Golf marketing - what clubs are getting wrong

At first glance, the UK golf industry appears to be thriving. Participation is on the rise, rounds played are at record highs and membership numbers have been ticking upwards in recent years.

Yet, beneath the surface lies a more complicated reality as many of the country's golf clubs struggle to keep their heads above the water.

So, where is it going wrong? Why are Britain’s golf clubs struggling to take advantage of the growth in the game of golf?

 

THE MEMBERSHIP MODEL DOESN'T WORK ANYMORE

Historically, golf clubs have relied on annual memberships to fund the majority of their operations. They could do this because being a member of a club came with a number of key benefits:

·       An official handicap;

·       Entry into club competitions;

·       Exclusive course access;

·       Private clubhouse facilities;

But it’s now easy to get and manage a handicap online. Most of the country’s associations will do it for a nominal fee. Lot of clubs also offer ‘pay-and-play’ rates so there's no real incentive for the casual golfer to commit to a membership. And clubhouses - like lots of the F&B industry - have been struggling and are no longer the social centres that they used to be.  

So, clubs are struggling to justify the value of a membership and convert golf’s popularity into the upfront revenue that their business models are based around.

 

CLUBS HAVE BEEN TOO SLOW TO EMBRACE DIVERSITY

Golf has another major problem that it has been grappling with for years but not properly addressing.

Club membership is still very skewed towards ageing, white, middle-class men. Less than 20 percent of members are likely to be female (the average in the UK is 14%) and more than 90 percent will be over the age of 18.

This lack of diversity severely impacts the attractiveness of a club membership for a significant proportion of the population, and many clubs just can’t find a way out of this.

Clubs haven't been doing themselves many favours in this regard either.

If you look at the majority of marketing programmes they will be targeted at this in the vein hope that they can re-establish past glories instead of focusing on initiatives that expand their attractiveness.

And the problem is getting more acute.

Recent studies have shown that younger players in particular, prefer casual rounds over club competitions while shorter formats (i.e. nine holes) are gaining popularity. More and more golf (40% in some countries) is also being played in off-course settings (i.e. driving ranges and golf simulators) so, while younger golfers are starting to show more interest in the game, many of these century-old organisations are just not set up to convert this interest into a longer-term commitment.

Outdated traditions - such as rigid dress codes and clubhouse rules - can also alienate younger or more casual players and clubs that cling too tightly to these 'traditions' risk becoming irrelevant in a more casual, experience-driven leisure market.

 

RISING OPERATIONAL COSTS ARE STARTING TO TIP CLUBS OVER THE EDGE

Golf clubs are also facing higher operating costs.

Climate change for example, is adding strain, with droughts and flooding affecting course conditions and increasing maintenance costs.

Utility bills are also a major source of financial pressure. Fluctuations in the price of oil, electricity and fertiliser can significantly impact a club’s ability to maintain a course properly.  

Staffing and technology costs are also significantly more than they were 20 years ago, and it all eats into a club’s ability to invest in growth creating activities.

All of which creates much more pressure with the institutions that bankroll many clubs (particularly through the winter months) not least because golf is generally played on land that has become more attractive for other uses (i.e. housebuilding).

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GOLF CLUBS NEED TO FOCUS ON MODERN REALITIES (NOT PAST GLORIES)

The harsh reality facing many of the UK's golf clubs is that they are operating in a world that they are not that well equipped to deal with.

Many are saddled with costly overheads in a very competitive market and simply don't have the resources to grow out of that. 

The risk of adding additional facilities such as driving ranges or simulators or diversifying into new ones such as gyms or coffee shops is just too high.

But even those that might be able to, are still going to have to completely rethink the membership experience and that is a very delicate balance between servicing existing member requirements and attracting a new type of customer.

 

GOLF CLUBS HAVE TO MOVE AWAY FROM MEMBERSHIPS AS THEIR DOMINANT SOURCE OF INCOME 

All the trends point to a world where golfers want to pay-and-play more and if membership revenue is not covering costs, then clubs will have no choice but to focus on sweating the course asset.

That means driving more marketing initiatives at casual players and offering them access to competitions and some of the best tee-times.

Which is going to further diminish the attraction of a membership. So, clubs are also going to have find alternative ways of justifying that value unless they decide to focus predominantly on a pay-and-play model.

 

GOLF CLUBS HAVE TO PRIORITISE INITIATIVES THAT CREATE MORE DIVERSITY 

One of the biggest failings of most golf club marketing programmes is that they primarily focus on attracting the type of customer that got them into the mess in the first place.

Competitions are a good example of this, and why traditional membership benefits might now be holding clubs back.

Often sold as a significant membership benefit, club competitions are not really an attraction for someone who is new to the game and in some cases, actively dissuade participation from players who are looking for a less competitive, more leisurely pastime.  

So, clubs might have to think about deprioritising them in favour of more social initiatives that target new, younger and more diverse players.

Which again, isn’t going to please the existing members.

 

GOLF CLUBS HAVE TO START WORKING MUCH SMARTER

Many clubs are going to have to develop partnerships with other clubs to offset the rising cost of course maintenance. That doesn’t mean reciprocal deals that usually just cannibalise revenue, but initiatives that pool resources and enable the sharing of things like teaching professionals, green-keeping staff and machinery. 

That needs a completely different operating model for most clubs, but it is going to be essential if they want to maintain membership benefits at level that can justify the expense. 

 

GOLF CLUBS HAVE TO SEE MARKETING AS MORE THAN JUST ONE P (PROMOTION)

But maybe more importantly, golf clubs have to develop a much more sophisticated understanding of their customer and how to reach them.

Club marketing generally focuses on attracting new members. But in a lot of clubs, more than half of these will leave within two years, and very few of them will be in the key demographics that clubs need to grow.

So, it's a false economy.

For marketing to pay-in properly, clubs have to combined initiatives with activities that also focus on retention and creating a more dynamic membership experience.

Or put another way, clubs needs to stop wasting member's money on marketing agencies that create the illusion of progress. Because it's just the golfing equivalent of moving the deckchairs around the Titanic.

 

GOLF CLUBS HAVE TO MAKE BETTER USE OF ALL THEIR RESOURCES

The problem with all of this is that it takes initiative and resources that a lot of clubs just don’t have.

Except, they do!

Clubs have to stop seeing this as something that is constrained by finance and start marshalling their most valuable asset: their members.

They have to start positioning marketing as something every member has responsibility for - not just the marketing convenor.

Their job should not be to drive new membership promotions or sponsorship initiatives, but to co-ordinate the membership to make more resource available to the marketing team. 

Clubs need to get members to step forward and become event coordinators and member experience directors not just social media managers. And come together around the idea that they are paying to be part of a 'club' and like every club, the collective ethos needs to be harnessed and not taken for granted.  

Clubs also need to make big some big decision around things like clubhouses. If they can't restore or re-invent them what is the point of maintaining one?

But in the age of coffee shops, micro-breweries and gastropubs; golf clubs can’t expect to succeed with an out-dated offer that tries to replicate the traditional pub and restaurant model. 

They have to find new ways of driving meaning footfall. Not by forcing it through bar levies, but by finding uses for these facilities that they might not have tried before. 

That could be quite radical, like outsourcing management to a private contractor or sub-letting parts of the building for alternative uses like a paddle club. 

 

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That's the reality of the situation many golf clubs are now facing. Golf is thriving, but traditional clubs are only just surviving because too many have been too slow to adapt to a changing commercial landscape.

Too many are guilty of clinging to out-dated operational models in the hope of recreating past glories rather than reshaping their offering to reflect a new reality.

They have tried to bully members into behaving in certain ways rather than building communities that become an attraction in their own right.

But now it's at the point of no return for many. The game is giving them an opportunity, but only if they accept that the old ways of operating are not going to cut it.