Royce Brook Golf Club values its relationship with its management company because their resources make it easier for the club to lure new members.
Royce Brook Golf Club General Manager Dan Guinle compares the process of wooing new members to dating. Converting a golfer from a casual player on the Hillsborough, N.J.-based club’s semi-private course to a full-blown member is a process, and it takes some finessing.
“It’s not about playing golf cheaply anymore,” says Guinle. “We want to have a relationship so that we can take them to the next step which is membership.”
Like cultivating a relationship with a mate, the club’s marketing and membership development team wants to make sure they ease into proposing membership to golfers who come to play the facility’s course. The club’s relationship with its management company, Billy Casper Golf (BCG), helps make the process easier.
The Royce Brook staff uses BCG’s resources to implement a “laddered engagement” approach. The club makes use of the management company’s tracking tools, which includes the ability to record members’ and prospective members’ activity and create a database to maximize use of the information. The staff then tailors its various marketing efforts to those people.
“The philosophy is that after you get them in once, you want to track when they come back and how they use the club,” Guinle explains. “We have products and services designed to enhance their experience at the club which hopefully helps to persuade them to become a member here.”
Golfers are offered perks including extended tee times, discounted rates and a program that rewards their purchases. With the rewards program, the staff can track how often golfers use the course and take note of their habits. They can then create an offer to go out to a specified group, such as those who have played the course more than 10 times in a year. Those golfers are invited to learn more about taking the next step and becoming full members.
“We turn prospective members over to the membership program where the Director of Sales can engage with them,” Guinle says. “We identify the most appropriate time to engage. We begin a conversation with them, bring them in for lunch and have a discussion.”
Royce Brook began the campaign this year. Within the first month, the club gained five new members.
Brand Power
When it comes to branding, Royce Brook finds a balance between taking advantage of the national recognition of the Billy Casper Golf name and playing up the features that are unique to the club. There is a sign just inside the clubhouse that advertise that Royce Brook is run by BCG, and Guinle’s office is close enough that he hears people’s reactions when they see the sign.
“The first time people see the sign they recognize the quality standard of the brand of Billy Casper Golf. That name means something to the customer,” Guinle says.
The golf club doesn’t rely entirely on the management company, though. And that’s OK with both parties.
While BCG helps the Guinle with the club’s overall branding strategy, it’s the on-site staff—not the management company staff—that is largely responsible for day-to-day pushes to bring in golfers.
For example, if the staff notices days with sparse-looking tee sheets in the foreseeable future, they’ll host a special event called Golf, Grill and Groove. For a discounted price, members can bring guests for the day to play golf, dine and listen to a band on the veranda.
BCG will help provide marketing resources for those types of events, but the club staff remains the driving force behind the event.
“They give us the latitude to do that,” Guinle says of BCG. “They have a lot of trust.”
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