There are more than 15,000 golf courses in America as of 2020, and many of them are competing for the same pool of potential clients.
So, if you are a golf course owner or manager, you need an effective marketing strategy to attract new players and continue to grow.
This is easier said than done.
It can be challenging to choose the right marketing channels these days, mainly because there are so many of them available.
Social media is one of the best strategies to turn your eyes to because as people continue to rely on the Internet to obtain their information from, online marketing remains an excellent way to reach new customers.
Perhaps you’re wondering how you can start making the most of social media as a marketing channel for your golf course.
The challenge is not a very simple one, but we are providing you with the best social media marketing ideas for golf clubs that will help you create a social media presence and take your golf course to the next level.
Why is social media essential for a successful golf course?
Social media has boomed over the last decade, and it’s here to stay. This means that you can’t simply ignore it.
By embracing the benefits that social media can bring to your business, you can overcome many of the challenges that golf courses and country clubs are facing every year.
Golf course owners and managers are indeed aware of the fact that running a golf course can be an expensive business and also a risky one.
When you have a golf course, you need to invest in the golf course marketing activities to be able to grow your membership and obtain public fees.
But trying to grow your membership in the absence of social media is never a good idea in 2020.
We’re not saying it can’t be done, but not using social media will hinder your efforts and allow the competition to get their hands on clients that could have chosen you, but they didn’t because they weren’t aware of your existence.
If you want to use social media in a way that is beneficial for your golf course growth, here are some of the best ways to do it and obtain significant results in the shortest possible time.
1. Develop a solid content strategy
Being present on all the popular social media platforms is essential for any successful golf course these days.
As such, you should start by figuring out what platforms you want to use and what kind of content you intend to post on them.
We suggest having an online presence on all three major social media platforms — Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
You need to take into account the fact that not every platform is suitable for the same type of content, which means that you might need to develop a different strategy for each of them.
Let’s see some examples.
If you want to post tips and tricks videos or longer posts that explain different golfing strategies, you can easily do so on your Facebook page.
Facebook is also an excellent platform to promote your events and post pieces of news that are relevant to golfers in your area.
If you look at the Golfing World Facebook page, you’ll see that they have more than 80K followers.
This page posts videos and pieces of news that get thousands of views because all their content is carefully curated and always relevant to the primary audience.
The videos they post may gather over 1 million views and over 12K reactions. This doesn’t happen because they are sharing a fun video and forget about it. Their entire content is geared towards engaging with their audience by starting discussions on particular topics.
Moving on to Twitter, let’s have a look at the account of one of the oldest golf courses in the world, The Old Course in St Andrews, Scotland.
The managers of this Twitter account indeed have to deal with a lot of pressure because they need to come up with relevant content for approximately 50K followers.
They are doing an excellent job, however, mixing news about the actual golfing events that are taking place in St Andrews with posts that promote their golfing school and real-time information about the weather for the weekend.
2. Boost your engagement
There are billions of active social media accounts all around the world as of 2020. According to data provided by We Are Social, there are 3.80 billion social media users in the world as of January 2020, and the number is increasing every year.
With almost everybody having access to at least one social media platform, it’s possible to reach and connect with golfers from your area and beyond in a way that wasn’t likely decades ago.
This means that you need to take advantage of the social media phenomenon to reach level community groups, local business pages, and local golf-related groups to promote your business.
The best way to boost your reach on social media is by engaging with the local community. Whether you are managing your golf course alone or with the help of the social media manager, you should first make sure that you will read the rules of any groups that want to promote your business and before posting and sharing content.
Not all groups allow businesses to share content from their business page, so if you can’t find any groups in your area that would enable this, you can engage with members in another way, from a personal social media account, by commenting on their posts with relevant information and being generally helpful.
Besides boosting your engagement with actual golfers, it’s also essential to reach out to local businesses, which are a great resource when it comes to events and tournaments.
Most community members that are interested in golf engage with local business pages. This means that this is one of the easiest ways to raise awareness for any events or offers that you might have in place.
The boost your engagement, it’s always a good idea to set up 30 minutes a day to check out all your social media platforms and respond to everyone who has engaged with your content.
Don’t forget to always be helpful and make sure that the answers you provide are thoughtful and, most importantly, that they give value to the user.
3. Set up your social media accounts for online reviews
We live in a world where no one goes anywhere without reading a review of the place first.
For this reason, it’s imperative to gain online reviews on Google and Yelp, but also on your social media accounts, particularly Facebook, as this is a great way to build trust in your brand.
To obtain the best results, make sure that your business profile is complete and offers all the details new and existing users might need. Proofread everything and only add high-quality photos, preferably ones that were taken by a professional.
When reviews start to come in, don’t forget to respond to each of them, because this is a sure-fire way to build engagement and show your customers that you care about their opinion.
Respond to positive reviews by thanking people for taking the time to leave a review and adding something in the lines of “we can’t wait to see you again.”
When it comes to negative reviews, always remain polite and make it clear that all complaints are taken seriously, and your business is always looking for ways to improve.
Bottom line, what you need to remember as a golf course owner or manager is that customer service doesn’t end with the client leaving the premises.
You need to keep up with each review people might leave online about your business so you can build long-lasting relationships with your customers.
But setting up your social media accounts for online reviews is not only a positive aspect for your customers. It is also a way to help you understand what customers love about your business and where you can improve.
Moreover, websites with formal star ratings from Facebook have a better overall online presence from an SEO point of view, which means that you can increase your visibility in search results for your brand.
4. Work on your offline engagement
Online engagement is critical when it comes to customer retention and gaining new business as well.
However, golf courses have opportunities for offline engagement that you should take advantage of.
Creating on-course promotions is an easy way to get more followers on social media and also allow your customers to promote your business on their accounts.
To do so, you should include signs on your golf course as well as in the golf shop and the clubhouse, letting your customers know where they can find you on social media.
Encourage golfers to take selfies on the course and post them on their profiles.
If you can, you should identify a favorite spot that continually appears in the pictures golfers take on your golf course and include some signage there, letting everyone know that that’s a great spot to share on social media.
You may also want to suggest some hashtags that users can include in their posts so you can grow your engagement on social media.
The golf shop also offers multiple opportunities for growing your followers on your social media channels. Start by training your staff to let golfers know that they can follow you on social media for special offers and updates.
5. Competitions are your friend
It’s no secret that people like competitions, contests, and generally free stuff that they can win simply by registering their details on a business’ social media accounts.
Because people like free stuff, you get the opportunity to grow superfast, whether
it’s your Facebook audience, your Instagram account, or email marketing list.
By posting a competition on your Facebook page, you may ask people to like and share the post to be able to enter a draw.
This means that not only you get more interest from your existing customers, but you are also likely to increase the number of followers altogether because people will share your post with friends and family who may eventually become customers themselves.
There are multiple ways to increase engagement on social media with the help of a contest.
A classic method is the “like and /or comment to win,” which can be done easily on just about any social media platform.
All you need to do is create an engaging post with an explanatory caption, include some simple guidelines for entering the competition as well as an entry deadline, and you’re done.
Let’s have a look at an example.
In this post, the golf course has a simple description of the competition with simple rules that are easy to follow.
As you can see, the post gathered interest from followers in the form of comments and shares. As a result, the golf course increased their engagement not only on the Facebook page where they originally posted the competition but also on Instagram and Twitter because they asked people to follow them there as well.
Conclusion
These are effortless ways to use social media for marketing your golf course and increasing your engagement and number of followers.
No matter what kind of approach you decide to date, remember that you should get in the habit of posting regularly on all your social media platforms.
It’s also imperative to create engaging designs for all your posts. You can simply use free apps such as Canva to design your social media posts and make sure that they are eye-catching enough to make you stand out from the competition.
