Tag: demographic

Webinar 5/5: The Most Underrated Club Metrics

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Jonas Club Software & GGA Partners to Co-host a Webinar Revealing the Most Underrated Club Metrics

Markham, ON Canada – Join Jonas Club Software and GGA Partners, the trusted advisors to the golf, private club, and leisure industries, in a special webinar event, discussing the most underrated club metrics that clubs should be paying attention to in 2021. With private clubs undergoing so much transformation in the last 12 months, many clubs are experiencing trends of rapid change and, as a result, require a plan to monitor membership like never before.

Focusing on metrics to help club management make more informed decisions, the session will cover metrics focusing on membership demographics, risk, spending and utilization. The session will be co-presented by Trevor Coughlan, VP of Marketing and Mark Darling, Product Manager – MetricsFirst, of Jonas Club Software, and Derek Johnston, Partner and Martin Tzankov, Senior Manager of GGA Partners.

The session will take place on Wednesday, May 5th, 2021 at 1:00 P.M. ET.

If you would like to attend this 45-minute session, registration is available for free by visiting: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6315081732484665869.

Register for free →

 

About Jonas Club Software

Jonas Club Software helps clubs thrive by focusing on the creation of exceptional experiences. These experiences are delivered through industry-leading services, integrated applications, innovative technology, and long-term partnerships with the clubs we serve.

Over 2,300 clubs in more than 20 countries, with memberships ranging from 20 to 20,000, utilize Jonas Club Software technology. With applications ranging from Accounting to Retail Point of Sale, Tee Time Management, Court & Class Booking, Dining Reservations, websites and Mobile Apps, Jonas Club Software is the standout choice for clubs driven to offer exceptional member experiences. For more details visit www.jonasclub.com.

 

About GGA Partners

GGA Partners™ is an international consulting firm and trusted advisor to many of the world’s most successful golf courses, private clubs, resorts, and residential communities. We are dedicated to helping owners, asset managers, club and community leaders, investors and real estate developers tackle challenges, achieve objectives, and maximize asset performance.

Established in 1992 as the KPMG Golf Industry Practice, our global team of experienced professionals leverage in-depth business intelligence and proprietary global data to deliver impactful strategic solutions and lasting success. GGA Partners has offices in Toronto, Ontario, Phoenix, Arizona, Bluffton, South Carolina, and Dublin, Ireland. For more information, please visit ggapartners.com.

 

Media Contact:
Trevor Coughlan
Vice President, Marketing
Jonas Club Software
Trevor.Coughlan@jonasclub.com
1-888-789-9073

Managing Your Club Identity

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A private club’s brand is not the same as a chain of hotels or other hospitality business. It’s more personal, more emotional. And when it comes to the set of services, programs and events it offers, they should reflect this emotionally charged identity. GGA Partner, Henry DeLozier, explains how to manage a private club brand and realize what a powerful an asset it can be.

Your brand is in everything you do…and fail to do.

In the Old West days of the open range, where livestock roamed freely across the land, brands were burned into the hides of cattle to identify the ownership. For them, “branding” was a formalized approach of asset demarcation.

Unfortunately, even today, many private club leaders still think that a brand is simply an iconic mark, like that on the rump of a cow, indicating ownership. In the book Principles of Marketing, authors Philip Kotler and Gary Armstrong show that a brand is defined as a “name, term, sign symbol (or a combination of these) that identifies the maker or seller of the product.” However, the concept of brand has advanced significantly from the notion that a trademark could serve as a brand.

Today, brands are stories. They are an intentional assortment of identifying characteristics of goods and services. And leading brands are carefully developed and aimed at pre-identified market segments whose wants, needs, and expectations align with the intended benefits of the product.

Many private club leaders mistakenly believe that their club is a brand similar to Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, Marriott, or other businesses that promise superior hospitality services and amenities. A club’s brand – like a private club itself – is highly emotional, and the way the brand is managed must align with that.

In a private club, the brand establishes a promise of services, programs, and events which – together – constitute a promise of emotional reward. The manager will know and use your name, servers will know your preferences, other members will know you to be a person of accomplishment and social standing – thus, the club’s brand is in every interaction and memorable moment.

Following are three disciplines that every club leader should exercise in recognizing and managing their club’s brand:

1. Become knowledgeable about the power of brand.

This requires that club managers and leaders understand the market segments being served by their clubs. Careful market analysis identifies the psychographic motivations that make one club more attractive to members than another. The emotional context of private clubs requires that club leaders understand the human side of what motivated their members to join the club. Status, aspiration and recognition is far more important to club members than price. Club membership is not a transactional relationship.

2. Remain alert to proper brand management methods.

Use the club’s brand to establish and maintain a position of authority for the lifestyle promise made by the club.

Brand management is a full-time job. Seth Godin, the brand and marketing guru who has written some 18 books on related topics, says, “In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is a failure. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible.”

Given that most private club markets in North America and Europe are significantly over-supplied, the successful clubs are those able to stand out from the crowd and achieve genuine market differentiation. “The easiest thing is to react. The second easiest is to respond. But the hardest thing is to initiate,” Godin adds.

Three keys to managing your club’s brand are (1) leveraging your unique selling position to promote your strengths, (2) use marketing and communications to increase brand awareness, and (3) develop your brand internally so your members can attract their friends.

3. Use your brand to develop relationships.

Empower members to promote the club’s brand through the stories you tell about your club.

When it comes to private clubs, people are attracted by two key elements: brand factors (the key distinguishable traits of your brand), and buyer relationships and stories (how members came to be members, what influenced their decision and how the club now plays a significant role in their day to day lives).

Understand that your club brand is not a trademarked transaction – it is the stuff of imagination and achievement. Godin summarizes this truth observing, “Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make but about the stories you tell.”

This article was authored by GGA Partner Henry DeLozier.

On Message

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As a business, it’s important to step back at times and ask yourself the question: who am I talking to?

When it comes to local marketing, clubs can easily get caught up in getting their message out without really being aware of who they are aiming to reach. Sadly, this can amount to hurling words into the abyss in the hope that they will find someone relevant.

The fact is, it’s impossible to craft a truly compelling message if you don’t know who you are talking to. The key to effective messaging is targeting, and the key to targeting is thorough market research.

Internal Market Knowledge

Knowing your market starts with knowing your own club.

The first step in this discovery process is to build a clear picture of your current club members. Better understanding who and where your club is right now will help you to visualize who and where it could be the future, as well as tuning you in to areas of opportunity that exist around you.

This type of information from your members can be sourced from surveys, focus groups, suggestion/comment boxes, informal meetings with management or staff, or operational metrics tracked as part of a broader business plan.

What insights should you be looking for?

Member/Customer Information

  • Demographic profiles (age, gender, family composition, ethnicity, income level, other club memberships, political leanings, religious affiliations, etc.)
  • Home addresses (zip codes, secondary homes, distance from work, school districts)
  • Contact information (names of family members, email addresses, phone numbers, social media habits)

How Members Use the Club

  • Rounds played by segment and month/week/day/hour
  • Revenue by type
  • Amenity utilization metrics (fitness, dining, tennis, event attendance, etc.)

Understanding the habits, preferences, lifestyles, wants, and needs of existing members is invaluable, because it will enable your club to identify and target individuals with similar profiles to existing members.

This is the “low-hanging fruit” for clubs, and it is the first place you should invest your energies. If you have successfully sold to people of a certain demographic in the past, then there is a good chance you will have success selling to similar prospects in future. People are also prone to associate and identify with likeminded individuals, so these prospects will be drawn to your club if they see that they can relate to your existing members.

The next step is to use this data to build a picture of who is missing from your club. What market segments are you not connecting with? Is it female golfers, Millennials, fathers with young children?

Understanding who is missing at your club will teach you a lot about where your messaging may be letting you down. Depending on the demographic around your club, you may find that some of these missing segments are on your doorstep, and it is just a case of reaching out to them in the right way.

External Market Knowledge

Once you have learned all you can from within your club, it’s time to turn your eyes outward: who are your neighbors and who are your competitors?

What data should you be looking to gather?

Demographic/Psychographic Information

  • Demographic and income data
  • Details on lifestyle groups in your area (psychographics)

Supply/Demand Data

  • List of all competitors in your market area
  • Summary of service and amenity offerings at each
  • Collect data to quantify demand (golf participation rates, studies, visitor information etc.)

Local Market Data

  • Demographics on public websites like governmental or municipal agencies
  • Customer and demographic mapping through Google
  • Comprehensive reports available through sites like Tactician or Environics

Putting a ‘face’ to local market areas will provide pertinent insight to help define your targeted message. If the profile of certain local market areas doesn’t match that of club members, then you may be faced with making bigger changes to your messaging than you expected. Armed with this information you can adjust your communications strategy accordingly, or else decide that you could invest more fruitfully in membership recruitment elsewhere.

The club must also know who its competitors are – what they are offering, their strengths and weaknesses – in order to create a message that differentiates your club’s offering.

This type of external information can be sourced anecdotally from calls to neighboring club managers or through online reviews, backed up by qualitative data sourced through competitor websites.

By gathering the right market knowledge from both internal and external sources you will be equipping yourself for growth. Not only can you identify the “low hanging fruit”, but you can also target demographics that your club is missing out on. Your message will become stronger by understanding what separates you from your competitors, and also, most importantly, by knowing exactly who you are talking to.

This article was authored by GGA Senior Manager and Market Intelligence expert Michael Gregory.

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