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Well it’s been the better part of a month since the seminar and I thought I would go out into golf website world and take a good look at whats going on. I have spent time looking at golf course websites,  some from those that came to the seminar and many that did not. While I see golf courses getting closer to Web 2.0, I still see that many courses are still falling woefully short of creating a compelling online presence. With the golf business continuing to struggle to get more rounds we need to be working hard to insure our websites are working for us to their capacity.

Here is what I see:

• Courses are definitely getting better at producing content that is relevant and timely
• Courses are starting to embrace some social media. I see a lot of Facebook and twitter icons.
• Specials, News and Promotions are becoming more standard on home pages,
• I am seeing less of my old favorite, the description of the course and what it has to offer.

Here is what is missing

• We are still afraid to give. I see almost no one with a tip, or giving something away.
• We still aren’t creating a dialogue with our golfers. Too much one way communication.
• We are still making it hard to book a tee time online (had to get my plug in)
• We are not anywhere near being effective in utilizing our social media avenues to drive business to our facilities.

What do we need to do?

What I think is golf courses need to create an action plan that consists of a plan that communicates, gives rather than always takes, and that makes the site simple and easy to navigate. But above all we need to start somewhere and get going. It’s one thing to embrace technology and web 2.0 intellectually, it’s quite another to get off our collective behinds and do something!

Here are a few ideas that may make it easier to get started.

• Find a new way to communicate to your golfers. Open a twitter account and instead of saying join us on twitter, create an incentive to join and tell your golfers that they will get a twitter update on how they can redeem their incentive. Use a company like survey monkey and create a simple survey that asks them what they would like to see in e-mails and on your website. Give them a small incentive to fill it out. (give) Ask for their opinion, you might be shocked at what they say!!
• Start telling them what is going on and what events have just happened. Show them how fun it is to play golf at your facility. Photos, testimonials, upcoming events, upcoming programs. Do you have a Thanksgiving shotgun?? While I know that is still considered early November, I can’t find a website that tells me what’s going on for Thanksgiving Day? Not a photo anywhere showing me a past successful event? Start creating compelling content to get your golfers coming back to your site.
• Last but never least GIVE.  How about that golf tip of the week. How about finding a cool golf instructional tip on the internet and linking to it. (There are 1000’s) How about a tip of the week, that’s not instructional related.  Give them a link to a cool golf book on Amazon. Find some golf e-books and share why you like the e-book and why your golfers might be interested in purchasing. (Eric Jones has a great one if you need an e-book to start with) How about telling them how good the hot new restaurant around the corner is with a link to their website. You can get 100’s of ideas if you just take a minute to change your paradigm and start to find ways to give rather than always trying to find ways to sell them something! (Classic web 2.0 vs. web 1.0)

So in conclusion I am starting to see lots of improvement, but we could, should do, and need to do a lot better. Just take action and get started. Here are the 3 keys to get going and succeed in there simplest form.

1. Communicate Now
2. Create Compelling Content Now
3. Give Now

Do all 3 of these on a weekly basis for your golfers, and soon you will be embracing web 2.0 and with a little patience, I think you will start to reap the benefits of creating a real dynamic online presence for your golf course.

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Tags: Al Weinhold, Eric Jones, golf courses, How To, Internet marketing Seminar, Online Tee times, PGA, social media, Websites// Category Web Site Design, Web-Based Marketing for Golf Courses and Golf Professionals // Add Comment »

A lot of you have asked for the 2 documents I referenced  in my portion of the “Using the Internet to Improve your Business” seminar on October 12th. The first one is from a article written in 2000 by Sheryl Kimes. Her article is titled “Applying yield management to the golf-course industry. I am having a tough time finding the article where you don’t have to pay for it, so please be patient and I will have a link posted soon.

The second is an article from the NY Times titled “Airlines Coax Travelers to Their Own Sites.” This article talks about how Southwest became successful by utilizing advance rates, and how many of the major airlines have followed suit. This article gives good examples that golf course operators can use when determining whether they want to adopt this type of strategy to increase revenue. Click here to read the article.

An interesting point to make about demand based pricing and its sister term yield management is that these strategies have been  indispensable tools for increasing profits within the highly competitive airline industry for almost 30 years. The techniques have steadily gained acceptance in other industries that have similar business processes. Although making a golf tee time resembles making an airline reservation in many respects, yield management is rarely practiced in the golf industry. Well to be honest a homogenized version of yield management is used that claims to use certain aspects, but in reality falls well short of what the airline and hotel industries have used for years.

In recent years, new revenue management technologies are emerging that are specifically designed for golf operations. These technologies could have a positive financial impact on the golf industry during the current economic downturn, and potentially represent a new trend in golf course management. One of these such technologies is my company W5golf. We offer a real time booking engine that can incorporate rate periods or fences, (which is the term the airlines use) an advance rate program, (like Southwest Airlines) and can allow you to post different rates like seniors and walking rates right next to a rate with a cart fee for example. We also offer a call center service, but I will save the explanation of how that works for another post.

But with whatever technology you might want to persue, the most important point is to determine if using these strategies are right for your operation. My goal of this post about demand based pricing, and future posts will be to provide information for you to be able to make informed decisions on how to implement a demand based pricing type program but even more importantly how to utilize basic yield management principles to help courses drive rounds and revenue.

Please leave any comments or ask me any questions and I will be glad to get back to you quickly.

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Tags: Al Weinhold, demand based pricing, Eric Jones, golf, golf courses, How To, social media, Yield Management// Category Demand Based Pricing // Add Comment »

Here is the Social Media Marketing, Web 2.0 Marketing, & Email Best Practices PowerPoint slide show presented by Eric Jones, Al Weinhold, and Rick Laforet to the Northern California PGA Section on October 12, 2009.  The seminar was video-taped, and the video presentation will also be available on this site shortly.

Please feel free share this info with your fellow PGA pros!

The feedback we received from the Pros who attended was fantastic! We really appreciate it. We’d like to do a follow-on seminar that will get into the nitty-gritty, get-your-hands-dirty, how-do-we-actually-do-this, applied part of social media and web 2.0. Let us know if that would be something of interest to you and your fellow NorCal PGA members.

But perhaps more importantly, we’ve already heard stories of Pros who have TAKEN ACTION to implement some of the ideas. That’s awesome!

Please post your experiences of implementing some of the concepts here as a way to share best practices with other PGA Pros.

This presentation is 132 slides long and has the Social Media Marketing component by Eric Jones, the Email Best Practices by Rick Laforet, and the Web 2.0 Marketing by Al Weinhold.

It may be a little small when viewed in the WordPress post, so if you would like to see a full-screen version, look carefully in the lower right hand column for the “full screen” icon. When you are done, hit “escape” to return to the normal viewing mode.

Please post a comment in the box below. We’d love to hear from you!

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// Category Demand Based Pricing, Email Best Practices, How To, Social Media Marketing, Tee Time Optimization, Tips and Tools, Uncategorized, Web Site Design, Web-Based Marketing for Golf Courses and Golf Professionals // 1 Comment »

Here is a quick testimonial from one of the PGA Professionals in attendance at the Northern California PGA Section Educational Seminar on Social Media Marketing and Web-Based Marketing.

In this video we’ll hear from John Snopkowski. PGA Professional at Santa Teresa Golf Course talk about what he learned and how excited he is to bring this information on Social Media Marketing back to his staff.

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// Category Uncategorized // Add Comment »

Here is a quick video showing the Flip Camera I use to capture spot videos and instantly upload them to the web.

The Flip video camera is small, easy to use, and web-friendly.  In the video you can see that the Flip is about the size of my cell phone, so it is easy to tote around.

The controls are super simple. Basically an on/off switch, a single red button that is used to start and stop recording, a few simple playback controls, and a very handy, built-in USB connector. You can shoot a video, plug the camera into your computer’s USB port, upload the video to a site like YouTube, and then pull it back down to your blog post just like this!

Viola!

I recommend you pick up your own Flip camera and use it to shoot current events, golfer testimonials, course shots, and any thing else live and current that would be of interest to your readers.

Look for another post that details the instructions for how to upload the video to YouTube and then pull it back down to a blog post just as was done in this post.  Then look for another post detailing how to capture a snapshot from your video, paste it into an email, attach a link, and then drive traffic to your post.

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Tags: camera, easy videos, Eric Jones, golf, golf course, Help, How To, instant web video, instruction, long drive, PGA, social media, tips, youtube// Category How To, Tips and Tools // Add Comment »

Greetings fellow PGA Professionals,

We know how hard it is to stay current with the rapidily changing technology.  What should you pay attention to? What is important? Which applications and tools will be the most help for your business?

Our goal with this site is to provide a resource for PGA Pros looking for answers.

We suggest you subscribe to our emails to stay current. You won’t have to read everything, but you’ll know that when you need info it will be somewhere on the site.

See you down the fairway!

Eric Jones, MA, PGA

Al Weinhold, PGA

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// Category Demand Based Pricing, Email Providers, Golf Apprentice Corner, Golf Products and Services Reviews, Point-Of-Sale Systems, Tee Sheet Service Providers, Web Site Design, Web-Based Marketing for Golf Courses and Golf Professionals // 1 Comment »