We received from a client an email that was sent to them by a leading golf software company:
Hello ___,
If you are like many courses that I speak with every day you are feeling the pressure due to a slow start in 2019. What is your plan to recover this lost revenue? If your plan consists of hoping for better weather, lowering your rates, or hoping that golfers just start showing up I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that is not a good plan.
Luckily, there is something that you can do that has tangible results and does not rely on uncontrollable factors like the weather. The best part about it is that it takes virtually no effort on your part.
Now that I have hopefully captured your attention I will share with you what I feel like is the easiest and most effective way to ease the stress from the past 2+ months. Below is an email campaign that one of our partner courses sent to their customers that had not played a round of golf in the past 33 days. If you are currently asking yourself how did the course know who those customers were, XXXXXXXXX gives you the ability to segment player data in 1000’s of different ways allowing you to target the demographic you want to.
The below-automated email was sent to 2,805 people who had not played the course in the past 33 days. As you can see in the graphic 37% of people opened it, and 5% clicked to book a tee time.
The 5% means that 140 players booked a tee time. Using an average rack rate of $40 that equals $5,600. That is if only if a single player is booked. Most likely there would at a minimum at least two players booked which would equal $11,200.
Because this course knows that people are constantly getting emails and that sometimes important emails are missed, they decided to resend the email six days later to the 1,800 people who did not open original email. As you can see in the below graphic, this time 8% booked a tee time.
The 8% means another 140 players booked a tee time. Using the same example as above that is another $11,200. This automated email campaign alone drove an additional $22,000 in revenue for players that the course had not seen in over a month! This is just 1 example of how XXXXXXXXX can help drive incremental revenue to your course.
I know that this is probably the longest email you will receive today, so I am hopeful that I haven’t lost your attention yet, and you are interested in learning more about XXXXXXXXX. If that is the case, I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation with you regarding your plans for growth in 2019, and figure out if XXXXXXXXX could play a role in that. I will be the first person to tell you that XXXXXXXXX is not the right fit for every course, but what I do believe is that you are making a huge mistake financial mistake to not at least take the time to find out if that is the case for your course or not.
I look forward to meeting with you and sharing why the XXXXXXXXX family is growing by one course a day and is now over 600 total courses.
ENTERPRISE SALES REPRESENTATIVE
Mobile | XXXXXXXXX
Email | XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
There is a fundamental flaw in the email above, pertaining to an assumption that is absolutely not valid.
What are the mistakes? There are several:
- Merely because they clicked to book a tee time, it doesn’t mean the tee time was actually booked, the respondent played and the golf course collected money.
- The size or booking was assumed to be two.
- The second email was sent to those who didn’t open the first email. While the follow up is the right concept, the second email should have been sent to ALL those who had not booked a tee time.
What is the lesson? Most golf software marketing email programs do not directly interface to the tee sheet. Therefore, there is not a meaningful way to measure the return on investment from most golf marketing programs. Your email marketing program should directly interact with the tee sheet to measure actual conversion to properly measure your return on investment.
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Allison George
Since you clearly don’t know how this golf marketing software works, I thought I’d set the record straight. I use this software at my own golf course.
JJ: Merely because they clicked to book a tee time, it doesn’t mean the tee time was actually booked, the respondent played and the golf course collected money.
Truth: You are correct in this assumption. However, this software allows you to pull reports that back up this data. In an effort not to overcomplicate the sales strategy, this is likely just a teaser at what’s possible. Not exactly the step by step process of how to do it. That tactic would overwhelm a potential golf operator.
JJ: The size or booking was assumed to be two.
Truth: Once again, this report can be pulled within the software. For the sake of the analogy, I’m sure this is meant to simple point out that most golf software companies are incapable of doing any of these features. Most of them are not tied to an email marketing company and are not tracking behaviors based on the inputs at the time of sales collection at the club.
This particular company DOES do that. It’s one of its greatest selling features. I can segment my golfers based on all kinds of behaviors and money spent at the golf course. I can invite golfers to come back to my golf course based on preferred time they play, their favorite day of the week, what kinds of specials they redeem. The possibilities are endless and its a much more intelligent way of sending out emails rather than only sending one generalized campaign to your entire database.
JJ: The second email was sent to those who didn’t open the first email. While the follow up is the right concept, the second email should have been sent to ALL those who had not booked a tee time.
Truth: This software is able to do exactly as you suggest.
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Teesnap is the only golf software company (that I know of) that directly tracks multiple points of data between the email service and the point of sale which allows the golf course to segment its database based on the actions of the golfer.
It’s a very powerful system and helped my golf course to have a successful year despite 2018’s weather. The marketing tactic outlined in this email is EXACTLY how I was able to get golfers to come back to my golf course again and again.
Guess what! Now that we’re open and it’s spring, but there’s still snow on the ground, I was able to segment all of my golfers who live in the north and still have snow to come play my club! I could even do this without zip codes in my system because it is set up to track where they lived based on the location where the email is opened.
In my book, that’s some seriously powerful golf software!
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In full disclose, although I still operate a golf course, I started working at Teesnap. I find Teesnap so powerful and innovative in the golf space that accepted a new position overseeing the marketing for golf courses. My team at Teesnap is in charge of setting up campaigns (as described in this email) that invite golfers back based on behavior at the club. Last year (remember 2018?), my marketing team was able to raise revenues by nearly 8% on clubs who use our marketing services.
Let’s start talking about the good in the industry rather than tearing one another down.