the holidays. Now is the time to start marketing with gift guides, either in written or video form on your blog, to help members shop for the special people in their lives.

8. Food Drives

It’s easy to get caught up in planning for Thanksgiving but don’t forget those who aren’t as fortunate. Hosting a food drive is a great thing to do to help others enjoy the holiday who are struggling to make ends meet. Encourage members to donate canned or non-perishable food. A few more club marketing ideas include; offering a discount on a service to members who bring in a bag of food. Host a contest where each can of food gives participants a chance to win. Donate the food to a local food pantry, church, or charitable organization and give back to the community. See Orange County membership and catering managers at local soup kitchen.

The Eagle Rock Yacht Club is hosting it’s 5th annual Food Drive in collaboration with the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank to collect 300lbs of canned foods for those in need.

9. Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is the holiday star of November and a great chance to showcase some of your club marketing ideas. Offer specials in your restaurant or cooking classes for great Thanksgiving side dishes or how to use leftovers after the holiday. If your club has a fitness center, your club can host or participate in Thanksgiving races or an after-Thanksgiving boot camp class! The content opportunities for Thanksgiving are plentiful! Here are some creative posters we've created for other clubs >> Click Here

10. Small Business Saturday (November 25)

Small Business Saturday is November 25, if your club offers outside play or dining reservations this is a great way to get your business recognized. Register your business HERE and make a push on social media and your website for supporting small businesses!

You also might like:

7 Creative Golf Marketing Ideas to Make your Club Stand Out

03 Jul
Club Marketing, Club Marketing Ideas, Export

Wimbledon Tennis Party Season

The British tennis season is upon us, with the Wimbledon tournament finally under-way. Dust off your tennis whites and host a get-together complete with tennis-themed party games, smashing food and plenty of strawberries and cream, inspired by the All-England Club. Private Club Marketing can assist you with membership event ideas & creative marketing to drive member usage.

See samples below and reach out to us, for more information by clicking HERE!

24 Apr
Club Marketing, Club Marketing Ideas, Export, Membership, Sales

5 Steps to Start Marketing Your Summer Pipeline

I had two membership director conversations already this week reminding them to ensure they are focused on building their summer membership and marketing pipeline. In one case, the club was excited about the event they just completed and the opportunities they found, yet they had no events scheduled for May or June!

It is the job of sales leadership to have a 90-day and beyond vision into pipeline marketing and membership sales planning. Now is the time to make sure there are extra efforts in your membership and marketing plans to increase your visibility.

What kinds of programs or activity are you launching in the next 60- 90 days to make sure your summer is busy?

I have simply built a list to help you think through your options, and I would like our readers to certainly add their thoughts and ideas as well. Let’s all work together to ensure mutual success.

1. Hunt your existing membership base: hold Member Appreciation events, make sure you have a plan to contact each new member and offer to get them connected into the club and to bring a non-member friend along.

2. Ask your vendors for idea’s and find out what other organizations are using to increase activity.

3. Schedule outreach (prospecting) events for regional access; if you cover a large area or even a single city, schedule morning events in two separate areas, one day apart. One might be on the North side of your city, the second in the South (as an example). As you prospect, make sure prospects (and your membership committee) know of both events – this will make it easy for them to attend or pass along a referral. Example; We had a club cater an open house and had the realtor invite her most recent ten client couples to visit. The next night we hosted a prospective member open house at the Club.

4. Buy a new database and create a fun mailing and use oversized postcards. ***Private Club Marketing can help with this***

5. Have your Membership Director block a minimum of two hours a week to prospect new opportunities. Great examples: museum openings, chamber of commerce meetings and important non-profit marketing committee meetings (many of your members sit on these boards – just ask).

These are just a few to start the dialogue; the key is to make it happen-Now!

What are your ideas?

17 Apr
Club Life, Club Marketing Ideas, Export

7 Special Suggestions for Mothers Day Marketing Ideas

If you’re still working on ideas for marketing your club and promoting specific events or services for Mother’s Day, this list of seven marketing ideas for Mother’s Day can help you put the finishing touches on your plan.

In the U.S., Mother’s Day falls on the second Sunday of May each year. A successful Mother’s Day marketing plan can drive inquiries for membership that successfully attracts prospects who are looking to join a private club – your personalized, thoughtful or unique Mother’s Day offerings might be exactly what they've been looking for.

1. A Beverage-Based Bevy of Beautiful Babes

From tea parties to coffee klatches to wine tastings – it’s often more about who you are with than what you are doing. Host a ladies or family-friendly event to honor one or many moms in May.

2. Suggest Something Simply Chic

It’s likely that many of your Members would love to get something truly unique for their mom, wife, grandmother, aunt – any of the women they want to honor on Mother’s Day – but they simply can’t think of anything that fits the bill.

Create a list of simply chic unique or one-of-a-kind Mother’s Day gift ideas from your business and promote during the weeks leading up to May 14 on your website, lobby displays, social networks and email marketing.

3. Feature Future Finds

Promote your newest pro shop products or spa services for Mother’s Day to support launch efforts. Nothing new? Read on, and use old things in new colors to boost member interest this May.

4. Tempt and Tantalize with Tinted Trends

Whether you have new promotions, services or products, the chances are that you can create Mother’s Day promotions around events that come in the freshest trend colors for spring and summer 2017. Create colorful, eye-catching displays in your club lobby and online to get the attention of your members.

5. Embrace Entrepreneurial Expansion

This could be the perfect time to expand your retail with new point of sale displays, accessories and other impulse buy items that can boost average ticket sales and provide you with perfect gift ideas for moms.

6. Provide Products that are – or can be – Personalized to Perfection

Few moms fail to appreciate gifts that are personalized with their kids names or photos; and these days, just about anything can be personalized! Even gift and greeting cards can be personalized to convey the message that someone went the extra mile when choosing this year’s Mother’s Day gift.

7. Design a Delightful Dalliance

Whether it’s a relaxing experience for mom by herself or for a special mom along with her kids, spouse or another loved one, designing an experience that can be sold as a Mother’s Day gift makes perfect sense.

10 Apr
Club Marketing, Club Marketing Ideas, Export, Uncategorized

6 Ways to Attract More Members Through Cross-Promotion this Easter

To stand out to your Members in a crowded advertising marketplace this Easter, cross-promotions have the potential for a big payoff both for increased usage by your Club, and member satisfaction by your Membership. Cross-promotions can gain an inexpensive and credible introduction to your Members more efficiently than traditional “solo” methods of advertising, or PR.

Here are some low-risk and high-opportunity ways to jump-start your first cross-promotion.

  1. Print joint promotional messages on your receipts.
  2. Offer a reduced price, special service, or convenience if Members make reservations at certain events, or buy products from you pro shop or fitness center.
  3. Hang signs or posters promoting your featured upcoming event, but also include a “save the date” section.
  4. Drop 5×7 postcard promotions in kid’s Easter Baskets.
  5. Send featured reminder emails about Easter Sunday, with 2 of your next events and promotions included below the feature.
  6. Encourage your staff to mention your upcoming events and ask Members if they are planning to attend.
06 Jan
Club Marketing, Club Marketing Ideas, Export

Content Marketing for Private Clubs

Content Marketing for Private Clubs: Why Private Clubs Must Resort to Creating Content Like Media Companies

Creating compelling content that engages and entertains consumers has stayed a top priority for businesses for years. That’s why every business, including private clubs, must treat their brand like a media firm and develop interesting content that keeps consumers engaged. But with tastes and trends constantly changing, it can be difficult to determine the definition of content. This is a key question for clubs and hotels, which use valuable time and resources to create the kinds of content that can retain current customers and reach prospective guests. Hospitalitynet.org shared why hotel brands should create content that captures consumers’ attention; we’ve edited to be club specific.

Arriving at Content for Millennials, Mobile Users, and Modern Members

Today, content is viewed as a means to connections. It’s all about helping consumers feel connected to a brand, a lifestyle, a status, and other like-minded members. It’s about expressing the ways a brand reflects a member’s interests and views through its offerings, experiences, value, and convenience. And now more than ever, all of a club’s content must be designed to connect on both broad and personal levels.

But with so many forms of content competing for people’s attention, how can a club make its content stand out? By developing content marketing, that’s engaging and entertaining.

Some club management companies like ClubCorp are achieving these goals through traditional media like Private Clubs Magazine filled with interesting articles. And Marriott International is opting to use new media sources, such as its Digital Content Studio filled with feature films, along with Snapchat campaigns and blogs.

Keys to Developing Content Marketing for Private Clubs Like a Media Company

Media companies know that content must be compelling, continual, and consistent to connect with consumers. All this takes is creativity and surprisingly little expense or effort. The best content comes across as authentic and natural, so try to film on the property and convey the experience at each destination. Consider these savvy sources of content for your hospitality marketing:

•   Post candid club snapshots on Instagram.

•   Produce “insider” videos of club operations, with mobile devices.

•   Film interviews with staff members who can offer great golf, dining, wine, etiquette or fashion tips.

•   List must-attend events recommended menu items or cocktails to attract and inform your members and prospects.

•   Livestream live entertainment and events using Periscope or Facebook Live.

•   Profile each hotel department to offer behind-the-scenes secrets.

•   Spotlight favorite staff members to make them familiar to members.

•   Ask followers for feedback on the kinds of content they want to see.

30 Nov
Club Marketing, Club Marketing Ideas, Export, Private Club Marketing Press Releases, social media

Social Media Tips for Private Clubs

When it comes to private members clubs, it’s safe to say that prospective members seek a club experience just as exciting and engaging as the amenities you’re offering. For this reason, my team and I have always been drawn to unique clubs for their ornate charm and intimate member experience.

As early adopters of social media and a targeted leisure and club following, We've been able to witness what it takes to rock social media for a one-of-a-kind, club. Not only is it important to stay on top of trends in the industry – it’s equally as important to listen to your members and guests on these channels.

Below are a few tips for curating and managing a killer social media strategy for your private club:

Continue reading

23 Feb
Club Marketing, Club Marketing Ideas, employee communication, Export, Member Communication, Membership Retention

Internal Club Branding

We spend weeks, sometimes months, developing our “marketing strategies.” Examining and monitoring our members and incoming prospects. Who are the new members we’ve brought in over the last 12 months and where are they coming from? How are they enjoying the club? What is their usage? Are they bringing in the guests that could potentially become new members themselves? These internal reports are invaluable to the growth of our prospect list and retention of our membership.

However, there is an area that is almost always forgotten in the planning phase of our new year strategy or the restructuring of the previous year’s concept: training staff to understand and reflect our message and brand.

The truth is, branding starts from the inside out. Do your employees believe in your product and the services that you offer? Are they standing 100% behind you in the mission of your brand? Are they living your brand? It is important that your employees are informed and involved in the new initiatives and strategies that take place within your club.

I recently attended a presentation for sales and marketing professionals where the participants were asked to raise their hands if they thought their business would not be around in the next 15 years. Nearly half the room raised their hands! Fifty percent of those business’ brand managers didn’t believe their own message. Now you can imagine that this can only trickle down through the staff culture. If your staff is unable or unwilling to support your marketing efforts, it can have detrimental results. How do you begin an internal branding campaign within your company?

  • Step 1: Synchronize Your Brand Personality, Values and Corporate Culture
    Your marketing team should be working closely with your Human Resources team to ensure that the common values of your company internally and externally are in sync. At your upcoming staff meetings, play quiz games about the history of your club, upcoming events and who the new members are.
  • Step 2: Get Your Employees Behind Your Brand
    Align your criteria for recruiting and rewarding employees with the criteria of the brand value. Look for the right skills and aptitudes that will represent your brand promise effectively. Sometimes the best incentives are recognition. When I was a member relations director at ClubCorp we had a recognition program called “STAR Card.” The Members were encouraged to recognize the staff with these cards when they went above and beyond. Rewards were given to those employees based on a point system for each card they received.
  • Step 3: Reinforce and Repeatedly Explain Brand Values and Behaviors
    Use your internal communication to reinforce and explain the values and behaviors that reflect your brand promise. Your employee newsletter should be similar to your member newsletter, recognize those who are excelling, new hires, new members, promote upcoming events and then quiz random employees about the content in their newsletters. Continuously do this until it becomes second nature.

If you thought the process of involving your staff was not important, take into account that your employees meet, greet, and assist your members in many different ways. They are the face of your brand. Engage your staff right from the start and encourage individual input. Use your staff as a focus group – after all who knows your clientele better than they do? By doing this, you will not only get support from your staff but you will be given insight and ideas that you otherwise may not have considered.

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