Read This If You Have 10 Or More Membership Vacancies

If you have membership vacancies and you're looking to fill them this article is for you!

We'll cover some high-level frameworks to apply to your current membership recruitment strategy.

And run through a step-by-step process to recruiting new members, that's working for golf clubs right now, so you can start filling those vacancies today.

Righty ho!

Let's start with the 1st framework:

1) Meeting golfers on platforms they use every day...

“In 2017, there were 79.17 million mobile subscriptions in the UK, across the entire population of 66.04 million inhabitants.”

Source: Statista, mobile phones per household in 2020, 25th May 2020

That's more than 1 mobile subscription per person!

Golfers are on their phones for hours, every day.

But what do they do on their phones?

Well, they use their phones to:

• Communicate with their friends/family
• Let people know what they're up to
• Have a look at what others are up to

They do these things on social media...

But what social media platforms do they use?

1. LinkedIn (660 million users) - a bit businessy for recruiting ordinary members, but great for recruiting corporate members!
2. Snapchat (210 million users) - perhaps for juniors, however not a lot of purchasing power here...
3. Twitter (330 million users) - A possibility, however, there are better options...
4. Instagram (1 billion) - a good platform to use
5. Youtube (1.8 billion users) - a solid platform to use
6. Facebook (2.6 billion users) - BINGO!

If there's one platform to focus your efforts on, it's Facebook, for 1 main reason:

“You get the best bang for your buck!”

as a general manager once said to me.

• It has the largest audience of any social media platform - reach 50-60% of your local area with 1 platform... (that's a lot of golfers!)
• Great value - reach 1,000 golfers in your local area for as little as ￡5... this is dependent on where you are in the world. In the UK it's ￡5, in the US it might be a little more, but no more than $10.

(It's all you need to start filling those vacancies!)

Keep things simple and use the best option first.

Once you feel like you've exhausted Facebook and milked it for every penny, you'll probably have filled your membership capacity and have a waiting list.

(Mission accomplished)

Now you might already use Facebook to:

1) Post on your club’s Facebook page

Pros: Free to use

Cons: Extremely limited reach

2) Boost Facebook Posts

Pros: Easy to use

Cons: Lower return on investment than Facebook ads because of various reasons

(I have a whole article on this subject, called 5 Reasons You Should Never Hit The Boost Post Button On Facebook - if you would like more information)

To summarise, by boosting Facebook posts, you're paying the same price to reach users as you would with Facebook ads, but with worse results. This is because Facebook gives you limited features and will favour those who use Facebook ads over you (as Facebook thinks they'll spend more money).

Here’s what you should do instead:

Run a full Facebook advertising campaign.

Now, I can already hear someone saying:

“We’ve tried Facebook ads before and they didn’t work!”

If you tried Facebook ads before and they didn't work, here’s where you might have gone wrong:

1) You selected a far too laser-targeted audience of just 10,000 people, who you believed were the perfect fit - without realising Facebook clamps down on 1/10th of that.

This caused your ad costs to skyrocket after just a few days!

2) You used images with lots of writing and prices on them - ones you might use for a flyer.

You probably didn’t know Facebook hates images with writing on them because they look like ads!

Not to mention this is the last thing someone wants to see when scrolling through their social media feed...

...so your ad costs were up to 80% higher than usual!

3) Your ads didn't display the value of your membership. They just stated the offer, the price and told people where to go to enquire.

As David Ogilvy, one of the greatest marketers who ever lived said:

“The more you tell, the more you sell!” (contrary to popular belief!)

4) Enquiring wasn't super easy for your customer. You included your phone number or email address at the end of your ad and told people to ring/email in if they're interested.

If you want to generate lots of qualified enquiries, then you must make it super simple and easy to enquire!

Here’s How To Use Facebook The “Right Way” To Fill Your Membership And Generate A Waiting List

Step 1) Create a Facebook ad account for your golf club

Step 2) Link your club's Facebook page to your ad account

Step 3) Using the 2 frameworks below, create some ads and a landing page that talk specifically to the type of golfer you're targeting.

- Grab their attention, educate them on your club's USPs and get them to enquire...

- Provide a quick and easy enquiry process and great customer experience...

Step 4) Run a full Facebook ad campaign

How much does it cost to run a profitable Facebook Ad Campaign?

Typically, I recommend that you invest at least ￡500 in ad spend to get seen by enough keen local golfers and get a really good ROI.

Now you might be thinking...

“WOAH, Hang on... That’s Far Too Much!”

Well actually, it’s not. Let me explain!

Let’s say a membership at your golf club is ￡1,000.

If you invest just ￡500 to run the Facebook ad strategy I’ve talked about for a month - 

And you generate 50 enquiries (￡10/enquiry) and sign up just 5 new full members (which as you’ll see in a second from the industry examples is typical)...

...that’s ￡4,500 profit in month 1 AND a 900% ROI

(that’s not including additional revenue through F&B, pro shop spend and member referrals…)

Long Term Consequences: Lifetime Value of A New Member

The average golf club member stays for 6 - 8 years (according to recent studies)

So that means that each member initially valued at ￡1,000, is actually worth ￡6,000… (if we said they stay for 6 years)

So those 5 members, initially valued at ￡5,000 are actually worth ￡30,000.

So from the ￡500, you initially invested…

...that’s 5000% long term ROI from just ONE MONTH of Facebook advertising.

Now, you’ve got 3 options...

Option 1: Keep doing what you're doing and continue to get the same results you've always gotten.

Or…

Option 2: You can take everything we’ve talked about today, spending ￡500/month on Facebook ads and see great results.

Or…

Option 3: Delegate the job to someone who knows exactly what they’re doing.

I’m on a mission to install a predictable member attraction system at every golf club.

If you like what I’m saying, and want to fill your golf club’s membership vacancies, let’s have a conversation, I’d love to understand more about your business!

I specialise in helping golf clubs increase their membership numbers with Facebook advertising.

I'd love to run you through a process that should get you 50+ membership enquiries a month for your membership.

Let's do a virtual coffee meeting over zoom where I can show you this specific process, and we can talk about others too if you like. As I said, happy to share.

Here's a link to my calendar to find a time that works best for you:

https://calendly.com/davisjonesconsulting/virtual-coffee 

(It'll create a zoom meeting for us as well)

If you can't find one that works, let me know and I'll see if I can offer you some more times.

Look forward to catching up!

- Davis