Tag: recruitment

Clubs Should Be Selling Memories

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Today’s fast paced tech savvy society is often called The Experience Economy, which references the ever-rising expectations of customers coupled with the desire for memorable experiences rather than physical possessions (See “Managing Expectations” PCA September, 2018).

The Experience Economy is forcing clubs to prioritize creating unparalleled experiences for their members over simply providing great service, quality amenities or good membership value.

According to Henry DeLozier of Global Golf Advisors, “The memory itself becomes the product and in private clubs today, members relish an unforgettable experience far more than a bargain.”

Different from the past, members now relate membership value to the club’s ability to deliver memorable experiences to their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

Experiences in this context are preplanned activities or events that are packed full of emotional, memorable, shareable impressions that are difficult for others to duplicate. “The key to this entire concept is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” DeLozier explained.

Club executives and operators must shift their focus from simply ensuring enjoyable experiences (dining at the club, great round of golf, good tennis lesson, etc.) to building opportunities for members to establish stories. When members (and their families) become part of a holistic experience, they become part of a story and that is when a positive and lasting memory is formed.

The sky is the limit as each club has endless opportunities to create experiences that speak directly to member perceptions of value.

“Club leaders will find the greatest success in innovative ideas, unforgettable experiences and fresh new concepts that are unique to their club and community,” DeLozier concluded.

This article was authored by GGA Partner Henry DeLozier for the Private Club Advisor.

2019 Millennial Golf Industry Survey Findings – Part 1

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In ongoing research collaboration with Millennial golfer organization Nextgengolf, GGA recently updated its study of the habits, attitudes, and preferences of Millennial golfers.  The 2019 study brings forward survey findings from over 1,400 Millennial golfers and builds upon research conducted in 2017 and 2018.

Illustrated below is the first installment of a multi-part series of infographics to feature the latest Millennial golfer feedback.  To establish a baseline for discussion, Part 1 focuses on the demographics of respondents and their exposure to the game.

Over the next few weeks, keep an eye out for new installments featuring the Millennial outlook on public courses, golf skill, club fees/costs/dues, private clubs, membership recruitment, barriers to golf, and much more.

Research Overview

In many clubs today, the long-held expectations and perceptions of existing, ageing members are at odds with the entirely different needs and expectations of a new wave of younger, more casual members.  The challenge for clubs?  To create an environment which not only appeals to the new wave, but where members of all types can coexist.

Research findings highlight how golf clubs can adapt and develop their offerings to meet the needs of the next generation of members and customers.  The goal is to provide valuable insights about Millennial golfers, the challenges they face, and the opportunities for clubs to help support the long-term sustainability of the game and the industry as a whole.

Background

As the leading entity for team-based golf in the United States, Nextgengolf connects Millennials to golf and supports the success of their game while GGA specializes in solution engineering and problem solving for golf-related businesses.  A fusion of GGA’s 27-year history of private club research and Nextgengolf’s connection to young golfers afforded the unique opportunity to study a highly valuable Millennial audience.

The survey sample focused exclusively on a sample audience of active, avid Millennial golfers with prior golf interest and experience in tournaments or golf events.  To date, more than 3,600 survey responses have been analyzed during the three-year research study.

Thank you to the Club Management Association of America (CMAA) for the support that makes this research possible.

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What’s Important to Know About Recruiting Millennials to Join the Club?

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Occam’s Razor is the work of a Franciscan friar and theologian, William of Ockham, who reasoned that itis better to keep things simple when attempting to understand complicated ideas.  This is good advice for club directors and managers when trying to plan ahead.

The confusion begins in answering, “What do they want?” As club leaders’ eyes have turned from generation X to the millennial generation, a good source for answers can be found from Kris Hart, the co-founder and CEO of Nextgen Golf, whose motto is “Live Life.  Play Golf.”

Hart emphasizes two basic needs that clubs meet for millennials: flexibility and community.

“Millennials are often on the move and need flexibility for when they can play.  More importantly, having flexible membership costs and initiation fees are an important factor for millennials when joining a club,” says Hart.  “Some may not stay in one city for a long time, paying up-front costs are less attractive.”

According to Hart, millennials need to be part of something.  “Clubs that have younger members and a good community around the club are attractive.  Millennials rely heavily on recommendations from family and friends and want to hang out with people like them.”

Now the largest market segment in America, the millennial generation has high expectations, in general.  “Millennials expect to be treated the same as a full adult member and do not want to be restricted or looked down upon as a young adult member.” Hart advises.

And first impressions are important! According to Hart, “Technology expectations are continuing to increase.  The club’s digital presence and online reputation has become much more meaningful given millennials can go right to google and research everything about a club in a matter of seconds.”

Health and wellness are imperative for this generation.  Clubs that have gyms, fitness classes and embrace the health and wellness movement will be better prepared for this generation.

Millennials are getting married and having kids later in life than previous generations.  As Millennials continue to age, family-focused clubs are increasingly more important, Hart stresses.

Keep it simple if your club wants to attract millennial members.

This piece was authored by GGA Partner Henry DeLozier for the National Club Association’s Club Director quarterly magazine.  

Will Millennials Save Golf?

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A few years ago, Time magazine published an exhaustive look at millennials titled “The Me, Me, Me Generation.”  The story took some shots at a generation characterized as “lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents,” but concluded that the world’s 80 million 18- to 34-year-olds will “save us all.”

Global Golf Advisors has done extensive research into what makes millennials tick – especially from a golf perspective – aimed at answering this question: “Will they also save golf?”

Their numbers portend their potential.  Millennials are responsible for the majority of purchases of everything from groceries to automobiles.  They’re also beginning to settle down, with careers, homes and kids of their own.  As they do, their global spending power is estimated in excess of $600 billion a year.

There are about 6.4 million millennial golfers, according to the National Golf Foundation.  That’s more than any golf cohort, other than 6.8 million Gen Xers, whose birth years are generally considered 1965 to 1984.  By contrast, there are 5.4 million baby boomers, once thought to be golf’s saviors, but now on the back nine of their golfing careers.  Here’s what else we know about millennials:

  • They are the first generation of tech natives. They practically teethed on their PCs, tablets and smartphones.  They love their phones, but hate talking on them.
  • They crave new experiences, even more than material goods.
  • They need to feel like what they’re doing is important.
  • They aren’t as willing as former generations to sacrifice their personal life to advance their careers.
  • They’re heavily influenced by product reviews, Q&A’s and photos posted by other consumers.

But what will it take to turn their potential into our reality?  Global Golf Advisors teamed up with Nextgengolf to survey millennial golfers across the U.S. Here’s what we learned:

The No. 1 reason millennials play golf is to hang out with friends.  That’s closely followed by enjoying being outdoors and athletic competition.  Interesting, business-related reasons, such as growing their network, were last on their list.  They just want to have fun.

The millennials in the survey who play at daily fee courses are frugal.  Slightly more than 80 percent want to spend $50 or less on a round of golf.  Sixty percent typically spend between $25 and $50.

Three-quarters of millennials will consider joining a private club in the future.  Twelve percent are already a private club member.  Nearly half of participating millennials plan on joining a private club within the next three to 10 years.

Factors influencing their decision to join a club also show the importance of the social side of the club experience.  The most important factor that influences a membership decision is a recommendation.  Eighty-three percent of survey respondents said encouragement from a friend, colleague or family member might cause them to join a club.  These are folks who are accustomed to reading reviews and acting on the recommendation of others.  The second most influential factor was a positive experience while attending a tournament or special event at the club.

For most, though, golf is not enough of a draw to join a club.  You must remember: millennials are social animals.  Many are involved in as many as 10 recreational activities.  That’s why a workout center, for example, is a valuable investment for clubs and golf facilities that want to increase their appeal to millennials.

Millennials like options and flexibility, and that characteristic was borne out in the portion of the survey focusing on entrance fees and dues.  Forty-one percent of millennials would prefer to pay more annually than pay an entrance fee to join a private club.  Approximately half said they would prefer an annual fee of $3,000 or less to belong to a club.

The challenge for clubs?  To create an environment that not only appeals to the new wave, but also one where members of all generations can co-exist.

This piece was authored by GGA Partner Henry DeLozier for Golf Course Industry Magazine.

Strategic Intelligence Overview: Part 3 of 3

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Top performing clubs around the world are finding newer, faster and more efficient ways to leverage business intelligence and create competitive advantages for their clubs. The first two articles in this three-part series included what business intelligence is and why it is important (see “Strategic Intelligence Part One,” September 2018) and how to use and implement business intelligence (see “Strategic Intelligence Part Two,” October 2018). The final article will identify desirable outcomes and key results for clubs that have leveraged data.

While the initial infrastructure set up does require an investment of time and money, business intelligence should be viewed as a tool to aid and support club leadership with sound decision making and strategy, not another chore to be completed. Informed decisions require a combination of competitor, market and operational data along with member feedback data. Many clubs use this information anecdotally and it hinders everyone from staying on the same page.

One of the most important benefits of utilizing a strategic intelligence process is the time and effort saved during board, committee and staff meetings due to reduced deliberation and off topic discussion. “It’s hard to argue with the facts,” stated Derek Johnston of Global Golf Advisors. “But those facts still need to be secured, analyzed and regularly prepared, which can be time consuming.”

Johnston shares that a Global Golf Advisors client recently had a breakthrough because of the information brought to light through its strategic intelligence process. “Club X had always raised annual dues by 2.5 percent each year but its bottom line was struggling due to labor and other cost increases. A historical trend analysis of key competitor clubs revealed that Club X’s competitors had been raising dues annually by an average of four percent for the past three years. In addition, member survey feedback identified high satisfaction in the Value for Money category. Armed with this data, Club X raised annual dues by five percent without backlash and is planning similar increases in the future as long as subsequent data supports it.”

Another client, Club Y, had recently completed a major renovation that included the addition of a fitness and racquet sports facility. The club was achieving member satisfaction ratings above comparable clubs but was struggling to recruit an ample amount of new members each year. According to Johnston, Club Y’s lead generation relied heavily on member referrals with minimal marketing effort beyond the current membership.

Using mapping, demographics and real estate trends to enhance marketing effectiveness, Club Y implemented a tracking process to identify the source of the prospective member lead along with the lead’s home address. This process exposed a significant disconnect. Leads that came from new members had a conversion rate of 17 percent over the past five years. Leads from tenured members were less than four percent. This data lead to healthy discussion and ultimately a new strategy for lead generation and membership sales.

When asked the question, “What does strategic intelligence success look like?” Johnston answers with “Readily available data in every board and management meeting that is analyzed and presented in a manner that improves the efficiency of the meetings, enables more focused discussions and results in a higher quality output. Ultimately strategic intelligence leads to a superior strategy and increased support for the decisions that club leaders make.”

This article was authored by GGA Partner Derek Johnston for the Private Club Advisor.

The ‘Tiger Effect’

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The ‘Tiger Effect’ and How to Leverage the Influence of Tiger Woods on Millennial Golf Interest

On the eve of this year’s Masters Tournament CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz said, “This might be the most anticipated Masters any of us has seen in our lifetime.” And for good reason: the hype surrounding the return of modern golf’s greatest icon to battle it out against a plethora of ‘new age’ stars. Ironically, many of these rising stars say they found their passion and motivation for the game as a direct result of idolizing Tiger’s dominance in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.

Fast forward to the 2018 Tour Championship, which concluded in storybook fashion with Tiger claiming his 80th career victory and his first in over five years. NBC announced the PGA Tour’s season finale drew a 5.21 overnight rating, the highest of any non-major championship this year. That number is also up a whopping 206 percent over last year’s event, all the while competing for ratings against NFL Sunday.

Tiger’s impact on the growth of the game has been well documented over the years. Tour earnings increased at 10x the rate of inflation when comparing 1985 to 2010. No one has ever moved the needle in his or her sport more than Tiger Woods. His presence in only a handful of events this year has brought measurable spikes in TV Ratings and tournament attendance. More importantly, for club managers, another byproduct of the ‘Tiger Effect’ is an increase in golf participation levels (defined by the NGF as people age 6+ who played golf on a golf course).

Let’s examine the trend in US golf participation since Tiger burst onto the scene in 1996 with his first victory and began capturing the attention of the golfing world. Since that time, there seems to be an unavoidable lagging correlation between Tiger’s ‘presence’ (number of starts and number of wins) and the golf participation trend. As an example, the two-year time period between 1999 and 2000: it is widely regarded as the height of Tiger’s dominance and included 17 wins and 4 major championships. The lagging effect on golf participation was an increase from 26 million to 31 million golfers in the US over the next three years. Jump ahead to 2008, when Tiger’s first major injury-riddled season limited him to 6 starts and golf participation began a declining trend that was then amplified with the economic downturn and Tiger’s hiatus for ‘off-the-course’ indiscretions. As the economy has recovered in recent years, we find ourselves returning to the level of participation in the mid-90s, the pre-Tiger era.

What that may infer is the jump from 25 million to 30 million has a lot to do with the ‘Tiger Effect’. While we likely won’t experience the same participation rise as we experienced at the height of his dominance, past history suggests that the more we see the red shirt on Sunday afternoons, the more latent golfers will flock to the links. According to the NGF, non-golfers interested in playing golf was 12.8 million in 2017, up from 11.9 million in 2016 and double what it was five years ago. The estimated number who say they are at least ‘somewhat interested’ in taking up golf was 40.6 million, and well over a third of that number (15.2 million) were Millennials (18- to 34-year-olds), which made up the largest single age group of non-golfers who expressed interest in playing golf.

As a Millennial, I can vouch for the declining interest I witnessed in my peer group post-2008. Ten years have passed, and as Tiger tapped in for victory to win the 2018 Tour Championship, my social media feed was flooded with excitement from friends and colleagues who have been on hiatus from the game but are still fans and players at heart. I can’t help but believe that Tiger’s return to the top of golf will provide a ‘kick’ that many latent Millennials need to get the golfing itch back, and with it the decision to become club members again.

To all club managers out there watching your membership continue to increase in age while the club struggles to attract new Millennial members to join, I urge you to promote aggressively this winter and take advantage of the current momentum and excitement among the Millennial audience. It may just be the best opportunity in a decade to attract an audience that is crucial to regenerating the membership pipeline at your Club.

Tactics to consider:

  • Organize a ‘golf pool’ for each major championship in 2019 and extend the invitation via social media channels. Encourage members to invite their friends to participate and to visit the Club on the ‘Major Sunday’ for a viewing party social event.
  • Consider adding team events/competitions for younger members, specifically in the spring. Again, scheduling these events surrounding major championships can spike interest in latent Millennials who become most engaged during these weekends.
  • Be sure the pro shop has Nike/Tiger apparel in the pro shop or club-branded ‘red shirts’ of its own. Perhaps consider a discount sale on all ‘Tiger’ related merchandise in advance of the Masters Tournament next spring.
  • Golf simulators resonate strongly with the Millennial audience, reminding them of their days playing the iconic ‘Tiger Woods EA Sports’ video game as a child. If your club has simulators available for use in the winter, allow guests of members to pay-for-use and accumulate credits towards their entrance fee if they decide to join in the Spring.

This article was authored by Ben Hopkinson, GGA Senior Associate and research-and-insights specialist. 

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