#golfadvertising

[onlineantiques]

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[eyaillen]

Is it worth it for a golf course to advertise in a daily newspaper?

Most golf courses spend far less in advertising (as a percentage of gross sales) then most hospitality businesses, and where they do tend to spend their dollars is in old-fashioned traditional media.  

Resort and upscale courses can be found in slick regional and national publications, the rest will have ads in local newspapers.  Occasionally you'll see or hear about a golf course on radio or television (usually because of a barter arrangement with the station).  But is this the best use of limited marketing dollars?

Most likely not!  You'll get a better ROI spending your dollars elsewhere.  The reason is simply based on math….the cost of the ad vs. the effective reach.  

Depending on your market, if you are placing a weekday ad in a major daily newspaper, the cost per column inch will often range from $100 to $200.  Assuming a 26-week campaign and a very small 1-column inch ad, your annual expenditure will be $2600.  

That may sound reasonable until you calculate your effective reach and cost per thousand.  Based on demographic and lifestyle research (available from the newspapers), approximately 10% of readers will be golfers.   That mean's 90% of your investment is going to waste!

Let's assume the circulation of the paper is 100,000 people.  The cost to reach 1000 readers with a small 1-inch ad is only $10.  But of those 1000 readers, only 100 might be golfers.  Now the cost effective cost per thousand is $100 if everyone was a viable potential customer.  

Unfortunately, the geographic reach of the papers often is far larger than the area where your customers actually come from.  Unless your course is extremely special, most golfers will live within a 10-15 mile radius of your course.  If 50% of the paper's readership is in that range, now your effective cost per thousand is $200 -- and that is assuming all the readers actually saw your teeny-weeney 1-inch ad.

Might there be better ways to spend that annual budget of $2600 and reach a significantly larger targeted market and return on your investment?

Absolutely!

If your golf operation has taken the time to develop a relationship with your customers and has a dedicated effort to capture and build a customer email list, then there are lots of ways to capture more business.

Do you use a mass email service such as Constant Contact that not only allows you to send email to your customers and prospects, but also provides metrics and results?

If not, have you considered developing a relationship with your state/regional golf course to utilize their list of the most avid of golf audiences?

Does your course have a social media presence using services including Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn?  And if, so, do you have an editorial plan for creating regular posts that would be of interest to your audience.

At the end of the day, the key is to build a relationship with your customers and provide them with relevant information and services that have a value so that at the end of the day, you build loyalty and repeat business.

Interestingly, most golf operators fail to do put in this effort because its just easier to create a new discount offer, call the paper and place that little ad.  Those that keep doing this will continue to see business decline as more customer will flock to their competitors.