1. Make a plan of which media outlets that you wish to use – don’t react to openings in your tee sheets, grill room or the last week in your shopping cart.  Business will have eb’s and flow however through CONSISTENT MARKETING this can be nullified. Identify how you would like to get your message out to your audience. Are you using Facebook / Twitter to fill in your last minute tee times to generate revenue on historically slower days. Twitter is wonderful tool to use when the weather man is wrong 80% of the time. Make sure that all your social media is centrally located by using some great services such as Market Me Suite. (check it out very cool…ohhh a cool new tool to use) The main idea is to identify how you are going to communicate your message on different time lines to different audiences.

2. Find out who IS your audience.  The great benefits of Email Marketing is that you know exactly who is reading and who is engaging with your golf course, products and services. The key to effective email marketing is training your audience that they are going to receive X amount of emails from you during a 30 day span. How many should you send? How many do you read everyday? If you delete more than you read – you are not alone. This is exactly the reason why we always recommend that you touch your customers a max of 2 – 3 times in a month. Every week is too much and we always see the open rates starting to diminish thus making it harder and harder to find your audience. Once you start losing the battle of bad open rates it takes some outstanding subject lines to regain the upper hand. Try not to react…”We need to get this out in an eblast asap…” who is really going to notice the difference between the ranch dressing and blue cheese dressing…

3. Measure What You Treasure. We measure everything. Use the web for what it can provide you. Before deciding to enter into a certain market use your analytics to make sure that your customer has an interest. You can track the cities that people are searching your products, golf course and services. There is a reason that you have 5% market share in a certain marketplace. Play to your strengths and over time improve your weaker markets. Through a consistent message your customers will understand what you have to offer and will pay attention when you have specials and offers. If every time it’s deal of lifetime they will stop listening to you and it will show up in your analytics.

Keep coming back as we continue with our Golf Marketing Series to help you grow your revenue at your golf course or sales with your golf products.

Fairways and Greens,

Golf Marketing
Golf Marketing
Golf Marketing

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Golf course marketing starts well before events happen or the weather is predicted for the weekend. Effective marketing begins at least 6 months to a year in advance. What, 6 months to one year… yes it all starts with a systematic plan.  Knowing your target audience and understanding your event branding for the entire is critical to properly promote those events so that participate remains steady and increases.

Knowing your event schedule is vital for a golf course, because now you can generate an effective message to your targeted audience and market to them through a variety of media outlets. You can’t begin to market an event one week prior and expect the same levels. Yet we see this time and time again…oh no my tee sheet is empty – do an eblast for tomorrow’s play. All of the disorganization results in lower yield per round generated because you are forced to play the rate card.

We recommend that you touch each prospective member, guest or friend at least 8 times before they go ahead an acknowledge and engage. 8 times can’t happen in a one week window…this is why marketing starts earlier than you have been thinking.

To maximize your revenue begins with the strategic plan established earlier in the year. Keep in mind that you can always make changes to the plan…however you want to use it as a guideline.

While many believe that effective golf course marketing is flashy, and crazy it really is systematic, pragmatic, and consistent with your events, programs and initiatives. This effective messaging whether it is using all the new social media tools will make sure that your facility is your customers top of mind.

Golf Course Marketing

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Email Marketing started out as shooting out a few emails to those customers and potential prospects through your own email client (Outlook, G-Mail ect.). Then you thought about turning up a notch and use constant contact or a email service that supplies you with a few templates to “jazz” it up.

The step forward to use a service is where many stop and believe it is meeting their needs. This is sufficient for a beginner but to move to the next level which many professionals see as the benchmark is custom email templates that brand you and have the horsepower to do it right. The fact is email is effective but only when the prospect receives it and has the opportunity to act on it.

Spam filters with most email hosts have gotten better and better every year at filtering out the Spam. Spam may not be what you are sending but according to the filters it is just that. The selection of “spam free” content is vital. Scrubbing email campaigns are so important and we are amazed daily at the content that triggers these alerts.

So what do you do??

Why an ESP (email service provider) is a must. Sending E-mail correspondence from your email client that you use for everyday email is a huge No, No. Outsourcing this task to a company that deals in this everyday is just the prudent thing to do. Scrubbing the content, Formatting it correctly (always an issue in Constant Contact and others), Adding Links, Setting up Specific Landing Pages for your offer and Managing your database are just a few of the things you will need.

Generic Templates or Custom Templates. Generic templates look nice but take a moment and think about some of the emails you get. I bet you will begin to notice a few common looks. Generic is just that, plain and simple. You spend a lot of time putting your brands message forward so keeping your branding message consistent is vitally important.

Touch you database on a regular basis. There is a fine line as to how much is not enough. Pounding people over and over with sales messages is a sure fire way to turn people off. Sending good content too much also has the effect of becoming white noise. We think it is best to touch you database 1-4 times a month depending on the messages and your business.

Take note of the data. As your ESP we measure every facet of the e-blast from open rates, click through stats, bounces, replies, actions completed or acted on and many more sets of data.

Take the time to evaluate your efforts in this key area of your marketing and make it work for you.

Master’s week is upon us and besides a few course tweaks everything is the same. It’s as if every year after the Patron’s disburse after the Green Jacket ceremony they cover the property up with a big soft baby blanket and put it to bed for the next 361 days.

There’s two painting teams out there, Green Team & White Team, prepping and adding a 50th coat in case there was a chip or a scratch produced over the last year. There is the unmistakable green wrappers for your egg salad sandwich which STILL costs $2.00 and the green beer cups that haven’t changed in over 30 years (heck maybe 50 yrs.). The course marshal’s are the same every year sans the guy that passes away and except for his family there is another guy rejoicing that he has moved up the

list to receive his yellow hard hat. The scoreboards are as they were in the 1960′s, hand operated and posted by guys that are in there teens to seniors that have done that way for years. The flags are simple with the flare of yellow and a green number and the caddies again will be dressed in white overalls and a green hat. The players walk the course alone, Player & Caddie, no entourages of media and scorers following along. The patrons will clap and cheer on cue and grimace and sigh as someone misses a key putt or lands a ball 3 feet short of the perfect spot on the green. And lastly, the Champions will gather as they do each Tuesday evening for their private dinner.

You see in marketing terms these traditions stand the test of time. No need for added flare or corporate tenting to entertain clients, it’s all about the product. Pure Golf, Pure Tradition and a Pure Brand. Now, How does this relate to your business? Have you embraced the traditions at your golf course? Have you highlighted them with outstanding customer service and a tradition of history that is handed down to your customers?

The club I belong to hosted 8 Professional Tour Events from 1977 to 1984 and over the past 25 years that moniker has faded away but is in the midst of a revival. We hosted an exhibition by Arnold Palmer and Gary Player in which Player broke the course record. We don’t have tee times which may seem odd but it works and is one of the hallmarks of our club. We have a bi-annual Walter Hagen Cup that is played against a few Scots on our soil and there’s.

Sometimes you need to look back for your inspirations to find out what got you to where you are today. It’s not always the latest and greatest but the history and tradition that will supply the urge for people to want to be apart of something special.

Look behind you and you may find a nugget or two!

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Targeted Golf Course Marketing has changed the game.

Golf has progressed slowly from the era of Bobby Jones to the days of Jack Nicklaus and the new modern era athletes of today. We have seen equipment slowly move from hickory shafts then steel shafts and blade irons to the incredible technological advances of equipment today. From the TaylorMade metal wood to Callaways Big Bertha and now today’s monstrous 460 cc heads with specific specs for loft, lie, frequency tuned shafts and launch monitors to dial it all in just for you.
The progression was slow until recently and that’s how the on-line world is too. The emergence of the original Callaway Big Bertha was met with resistance at first… “How in the world can I swing that thing, its way to big!”. Take a look at one of those today, they look tiny compared to the 460 cc drivers of today. When the resistance wore off the industry took off with light speed. The early adopters were pioneers but the results spoke for themselves.

Now, take a look at the business applications of Social Media, Search Engine Optimization for your website and targeted email marketing campaigns. Many clubs across the country are standing on the tee box with a so called persimmon driver approach to reaching their audience. They can play but it sure makes it a lot tougher to zero in on the target with a sweet spot the size of a dime versus the big forgiveness of todays tools.

Social Media is today’s Big Bertha, which is only the beginning, as it too will advance quickly. The fact is, you have the ability right at your disposal to toss out the persimmon and jump in with the best tools available to give yourself a chance to reach all the “Par-5′s” in two. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs and LinkedIn all give you an outlet to send our specific message to thousands in one click! By delivering a consistent flow of information about your facility and its offerings it has an immediate ROI.

I was doing a Presentation to the Mid-Atlantic PGA Section last month and during the time I was speaking PGA President Allen Wronowski posted a comment and picture to his Facebook page. Nice plug right? Well, lets look into that a little deeper to see the immediate reach it had.
Allen Wronowski- 1019 Friends

***( I am not even counting the 8 comments it received)

• Reposted to Up To Par’s FB Account- 335 Followers
• Reposted to my Personal FB Wall – 800 Followers
• One Twitter Post Linked to our FB Account- 785 Followers
• Retweeted 6 times- over 5000 impression
• Total Reach = 7939 Impressions ** 8 comments were made to the original FB Post and those people average 250 friends each

I can go on and on about the impact this has but then again I will leave that for another Blog. The bottom line is that the early adopters of these powerful resources will lead the pack.

Ask yourself a few questions:
• Are you using these tools to your advantage?
• Do you have a plan in place to manage this process?
• Are you still playing with a Persimmon Driver? Why Not? That’s right the technology of today is just better and gives better results!

As Bubba Gump said so eloquently “That’s all I got to say about that.”

Traditionally, Golf Marketing Programs have been expensive to do and many times single projects and not part of a systematic marketing approach. The one comment that has become common for us to heal is this is so affordable and I can’t believe you offer so much.  Assisting Golf Courses and Teaching Professionals to market their business is a process we embrace over a 12 month period to ensure time to create, implement, measure and evaluate each program. Having hard data from each campaign allows clients to focus on areas in their business that the consumer is telling them “Yes we like that” through purchases, click throughs, booked lessons or rounds, event attendance, food and beverage volumes, comments on websites and of course bottom line revenue results.

Aside from the myriad of programs for golf marketing there are several things you can do that will build brand awareness quickly and very cheap or even free.

1. Posting Live Photo’s and content to your Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts. Show your the consumer what is happening when they are away from your facility. A great way to do this at your golf course or driving range is to have a digital camera that you give out different groups throughout the week. The regular Lady’s Group gets it one day, the juniors get it for a day while they are killing the day at the course, how about the “old timers group” and what about the fun loving Friday afternoon guys that have a few beers and have a great time. Capture the experiences that you can’t be a part of but that the players truly enjoy.

2. Networking is key to business relationships today. Civic Clubs, Business Associations and Networking Groups are always looking for ways to enhance the experiences for their members. If you listen to those at your facility you will surley find 3-4 groups that you can offer a place to meet and build a unique event for them to enjoy. This does not have to be something you give away for free, these groups typically foot the bill for lunch and if you offered a short putting clinic it will be beneficial to all involved.

3. One Saturday a month designate it as Player Appreciation Day and talk to a local massage therapist to set up at the turn for quick 2 minute sessions to promote their business. Contact a local high school band or booster club could do a car wash at your facility to help raise money for their school. The players get a cheap carwash while they are playing or practicing at the course.
Take the opportunity to think outside the box, make it fun and in the end you can build new relationships that you never thought possible.
As a client of the Up To Par Marketing family you will be amazed at all the great ideas that can be put in place with lots of  fun and a clear direction.

Rob Pritts rob@uptoparmarketing.com

1. Creative Marketing Can Become Viral- How many times have you received a forwarded email from friends and business associates that was just great and caused you to share also. Social Media is the way this is done today through sharing on Twitter & Facebook.
2. To Become Viral the message must have the WOW Factor and cause people to react and in turn associate your brand or service with the message.
3. Don’t be afraid to take risks. Step out of the box, take liberty with the access you have to share the message in the social media outlets and see how it goes.

Now what prompted me to write this particular post was ALL predicated from this great example of Morehead State women’s Basketball coach Tom Hodges and his outlandish outfits on the sidelines. I’d love to write more but this video says it all!

Marketing Strategies Are All About Getting Notices

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Today’s your lucky day as I explain a few easy steps for you to noodle on as you embark on the journey into the Blogoshere.

Top 5 Excuses Not To Write A Blog

1. I have no time to write a blog every week
2. I don’t know what to write about
3. There are already others writing about what I do
4. I’m not a professional writer
5. I won’t have enough content to write about

Ok, your excuses have been duly noted and now let’s get to work on solving one of these issues. It isn’t rocket science and you are not alone so stick with me here.

Well, the fact is a blog doesn’t have to be War & Peace it only needs to be 500-1200 words of free flowing content on what you are passionate about. As somebody in the business of golf there are so many things to talk about: Golf Course Marketing, Golf Course Architecture, Junior Golf, How to run a successful event or even the funniest happenings at your club.

Here are a few tips on coming up with relevant content

1. Write a topical post on what is relevant today and that others want to read
2. Write about the the one thing that is your true passion that motivates you in your job
3. Encourage others in their journey with a story of how someone else influenced you
4. Share ideas and knowledge that you gained from other experts in your field (credit them)
5. Explore the things that you believe are having a positive of negative impact on your industry

Each one of these plus the other ideas and tangents are your starting point and from there the ideas will begin to flow. Your blog will begin to take shape, your style and expressions will blossom into something you never imagined and slowly you will become a real blogger. Starting slowly and just taking the time to express yourself will not only be good for your business but the self expression and reflection will be a treat. Challenge yourself to come up with 5 ideas to write about and then …. simply start writing.

Oh yeah, the net benefit is that you will also be giving your website some great SEO content but that’s a whole other blog…see that I got another one to write!

5 ways to grow the game at your facility:

1. Get Organized! You don’t teach playing the game by not warming up…why are you managing your business this way? Marketing is a systematic organized way of reaching out to your members, customers, and prospects. SYSTEMATIC…. X happens you do Y, A happens you implement B. Your Plan is a organized process that begins well in advance of the first 65 degree sunny day.
2. Communicate with your Members / Customers / Prospects. The Marketing RULE of 7! You must communicate with your customers at least 7 times before they will engage with your activity, program, initiative, or service. These 7 times can be simple things:
   1. 1. Inbound Marketing - A custom branded email for the program
      2. Conversation on Facebook - Talking with a customer on Facebook
      3. Tweet a post about the program - Try not to make Tweets about only products and programs
      4. Create a sign up sheet on your company’s Facebook Page
      5. Create a Landing Page on your website specifically for your grow the game program – Make sure you Optimize the page so that it is searchable
      6. Make the program and engaging aspect of your blog – linking your landing page.
      7. AFTB- Ask for the Business – When booking times, always close with are you signed up with our XYZ grow the game program?
3. An Event Schedule is not a plan. They are events that can be marketed…and what are you doing to market these events? Are you marketing them at least 30 days in advance, are you marketing them during the event, and finally did you post promote the event? If you are Private / Public / Resort / Practice Facility you must create the buzz for an event…
   1. 1. Start with Pictures or Videos from last year – post them you event website or landing page.
      2. Make sure that clubhouse staff is aware of the details a month in advance so they can help sell the event and create buzz.
      3. Communicate to your audience at least seven times prior.
      4. Promote the event on Facebook and Twitter while it happening – take lots of pictures and video.
      5. Write about “what everyone missed”. You must give a reason for those to attend the next event
4. Get Social – Social Media is here to stay…It is an outstanding time to be in business. When was the last time that you could talk directly to your prospects and know that they are interested in you and your product? Never!!! How fabulous is this fact.  Keep in mind if Facebook was a country it would be the 3rd largest population in the world behind China and India. If you don’t understand Social Media get someone who does as this is the quickly becoming the biggest arena for group golf proposals.
5. Get Found… Take yourself, when was the last time that you looked in the yellow pages for a hotel?  How about a movie? Well if you don’t look in the yellow book, or newspaper any longer what is 25-35 demographic doing? You guessed it… they are searching for everything on the web. Find your golf course a quality SEO firm it will be the best marketing dollars you spend all year.

We know that this will help and grow your rounds in 2011. We want you to be successful… If you would like anything more about the UPtoPAR services please visit us online at www.uptoparmarketing.com or call us 866.627.1119

Come visit us at the PGA Show – Booth 2924

Fairways and Greens,

Sean Taylor, PGA

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Up To Par Marketing is here to assist you in making informed decisions and answer many of the questions our golf course design clients have when they are looking at their current needs. Below are a few Items to think about as you explore your options.

Pros of Template Websites

• Template websites are the least expensive method of getting a websites up and going.
• These templates are easy to create and take less time to create than a custom websites which is why the site cost is so low. The template website should be cheaper than custom websites but that is not always the case.
• Many website companies say they build custom websites but in reality many out there build template websites and charge clients for a custom website. So how can you avoid paying too much for a template website?
  • Get a quote from a custom website company and compare it to the price of a template website company. Since templates require a lot less work than custom websites, the price of a template website should be significantly lower than that of a custom website.
• Template are usually simple, less complex and have less functionality than custom websites.

Cons of Template Websites

• While template websites usually offer simple and clean, they can be very limiting. With a template you get what you see.
• Template websites are very limited in the changes that can be made to the functionalities.
• A company paying less for a site is not always worth the limitations offered by templates.
  • Limited Pages, Basic Navigation Bars, Content Writing is left up to the user which can be a huge downfall for driving traffic to your site.
• Websites should be built around the golf course image, brand and with a keen eye on the visitors who come to the website. A custom websites should reflect who a company is and what they do, while most template websites offer options for the masses.
• A template website doesn’t allow you the freedom to separate your brand from all the others. Look around at your competitors and you will begin to notice some common themes and your goal is to stand apart from others.
• Appearance: First Impressions are all you have in the online game. 86% of all new purchases start with a web search and this is your time to shine.
• Most template websites are not search engine optimized. If a website is not search engine optimized it isn’t on the radar of the search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.
• SEO- This is the biggest asset you have to capture on-line traffic and potential buyers. Templated websites leave this up to you….Did you know most custom sites do as well? We see this everyday: “I paid $10,000 for my site doesn’t it look great.” The endgame is traffic..rather than an empty suit. I liken it to the beautiful muscle car that is perfect in looks but what makes it even more spectacular is what’s under the hood and that is the SEO.

The bar has been raised as we have become more dependent on the Internet in our daily lives. The fact is there is a place for each site option but the future is set and the bar has been raised by the consumer who is looking for you and wants to find out about your company and by you making it easy for them to find you and offering a pleasing experience it is a true win-win for both the consumer and your company.

If you have questions or need to explore what is the right action for you please feel free to contact us for a free evaluation of your needs. As we say all the time, a website is vitally important but that is about 30% of what we do for our clients. Managing on-line and off-line marketing programs, social media plans and overall needs working together to brand your business is what we are here for and love to do.

Rob Pritts, VP National Accounts rob@uptoparmarketing.com

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