Golf Marketing Lesson - The Birthday Bounce

Golf course manager Mike Fentress has been on a mission since his company took over 3 daily fee golf courses near Virginia Beach, Va. last year. Its a mission to gather and build as big an email list of area players as he possibly can.
“We now have over 8,000 names and emails and seem to be the only course around here making any kind of effort to collect them.”
 While the competition continues to do little, or has come to rely on third party tee providers and the database of customers they build, Mike’s efforts to build his own have been rewarded with dramatic increases in rounds and revenue at 2 of the 3 courses he operates.
 “We have customers fill out a card with name and email at the counter and that’s been fairly effective.”
 But with the introduction of a Birthday club and a dedicated iPad at his courses, he is now arming his starters and/or beverage people with all the power they need to take the data collection process to the next level.
While players are standing around waiting to tee off, the employee asks if any of them would like a free round on his or her birthday. Input is a first name and a last initial, a players birthday and an email for notification purposes.  That information is then shot directly into the golf courses email sending program (Cybergolf, Mail Chimp or Constant Contact) for regular marketing purposes.
 While the collection and data entry process are super simplified, the long term effect of an automated year round marketing effort is the real game changer for 5 reasons;
-its always somebody’s birthday
-people typically spend more $ on their birthdays
-they typically bring others
-they appreciate the gesture
-they remember
  Most email service providers have an autoresponsder feature that accepts birthdays and delivers timed messages based on specified dates. 
 With each birthday message/coupon closely tracked, the redeem rate is easily calculated as well as the return on the investment of an iPad and the software to capture the data.
So, while Mike is automatically drip marketing to folks around their birthdays, staying top of mind,  inviting them back to play his courses, creating gobs of goodwill with that player and his buddies, he is also building his player database quickly and efficiently in which to market tournaments, events, specials and other deals that add directly to his bottom line.
If you ask Mike, marketing his golf courses just got a little easier.


-Ed Vining
Straight Shot Solutions