Unless you’ve been living under a rock or in the pump house off of hole No. 4, you’ve likely heard of Google Adwords. But, what is it and what does it do? Google Adwords is an advertising service provided by Google – basically, it’s your soap box of the 21st Century. Here you can quantify who you’re attracting, as well controlling where people are seeing your ads.
Why should your club use Google Adwords? The answer is simple – because the club next door is! Go ahead, right now, take a few moments and just type your club’s name into Google. Do you see other clubs coming up that have a small green “ad” box right beside it? Is it above your organic search list? Is it below, at the bottom of the page? If you’re seeing ads for nearby clubs, or even realtors, you need to get on Adwords today.
For example: Let’s say that someone in Ohio is sitting down at their computer and they “Google” your club’s name. The first few results (which may be ads) show up as Real Estate in [Your Clubs Name], more likely, it’s another club that shows up before your club. They have a better opportunity to get that prospect member before you even have a chance to talk to them. So, if you want to be the first person they talk to about your club, you need to be at the top of Google!
So how do you rank No. 1, and how much does this cost!
Well, after you create an account you will need to set up a search campaign. You will follow the step-by-step instructions on setting up your demographic, audience, keywords and budget.
Demographic
Your demographic can be broken down by age, income, location, gender and parental status.
For example: You are looking for members over the age of 45 from Ohio (because you have a large number of members from Ohio); who are in the top 10% of income (millionaires); who are female (because you are looking for more female members); and who don’t have children at home.
You will also want to exclude any of the other options that don’t fall into the category of your membership.
For example: You may want to exclude those younger than 45, who have a child and make less than 50% of the average income in America.
Obviously, every club is different, but each category should be customized to the prospective member you’re seeking.
Audience
Here you have In-Market segments and other Market categories from which to choose. You may be looking for someone who is in the market to purchase a home or someone who is in the market to purchase golf clubs. You can also use your own audience list from Google Analytics, which I covered in the last article Google and Golf.
Keywords
Okay, this one is simple yet can get very tricky. The No. 1 keywords you need is your club’s name. And, be sure to look into the match types that Google can segment for you!
Also, this is where your club next door may be taking some of your traffic. They might be using your club’s name as a keyword. I’ll use a car dealership as my example.
For example: Let’s say that the BMW of Naples dealership has Adwords but BMW of Fort Myers does not. BMW of Naples could be using the keywords “BMW of Fort Myers” as a keyword. So anytime someone searches “BMW of Fort Myers,” BMW of Naples will be the first result on Google’s results page. See how this can get confusing and how the Fort Myers dealership would lose the chance to sell one of their cars?
Yep, it can get tricky.
Budget
If you only want to spend $1,000 per month on Google Adwords, you would set your daily budget at around $30 a day. It’s that simple. Also, each “Keyword” has a price tag to it. So, if you only want to spend $1 per click you can, but each keyword is different depending on how many other companies are bidding on your Keywords.
Overall, you need to be cognizant of what’s going on with your web traffic and Google’s results page. Once you get the hang of it, I feel that anyone can at least protect themselves and their leads from going to a different site or organization.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about your Google Adwords account! Also, let me know what marketing topic you would like to hear about in the next Golf Life Navigators Tee Sheet!
