Fore!mula For Success - Fore! Marketing - October 2009

If your marketing efforts keep falling further down on your "To Do" list, then the new Fore! Marketing product is just what you need to put time back in your hands. Released one year ago at the 2008 Fore! Reservations National Users Conference, Fore! Marketing is a revolutionary automated e-mail marketing system that ensures you are in consistent contact with your customers while freeing you to focus on other areas of your operation. Courses using the Fore! Marketing product this season have also benefited from the additional revenue that it generates; an average of $5,000 per course, turning the Fore! Reservations system into a "money-making" machine.

"I wear so many hats that it is difficult for me to focus on just one thing," says Tom Porter, General Manager, Forest Hills Golf Club, an 18-hole public course in Elyria, OH. With opening a new 4,000 square foot clubhouse this season offering expanded food and beverage services, Tom managed a number of priorities and transitions this season, including using Fore! Marketing. "With the new clubhouse and services we were pressed to get things set up and in place. When I signed up to activate Fore! Marketing at the Users Conference I knew I was not a great marketer and that this product could do everything for me including starting our first Birthday Club. This year I've even been able to reduce my print advertising."

"It has really made an impact for me because it frees me up to do other things," explains Chris Weiner, General Manager, Center Valley Club, Center Valley, PA. Formerly the assistant general manager, when Chris was named general manager, the decision was made to not hire to fill her former position, and a vacant marketing position was eliminated. "Fore! Marketing has really enhanced our Birthday Club program. We started with 3,000 names and over a three-year period, we grew to more than 11,000 names." Center Valley Club generated nearly $55,000 in revenue this season attributed to their Birthday Club alone.

Forest Hills doesn't have as large of a Birthday Club as Center Valley, but still saw immediate benefits from the system even as a smaller operation. "Before using Fore! Marketing, our customer e-mail database was less than 400 people and we didn't do too much e-mail marketing. Now, by using a Birthday Club offer as a way to entice golfers to provide us their information, our database has nearly doubled and we are able to leverage that into revenue from the automated marketing," Tom says.

Fore! Marketing offers four valuable e-mail marketing campaigns: a Birthday Club, a Defector program, a Thank You e-mail, and the newly released Promotion campaign. Following a one-time set-up where the course chooses the style, format, special offer, and send date, Fore! Marketing automatically sends e-mails to individual customers at the specified times without any interference from the golf course operator. Fore! Marketing begins by sending an e-mail blast to a course's Fore! Reservations database inviting golfers to join the Birthday Club and/or Offer Club which dictates what automated e-mails they will receive. The offer that is tied to each e-mail is included as a coupon that golfers bring to the course for redemption. The Birthday Club also has special provisions for courses that are not open year round enabling you to send half-birthday offers or give golfers the chance to redeem their birthday coupon in the spring or fall if their birth date is in the winter months.

"The Defector e-mail and coupon is really a huge time saver for me and is really catching on," Chris says. "We titled it ‘We Miss You' and recently I received a call from a customer - who happened to not be someone we had a long-term relationship with - who said he loved receiving it because it really made him feel appreciated and missed. We use the program because we really see results and the time-savings I get is just the icing on the cake."

Sportsman's offers a "fourth round free" coupon for their 30 day Defector e-mail, and for the 60 day Defector e-mail customers receive a coupon for "buy one round, get one round free". This season Sportsman's generated nearly $9,000 in revenue from their Defector program alone. "We see about a 10 percent redemption rate on the coupons, but the most important thing is that we're keeping our name in front of customers," says Greg Baron, Head Golf Professional, Sportsman's Country Club.

"Fore! Marketing is a great way for us to connect with our customers and it costs us next to nothing. We are top of mind when they're looking to play golf," Mark adds.

Another important component of Fore! Marketing and valuable tool in helping courses grow their automated database is the Touch Screen Kiosk. The kiosk, which can be placed right on the golf shop counter, presents a quick and efficient way for customers to register for the Birthday or Offer Club and the customer's profile that is created during the sign-up carries down to the course's local database.

"Because customers enter their information themselves, the information is more accurate," says Kathy Van De Hey, Owner, Mid Vallee Golf Course, a 27-hole public course in De Pere, WI. "The kiosk works great for us. It is a huge time saver because it frees us up to be on the phone or talking with customers. It has already paid for itself." The Touch Screen Kiosk enrolled half of Mid Vallee's 1,000 Birthday Club members, resulting in nearly $10,000 in revenue this year. "Fore! Marketing is a great product for us to use. It's really maximized our marketing efforts, making it easier to keep marketing at the forefront of our operation," Kathy adds.

Making the important task of marketing as effortless as possible for operators is another benefit of the Fore! Marketing system and is the engineering design behind the newly added Promotion Campaigns. Golf course operators can now set-up all e-mail marketing messages for the entire year in their off season so that marketing happens automatically and doesn't get lost in the shuffle during the busy season. If courses are looking for ways to add an additional revenue source and consistently stay in touch with their customers without adding to an already busy work load, Fore! Marketing is your answer.

"I see of lot of places crying the blues because the area has been hard hit with layoffs and closings, but we were up five percent in rounds and revenue this year and we never discounted our golf," says Tom. "We're really pleased with our results this year and believe next season will really be a huge for us. We'll use the off season to get organized to take advantage of all the Fore! Marketing program features. With Fore! Reservations they're not just trying to sell me something - they're committed to making it work for us. We are really pleased and their support team is worth its weight in gold!"