Does Black Friday Work for Golf Clubs?
If your email inbox is anything like mine, I’m sure you’ll also be fed up with seeing Black Friday offers. Probably a more fitting name would be Black November with the length of time these offers now run.
However, we won’t grumble too much as everybody does like an offer, even if you’re not really looking for one.
For one client, our planning for Black Friday started a number of weeks beforehand. We ensured everything was well-thought out, the offer was researched and considered with the marketing being fully executed.
Coming up With a Black Friday Offer
We didn’t want to go down the route of just offering every golfer a discount. Furthermore, we wanted to ensure our average tee time utilisation didn’t drop. FInally, we weren’t going to offer a rate beneath our average green fee price per person.
So what did we do?
We researched all the above information from the last 12 months. Then we looked at what our rates were going to be for 2024. From here, we used our summer twilight rate and packaged it as a Fourball Special Offer.
Keeping Your Offer Simple
Our message was purely going to focus on the savings you could make. Customers love to know what they’re saving. From research, you’re more likely to purchase something if you think you’re making a good saving – even if you weren’t initially planning on buying that product.
The saving was worked out based on the peak weekend morning rate.
Weekend morning summer fourball – twilight fourball = total saving
This total saving was then the centre piece across all of our marketing efforts.
Our offer wasn’t complicated, nor did we try to restrict the customer. Don’t you hate those offers where you have to jump through many hoops to get it. The only restriction we did place was for their fourball to be used within 12 months.
Marketing on Black Friday
Whilst I mentioned above being fed up with receiving Black Friday offers, the planning and creating stage was very enjoyable.
Our marketing efforts focused on emails and social media. We did however, have to find the balance between keeping existing members happy (if there is such a thing…) and ensuring our message was seen enough by potential customers.
I had arranged calls with Meta, to help understand how much the cost of advertising around November / December increases. More and more companies advertise during this period (Black Friday & Christmas) so I wanted to get a gauge on recommended budgets from their side.
Initially, we had planned to run the offer for Black Friday only. However, after more research and recommendations, we decided to go live with our offer on the Monday. The offer then finished on the Friday at midnight – just how Black Friday used to run.
We created three different emails to go out that week (including Black Friday itself). As well, we came up with three different creatives and messages (whilst sticking to the saving) for social media.
Making the Purchase Easy For Your Customers
Black Friday is an impulsive time of year. The purchasing stage has to be so easy, it can be completed in just a few clicks – just like ordering a pizza.
The emails and social media adverts were directed to a landing page. The only information on the landing page was the Black Friday offer details and sales checkout.
All the customer had to do was enter their normal payment details and select whether they wanted to receive their voucher by email or post. Simple!
If the process is too complicated, long or not user friendly, you will lose your customer.
Black Friday Results Generated
From just £110 spent on social media, we generated £9,000 worth in fourballs pre-purchased for 2024. This also doesn’t take into consideration any secondary spend nor repeat visits.
In what was a dreadfully dull and wet November of weather. Well, it certainly felt that way to me. The month ended on a big high after a very successful Black Friday week.
Let Your Golf Marketing Support Your Club
If you’re interested in exploring some marketing support for 2024, please get in contact.