Mythbuster - Marketing Plans In Advance - January 2012

Myth: "You can't setup your marketing plan for the year before the season begins."

Mythbuster: Cortney Puffer, Clubhouse Manager, Pierce Lake Golf Course, Chelsea, MI

For the 2011 golf season, we decided to run a promotions calendar. Since we were not lowering our rates (we actually raised our rates) we wanted to have the flexibility to creatively offer certain specials regularly throughout the season. After beginning the Fore! Reservations Marketing Assistance Program (MAP) early in the year, and learning about the Fore! Internet Specials Calendar, we decided to combine our idea of the promotions calendar with the marketing planning and technology implementation we would be doing in MAP.  

We started by printing off a blank calendar from Publisher. We took an afternoon and began by going through all of the holidays from April through October. Once we got the major holidays, we looked for “national days” such as Earth Day and Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19th in case you were wondering). After marking a few of these holidays down, which really helped get the creative juices flowing, we also got the schedule for the major golf tournaments and marked those down. Our plan was to have one special or discount a week, and have them fall on different days each week. Next, we started thinking about what kind of specials we wanted to offer. That was easy; we basically had two main offers - Senior Day and PLGC Discount Days. We just attached a special, discount or freebie to each of the holidays we decided worked with our schedule. When there wasn’t a holiday that week or month, we threw in some Ladies Days and Free Lunch days. Click here to view a portion of our 2011 promotions calendar.  

Key Statistics

Internet Rounds 2010: 849, 2011: 3460 308% Increase in 2011 Internet Specials 2010: 0 Rounds, $0 Revenue 2011: 564 Rounds, $13,533 Revenue Weather Performance 2011 Pierce Lake outperformed their weather by 10.69% Marketing Plan Implemented: 2/1/2011 Start of Season: 4/1/2011

From there we typed up the calendar that included all of the dates, specials and a quick description of the discounts for the season. We e-mailed the entire calendar to our MAP representative. He had all of our specials setup and ready to go for the season on the Fore! Internet Dashboard before we even opened. (This is something that we could have done on our own, but it sure was nice having his help and expertise.) From there on, all we had to do is “tweak” the specials throughout the year as needed. For example, a few specials were changed that did not work out as well as we had hoped. Making those adjustments didn’t take much time at all – maybe 30 minutes per month! Our MAP representative also helped in that regard, as he would call us at the end of each month for an update on the upcoming month so we never forgot to make any necessary changes.

In terms of promoting the offers to our customers, we posted the calendar in our clubhouse and on our website. We posted two months at a time so golfers always knew when a special was coming up. Some specials were only for online bookers, some were for everyone. Daily Online Specials (weekday early bird and early twilight) were also added so our online bookers could find special deals. Specials were also promoted in our e-mails to customers by directly linking to the calendar on our website.

The best part…all of this was done in less than two work days! Since we only needed to “tweak” on a monthly basis, our marketing plan was implemented more effectively from which we saw great results; all because the bulk of the work was done pre-season! So in conclusion, you can setup your entire marketing plan now before your season begins. If we can do it, anyone can!