Marketing: How to get your local press on board

Clubs are increasingly looking for new members to help keep their finances fit, but, short of erecting signboards at the roadside blazing forth the fact, how can they tip the wink to their local catchment?

Well how about the local press? Usually eager and willing to fill their feature pages with football, so why not golf, which after all is also a national pastime in the UK.

More on that later, but while on the subject of attracting new members, too many clubs are their own worst enemies by failing to do everything in their power to keep their current contingent happy and contented, with not a thought about ‘defecting’ to another club.

The vast majority of clubs seem to issue invoices for the next year’s subscription in November, December or January. Why is that bad timing? Well, winter’s not the best season to be confronted with bills. There’s the expense of Christmas and the credit card bills will be dropping through the door in the early New Year to make painful reading for most of us.

Also, clubs are demanding a major lump sum up front, typically £700 to £1,500.

And how about the member’s partner? Is the club giving them the chance to chime in with remarks such as: “Just how many times did you play golf last year? I could find better use for that money. Why are you joining again?”

How about direct debt? Most clubs, especially those seeking members, quote the lump sum cost of their annual membership, rather than the £50 to £80 a month equivalent, which sounds far lighter on the pocket than several hundred pounds in one hit.

Remember to be careful about the perception you can give if the direct debit option is presented inappropriately. Members can be made to feel a touch like a second-class citizen by notifying them that: “If you cannot afford to pay up front, we do have an agreement where, with a fee of six to seven per cent, you can make 10 monthly payments.”

In other sectors, such as the health and fitness industry, direct debits roll over from one year to the next and golf clubs could adopt a similar system instead of asking members: “Are you sure you want to belong at the end of the year?”

The Daily Telegraph Golf Club, which provides 2-for-1 or 4-for-2 offers at more than 1,500 golf clubs in the UK, presents a major opportunity for those who want to reduce the cost of playing golf.

Many clubs allow members to bring a guest for up to six times a year at rates of between £15 and £25 a round. Also, one club recently introduced a scheme allowing members to buy at the beginning of each year a further 15 guest tickets at a subsidised price. On this basis, a friend of a member, who only plays, say 10 to 12 times a year, could save a fortune by relinquishing his membership and playing as a guest of the member.

Clubs fear that if they offer a direct debit facility, some members will only pay and play in the summer but again this can be covered by a special six-month membership where the price goes up.

A cautionary note about joining fees. Some golf clubs are starting to mimic the trend in many health clubs of scrapping joining fees. This may make it easy to join but also makes it easy to leave. Therefore, retaining joining fees could make more sense – even if they are paid by monthly direct debit over a term of, say, three years.

Understandably, most golf clubs do not want to advertise the fact that they have membership vacancies. However, there’s a danger that players wanting to join a club will perceive that they cannot do so because it is full.

This is where the local press can be such a lifesaver in so many ways.

But clubs must woo the media first before they can get into bed them, so to speak. Find out about the major paper serving your catchment, then approach the features editor with an invitation to enjoy a round of golf and discuss how universal the game is – a sport than can be enjoyed by all members of the family and one not half as hard to pick up as is generally thought by the ‘great unwashed’ non-playing public.

Remember, treat the press kindly and you’ll have friends for life. Offer lunch after their round and make sure that key personnel – captains included if possible – are on hand to field questions.

You have a great opportunity – a captive audience – to put across key messages about golf: how inexpensive it can be compared with joining a football club, how youngsters of both sex can get hooked on it and how many social activities take place at the club: again, something for all the family.

Members of the press are always busy, especially on deadline days, so time your approach carefully and do not be too disheartened if you are turned down first time. Arrange another date to contact them.

An alternative way to stimulate awareness about golf and the part your club plays in the local ‘golfing arena’ is to prepare a press release for issue to the paper, reinforcing the messages above in print – especially if you can offer a complimentary round for readers.

This is also a suggestion to raise with the features editor when you are wining and dining them. That way, they engender reader loyalty, and do you a favour at the same time – a symbiotic relationship if ever there was one.

Crucially, establish the tone of any editorial the paper plans to run and plan beforehand exactly the points you wish to raise with the journalist. Keep off-the-record material strictly off-the-record. Never give the press a chance to become diverted from what you wish them to write about.

Then, keep in contact regularly to firm up the relationship to place it on a longer-term footing. Before you know it, they’ll be contacting you for news and views to publish. That’s the way the system works.

As an example, opposite is the kind of short editorial that a local paper might wish to consider running, perhaps bolstered with quotes from your club spokesperson. The text is designed to appeal to a younger audience and does its bit to make golf ‘sexy’ to young people, bringing in the concept of role models, for example.