The very best club managers are typically exceptional personal communicators—which comes in handy, considering effectively communicating a club’s total package of culture, services and values to both current and potential members is an essential component of a manager’s job.
But, properly conveying a club’s total package is also a significant challenge, even for the most talented managers and their club directors. And print and electronic materials used to communicate with both internal and external audiences can be inconsistent in terms of design and quality at even the country’s most prominent clubs.
But, why is this the case? And, perhaps more importantly, what can be done to remedy the situation?
The “B” and “M” Words
As private, nonprofit establishments, many clubs avoid the common buzzwords “marketing” and “branding.”
However, acknowledging these concepts and putting them to use are unavoidable if your club is interested in maintaining a strong, thriving membership. In fact, a report recently released by Chadwick Communications said strong brands command a 7 percent premium on price and make sales efforts 40 percent more effective. The same report stated that over 50 percent of building a brand has more to do with what is communicated than with the product or service itself.
Since all great marketing begins with a question—in this case, why clubs aren’t branding and marketing themselves, and why they should—Paradowski Creative, a creative services company based in St. Louis, decided to undertake a survey on private club “branding” and “marketing” in order to better understand the current benchmark of industry practice.
From the beginning, garnering responses wasn’t necessarily easy. When the company sought input on survey questions to include, the manager of one nationally prominent club replied, “We don’t brand, and we don’t market.”
Hopefully, that situation is changing.
Frank DiLapo, general manager of the Athletic Club of Columbus, said that branding has changed his club from an operations-driven organization to one that is market-driven.
“We were taking a passive approach, waiting for people to come to us and for our members to introduce us to potential new members,” he explained. “Now we’re looking at the club as a product and trying to determine how to best position it in the marketplace.”
Survey says…?
The survey revealed many interesting marketing, communications and branding trends and issues at club across the country. For starters, three survey findings in particular show clubs are not on an equal footing with competition in the recreational and hospitality worlds when it comes to branding, marketing and communication.
First, almost three-fourths of the surveyed clubs don’t have a written communication/marketing plan. Interestingly, of those clubs that do have a plan, 58.5 percent don’t have a committee dealing only with communication/marketing issues. Those clubs that had written plans were spread fairly evenly among the three top brackets of membership size.
Second, over half of the clubs responding to the survey that had newsletters, magazines, e-newsletters or Web sites relied almost exclusively on internal resources to produce those communication vehicles.
And lastly, in clubs with fewer than 1,000 members, the greatest communication problem was “consistent message.” In clubs over 1,000 members the biggest problem was “consistent visual appearance.”
As one survey respondent noted, “We just don’t have the staff or resources to produce professional-level quality [products].”
Challenges of Club Communication and Marketing
The struggle to create and distribute not only professional-looking materials but also communication pieces that have a consistent message was cited as one of the biggest challenges in communication/marketing for responding clubs.
More than 40 percent of respondents listed “consistent message” as the biggest challenge in communication/marketing at their club, followed by consistent visual appearance of materials (30 percent) and logistical/production management (29 percent).
Based on these results, it’s clear the issue of refining marketing messages, communication vehicles, and marketing tools has definitely hit the radar of club professionals. They are looking for direction and assistance.
For example, one survey respondent wrote, “Any ideas on making the club newsletter a ‘must read’ would be most appreciated.”
A cross-section of comments offered by our survey respondents, while not statistically significant, provided more insights to the current state of club communication and marketing and the hurdles club leaders face and are trying to overcome.
In looking at the comments, the need for both internal and external communication specialists is certainly being felt. “We just don’t have the staff or resources to produce professional level quality,” noted a respondent.
Others are taking a proactive approach.
“We have just established the new position of membership marketing and communications director for the club, responsible for Web site administration and internal marketing,” a respondent wrote. “We are in the midst of upgrading our Web site and all communications media.”
Another wrote, “Most clubs do not have the luxury of a marketing and communications staff person and instead rely on a joint effort. Our strategic direction is to create a marketing and communications staff person to promote and brand our club in the community and as a community outreach liaison.”
Still others recognize there is no shame in admitting that raising the bar, as in other areas of club operation, may call for expertise beyond their internal resources.
“I believe many clubs get trapped into thinking, ‘We can save a boatload of money by doing this ourselves,’ and wind up with what they paid for,” a respondent wrote. “Our club is moving toward more complete use of outside, professional designers to ensure a consistent, coherent look and feel to our print materials. Our next step is to combine the design aesthetic for both web and print under the same rubric.”
And, since financial exigency is frequently the mother of invention, some clubs have found ways to reduce the price tag on external brainpower.
“We have very recently enlisted the help of the marketing department of the local college to update our look for both the newsletter and membership directory,” a respondent noted.
Print or Electronic?
Whether to use print or electronic communication tools isn’t really the issue, as much as consistency of message and of image and communicating with members, potential members, and employees in a manner to which they can relate.
“We utilize e-mail marketing as the main source of membership notification,” one respondent wrote. “We will decide whether to continue with the print version of our newsletter as the majority of our members prefer the electronic version.”
Another respondent wrote, “One of the biggest challenges I personally feel clubs have is [understanding] what they want to be as a club and who they want to serve as members. They produce glossy brochures that they mail to thousands of people without knowing who those people are.”
Yet another respondent noted the difficulty in keeping online materials and printed materials “in sync” because of differing formats.
“Consistency takes constant vigilance, but [it’s] doable,” a respondent wrote.
And still another respondent gave advice to fellow managers, saying, “Use all of your materials to tell the same story. Utilize this to brand who you are and do not waiver.”
Importance of Your Brand
Branding “who you are” as a club is a key component to your club’s future.
There is a reason why the top restaurants, fitness facilities, golf resorts and spas expend so much time, energy and money on establishing their “brand” in the marketplace. They consider their brand and the communication and marketing of it to be an integral component of their success.
Clubs devote tremendous amounts of thought, planning and attention to fitness areas, wine rooms, the grass on their golf course, and more. How managers help clubs communicate the benefit of those amenities and services to members and potential members is sometimes an afterthought, something to add to a staff member’s other duties. But the communication is key—it is building your brand.
Clubs also frequently tend to overlook the “soft” aspects of communication and marketing that the corporate world focuses on, such as making sure all staff members understand and can communicate the club’s brand both through their words and through their behaviors. Other clubs are a far cry from the corporate world setting, the practice should still apply.
By asking questions, in a formal survey process of both current members and non-members who fit your member demographic, by carefully planning your club’s communication and marketing strategies, by investing in the development of professional standards, and by rigorously maintaining those standards, you can make a positive impact on the effectiveness and consistency of your club’s communication, helping to both define and promote your club’s “brand.”
Tom Finan is the director of business development at Paradowski Creative in St. Louis and is the former publisher of Club Management.
For Complete Results…
For more information on the survey, visit www.paradowski.com/files/club_survey_results.pdf to download a PDF file of the complete survey results.
If you would like the survey results customized to your club profile, contact Tom Finan at [email protected] or call 314-584-4717.
Survey Demographics: Who We Asked and Who Answered
The Private Club Communication and Identity Survey was mailed to just under 5,000 e-mail addresses, compiled from our own sources and from a list supplied by the National Club Association. Of those, 4,623 were valid addresses. A total of 293 persons started the survey, with 282, or 6 percent of the delivered total, completing it. Our research consultant, Sandra Christie, PhD of Christie Consulting, tells us that the results are accurate plus/minus 3.5 percent at a 95 percent level of certainty.
The respondents skewed heavily toward the top end of club leadership with “Executive Management” (CEO/COO/President/GM) constituting 73.6 percent and “Manager/Assistant Manager/Membership Director” constituting 17.8 percent.
The respondents provided a representative spread of club types and membership sizes. Country Clubs and Golf Clubs constituted 86.3 percent of responses. City and Athletic Clubs were at 9.3 percent. About a third of the respondent’s clubs (31.7 percent) had 301-500 members, exactly a third (33.3 percent) had 501-1,000 members, and 20.7 percent had over 1,000 members
How Clubs Deliver Their Message
- Of the clubs responding, almost 90 percent had a newsletter. Fifty-seven percent had an e-newsletter. Of those sending e-newsletters, 93 percent also had newsletters. The most common club communication vehicles were newsletters (90 percent), event e-mail (79 percent), and external Web sites (79 percent). Of responding clubs, 18 percent had an employee newsletter and 6 percent had an employee Web site.
- Newsletters (89 percent), external Web sites (78 percent) and event e-mail (79 percent) were the three most common forms of club communications. About 20 percent produced newsletters for club special interests, such as golf, women’s activities, or youth activities.
- Of the clubs that had newsletters, 54 percent produced them internally and 38 percent produced them with a combination of internal and external resources. The general manager was the individual most commonly involved in the club newsletter (83 percent), with a member of the club’s office staff coming in second (56 percent), and the membership/marketing director (51 percent) coming in at third most commonly involved.
- Of responding clubs, 54 percent produce Web sites and/or e-newsletters internally. Only 3 percent assign writing to outside vendors but almost half hire designers. Web hosting is outsourced at a little over half (52 percent) of res
The Club’s Marketing Strategy
Formalized marketing and communication planning is not practiced at the majority of responding clubs.
- Almost 73 percent did not have a marketing or communication committee.
- Of those clubs that did have such a committee(s), oversight of new member marketing (74 percent) was the most commonly performed function, followed by providing strategic direction on all internal and external communication (51 percent) and directing public relations and crisis management (25 percent).
- Nearly 71 percent did not have written plans or guidelines in regard to marketing and communication. Of those that had such plans, 55 percent had written a plan or reviewed the plan within the last year; 18 percent in the last one to two years; and 25 percent last reviewed their communication/marketing plan two or more years ago.
- The most commonly addressed areas of club communication plans are membership marketing (86 percent) and event promotion (76 percent). Over half (58 percent) address the use of the club’s logo in print and merchandise and an identical number address club publications. Exactly half have rules for signage around the club. Only 21 percent of communication plans address employee materials. Nearly 37 percent address external outreach to the community and 29 percent address crisis management.