Who’s really driving your clubs marketing?

Over the course of 2018, I've noticed one very common challenge facing golf clubs when it comes to their marketing. With the end of the year nearing I thought I'd take the time to reflect on this challenge and shed some light on a solution. Here it goes! 

Who do you think is responsible for marketing at most golf clubs? 

Amateurs or Professional marketers?

Even when there's a dedicated in-house person or outsourced department, marketing is nearly always driven by amateurs.

Let me explain why….

Here’s a scenario that plays out every day at golf clubs all around the world:

Under pressure from an enthusiastic General Manager or owner, the Golf Operations Team need to sell more green fees, the Wedding Coordinator wants to sell more weddings and the Membership Manager needs to sell more memberships.

So what do they do?

They head straight to the "professional" responsible for marketing and they say..

“Hey, I’ve got a great idea for an offer to get more customers. Can we run a campaign?” 

So what does the poor marketer do..?

Under pressure from the guys on the front-line, they go off and arrange a campaign, centred around a discounted offer with flyer, posters, emails and social media 'get the sales message to market'.

Do you know what’s so disastrous about this?

1. Customers and prospects don't like it - they see nothing but spammy sales messages which they’ll ignore.

2. The poor marketing people are driven nuts because they’re always under pressure, this type of upside-down marketing rarely works and worst of all, it makes them look INEFFECTIVE and UNPROFESSIONAL.

3. The business suffers, because costs are higher, there's less money coming in and a discount-minded customer is attracted.

4. Existing customers and members feel devalued as most times these campaigns are focused around heavily discounted special offers.

5. Your team become less focused on providing great customer service and more focused on coming up with knee jerk product focused campaigns to drive in more business....

That is what happens when amateurs drive marketing!

Does that ring any bells?

To end the frustration, the whole team needs to learn how to do things the right way round. 

When everyone wears professional marketing goggles a world of opportunity opens up. A world of creativity for everyone to contribute BUT they have to know what they’re doing and how it fits in.

Complete novices can learn, new hires can learn, even people who’ve been around for years.

All you have to do is provide the right training and, you’d be AMAZED at the results.

You’ll be blown away at what people come up with. ...it’s insane! From the most unlikely people, you’ll get little pearls that end up making thousands. 

If this sounds like a problem you're facing, we've designed the Golf Marketing Masterclass to solve this very issue. It's for teams to get them working together effectively with the use of a simple marketing system. To check out your choice of 3 lessons, click the button below....