Communications poses a series of complex issues for clubs. Despite these difficulties, only 66 percent of clubs have designated staff at the helm of their marketing and communications, says a Global Golf Advisors survey. According to the December 2014 survey, the top communication challenge for clubs is timeliness—how quickly a message is communicated and how relevant it is to members. The second biggest challenge for clubs is how consistently these message sare sent. Respondents said their largest concerns regarding these issues were getting members to read the messages and picking the correct audiences to send the message to.
Half of respondents said upcoming decisions regarding the club’s future are the most difficult items to communicate to members. Forty percent believe board and management decisions pose the biggest communication hurdles. When communicating to non-members, 47 percent of clubs say communicating its values is most difficult and 31 percent say communicating its values is most challenging.
Despite clubs using a plethora of means to disseminate information to members—more than90 percent of clubs use newsletters—members often say club communications are ineffective. Surprisingly 84.3 percent of clubs believe their communications are effective. There is also plenty of room to improve membership marketing, reported the survey. Roughly a third of clubs do not use their communications strategy to grow their membership and another 30 percent of clubs do not use any customer relationship management system to organize leads and prospects.
Source: Global Golf Advisors, Pulse Research: Club Communications Series