We can all agree that the COVID-19 crisis made us understand the importance of relationships, care, understanding, and empathy.
A Salesforce research found: 71% of customers believe businesses that have shown more care and empathy in 2020 have gained more loyalty during the time period.
It has taught golf club marketing leaders – I hope – that the days of bland, generic messaging are officially done & gone. It is impossible to express and demonstrate understanding and care with such communication messages and services.
Now it is very obvious that without true 1-on-1 personalization we will not be able to deliver relevance to our golf club members and guests neither to our employees plus gain long-term loyalty.
Personalization is essential across
- the customer journey,
- influencing brand awareness,
- brand loyalty, and
- lead generation.
Today’s golf clubs are expected to do more than shout sales pitches at their potential golfers.
Our customers are expecting us to remember what they like, what they want, their favorite meals & brands, etc.
This is why I told in many conferences as a keynote speaker (e.g. CMAE, ADGF, CNIG, etc.) that golf clubs must hire business analysts or turn to external experts for such analysis service.
You can be 100% sure that golfers’ expectations will continue to grow as they learn from other areas of their life that technologies are available that can help marketers to personalize their services and products to a very high level.
Golf clubs must achieve as soon as possible a personalized, unified experience across all channels and at all stages of the customer journey.
I would look for customer relationship management platforms that already utilizing machine learning. Such platforms are capable of gathering, parsing, and analyzing audience information in real-time.
Golf clubs must shift from user demographics to individually-personalized experiences to remain relevant and attractive.
Formulation’s Brand Loyalty 2020 study found
81% of consumers are willing to share personal information in exchange for more personalized services & products.
Next steps in personalization in your golf club
Let’s start the new year by segmenting your guest & member lists based on their behavior, purchase history, or other customer interactions so you can send hyper-focused marketing messages.
To impress your golf club members and guests, go beyond basic customization and segmentation! Companies like Troon with loyalty programs (see Troon Card) have a good chance to increase customer engagement than those without such programs.