Attraction Marketing
One of the latest “new world’ phrases that we have heard a lot lately is “Attraction Marketing”. The wikipedia definition of Attraction Marketing is as follows:  the use of marketing techniques specifically designed to teach the customer what you are doing and how a service or product will benefit them well before they purchase it. To us Attraction marketing means out with the old and in with the new. It means no more cold calling, full-on sales pitches or simply pushing out your message. Instead your business now needs to attract new customers by providing relevant, engaging, interesting and even fun content and working towards building relationships with your customers.

The Golf Industry
So what does this mean for our golf industry clients? Well, first we need to be clear that we are not saying that you should stop sending a regular newsletter to your members or guests. In the case of most golf courses these newsletters still get very good open and click-through rates because the golfers want to hear what you have to say. However, other tools are now more important. 

The most important for golf courses is still your website. However, most golf course websites are static. Most are updated at the beginning of the golf season and that is it. Few have blogs or any other way of allowing the golfer to participate. And very few provide really great and engaging content. To get golfers to visit your site regularly you need to consider blogs by members of your staff, in-house video clips posted often and an opportunity for your golfers to comment on blogs, videos or just in general and to have those comments responded to in a timely manner. Your content should include a variety of topics – tips from the pro, talks from the superintendent, recipes from the chef, new merchandise, stories about the charities you support, favorite golf holes – pretty much anything to start to build a relationship between your staff and your golfers. Your website also still needs to be “pretty” but PLEASE, PLEASE remove all of those ‘flash’ photo headers. If you want to be found on Google searches flash is a killer.

Social media platforms can be used as a driver to your website. Many golf courses have Facebook and Twitter accounts but if you are using these accounts simply to drive followers to your website you are missing the point. Also if you are driving users to your website and your website is not engaging then you will lose them. You should be using social platforms to engage first and only to drive followers to your website as a secondary purpose. Remember, it is now about Attraction. People do not want to be sold, they want to choose you because they like you. 

Oh, and don’t forget to update your copyright to 2012 anything else makes your content seem old!
 
 
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