One more time.

The pandemic brought so many new and unique situations. However, the remnants from those two seasons aren't that unique at all.

The exit plan has an air of familiarity. We have something of a precedent to look at. To learn from.

What we are seeing now is this - our industry is processing a big change to the competitive landscape following a period of great success.

Lets go back to the '08/'09 worldwide financial crisis. Same stuff. It goes like this:

A successful period for our industry is affected by something happening outside of our industry. Currently it's the end of a worldwide pandemic along with the return to an open economy. Back then, it was the arrival of a worldwide financial crisis.

This history lesson is worthwhile and I dug into previously - here is the link to that article and it's worth the time to trigger a few memories that'll serve us well this time around.

What didn't happen often enough last time and what we should all work toward this time is this - do the work to maintain rate better than we did then. And we should invest the time and energy into selling the game itself. Our customers have shown that they are willing to pay a proper rate, so let's keep that in mind as best as we can. Now, rates won't be where they were in '20 & '21 again any time soon. That 2-year economic cauldron of supply & demand has left for good, but an effort toward real, disciplined rate maintenance will be a great investment into our future.

Additionally, we must recognize that these customers are playing less because they want to enjoy other things. They aren't running away from golf - they're running toward the stuff they missed. This isn't anything worrisome about our product, they're just stretching their legs and enjoying what wasn't available the last two years.

So we have some version of three options available now when it comes to a strategy for keeping as much play as possible.

1 - Sit tight. 2 - Pitch your own storefront. 3 - Pitch the value of the game.

It should fall into a hybrid of sorts but for the purpose of answering to these three, I'll suggest sitting tight is always troublesome - customers want to be engaged and semi-fought for - or they'll drift. I'll then suggest that pitching your storefront is always wise but in this case they aren't running from your course to another course, they're choosing some non-golf activities to enjoy instead. So I think we gotta work harder to pitch the game more. But please don't use that as a reason to default to our Governing bodies & industry Associations who have their own efforts - this is about you and your golf course business and the golfers inside the 40 KM circle around your front door. This is the hybrid.

This is your space. Your customers. Your problem to solve.

Remember, we didn't solve it last time. Our rates dropped. Third party re-sellers ended up doing a lot of the communication to golfers about playing golf at our facilities on our behalf. We can't abandon that responsibility, that chore, entirely.

Sell yourself and sell the game. From your voice.

I have a couple more links for you. The first is about how a consumer packaged good can benefit its own storefront by selling the industry itself - the Subway Sub case study is such a great lesson we can learn from.

There is a challenge to marketing into a group of people who are distracted by other options. Other non-golf options. The marketing defence mechanism is to not allow yourself to be forgotten too often. It is an effort toward recency - being as top of mind with potential customers as possible.

Recency, stated obviously, is being thought of recently. Being considered consistently. Not being forgotten or smothered by Other Stuff. Since I am link-happy today I can't avoid adding the article I wrote about Ewan McGregor's Super Bowl "Stuff" commercial for Expedia here.

There will always be thousands of ongoing different group chats around what to do next weekend. These chats are considering different stuff. If you keep communicating, you strengthen your chance of someone in their chat voting down a daytrip to the beach and lobbying for some golf.

Stay in their ear. Stay in their consideration process. Affect the process - don't sit and hope.

We need to get golf back up high in the minds of customers considering what to do with their leisure time & money. It's back-to-basics marketing - if we are considered more often, then we will be chosen more often. The Sales Funnel is built around this. Being recent in the mind of your customer is a topic I explore here.

We didn't do everything right the last time we had a similar environment - make sure you do your part to learn from that and to stay relevant & recent with your customers. As they've shown us before, they're easily distracted. They like lotsa stuff after all - so fight to be liked more often this time around.

How? Talk to them. Educate them. Challenge them. Entertain them. Become an inbox item that's not an auto-delete in their minds. Our industry and our product is cool. We are selling sunshine and recreation and fun and leisure. We can do this.

With what? Your two powerhouse assets - your site and your data base.

If you have a plan - get started. If you need a plan - get ahold of me.