Elliot Hamilton – Co-Founder Golf Marketing University

I’m Elliot Hamilton, co-founder of GMU with John.

Like many people who work in golf, I found myself in the industry from a combination of optimism and naivety (after 17 years working initially in Finance & Banking and then in Property).

Since 2008, I’ve been responsible, as Chief Executive, for Hunley Hotel & Golf Club, which was bought out of bankruptcy.

As they say, I have “skin in the game”

Which, in the real world, means I have shared the trials and tribulations of all of us in the golf business over the last 9 turbulent years.

As well as anyone, I feel your pain. I know and appreciate the:

...challenges of running a golf business in this fast, ever-changing world

...technology innovations which are changing our preconceptions & our customer’s lifestyles

...challenge of the golf model itself - high fixed costs, limited capacity, staff issues & most importantly…

...the challenge of growing sales through marketing

In our first four years at Hunley, we spent over £100,000 on ‘marketing specialists’ and not one was able to deliver even a modest ROI.

Stop Kissing Frogs

We kissed so many frogs without finding our marketing prince, we abandoned the idea of outsourcing or even hiring a so-called expert. But that’s a disaster story for another day.

I learned so much in those early years about what not to do, I set myself the challenge of re-writing the book on golf marketing.

And that is what I’ve spent the last 5 years doing.

Thousands of hours and £10,000s of learning from the best experts in every sphere of marketing from every corner of the world has been tested and refined in the real world.

Who Are We Competing With?

I’d like to share what I’ve learned with you.

I don’t believe that golf is in competition with golf. We shouldn’t be competing with each other.

Golf is in competition with restaurants, Netflix, cinema, cycling and every other time-grabbing leisure activity that’s vying for your customer’s attention and money.

We, in golf, need to work out a formula to grow the game and get our fairways full again.

I hope you find some of our material helpful, practical and profitable.

Together I hope we can move together towards a BIGGER GOLF 🙂

May your marketing journey be a profitable and enjoyable one.

Have a great day!

All the best

Elliot