The competition for member recruitment at golf clubs only continues to increase at drastic rates. Are your members and potential members mostly interested in being part of a luxury club, or are they looking for leisure and entertainment? Are they primarily professionals and families? To grow your membership list, you must have a marketing campaign that targets individuals who are most likely to be interested in joining your specific golf course. It is also helpful to offer incentives that encourage them to do so. Current members are often the best recruiters, as they can spread the good word to their like-minded communities.
Know Your Market
First and foremost, you must understand that you probably will not have much luck in boosting memberships if you don’t assess the characteristics of your current members and market. Your focus should be to draw in those individuals who share those traits. For instance, if most of your membership lives within a 20-minute drive of the club, it would be beneficial for your marketing efforts to zone in on that geographic area. If most of your current members are married with children, promoting family-friendly activities, parent-child golf tournaments, parent-child classes can be enticing for them. It’s helpful to reevaluate your sales pitch and its effectiveness.
Encourage Referrals
The most effective marketing for a golf club will come from current members. It is in your best interest to encourage members to refer others to the facility. This can easily be done by offering benefits for doing so, such as discounts, free rounds, or even a free month of golf. Referrals can also encourage current members to stay members, as the more friends and colleagues they have at the club, the more likely they are to remain with the facility to enjoy that social aspect.
Add Benefits
If a potential customer sees a high value in membership, they are much more inclined to purchase. One way you can impress is to allow members to bring a few guests a month to golf with them for free. This introduces the guests to the club and encourages members to further the social experience. Why not do this during the week to take advantage of available course capacity during less-busy times? Just be sure to limit the number of times a single guest can be brought each month or become a permanent guest rather than a new member.
Adjust Initiation Fees
Initiation fees can be tricky when trying to boost memberships since that initial expense may seem like too much for those who are not sure if they will use the course enough to benefit from it. Consider how you can overcome this obstacle, whether by reducing or eliminating the initiation fee or allowing it to be paid over a multi-year period in exchange for a long-term membership agreement. This allows you to gain only members interested in doing more than simply giving the club a trial run. It may also be beneficial to waive this fee for multigenerational membership to encourage a new generation of golfers.
Strategic Partnerships
If your golf course only puts time and money on the course itself and is not up to date with other amenities, partnering with complementary businesses can help you fill in those gaps. For instance, you may want to partner with a local swim club so that your members can join at discounted rates. Offering little perks like this can go a long way while also bypassing the expenses of maintaining a pool yourself and ensuring that only those who would utilize this would be the ones paying for it. Just be sure to secure tee to green insurance to protect your business when things do not go as planned.
About T2 Green Insurance
T2Green Insurance provides the best customized and comprehensive protection for your club, resort, or golf management business. Our niche expertise and sole focus is insuring this class, while our industry professionals are dedicated to providing exceptional results so that you can feel confident with your coverage. T2Green offers specialized coverage options that are unique in the industry. With our exclusive program unlike anything else on the market, you can feel peace of mind with protection that is tailored to your club’s unique needs. T2Green is driven by innovation and responsiveness in both coverage solutions and customer service. We understand the challenges that are presented in varying locations and seasons to write policies for clubs from coast to coast and everywhere in between so you can operate with confidence, no matter what conditions arise. Reach us at 844-223-9005 with any questions or so we can begin tailoring a package that works best for your club.
