Email Marketing Tips Every Golf Club Needs to Know

Email marketing for your golf course is extremely important and remains one of the most effective and cost-efficient communication methods to retain business relationships. As a general rule, email marketing is usually considered a customer retention strategy that allows you to reengage with people that have previously purchased your products and services.  Most golf course operators struggle in this area, either failing to adequately capture data (email addresses) during their service interactions, or distributing emails that lack relevancy to the recipient, resulting in poor open rates and higher than average unsubscribes.

However, reversing these trends can be possible with just a few strategic changes to your game plan, and a little coaching and expectation setting with your team.  Here are a few ideas to help elevate your email marketing strategy. 

Email Automation

The first thing to remember is having an automated email go out to the new subscriber. It needs to be an email welcoming to the community once they sign up, or once you’ve gathered their email address when they have visited your property and made a purchase. Create a series of emails which go out to the new subscribers telling them about the amenities available, the timings of the club, offers available and the events taking place that month. You can add F&B updates as well which are scheduled that month, something to the likes of Taco Tuesday or Drinking Thursday etc. You can also invite them to like, follow, subscribe your social media channels to increase your following. This is called the nurturing campaign. 

Email List Segmentation

In our experience, most golf clubs send emails to one massive contact list and that is what leads to low open rates and a lot of unsubscribes.  As I mentioned earlier, relevancy is a critical component to an effective email strategy.  Is the email you are sending relevant to all recipients?  If not, that means that the men are getting the women’s special golf outing and vice versa. Often this email activity just looks like spam to them and that leads to loss of interest. 

Segmenting your list based on the behavioral activity of the customer is a great way to increase all your analytics; open rate, click rate, age groups, gender, interests can lead to a higher open rate and make your campaigns a success.  Imagine hosting a Bridgestone ball fitting and only sending the invitation to customers that purchased Bridgestone balls.  Or launching a new afternoon membership and only sending the membership material to customers that have played a twilight round of golf, ensuring they are prime targets for the message.  Sometimes, what a member HASN’T done is just as important as what they have done in the past.  Would a list of members that haven’t played a round of golf or made a food and beverage purchase in the last 90 days be a good targeted list for an offer to reengage them back to the club?  You might not want to send an email with a high value food and beverage offer to all your members, but a list of members that haven’t eaten at the club in 60 or 90 days could be a timely way to get them back to the club using the facility.  Behavioral segmentation is the best way to make sure you get the right message, to the right person, at the right time.

Club Content

If you are just sending out emails about your new products or tee times, then chances are the subscribers will get bored. You will have to keep them interested and send content which they would like to know about since they are likely very interested in what’s happening at the club.   Keep them updated about the renovations, special guests and other information about the golf course.   We believe that a club’s email communication should be more than just discounts or offers to save money.  Communications that share success stories, staff highlights and course upgrades and projects are also great content to share regularly.

Timing Details

Your email marketing campaign can become a success with just some tiny details. One of the easiest details is scheduling your email activity on the days and times that deliver the highest open rates.  Monday and Fridays are not really perfect for sending out an email. Additionally, open rates start to plummet after lunchtime, so we find our highest open rates are realized when we distribute Tuesday- Wednesday- Thursday in the morning. Keep the email body short and snappy and see your open rates go up immediately! 

Want to know how our tools can help you grow your golf club? Send us an email today. 

For more information, please contact:

Lance Merrihew
707-779-2592

707-779-2592

Lance@totaleintegrated.com

About Total e Integrated

Total e Integrated is a leading provider of end-to-end business management solutions for recreation, retail, hospitality and community organizations. For over 20 years Total e Integrated has helped organizations to integrate departments, automate marketing, streamline operations and boost revenues with our innovative solutions and expert consulting services team.