By Chris Rockwell, PGA
Director of Marketing, Golf Life Navigators
Google Ads Certified, Google Analytics Certified
When it comes to digital marketing and your club/business, there are many different avenues and funnels to take to make sure you are getting Great Quality Traffic and Leads from potential members/clients. The four items listed below will give you a better understanding of how these companies could be using your dollars to either help you or waste your dollars.
How often do you type the exact URL into your web browser? If you are anything like me, you search on Google and then click the link to the website you are looking for instead of typing in https://golflifenavigators.com into the navigation bar every time. Well, the same might apply for your current members/clients when it comes to your club/business website. The only issue may be if you are using Google Ads search campaigns that help your website rank higher on the results page of Google.
When your marketing company uses your club or business name as a keyword, chances are your website will be first on the list for Google, which is great! But, the point for you to pay for these keywords is to attract new prospects/clients, not current members or clients. Also, every time one of your members or staff clicks on the Ad, it is going to charge you anywhere from 50 cents to a few dollars depending on your quality score (quality score is how google ranks you against other advertisers) within Google.
Ask your marketing company how they are combating your current members/clients from clicking your ads.
Define your perfect prospective member/client in your head. What is their age? Is it 29? Probably not. Typically, what we see from our ProGuide3 data is that they are probably around 50-70, that prime retirement planning age. At this age, they will probably be financially stable and have free time to use the club regularly.
Unfortunately, I have seen many ads for clubs over the last few years and at the ripe age of 29, I am not in the position to purchase a membership at this time – I wouldn’t mind a free membership, HINT HINT – and know very few, if any, of my peers that are looking to purchase either.
Task: If you are not in the age range for your ideal new prospect member, take your phone out and turn off the wifi. Search your club’s name. Do you see the ad? If you are in the right age range, ask your assistant professional or one of your servers to do this for you. If you see this ad ask the following question …
Ask for a report from your marketing group of the age demographics of people that have seen or clicked on their ads. They are able to give you age ranges.
Well, while I can’t tell you where they are exactly, I can tell you where they are not. They probably aren’t inside the gate of your community or club, because they are already members or they should know about the club if they can see it from their back windows. Also, they probably aren’t in India or China or Brazil. But, you may be getting some traffic from these places.
Task: While you are at work, search your club’s name in Google. Do you see the ad? Or if you’re in India, China, or Brazil, you can try this too.
Ask your marketing company for a location report for your ads. They are able to give you everything from continent to city where your ads have been seen and clicked on.
My guess is that if you are reading this article, you don’t. There are many searches into Google and combination of words that could result in your ad showing up incorrectly. Make sure your marketing company is filtering out these words to discourage the ad from showing up to the wrong audience.
Ask your marketing company for a list of search terms that prompted your ad to show. Be on the lookout for words that don’t describe your club or business.
What I’m trying to do is make sure your club/business is spending your marketing dollars correctly and not wasting $2 every time a current member wants to see if you updated the ladies 9-hole schedule on the website because they do a Google search for the club instead of going directly to the website.
We Don’t Steal Traffic… We Create Traffic!
Now, I did not write this article to upset any marketing company, but at the same time, I want to educate as many clubs on these topics as possible to ensure that you have the right tools to be used for you and not against you.
I am proud to work for Golf Life Navigators, where they give me the flexibility to grow every day and take training courses to increase my knowledge in this field. I am also proud that we don’t steal your traffic, we create traffic!
