It is clear as noonday, that consumers – among them golfers – are more likely to respond favorably to membership offers and communication messages if the golf club treats them in a personal manner.
As competition increases, golf clubs face even more pressure to create personally curated experiences that drive consumer engagement and differentiation in the market.
An Accenture study found that 83% of consumers are ready to share their information in exchange for a personalized experience.
Thanks to advancements in technology and data set growing larger, I am expecting personalization will begin to expand into longer customer journeys.
This means it will be possible for marketers like golf clubs to create personalized experiences throughout the entire path of a customer’s journey, rather than just at specific points such as when the golfer first visits the golf club website or makes an online purchase.
We should focus on long-term customer experiences. This way we will see immediately increased engagement rates and stronger relationships between our golf clubs and guests and members.
We can agree that customer loyalty is king too. Hence it is no wonder that personalization will be key for golf clubs vying to win back customers’ trust and keep them coming more frequently.
Personalization will help you and your golf club win and maintain customer loyalty through empathy (=what do they really care about) – helping close the “empathy gap” between the golf club and its customers/guests via better-serving golfers’ likes and dislikes.
In short, personalization will be the key to keeping golf club customers and increasing customer loyalty.
I see several golf clubs – both private and public – who are not totally aware of the customer data available for them with a few clicks in golf club management software, web analytics software, social media software, email marketing software, etc.
It is a luxury not to take advantage of these insights and customer data.
This time I will talk about how you can obtain customer data to personalize your membership offers and move beyond very basic segmentation techniques (e.g., demographic: age, gender, income) by utilizing your golf club management software’s and other software’s insights.
I will demonstrate it through Club Caddie Software.
Customer cases – Club Caddie
Within Club Caddie, every customer will have one or multiple classes assigned to their profiles. These classes are completely customizable, and some examples would be a Member, Public, Resident, Senior, Men’s or Women’s Golf Association, and more.
The benefits these classes provide your members and customers are experienced throughout different aspects of the Club Caddie software ranging from automated marketing campaigns based on their interests and preferences, F&B suggestions and discounts, and automatically applying their membership classes to applicable guest rates when booking a tee time.
Additionally, member dues will automatically roll over from month to month, quarter to quarter, and year to year; which makes your settings like cruise control…set it and forget it.
Marketing (Email, Digital Newsletters, and Push Notifications) – Club Caddie
As particular classes are assigned to customer profiles within Club Caddie, you will have the ability to target the market through multiple channels such as email, digital newsletters or push notifications.
You may assign which class or classes of customers will receive the information or offer so not everyone can view it.
Club Caddie will also automatically segment your customers into buckets based on their classes making the marketing experience even easier for your team.
Playing history – Club Caddie
Club Caddie logs important playing history that will allow your course to target members who are underutilizing the course.
There is no better retention tool than being ahead of their potential exit of your club by seeing how often and where they utilize your club.
Club Caddie displays every round they’ve played, how many they’ve played in the last year, and their last visit to your tee sheet.
A transition to a limited membership outweighs the member potentially leaving entirely, and timing is critical for that discussion.
Purchase history – Club Caddie
As courses receive more and more data, targeting buyers based on their buying habits is becoming crucial.
The purchase history will also allow your staff to notate their profile of commonly purchased items and favorites.
These data points can help increase spending and most importantly, improve your member and customer experience.
Customer spend by department – Club Caddie
This report is very beneficial to all clubs, but especially for those with members (private and semi-private).
Club Caddie will generate how much the member or customer has spent in every department (F&B, golf fees, merchandise, membership dues, and more) for any range of dates you select.
This data can allow your team to customize offers to increase spending around the club or even better, reward your members for spending ancillary dollars in specific departments or your club entirely.
Golfer history – Club Caddie
Any course would greatly benefit from analyzing the Golfer History report to prepare campaigns and offers that will resonate with the customers based on their playing habits at your course.
Incentivize the customer with a membership offer if they are actively playing your course all year or increase their spending at your course through other departments or by getting them to play just one more round.
This report will display how many 9 and 18-hole rounds the customer has played and what the ADR (Average Dollar per Round) is for each type of round.
This article is brought to you by Club Caddie.