During my time at Teesnap, a golf course software company under Allegiant Airlines, I managed marketing for golf courses all over the country. On average, golf course operators tend to have an “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” attitude in addition to a list of job duties about as thick as a dictionary. These factors tend to create a client who is a low communicator & is less than eager to try new things. Since my department was judged on the number of marketing requests that we were able to solicit from our clients, I had my work cut out for me.
In order to encourage managers to request marketing services such as email broadcasts, pay-per-click ad campaigns, & online store sales, I created newsletters to send to our full Managed Marketing Services client database. These newsletters outlined ideas for seasonal promotions, encouraged clients to request a marketing services with us, & informed the operators of new Teesnap initiatives.
In addition to reaching out to our full marketing client base, I also sent newsletters to the clients that I personally managed marketing for as a Managed Marketing Service Rep. These newsletters were a bit more personal & helped nurture a stronger relationship with my golf course operators.
These newsletters were sent to everyone in our software database, including those who were not subscribed to our Managed Marketing Services.
COVID Marketing Tips
As we move further into “the new normal” with COVID-19, Now is the time to get creative with promotions at the club. Two things we recommend looking into are:
This is a great way to drive revenue & do some good, while remaining sensitive to the COVID-19 crisis. You can see how Titleist is adopting this method & advertising on their home page.
In order to keep things distanced, some good products to sell during this time are online gift cards: digital vouchers for golf to be redeemed at a later time. If you are offering pick-up at the club, you can also offer a select few of your most popular club-branded merchandise online, like a hat or polo shirt.
Here are some charities to look into:
Gates Philanthropy Partners: Combatting COVID-19 Fund
Here are some ideas for videos:
Exercises you can do at home to improve your golf game
Putting tips & tricks
How to clean or refurbish your clubs
Refurbishing an old golf bag (cleaning, polishing, paint touch-up, etc.)
If you want to post the video on your website & blog, upload the video to YouTube or Vimeo first. Videos cannot be uploaded directly to the site; they must be embedded from a link, which is why you need to host on a 3rd party platform first.
Most courses with Teesnap MMS already have a Google account that can be used to easily create a YouTube channel, so ask your rep if you are unsure of your login information.
If your main goal is to get traction on Facebook, we recommend posting the video directly to Facebook, as the algorithm favors content published directly on the platform. You can upload a pre-recorded video or use Facebook live.
Click the button below for our guide to using Facebook Live.
[Guide to Using Facebook Live]
If you want to go the route of conferencing software to set up a virtual lesson, you can set up a date & time, then provide golfers with a link to join the video conference.
You can offer this as a complimentary service, then provide a link for optional donations on the website’s online store.
This is a good way to reel in golfers who might be on the fence about spending money, then generate some revenue as you funnel them into a loyal customer base.
Zoom: Zoom is very popular right now. It’s free for up to 40-minute sessions.
Google Hangouts: This program is free & very easy to use, as many people have Google accounts.
Let’s get started!
August Newsletter
This month is chock-full of opportunities to drive revenue to your golf course! Check out these ideas from our marketing team to get inspiration, then talk to your marketing rep today to get rolling on a killer promo.
In the age of the internet, there is an endless supply of “internet-approved” holidays made for the sole purpose of having a reason to post on social media. That’s great for you, because there’s a day for hotdogs, beer, cocktails, football, mini-golf, & anything else you can dream up. August happens to be National Golf Month, which makes for a great opportunity to run a promotion!
Offer a day of free lessons for beginners, hold a drills & skills workshop with complimentary snacks, or raffle off a free lunch to people who book online. If you’re feeling overwhelmed in the midst of golf season, do something simple that requires little effort on your part, like a basic tee time discount, which your MMS rep can set up for you. This is also a great opportunity to run an online store sale, offering a set % off of online gift cards or prepaid rounds.
August is the start of the college football season, & soon after the NFL will follow. To bring in more food & beverage revenue, set up a special on beer, wings, appetizers, & other munchies on game days.
Then, advertise when you’re showing your area’s favorite football team,& offer a special on golf that day. That way, a group of golfers who would normally stay home to watch the game with their friends can bring their 4-some, stay for the game, & buy a round of appetizers.
You can also run fun contests like “Guess the winning team to win a free round”, or can have a long-throw competition with a football, as opposed to a long-drive contest.
The goal is to get people excited & drive traffic to your course.
Help parents spend more quality time with their kids by offering a junior golf incentive. This could be a discount on junior golf, weekend/twilight golf lessons, or a parent-child tournament.
You can relive that sweet nostalgia by offering a similar program at your golf course. Give kids a free meal, ice cream, range pass, or round of golf in exchange for reading a certain number of books. All you need to do is set up a document where kids can record their reading habits then hand this in at the pro shop. If a parent brings their child in for a free meal or round of golf, they are most likely going to buy a round of golf for themselves as well.
September Newsletter
The leaves are changing & there’s a chill in the air- unless you’re in the South of course, in which case, the heat is finally becoming bearable!
Autumn ushers in excitement for seasonal offerings that aren’t around the rest of the year.
Here are some ideas to get in the mood for Fall & to compete with local businesses in the area that are bidding for your golfers’ leisure time.
Host a Glow Golf Tournament or Spooky Scramble, complete with costumes & complimentary glow sticks.
Put on the ultimate chili throwdown to get the community involved. Set up tables & have people bring in their prized chili in crockpots. Plan an event with live music & activities where people sample the chilis & vote on their favorite, then award the winner with a prize. This is a great way to attract non-golfers to your course.
Organize a Fall Food Truck Festival: Invite local food trucks to set up on your course & open the event up to the public! The food trucks will help market the event for you in order to attract business for themselves. Offer tee time discounts or a range special that day to get more people on the course.
Events like these give people a fun activity to look forward to & take their friends.
Black Friday may seem like ages away, but the holiday season goes by fast. Now is the time to plan out the promos that you would like to run. Here’s a roadmap for you to help you plan ahead!
Make use of your online store. Online store sales are the best way to make money without expending much effort on your part. All you need to do is pick a product(s), then set the pricing & date of the promotion. You can discount gift cards, prepaid rounds, & golf + food/drink bundles. The best part about discounting things like these is that the redemption rates are hardly ever 100%. Even though you’re offering a discount, you end up pocketing close to the full value when factoring this in.
Clean out old inventory. Need to get rid of old merch & beer? Perfect- Black Friday is the time to do it. Setting a big discount on items you need to get rid of is mutually beneficial for your golf club & your golfers.
Utilize paid ads. In order to stay competitive with other businesses in the area, you should be running ads. We like to run ads through Facebook, because the targeting is second to none & you get more bang for your buck. The pricing is completely up to you & can be set per day or over the lifetime of the ad. For big promotions like Black Friday, we usually recommend $50- $250.
In order to help you plan, we’ve set up a Black Friday promo order form so you can get all your details to your rep quickly & effectively. Click the button below to fill out your Black Friday promo order form today!
[Black Friday Promo Order Form]
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This is a great opportunity to set up a partial proceeds program. Pick 1 day per week where a certain % of revenue goes toward a charity centered around breast cancer awareness, research, or support.
This is also a great opportunity to organize a charity outing; Gather donations, encourage attendants to wear pink, & offer drink discounts with partial proceeds on pink cocktails.
Visit our Managed Marketing Services Facebook group to get ideas, seek advice, & share success stories!
These newsletters were sent to my client list of golf course operators who were subscribed to our Managed Marketing Services & had me as their Digital Marketing Rep.
MMS Announcement
Hi there,
Over the past few months, our marketing services have undergone a huge transformation, & since you’ve previously utilized our marketing services, I wanted to share some of those positive changes with you.
We’ve broken our marketing team into Client Success Reps & Marketing Specialists. That helps us give you more individual attention while also providing significantly faster turnaround on promotions.
We are also utilizing marketing/support teams in order to help you more efficiently. You’ll be able to email Tour@Teesnap.com, for both marketing & support requests. Our teams will be able to provide a more hands-on, well-rounded approach to helping your golf course thrive.
Our Client Success Reps are providing individualized ideas for marketing several times a month. The marketing team as a whole is also sending out marketing ideas & hosting informational webinars.
In addition to this, we are building out a library of marketing ideas & inspiration to help you plan ahead! You can view that library using the button below:
[Marketing Idea Library]
With a new project management system, we are ensuring that every golf course gets the personalized marketing attention that it deserves.
Every event-based promotion has a standard of including:
Graphics
Multiple scheduled emails
Facebook event
Site event
Blog post
Social posts
View all of the marketing services that we offer below!
Teesnap MMS does the following:
Email management
Creation & scheduling of emails
Includes building out automated emails like tee time reminders, birthday offers, club credit reminders, etc.
Website management
Online store management, landing page build-outs, informational updates, blog posts
Social media management
Content marketing, Facebook events, course-specific posts
Paid Facebook advertising
PPC ad set-up: creation is free, budget is provided by course
Strategy
Ideas, planning, & execution
If you’d like to schedule an updated marketing demo or to re-institute Managed Marketing Services, please let me know by replying to this email or by booking a meeting using the button below!
[Schedule a Marketing Demo]
Best,
Lauren
Wedding Funnel
Happy Friday!
As winter is fast approaching, I wanted to let you know about a website tool that I can set up for you to help bring in wedding leads. This year has definitely thrown a wrench in the event industry, but I think it’s the perfect time to plan for things to ramp up again!
This marketing tool is called a Wedding Funnel. The “funnel” verbiage stems from us taking a large audience & narrowing it down with each potential-customer interaction to end up with a small audience of qualified leads.
The basic goal of this is to nurture a relationship with the customer, mainly through automation, which will lead to closing the sale.
Here are the steps we recommend to do that:
Get people to sign up for an email list via an attractive landing page.
We do this by offering to send them a free wedding planning guide
Immediately follow up with valuable content, e.g. the free guide.
Follow up with a series of automated emails to those that sign up for the email list.
These emails can give information on the venue space, tips on planning, dining options, etc.
This familiarizes the customer with your space, nurtures a relationship, & nudges them toward booking a date.
We have Wedding Planning Guide templates already built out, which I can send over right away if you are interested. You can view an example Wedding Funnel landing page using the button below.
[Example Wedding Funnel Page]
Please respond to this email to let me know if you’d like to get this set up or if you have any questions!
Best,
Lauren
Beer Day Ideas
Hello,
International Beer Day is coming up on August 7th! This is a fantastic way to push beer sales, as well as a great chance to discount beer that you are trying to clear out of your inventory.
Since International Beer Day lands on a Friday, consider offering a weekend-long promotion.
Here are some ideas to generate revenue:
Discount aging inventory.
Offer a “golf & beer” special, e.g. 18 holes wart & a 6-pack.
Hold a workshop or 9-hole event followed by a beer tasting with appetizers. Offer samples of a few different drafts & print out beer tasting guides.
Invite a food truck to be on-site & offer fun beer pairings to go with their menu. They get the food sales, you pocket the beverage sales.
Put beer cocktails on special: beer “mimosas”, beer “sangrias”, micheladas, etc.
Let me know if any of these ideas resonate with you & we can get something set up!
Best,
Lauren