Many club leaders underestimate the importance of brand management with the belief that a logo, website and email constitute a brand. The fact is your brand is everything you do–and fail to do.
A strong brand establishes a position to own in the marketplace and reiterates who you are, why you exist and how you will deliver on your promise.
Effective brand management requires consistency in everything you do, from the look and feel of your internal and external communications and the condition of your club facilities to the level of service provided by your staff.
Linda Dillenbeck, the brand guru at GGA Partners, identifies three keys for using your club’s brand effectively:
1. Be deliberate. To be a trusted brand, you must deliver on your promise. Leading private clubs develop an intentional brand position that is sustained by intentional brand management.
For example, if your club describes itself as a “family club,” then it must make family-friendly considerations a part of each amenity, program and service offering of the club. Club leaders in a family club must consider:
· The provisions made for the club’s children
· The systems and activities are safe, sanitary and carefully managed
· Enabling parents and grandparents to participate in the children’s programs
Clubs with effective brands are purposeful in their planning, which makes them purposeful in executing their programs and services. There is little slippage in program implementation.
Perhaps your club identifies as a special-purpose club—such a golf, yacht or racquet club. Just as a family club must review considerations, so, too must you execute the aspects of the club’s brand and purpose through programs and communications to ensure your club’s approach to its special purpose is not clouded and lost in trying to be all things to all people. Brand focus is the touchstone.
2. Be inclusive. Women and millennials consistently watch to see whether everyone has a seat at the table and is being considered.
In a 2020 attitudinal survey executed by GGA Partners, millennials consistently signaled a preference for inclusivity recognizing that they have friendships that cross racial, ethnic and partisan lines. They do not want to be a part of their grandfathers’ club that limited its membership. This expectation requires that the club expand its brand reach to include demographic profiles that are new or different while remaining consistent on core values, such as mutual respect, family-first and civility in actions.
3. Be consistent. Influential brands foster trust and respect through consistent and repetitive communications that stand the test of time.
Using your brand effectively begins with a strong brand position statement to serve as the guidepost against which all written and visual communications are weighed. Every communication, training program, service and amenity should reinforce who you are, why you exist and how your deliver on your promise.
Clubs currently enjoy a bull run but the current economic cycle will eventually change. To ensure your club’s brand will be respected and influential through every economic cycle, you must accept the responsibility to manage your brand effectively.
Henry DeLozier is a partner at GGA Partners. He can be reached at [email protected].