When I first started working in golf clubs, I used to hear this reference a lot. Then, when I started working for a marketing agency and speaking with a variety of General Managers, I heard it even more.
“Society organisers generally book their diaries for the year ahead between November and February”
Whilst this statement itself is true. It isn’t the same for all Society Organisers. Customers have different buying patterns. Some are impulsive, others will be more considered and a few wait for that special offer.
So, how should your golf club market to increase golf day bookings?
5 ways to increase golf day bookings at your club
1.Building a database
It’s important you build a database for societies at your club (and continue to grow it). This database can be of society organisers and people who have played at your venue before.
(If you need help with this, read our blog on how to grow a golf club database)
The bigger the database (of quality data) the better the opportunity you have of converting more bookings.
2.Email marketing
Once you’ve grown your database, now it’s a case of communicating with them. One of the quickest and easiest ways of doing this is through email marketing.
I’ve always lived by the philosophy, if I’m not communicating with my audience then my competitors probably are. And no, I don’t just mean communicating with them offer after offer. Although, there is a time and a place for an offer. (More on this topic further down)
In the emails I suggest to my clients, it’s about education and being top of mind. A few examples below:
- How your club is different to others
- What the booking process is and why (setting expectations is crucial)
- Why other organisers have booked your course
- Latest reviews
- Suggested or popular society packages
TOP TIP! Not all emails need to look flashy with flying text and nice pictures. Some of our best work (well, best results) is from text only emails.
3.Paid Social Media
As I touched upon earlier. Customers have different buying patterns, however, they can be influenced. Through social media, you can build an audience based on your society golfers and market to them continually.
Some months you can increase your spend to reach more people. Other months you might want to reduce what you spend.
With your adverts, you can either direct your customers to your website or try and capture their information in an enquiry form.
4.Website
Updating your website is key. It’s your shop window. If you’re not going to show the right information there, then, in my opinion, it doesn’t create the best first impression – and yes, I’m talking about pricing. (More about that topic further on too)
Just think, if you were a society organiser, what information is useful to you? Having this information readily available can only help speed up the decision making process. It’s also something your competitors probably aren’t doing. So perhaps worth investing in a society brochure too!?
5.Increasing your reviews
If you’re a golfer looking at a new course, booking to go on holiday or buying something for the first time, you inevitably look at reviews.
Although, strangely, the first thing we do is look for the bad reviews and then the most recent ones.
What is important though is you identify a place or two where customers can share their experiences. E.g. Google and Facebook.
And yes, customers will have a bad experience. Some will be out of your control (when they played badly and everything was awful). But some will provide good feedback. Whatever the experience, replying to each bit of feedback creates a good impression and shows you’re on top of things.
Should you offer golf society deals?
In my opinion, and perhaps controversially, I do think you should offer society deals. However, a deal should be used for a specific reason. One of those reasons not to offer a deal is to get more golfers.
What I mean by this.
If you offer different set packages for different numbers of golfers then fine. However, thinking about the bigger picture. If you then start adding a deal on top of this dynamic pricing, what does it mean for next year? And what if that society organiser wants that deal again but for a different day when you’re already busy?
So, when could you offer a deal?
For Gaudet Luce (and many other clubs), the time is fast-approaching when they do their greens maintenance. For obvious reasons and understandably so, the course won’t be in its best condition. Therefore, we put together an offer (and made it very clear in our communication) that for the week after greens maintenance there was a limited-time offer.
The results – 6 bookings made from one email sent on 25th July 2024.
If you want a copy of the email, please get in touch.
What makes a good society golf day offer
I believe in keeping things simple. The offer should be easy to understand and something which is attractive. If you’re trying to entice people in and change their buying habits, then you need to give them a very good reason to do so.
Should you show pricing on your website?
In short, yes I think you should show your pricing on your website. However, I do also understand the ‘argument’ why clubs don’t.
For me, there are two big obstacles stopping an organiser from booking with you.
- The price
- Availability
Now, I know some clubs do offer dynamic pricing (yes, even for golf days) which can complicate things. But even an indication ‘from £’ would be a good thing.
Below are the reasons why I think some clubs don’t show pricing:
- They’ve got many different ‘special’ organiser rates
- You don’t believe your price offers better value than your competitors
- To generate more enquiries
- A variety of society packages with add-ons available which makes it complicated to market
To conclude
The biggest bit of advice I would give is to not leave all of your society marketing to just November – February. Furthermore, advertising an offer isn’t a bad thing, but remember to keep it simple. These enquiries should be about booking and not to try and understand what it is.
If you’re a golf club manager who wants to start increasing their society revenue immediately, then please get in touch. There really is no need to wait until that ‘society booking window’.