Golf courses across the country are closing down and going out of business across the United States of America at a awfully startling rate. Florida, the state with more golf clubs than any other state, is seeing this more and more as time goes on. A lot of these “failing” golf courses are blaming the economy, and some are even blaming the current state of the golf world in general; but I see things differently, they should be blaming themselves.
The golf industry is behind the times in almost every aspect of running a business in this day and time. Most golf courses still have a website that provides no information, it doesn’t collect any data from people visiting it, and looks like something that my 12 year old daughter could create in a few hours. These golf clubs need to embrace technology and develop a website that both promotes AND generates business. There are a handful of golf marketing businesses that specifically create websites to help generate more business for golf resorts, why aren’t more clubs taking advantage of them?
Another way the golf industry is behind the times is plainly marketing in general. Look at how much effort golf resorts are putting into promoting themselves. Are they even trying to promote themselves? The average golf clubs does the following things which they call "marketing".
- They place a black and white ad in the town newspaper showing how they just discounted the price. This only gets them into discount wars with their competition which only causes them to lose MORE money. They should instead be finding things that they are good at and promoting their business on those subjects so it drives more people to the course to take advantage of the things that they do better then all of the other competing courses in the area.
- They place an ad in the yellow pages and local phone book that unfortunately looks like every other ad within the book and it draws no attention to the club. Honestly, with the invention of search engines such as Google and the amount of people who use the internet these days, how many people do you think still use the phone book to find information when they could just power up their computer, type in a search term, and have multiples answer to their query extremely quick? The answer is almost no one! These clubs that are spending thousands of dollars a year on this single ad could be directing that extra money towards something more beneficial such as a website or direct mail campaign like I mentioned above
- They place an ad in the local penny saver.Once again, something that is proven to be ineffective in this day and time. Instead they should be looking into fusion marketing techniques and working with other local businesses to promote their club. They could easily go to the local Dodge dealer and give away a free round of golf with every car purchase. Not only will the dealership easily accept this offer, but it will get new people, with MONEY, at the course and they will easily make up the lost green fee revenue by the new players paying for a cart fee or eating after the round at the club house. They will even convert some of these players into regulars. Think about that for a second, if they charge $10 a round, and the new players plays 10 times a year, they just made an extra $100 off green fees alone. If you get 20 new players a year from the car dealership that’s an extra $2,000 a year from a simple green fee promotion with a car dealership!
Another way golf resorts are slowly killing themselves is with real estate. A lot of golf communities that were doing well in the early 2000’s are now drowning in a sea of debt because of unsold lots, unsold homes, and not enough members. What can they do to correct this problem? Let’s look at what Juliette Falls, which is a Florida Golf Resort, in Dunnellon did. They first got a world-class website from a company named Legendary Marketing. They built their website into something that looks fantastic and promotes exactly what they do. Well guess what, the economy dropped off and now they have over forty homes that are in the price range of 300,000 to more than a million and no one was buying them. How do they turn this around? They came up with a wonderful promotion that’s how! At Juliette Falls you can stay in a Amazing Golf Home worth over a million dollars, play a round of golf, enjoy the on site spa and eat at a fancy restaurant for $199 a night. If they sell only one night for every day of the year, that is over $76,000 in additional revenue for the resort AND they get new prospects and leads at the course every single day which they can use to promote to in the future! Why aren’t all the golf communities thinking this way?
As you can see, the golf industry is slowing killing itself by being behind the times in technology, marketing, real estate and a host of other things that will be addressed in a future article. If you are a member of a golf course, or even better part of the members committee, stand up and say something about the actions your golf course is taking. Tell your club they need to break the mold of what they have been doing. Make them think outside their comfort zone! Make your resort management company become accountable for the actions the club takes! It may be the only thing that they can do to save your golf resort!
