How dynamic is your current membership/marketing team? Many private clubs are learning that outsourcing marketing responsibilities can be a good idea.
To decide whether you should outsource your entire marketing strategy, part of your efforts, or none at all, you need to really understand your club and its capabilities.
Investing In Success
When running a business, it’s critical to do what you are good at; sticking with your core competency is an absolute must.
If you’re great at creating an experience or offer a world class golf course, then focus on that and let experts in their respective fields come in and execute other business functions.
If division of labor is not convincing enough, consider this: It is not only expensive to attract top-tier talent, but also nearly impossible to lure amazing hires to your business in competitive markets where opportunities are plentiful. If you are an existing club that hasn’t yet distinguished itself from other players in the market — or even an established brand exploring a new space — bringing on the top-notch talent you need can be time-consuming, expensive, and impractical.
It is common practice already to outsource your valet, security, payroll, and many other facets of business. Doing so saves overhead, commitment, recruiting time, training time, and expenses of full-time staff, while allowing you to tap into experts without all the associated expenses.
The Benefits of Outsourcing
Outsourcing your marketing team has recently become a more common practice. And since there is still a very small community of successful, talented, and experienced “growth hackers” — or digital growth experts — trying to secure one full-time can cost well into six-figures per year. For new companies, or a club just exploring digital, this makes little sense.
If you’re a smaller club, or an organization focused on other growth initiatives such as visibility, bringing your marketing efforts to an agency that can strategize and execute across multiple marketing channels could be key.
Additionally, you can get all the perks of having a multimillion dollar marketing staff, but stick within your budget. Outsourcing provides these digital experts — who have likely worked with top-tier brands — at a fraction of the cost with no long-term commitment.
Some of the other benefits include:
Cost: At much less than the cost of one full-time director. You get an entire team of experts, and can expect cheaper marketing and creative costs, among others.
Access: With the right firm, you still get complete access to all of your data and learnings — no hidden fees/total transparency.
Time: You save on all of the time it takes finding someone — or trying to learn the entire Internet marketing field yourself.
Experience: Your team will benefit from the experience the marketing team brings to the table, such as familiarity with your target market and the many marketing channels and opportunities available.
The benefits are endless! The alternative, trying to hire an entire team in-house, can be very expensive and usually doesn’t land you the same level of expertise and experience.
Find the Right Fit
Of course, outsourcing marketing isn’t going to be the right call for every organization, and your job as the steward of your company is to know if it’s right for your capabilities. The upside of handling marketing internally? You will have your own people dedicated to finding creative ways to market your club with the ability to pivot that strategy on the fly.
If you are well-financed, larger organization, it is important to have an internal marketing team as well. With agencies, you generally set up a strategy and execute, but you are, usually, not going to have a soldier finding strategic relationships and creative marketing strategies outside the standard scope of marketing.
Besides, who knows your company, product, or service better than your internal employees? They can bring a true passion and some on-the-ground knowledge to your marketing efforts.
Outsourcing your marketing team is a big decision for any private club. Used correctly, it can bring plenty of value by putting your organization in expert hands. The key component is to truly know and understand your company and its needs, so you make the right choice for the future growth of your company.
