By Antonio Conde, golf course marketing expert and founder of the first golf tourism comparator, GOLFBOO and CEO of Golfenred, a consulting firm specialized in golf course marketing.
It’s about time! After almost 5 years of evangelizing about the importance of the direct channel, I am finally starting to hear golf course managers and owners raising the flag of reaching their client in a direct way through the use of new technologies.
Although we have not reached the explosion that has occurred this year in the hotel sector, it is possible that we are facing an important change in the strategy of golf courses in Spain, at least in those that are more advanced in the application of modern management models based on technology. Agents and tour operators will not take long to react and adapt to this new trend, but those who decide to take this step first will be ahead in the direct sales race.
Lead acquisition can be done physically in our facilities or in one of the Internet channels, and it is in the latter where the potential for growth is practically infinite. In particular, the web is our best ally, it is the gateway or first contact of many potential customers and therefore must be prepared to capture as many as possible. It is necessary to give different reasons for visitors to leave their data or contact us under any pretext or added value that we can provide.
But the direct sales process doesn’t end there, far from it. Generating leads is essential, but increasing our direct sales will not be possible if we treat all customers equally. Sometimes we think that we do not have enough information or means to be able to do so, but thanks to the information provided by web analytics it is possible to establish patterns, to create what marketing people call profiles or “personas”, with which we can fine-tune the offer we put in front of our customers.
It is possible that a priori we do not know the identity or contact details of these potential buyers of our product, but we do know how they came to our website. Did they do it by searching on google? Did they come from an advertisement or an article in a media that talked about us? or perhaps from a review site?
Statistics show that by displaying a personalized message depending on the origin of the visit, it is possible to direct these visits to the booking process more effectively. Thanks to the study of digital analytics we know that those who come to our website from a consumer review site (tripadvisor, GOLFBOO, leadingcourses) especially value messages related to service excellence, while those who come from google searches, respond much better when they are greeted with a “best price guaranteed” message.
Secondly, it is necessary to evolve concepts such as “Two green fees plus buggy” to “an unforgettable day of golf”. It is true that our customers play golf, but most of them also eat, drink, shop in the store or socialize with friends, therefore it will not be enough to offer them to play 18 holes, our marketing must be focused on offering them a lifestyle in line with their expectations throughout the purchase process.
The latter is important, since in many occasions we attract customers from a specific campaign or an agreement with a business partner, and when they arrive at our website our content or booking engine is static and generic, and we do not show the specific information that has motivated the customer to visit our website.
If a golfer arrived from the website of the golf course with which we have correspondence, let’s not leave him alone when he lands on our site, let’s show him information of that agreement upon his arrival and make it easy for him to obtain the conditions agreed upon during the booking process.
From here it is only necessary to observe the behavior of our traffic and study what works to replicate it with the same types of customers. Let’s not get carried away by siren songs such as branding or “engagement”, whatever they mean… and let’s pay attention to what we are interested in, the increase of our turnover. This observation and study of analytics will surely lead us to surprises about the content or traffic sources that contribute the most euros to our bottom line.
There are no longer any technology or budget excuses for continuing to pursue an outdated and disjointed marketing strategy. The question is, will you do it before your competition?
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