It is not uncommon for clubs today to experience a decline in member participation, even though membership levels have stabilized over the past few months. A lack of participation of any degree in this economy should be taken seriously, as it may cause extensive damage to the club’s retention rates down the road. Therefore, it is critical to ensure that your communications strategy is organized across all areas of operation to achieve maximum relevance and return.
Today’s members have growing families and are often struggling to meet the demands of their busy schedules. Once they join your club, the impressive amenities you offer and the promise of an enriching social life may take a back seat to endless business meetings, school activities and growing family obligations. Continuously motivating your members to take advantage of your club’s programs and benefits becomes equally, if not more important, than the availability of these benefits themselves. With leisure time sparse and more valuable than ever, clubs must work harder to inspire members to truly live the lifestyle in which they’ve invested. As member communications becomes a higher priority than ever before, your club can carefully organize its strategy to leverage the most effective assets and resources available in the industry.
While clubs may realize the importance of regular member communication, they often fail to recognize the following oversights and potential “loyalty drainers” that stem from disorganized communications:
Inconsistent Brand Message: Each department within a club wants to be heard and wants its messaging to be given priority. However, when various communication channels are used without any sense of cohesion, the club loses control over its brand image and perceived value.
Duplicate Messaging and Over-communication: Without a pre-determined communications schedule in place, messaging sent at random may result in members receiving multiple e-mails in the same day or week containing duplicate or even inconsistent messaging. This may cause members to become frustrated and eventually tune out altogether.
Lack of Relevant Content: “Push” content, such as last minute event reminders, is simply not enough to win back the attention of today’s time-starved members. Understanding the types of content your members are interested in, and then developing campaigns around these interests, will help you become more relevant to your audience segments. Preparing lifestyle-enriching articles around the topics your members enjoy will help increase member loyalty and club usage.
Who’s Included in the “Chain of Command?”
Communications planning should never be the job of one person; it requires the participation of your entire staff. However, to avoid the previously mentioned pitfalls, your club should establish a centralized point for overseeing communications (i.e. a director of communications) that is supported by the general manager and the board of directors. Whether this is a full- or part-time position with additional roles and responsibilities, the director of communications should coordinate with all club departments to create a long-term strategy for club communications. In addition, the director of communications can regularly evaluate challenges and successes of the strategy through internal communications surveys or regular feedback from departmental staff.
Additionally, the director of communications in conjunction with the marketing staff should coordinate a member-centric survey to better understand communications challenges and opportunities from the members’ perspective. This includes tracking overall satisfaction, format and frequency preferences, as well as content interests. Once this data is collected, it is important that this knowledge be shared with the rest of the team so that the appropriate tools and resources can be determined to enhance the member experience.
Content Development a Club-wide Effort
The director of communications should regularly interface with the club’s various department heads to generate a communications calendar around the club’s major events. Think about combined relevance—pairing lifestyle enriching content with events that are based around similar topics. If the articles are engaging, members will likely be drawn to the corresponding events. Working with all areas of operations, the communications director should organize publication schedules, generate content ideas, and work with the staff to produce the required content according to pre-determined deadlines. Taking this a step further, the communications director should also work closely with the club’s IT professionals to create targeted audience segments based on membership types, lifestyle interests, purchasing behaviors and general demographics. This will allow them to develop more personalized and tailored campaigns as the program gains momentum.
To achieve continuous member activation and satisfaction with club communications, it is up to the director of communications to maintain ongoing evaluation of the program’s performance. He or she should have a detailed plan in place for measuring engagement. It is essential that this knowledge be shared with the general manager and board of directors to make sure that the program metrics support club goals.
Outsourcing Your Center of Command?
Although many clubs recognize the importance of communicating the value of membership, they often find it difficult to support communications professionals with high-level marketing expertise. In these circumstances, some clubs consider outsourcing their communications “center of command” in order to make better use of their internal resources. This does not mean that your staff takes a backseat. Instead, it allows the club to work with marketing professionals who may be better adept at initiating the right strategy for the club, while allowing internal staff to re-focus their efforts on face-to-face member interaction.
Regardless of whether or not you seek outside resources, it is essential that you organize your club communications effectively to ensure that you’re sending quality messaging that engages your members, sells your value, inspires participation and meets your club’s goals and objectives.
Sarah Macomber is Marketing Director for VCT