Many golf courses are at a pivotal time right now. “Do we spend more money on advertising to try and attract more customers? Or do we save money wherever we can and hope for the economy to pick up?” This is the dilemma that many golf courses are confronted with.
Well, Golf Web Design is committed to making it easier for our fellow golf professionals to bring in more business and present themselves more professionally. That is why we thought we needed to give out some free golf course marketing strategies to help drive more revenue and more customers through your door. We know golf and we know the internet – so through our experience in golf course marketing, we came up with a few ideas to help you gain more customers without breaking the bank.
Golf Course Marketing Strategy #1
Be Social
Right now, there are thousands of authors and so-called “Social Media Gurus” writing books on how to drive business through social media. Don’t buy any of them. We can tell you through our own experience that the best way to learn how social media can work for you is to actual create the accounts then start doing it. Get on Facebook, get on Twitter, get on YouTube, then start posting and finding your customers. Here are some actual strategies that will help you:
- People love to see pictures of themselves. What about having an assistant professional take pictures of foursomes on the first tee, then post it on Facebook? (Just make sure they give you their consent, as some people might not want anyone to know they were on the golf course!)
- After you create a social media profile, then fill in every ounce of information that they allow! The more information about your course that you can put on the web, the better.
- On Twitter – follow golfers and they’ll follow you. Use the Geo-location feature that Twitter has to find people tweeting nearby and start following them.
- Offer specials only on social media – BUT, wait until you have a decent following. Don’t just create an account and start offering specials for the heck of it.
- Let everyone at the course know about the social media profiles. Post small flyers in the locker rooms letting everyone know about the new Facebook fan page. Put signs in the golf cars telling everyone about Twitter specials. Add your social media links to your email signature. Just let everyone know about it!
Golf Course Marketing Strategy #2
Collect Information
Building your email and mailing list should be the cornerstone of your online campaign. Email Marketing is NOT dead! This is actual the most effective and measurable way to increase your business. Here’s a few solid strategies on how to build your email list:
- Offer some kind of incentive for joining your email list. Examples of incentives could be a $10 coupon for the golf shop, a free round of golf, a free cart fee, the list can go on.
- After you get their email – send them a thank you email and let them know what to expect. Tell the customer you will be mailing them frequent offers and specials. This makes sure they stay subscribed to your list.
- Try to collect a lot of information about the user – gender, birthday, handicap – but don’t make them have to fill out a huge form! A lot of web marketing companies try to collect a huge form with 20 fields of information to input – this is a big turnoff for the user. Just try to boil it down the most important information you will need about the customer.
Golf Course Marketing Strategy #3
Get Listed
Get your golf course listed in every directory possible! Make your information easy to find – and find everywhere. Here’s a short list of where to list online directories that are FREE to submit your golf course:
- Google Business Listings
- Yahoo Business Listings
- Bing Business Listings
- YellowPages.com
- SuperPages.com
- Golflink.com
- TheGolfCourses.net
Golf Course Marketing Strategy #4
Paid Online Advertising
Explore the use of Google Adwords. Research the cost of specific keywords (ie. San Francisco Golf Instruction) and see if it fits in your budget. The cost per click is what you’re after. If you see that your keyword costs about 20 cents per click and you can afford to run a campaign at $5 per day – then you can possibly get about 25 clicks MORE per day to your website. If you’re in a competitive keyword market, then you may have to pay more per click, therefore your budget must be higher. This could be a viable option if you believe that you have exhausted all your other options OR if you are just getting started with your website marketing.
The best Search Engine Optimization Strategy
Write good, solid content on your website! If you want your golf course to start appearing in searches for keywords like ‘golf course San Francisco’ then you need those keywords somewhere in the content of your website. And not just as standalone words. You need actual paragraphs with useful information! Get the best writer on your staff and tell them to write an article per week with your keywords sprinkled in. Put a blog on your website and keep it up to date. You can write anything you want – keep members up to date with course conditions, golf shop specials, upcoming club events, and recent tournament results. All of these articles go a long way to helping your website become a more credible source of information. This is what search engines love!
If you have any questions about how Golf Web Design can help you with your online marketing strategy, please contact us.