How to attract new golfers to your golf club: Starter Membership Case Study
One of the trends we have noticed at Lonsdale Links is that there seems to be a longer gestation period for people to take up golf and join a Club. So the question we posed was “how do we attract new golfers to our golf club?”
Acknowledging that one of our responsibilities is to grow the game of golf, we looked at what solutions we could provide for this mostly beginner golfer cohort that helps create golf’s (and our Club’s) next generation of players.
Enter our Starter Membership program.
How do we package a great offer for beginner golfers?
Having workshopped the idea with our Management Team, which includes golfers, non-golfers and PGA Members, the below were the key ingredients we believed would justify a beginner golfer joining our Club as a Member.
· Affordable price with plenty of access to the course and facilities
· Support to develop golf skills in both a group environment (clinics) and a 1:1 environment (private lessons) on a frequent basis
· Short and fun on-course events just for Starter Members (reduces intimidation)
· Non-golf social events just for Starter Members to foster a connection with the Club and feel a part of the overall Lonsdale Links Community.
What does a beginner golf membership look like?
The Management Team used the above elements to shape the Lonsdale Links Starter Membership offering:
· 7-month membership from October to April to make the most of the daylight savings period. Sunday to Friday play.
· A selection of weekly golf clinics available to be booked. 5 different time slots to accommodate weekends, midweek and after work hours. Book into as many or as few clinics as you like.
· 3 private golf lessons for attention to specific areas for each individual.
· Monthly golf event such as 9-Hole Ambrose utlising both the golf course and the Par 3 Course.
· Monthly Social Events
· Eligibility only for those that have not been a golf club member in the past.
· $595 price point.
We opened the category and spent a grand total of $70 on Social Media advertising. For additional promotion, we utilised email marketing to our extensive Member and Green Fee databases, a landing page on our website and a collection of organic Social Media posts.
As a result, we opened applications for one month before closing it prior to the 1st October commencement as we had hit capacity. The final result saw 85 applications received and a healthy waiting list to get into the 2023 Starter Membership year.
Improving the beginner golfer offer
A few months into the Starter Member journey, we conducted a survey to garner ideas for further improvement for this all-new membership category.
Feedback was overwhelmingly positive for the program. Questions were also posed about what this cohort needed in order to continue their membership journey with us at Lonsdale Links. The three main takeaways were:
1. Continued access to clinics
2. More on-course time with our PGA professionals
3. Having access to different membership levels at different price points. Some were confident to join the 7 or 6-day membership category, whereas others would like to pay a lower fee with a lower level of access to the course.
Cementing ideas to attract a new cohort of golf club members
The Management Team are currently workshopping the next steps for the Starter Membership cohort, acknowledging the earlier point about the long gestation period required for a new golfer to become a golf club member.
I will share the details for this in a future article. Even though we are only 4 months into the program, I can safely say that this has been a successful and popular program for us to run at Lonsdale Links and I would certainly endorse running something similar at your own Golf Club.