Marketing to New Members

The communication aspect of any membership marketing plan will typically take two areas:

1. Internal marketing i.e. Member communication
Club notice boards: All sorts of people come into your clubhouse; playing visitors, social visitors, societies, local groups who may have hired a function room. Craft some eye-catching posters.

Join Our Club leaflets: support a poster campaign with 'take one' leaflets containing general details. Push them to your website for the full offer. This will allow you to change it periodically without having to reprint all your marketing material.

Club website: create a dedicated area in the visitors section which promotes membership and all its benefits

Membership referral programme: Keep updated in your member-only area on your website. Remind members at key times throughout the year on competition entries, notice boards etc.

2. External marketing
PR and advertising: these are two of the tools most often used by clubs to generate business.

Advertising needs to be well thought out and part of an overall plan, see here for more details.

PR should start with your local media. Suggest running a golf day in conjunction with your local newspaper or radio station, especially if they have a charity fund raising initiative. See more in the PR section

Direct mail: a leaflet drop in the local community may work for some clubs but not everyone as it is difficult to target. Alternatively you could consider buying mailing lists of people fitting your membership profile in your required location. See how to conduct a direct mail campaign.

Telemarketing: there are telemarketing companies which specialise in generating member leads for clubs and organisations. This may be worth exploring if you require a subtle (or exclusive) way of marketing your club memberships. You must have a very clear idea of the type of person you are targeting and whether this matches their data profile otherwise the cost per lead can be expensive. More information here.