By Trent Bouts
Simple ways to create buzz without breaking the bank
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They say that all politics is local, but as far as Chip Bromann is concerned, marketing is even more so. Bromann has been known to chase golfers into the parking lot at Pinewood Country Club in Harshaw, Wisconsin, so he can shake hands and thank them for playing. Often, he’ll then whip out his iPhone for a photo and before he’s back at his desk, the foursome he just snapped can be seen grinning wide across Pinewood’s Facebook page.
“I try to say hello to everybody who arrives at the golf course and say goodbye to them as they leave,” Bromann says. “Social media is a great way to stay in touch, but it’s not the endgame. You’ve got to establish the relationship first. There’s still nothing that beats human contact.”
Indeed, establishing an emotional connection has long been recognized as one of the keys to effective advertising. That’s why Bromann’s riff on merging old-fashioned values with new-age technology represents a kind of marketing that more golf course owners are turning to. The weak economy and insipid demand may have reduced advertising budgets to a shoestring, but they have also been a catalyst for innovation.
Bruce Imel leverages an unlikely pairing of charities and rock n’ roll trivia nights to market Timber Ridge Golf Course, which he co-owns, in Bluffton, Indiana. Imel provides the venue and all the trappings of a “fast-paced” television game show complete with a host, questions and electronic buzzers. From there, the event is treated much like a golf tournament. But instead of selling hole sponsorships or team spots, Imel, who spent 25 years in investment banking, sells tables to local charities that he has reached out to by letter then with a follow-up phone call. In turn, those charities dip into their own network and database, selling individual seats to recoup their outlay and raise money for their cause.
The nights generally attract approximately 120 people, and Timber Ridge generates in the order of $2,000 from table sales, plus what is spent at the bar. Better yet, it generates buzz for the facility.
“For me to be successful,” Imel says, “I’ve got to have golf outings, corporate events, weddings and stuff like that. This used to be a private facility and we’re still battling against that perception that this is a country club for a bunch of snooty people.”
By their very nature the trivia nights are anything but stiff and “snooty,” and with charities effectively creating the “guest” list, Imel gets a chance to showcase his operation to potential customers—the majority of them non-golfers—that he would never reach otherwise. Imel banks on them at least becoming ambassadors, human billboards if you like, to do the kind of advertising that owners traditionally pay big money for in conventional media.
“That’s my goal, to create these synergies between groups and people that will carry that message of ‘Wow, that’s a pretty nice place, maybe we should have our wedding there or our annual meeting, whatever,’” Imel says. “I wear myself out thinking of things to draw people here. It’s all about creating awareness.”
At Brookmeadow Country Club in Canton, Massachusetts, owner and general manager Anne MacDonald still generates awareness with a video produced four years ago. While the initial production cost of $3,800 was significant for the facility that has been in the family for three generations, the project becomes more cost-effective with every day that goes by. For her money, MacDonald received “six or seven screenings” of the 18-minute show on NESN, the New England Sports Network, which is owned by the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins.
Then two years ago, using YouTube, the video was linked to the club website and since has recorded more than 1,500 views. It’s also accessible through GolfDestination.tv, which features a library of similar videos from other courses.
“It has absolutely worked,” MacDonald says. “People are still talking about it. It was a large number for us to invest in one shot, but we’ve had so many uses for it since.”
While MacDonald says it’s impossible to measure the video’s impact on her business in hard numbers, she points out that in terms of shelf-life and accessibility, it’s “hard to beat.” Extrapolated over four years, the cost per day works out to about $2.60, a number that shrinks the longer the video remains in use.
At 55, MacDonald acknowledges that much of her business learning was done before the Internet became the preeminent networking and communications tool, so she’s making a point of listening to younger voices on her staff. She recently led six brainstorming sessions that quickly moved into territory that MacDonald found totally foreign. “I have some young, very, very excited employees, and they have a million ideas,” she says. “Honestly, there were multiple times I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about.”
But as a result, MacDonald has carved out some hours for those staffers to get Brookmeadow up and running on Twitter. They planned to use some of their first Tweets to celebrate the fact that Brookmeadow won an award from the National Golf Course Owners Association—four years ago. MacDonald admits that news of the award didn’t spread far at the time, but Twitter offers the chance to shout it out loud, albeit briefly, for free.
“We have a great base of loyal, older golfers, but we don’t have so many in the 18 to 35 age range,” she says. “This is how they communicate these days. It’s all very instant and right there in the palm of their hands. One of my employees got me so excited about the possibilities that now I’m raring to go.”
When he’s not chasing golfers to their vehicles, Bromann is bringing in new business by massaging relationships with his established customers. None of it may be rocket science, or anything radically new for that matter. But in a business where Bromann does everything from wash dishes to spray greens, he simply doesn’t have the money for big-splash marketing.
Rather than discount green fees, Bromann offers season pass holders a rebate of $100 on the $925 fee if they recruit a new season pass customer. “My philosophy is that people have a tendency to go to the same place if they’re happy with the experience,” he says. “I do very little print ads at all these days because I feel like if we take care of those people already walking in the door, they’ll bring others at some point. Golfers tend to travel in packs, and they depend a lot on word of mouth.”
David Pollard, co-owner and course manager at Spring Meadows Golf Club in Gray, Maine, also exercises relationships to perform low-cost marketing, but instead of engaging his golfers, he works with local media. He trades corporate memberships with local television and radio stations in return for advertising time.
The television station came to Spring Meadows to produce 15- and 30-second spots that Pollard can overlay with specials as they come up. “It’s nothing unique, but it works pretty well,” he says. “I get pretty darned good exposure out of it.” Pollard uses a similar relationship with the radio stations to promote the golf course and products like holiday gift cards, which he shares revenue from with the radio entity.
In addition to forging partnerships with media outlets, Pollard has operated a cash-trade relationship with the local minor league hockey team in which he offers discounted rates in return for season tickets he can use to market to golfers or as rewards for deserving members or staff. The hockey team promotes the relationship among its members, giving Pollard “access to clients I wouldn’t necessarily be able to reach.” Spring Meadows also becomes one of the hockey team’s corporate supporters, so Pollard enjoys additional access to other business leaders through team-sponsored networking events.
A little more out of left field is Spring Meadows’ relationship with the American Red Cross. The club is one of a handful in the area that partners with the Red Cross to promote blood drives by offering a free round of golf for anyone donating a pint of blood. Participants pay an $18 cart fee, but Pollard says the marketing component and merit of the community investment are big wins. “We have people coming from 100 miles away to play their round,” he says. “The cooperative approach to marketing has worked well for us.”
In Bellevue, Washington, the city’s golf course is one of a growing alliance of municipal facilities deep in their own cooperative venture. General manager Troy Rodvold says that 10 city-owned courses within a 75-mile stretch now maintain a single database and recognize the same loyalty card program. Suddenly, the same effort that goes into generating any kind of marketing piece now reaches tens of thousands more golfers than when those facilities ran standalone databases.
“It took us a few years to iron out all the compatibility issues, but it’s running very well now,” Rodvold says. “And we’re adding an 11th course in January.”
Back in rural Indiana, Imel can only dream of building a database with that kind of volume. In the meantime, like Bromann, he invests in the customers he has, believing they’ll do their own word-of-mouth marketing for Timber Ridge. That means making sure they have fun. True to that ideal, Imel plans to have a live band playing in the middle of the golf course during a scramble event scheduled for next summer.
“It’s gonna be loud, but there’s way too much pomp and circumstance in golf for the rank and file,” Imel says. “There are very few industries as tough as golf right now. It’s all about creating awareness for your course, and the more affordably you can do that, the better.”
Trent Bouts is a Greenville, South Carolina-based freelance writer and editor of Palmetto Golfer magazine.