This is probably the most misunderstood and enormously overrated golf marketing medium of all. E-golf marketing is often presented as the best way to market your golf course because it is the most effective and least expensive golf marketing medium available to golf course owners. This couldn’t be the furthest from the truth.
Just as in any other form (medium) of golf marketing, the most important factor is your “list”. Some golf courses are just now (20 years later) building their email lists. Most golf properties have a handful of emails and they are made up primarily of their current golf members. So most golf marketing done via email golf marketing is in essence marketing to your existing golf membership base and/or avid players, hence, not capturing new business.
E-Marketing Pros:
- Affordable to free.
- Fast response from your targeted audience.
- Customer tracking ability is great.
- Gathering of customer’s data made easy.
- Ease and speed of delivery.
- Can send different emails whenever.
- Reaching a targeted audience by customizing email offers for customers based on demographics, interests, and/or geographical locations.
- Environment friendly; paper free.
E-Marketing Cons:
- Security, privacy issues.
- Most clients nowadays have blocking software for different random ads.
- Dependability on technology.
- Most ads require customers to download and some of these ads are large in size.
- Cost can get high due to maintenance since technology is an evolving platform.
- Undelivered email rate is high.
- Worldwide competition through globalization.
- Emails are considered unimportant content and more likely being deleted by an audience.
- Some email ads are hard to read.
- E-marketing is not always free.
- You will still rely on offline customer database.
Golf course e-marketing is extremely low cost once you have built a data base of qualified recipients and the delivery of your message is almost absolutely free. But if you are not building (adding to) your list, you are just cannibalizing your core golfers. Building an enormous list is time consuming and will require an investment. NEVER buy an email list from anyone because it will cause you unmentionable problems with your IP (Internet Protocol) address, your ISP (Internet Service Providers), your Google ranking, can get your web site blocked, etc., etc., etc.
E-golf marketing is an “opt-in” form of golf marketing so you must build your list in-house. There are no short cuts to this process no matter what anyone tries to tell you. Even some of the people that have been in the cyber golf marketing business for years will neglect to tell you the astronomical downsides to e-golf marketing just to get you to buy their email golf marketing systems.
Incorporate E-marketing into your golf marketing campaigns and you will grow your golf course, the game and your golf career.
For more free tips on growing the game, increasing rounds through golf course marketing, golf marketing, golf course campaigns, golf campaigns, professional golf membership sales and advancing your golf career visit us today @ www.golfmarketingmmc.com or call 904-217-3762.