A Tale Of Two Golf Clubs: Capacity Vs Closure

Below I have two Golf Club cases studies from late last year. Both clubs were situated in England, both have a clubhouse, an 18 golf course and members, however, the two are like chalk and cheese...

One was financially unviable and was forced to close down.

The other is in a healthy financial position with surplus cash to reinvest back into the club so they can finance new future projects, invest in new facilities, upgrade old equipment and employ more qualified staff.

So, what separated them?

1) Sandilands Golf Club

Last year, this Lincolnshire golf club was about to celebrate its 125th anniversary when it had to close down with immediate effect –

(It was the 7th golf facility in the UK to do so between November - December 2018.)

Sandilands Golf Club, which opened in 1894, saw its membership fall to just 100 in 2014, and although it had bounced back to 180 in 2018, they were a long way short of the halcyon days of 350-plus members that enjoyed the course a decade ago!

The club regularly updated its followers on social media pages like Facebook and Twitter etc. but this wasn't enough to keep it afloat...

In their last post on Facebook, the club announced it's closure and that it was 'a combination of the recent closure of The Grange & Links Hotel, the resulting loss of golf break and green fee income, local demographic factors and declining interest.'

It relied heavily on green fee revenue but this wasn't enough to keep it viable.

Like most golf clubs it faced prices pressures from sites like Teeofftimes that made the course uneconomic as a business enterprise.

Sadly, the club was no longer financially viable and the time came to accept their combined efforts have been in vain and the club must close.

Now time for club number two:

2) Windlesham Golf Club

A much younger, progressive, more forward-thinking golf club recently celebrated its 25th anniversary.

The club is known for putting its members first and reserving peak times during the week for members and their guests to use the course. 

And last year around the same time Sandilands Golf Club closed, Windlesham Golf Club launched a membership marketing campaign that brought in 27 new members in just a few months.

In order to target these golfers, the club opted to use Facebook advertising and a dedicated landing page on the website. The wording, imagery, and clarity of call to action were all designed to appeal to the specific segment, and the club worked hard to ensure that signing up was easy and enquires were dealt with promptly. 

Around ￡1,500 was spent on this campaign, which created nearly 600,000 impressions and 2,600 link clicks. It generated over 27 intermediate membership sales with a projected annual income influence of over ￡33,000.

Which with an:

• average attrition rate of say 10%
• average membership lasting 5 years (probably a lot longer in most cases!)

Means that the lifetime value of these new members is well over ￡100,000!

From just ￡1,500 in ad spend...

Here's what the club manager had to say about the campaign:

“Realising the market segments in our local area was the first step in our campaign to attract a younger demographic to the club. We utilised the tools of Facebook advertising to raise awareness of our new membership structure. During the process, we noticed this segment is more likely to refer or join as a group which increases the likelihood of playing and staying.”

Here are a Few KEY Takeaways

• Always put your members' first
• Meet your audience on platforms they are using
• Signing up for a membership must be easy and enquiries must be dealt with promptly
• Marketing is a necessary evil
• Invest in your club, before you can't
• Use Facebook advertising to access new markets

So if you're a golf club operator whose club is short on members, it's quite clear you now have two options:

Option 1: Continue as you are, remain short on members, financially insecure with no surplus cash to invest back into the club, fret about the future stability of your club and find that in 5 years time you're on the brink of closing down.

Option 2: Realise that members are the lifeblood of your club and without them, you won't survive and take this as a reminder to invest in your member attraction machine.

If you would like to save precious time and money by giving the daunting task to someone who knows what he’s doing.

I specialise in helping golf clubs grow their membership by 20-30 members in as little as 3 months by creating high-converting Facebook ad campaigns.

If you would like to boost your golf club's full, 7-day playing memberships - click the link below.

bit.ly/2MACE48 (yes it's an ugly link)

But if you click the link, I'll show you how you can grow your membership and ensure the future financial stability of your club right now.

See you there!