If you do NOT have a short waiting list, or at least a strong list of 50 plus people that are currently interested in golf membership then you already have a problem with declining golf membership, whether anyone wants to admit it or not! Private club membership sales take time to grow and close. Yet every year, you know a few more people are going to drop off your roster (Most clubs close between one in fifteen and one in twenty enquiries).
Private clubs are facing three huge challenges:
A) Continued Increase in Competition
Not only do private clubs compete with other private clubs but, increasingly, private clubs must also compete with high-end municipal or pay and play clubs. Add to that the fact that despite the slowdown in building golf courses more than 200 new clubs being built across the county. In addition to greater supply than demand, is the fact that more and more people are looking at how often they play and doing the economic math instead of the social and emotional math.
B) Declining Number of Total Players in the Market
We have all seen the stats on this and it is not particularly heartening. Golf participation has dropped five or six percent since 2000, depending on whose numbers you believe. On the plus side, more and more people are retiring younger and will therefore have more time to play.
C) Ageing of the Current Golf Club Membership
This is something the typical private club could do something about, but because of the very nature of ‘clubs’, rarely do. Older members do not want younger members and since it is the older members that are in charge of all the committees and boards, they typically do nothing until it’s too late!!!
I had a club last year that called me after their membership had shrunk from 410 to 87 in five years and had an average member age of 75. “The Board”, the caller said, has decided, “We have a severe problem!” I wonder what clued them in. Despite the obvious problems, there are many things you can do to ensure a healthy membership for years to come. There are still millions of people playing the great game of golf, and if you follow some simple advice, they might just choose your golf course to play at!
Ten Steps to Ensure a Healthy Membership:
1. Always be prospecting for new members, have a marketing system in place and start it before you THINK you need it!
2. Add junior memberships (under 40) and corporate memberships to draw in a younger crowd of members who have additional income to spend on golf memberships.
3. At the same time consider a lifetime or super-senior membership at a reduced rate to make it easier for older members, now playing less, to stay involved.
4. Expand your efforts in promoting social memberships, make them attractive. Once the social members have been interacting with other members at the club and making friends, some will want to upgrade to a full membership.
5. Create a program where your best members can help you promote your golf club in the local community.
6. Encourage members to bring guests with several, one day, member-guest events in season. (You can not bring the same guest twice in the same year.)
7. Send your monthly newsletter to people of influence in your community including local media, property developers and leading businessmen. Keeping your club in front of 50 people of influence will do more good than 5,000 others.
8. Add membership information to each Monday outing gift bag.
9. Market only what you are, not what you wish you were! Focus heavily on the social, networking and emotional benefits of golf club membership, not just the quality of your golf.
10. Last and by no means least, keep the members you have happy. Use you website to survey them, ask for feedback and communicate, at least weekly, what is going on at your club. Poor member communications is the number one complaint at most private clubs. Get your current members to partake in more events so they are active within the club and they will have additional reasons to stay a member.