Research is the biggest and best investment a golf course can make. You must know who your potential customers are and who your competitors are that are already servicing them. Start by knowing your competitors and where you stand in the marketplace. How do your golf facilities stack up to theirs—pricing, course conditions, amenities, etc? It doesn’t matter if it is an executive par three or just a driving range; if they are receiving any golfing dollars it is crucial you know how much and why. MMC® does an in-depth competitor overview on all of our client’s properties to make sure we know exactly what is happening in the marketplace.
Next, you want to know your audience and who qualifies as your audience within your geographic and demographic market. No one can afford to incur wasteful spending. MMC® has a research and development department that includes a full-time, 24-hour, seven days a week call center devoted to capturing pertinent information to better serve our clients.
Our team conducts and pulls research studies such as communication studies, advertising execution studies, advertising awareness, and tracking studies, price studies, and customer satisfaction research, just to name a few.
You must take into consideration all aspects of your targets: lifestyle, spending habits, buying patterns, geographical demographics, income, and education, just touching the surface. Naive marketers look primarily at income as being “the” qualifying factor, but income alone can be very misleading. You probably have your own example of this. Have you ever tried to roll out your own direct mailing or another form of marketing media targeting an area labeled “affluent”, thinking this was your audience, and yet got a dismal return on your investment? In some cases, enormous income on paper, masks enormous debt. These targets can’t afford to pay attention much less pay for a golf membership. You definitely don’t want to be in the collection business. Your desired target is consumers with discretionary income, not consumers drowning in debt. Profiling your targets is an absolute must and MMC® has been profiling consumers with discretionary income for the sports industry since 1991; and best of all, we pay for all of the research, not you.
Developing a marketing piece, ad campaign, text message or any other form of advertisement must be designed to meet the psychological needs of the prospect. MMC® has been creating, testing, and revising different ways of doing this since 1991.
MMC® studies the psychology of consumer spending. People buy products and services for emotional reasons and then later justify their purchase for logical reasons. You must know the negative and positive emotions that your golfers and prospects associate with your property if you plan on effectively targeting them as potential members/customers.
People are motivated/moved by two driving forces—pain and pleasure. You must eliminate the painful emotions associated with your golf product /service and replace them with pleasurable emotions to your golf product/service. This can easily be accomplished with the appropriate delivery system of the desired message through a well-thought-out marketing/branding campaign designed and implemented by MMC®.
Throughout MMC®’s site there is a ton of free information on golf course marketing and professional sales training, so please take time to view the entire site for the free tips on growing the game, your golf property, and your golf career. Watch the videos (please be patient while they load and buffer), read the text, and pick and choose what is valuable to you and fits your current and future business model.
Thank you for partnering with MMC® today in growing the game, your golf business, and your golf career.