Opening the Doors

Members no longer come just because you’ve built it—but there are plenty of effective ways to get them moving in your direction.

by Diana Mirel (editor@clubandresortbusiness.com)
March 2007
 

Summing It Up •Niche marketing is more important than ever. •Member referral programs should offer equal rewards to those who are coming and those who are already there. •Corporate programs and realtor referrals are strong payoffs for many properties.

A generation ago, having a membership marketing program was as common for most country clubs as having a 19-hole golf course. But today, even clubs that may be filled to capacity have recognized the importance of establishing strong membership marketing campaigns.

“The reality is, you’re going to lose some people,” says Allan Irwin, COO of Empire Golf Management, which operates private clubs and daily-fee courses along the East Coast. “If you don’t have an active matriculation program in place, you’re going to find yourself in a situation where you have a declining membership base, and that will certainly hurt the financial aspects of the club.”

Moving Targets
Setting yourself up with a formal sales and marketing program is only the start. The real trick is determining what, and how, to sell—and to whom.

Those traditional clubs of a generation ago could get away with just offering the typical mix of golf course, clubhouse, pool, tennis courts and social activities. But today’s club consumers are also looking for fitness and spa facilities, wireless Internet capabilities and family-friendly activities.

“The 21- to 45-year old consumer is much more interested in technology and has many different things pulling for their discretionary time and dollars,” notes one club consultant. “Clubs don’t understand why no one is joining their club when they spend all of their money on golf and ignore other amenities that the 21st century consumer wants.”

Because of this shift, niche marketing is much more important than ever for today’s properties. Clubs should focus their marketing campaigns on target demographics, putting the specialties they have established for themselves at the center of all of their marketing campaigns.

“If you’re an extremely family-friendly club, then you need to have that posted everywhere,” says another consultant. “If you are a low-handicap club, that needs to be part of your marketing, if that is what you are trying to attract.”

Longboat Key Club’s Director of Club Sales, Matt Walters (FAR RIGHT), joins members (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT) Jim and Pat Anderson and Pat and Judy Mellett during the Members Welcome Back Party.

Even for larger clubs with amenities that cater to everyone from the serious golfer to the young family, membership directors now often vary their sales pitches, according to the different membership options they now offer.

“If there is a high-end residential community that is 20 miles inland, I’m going to market our social memberships, so they can come and use our private beach and pool,” says Matt Walters, Director of Club Sales at the Longboat Key (Fla.) Club. “If there is someone up the road who just bought a $10 million condo and plays golf, I’m going to market the golf courses to them.”

Getting The Good Word
The shift to more targeted marketing also makes it more important to have processes in place for encouraging, and following up on, member referrals. This is not only because it’s logical that existing members will prove to be an excellent source of potential new members who fit the club’s demographic. They’ll also lead to a steady stream of prospects who can not only be recruited, but retained, because of how easily they’ll fit in.

“The best thing about a good member referral program is that you get a really good new member with a high rate of retention,” says Greg Nielson, General Manager at the Houstonian Golf & Country Club in Richmond, Texas, which gets about 80 percent of its new members from member referrals.

Increasingly, clubs are using formal incentive and reward programs to encourage members to refer their friends and business associates. The key to establishing effective incentives, says one consultant, is offering “something [existing] members couldn’t or wouldn’t do on their own.” Examples of incentives that have generated strong recruiting competition among existing members, this consultant reports, have included grand prize trips to the Masters or British Open; use of a car for a year; and a kitchen makeover.

To attract new members in its offseason, the Pine Hill (N.J.) Club, an Empire Golf property, held a contest that gave members who brought in referrals a chance to win the use of a golf cart for the upcoming season. This program brought in six new members in the January to February timeframe, Allan Irwin reports. “It was an incentive for members and worth about $2,200 to someone who plays a lot of golf,” he reports.

Everyone Has Their Price
While many clubs reward the referring members, the new members they bring in shouldn’t be forgotten, either. “So many referral programs end up being a kind of ‘bounty hunt,’ where you put your members in the position of putting a price on their buddies’ heads,” says Greg Nielson of the Houstonian G&CC. “One of the best programs we’ve done is to give the same credit to [both the existing] members and the new members coming in, so there is no [appearance of a] ‘bounty.’ ”

Here are four key traits of today’s highly effective club membership directors, according to Matt Walters, Director of Club Sales at the Longboat Key (Fla.) Club: •Be Organized: “For every single lead you get, you have to write that name down, you have to put it into the computer, you have to send a note, and you have to call them.” •Be Persistent: “You have to follow up with them five days later. If you don’t hear from them, you have to follow up 15 days later. You have to nurture every single lead or prospect that you get, and you can’t let any slip through the cracks.” •Be Personable: “You have to be able to laugh. You have to be a nice person and make people feel like they can relate to you.” •Be Clear: “You must tell the people what you have, what you are offering, how much it costs, and how it can help them in their lifestyle.”

Through this program, the Houstonian gave both the referring members and the new members $50 credits on their accounts each month, for up to 24 months. The incentive helped to bring in 117 new members, Nielson reports.

Another twist at the Houstonian is its corporate membership program, which offers a special rate to people working in the same company. When it started, a corporate membership cost $50,000 and covered three users. Additional users, up to a total of six, could then be added for $15,000 per user. The program has brought in more than 15 percent of the club’s new memberships, says Nielson.

“These corporate members recruit other guys who are working at the same location to play golf,” he notes. “It is really working to bring corporate clients into the fold.”

New Listings
Beyond member referrals, clubs that aren’t part of residential communities can benefit from forming close relations with local realtors. Here, too, incentives can be effective for getting prospective members steered to the club—often, in fact, getting the realtors to join the club and become active, spending members themselves.

In 1999, when Empire Golf’s Allan Irwin worked with Brier Creek Country Club in Raleigh, N.C., he set up a program offering realtors social memberships that could be upgraded to a golf membership, by referring three or more members. The program brought in 15 new members.

Currently, Irwin is putting together a program at Pine Barrens Golf Club in Jackson, N.J., through which realtors will compete to bring in members and earn the grand prize—use of a Jaguar for two years.

Similarly, Longboat Key Club maintains strong relations with its local real estate community. “I need to make sure every realtor on the island is educated as to what the club is all about,” says Walters. The club has a referral program through which the realtors provide prospective members’ contact information. If that client becomes a member, the realtor receives a complimentary membership. Last year, more than 25 percent of the club’s new members came through realtor referrals.

All Things to All People
While referrals are critical to bringing in new members, clubs must also analyze their membership structures, to make sure they’re more accessible to today’s prospects. Where in the past many clubs had only one membership option at one price point, today’s clubs cannot afford such a limited offering. In addition to golf memberships, social, tennis, fitness or spa memberships must now often be part of the mix.

“Many clubs fail miserably from not having the proper membership classifications to meet the needs of consumers who show interest,” says one consultant. “They need to be able to appeal to a variety of consumers who will use the club at different levels.”

While varied membership options can make a club more accessible, flexible payment plans make membership a reality.

“Offering payment plans is definitely something you have to do in today’s market, to get people to pay initiation fees,” says Irwin. “People aren’t willing to part with from $10,000 to $30,000 at one time. Our society is very much geared toward making that monthly payment. So if you make that payment affordable, they’re willing to do it.”

Keeping Them Happy
Once new members are in the fold, retaining them hinges largely on the service they receive. “You have to provide consistent service on every visit,” says Irwin. “If they go away feeling like they’ve gotten good food, good service, good golf and good playing conditions, the likelihood they’ll remain a member is high.”

A club must also be flexible and open to change. For instance, the Longboat Key Club recently renovated its golf course; built a new aerobics studio; brought new equipment into its fitness center; created new menus in its restaurants; and built a spa. “It’s a changing place,” notes Walters. “If you’re a member for 20 years, you don’t want the same thing the whole time.”

Similarly, member marketing and retention efforts cannot be one-time deals, either. “They’re something you now have to do continuously, because your population is aging,” says one consultant. “At some point, you’ll have more members going out than coming in. It may not be a problem you face today, but it will be in the future. So marketing is a sound practice that you need to do all the time.” C&RB.