How Golf Operators Can Double Email Marketing Engagement

Email marketing has become a staple in the golf industry. Nearly every golf course we come across makes use of it in some way or another.

Of course, not all golf course email marketing campaigns are created equally. The best email marketing campaigns we’ve seen make use of eye-catching templates and typically are supported by high quality email marketing software.

The look of an email absolutely determines how well it performs. A bad looking email with too much text and no pictures will receive a much lower level of engagement than an email with nice pictures and simple, easy to understand text.

We want to help golf operators get the most out of their email marketing campaigns. That starts with creating templates that capture the reader’s attention and ultimately encourage engagement with whatever content the email is offering. That why we put together this quick guide to creating better emails.

Make Use Of Email Marketing Software

Don’t send mass emails from your standard email client. Your emails won’t look as good as the nice looking email templates modern email marketing software provides for free. There is a wide variety of email marketing software systems available, we recommend MailChimp since it has robust tracking and provides reporting, free templates, and automatically updates your email list as you add emails to your CRM.

Use an Eye-Catching Template

To actually get engagement, using a good looking email template is key. It needs to be simple and clear to effectively keep the readers attention and deliver your message. With golf email marketing software you should be able to use a really nice generic template that can be easily customized for each email you send out. Just don’t forget to remove the stock text and replace it with your own words!

Craft a Catchy Subject Line

If your email subject line doesn’t have a quick value proposition, isn’t relevant, and isn’t clear, your emails won’t even get opened. Create a sense of urgency, provide something quick that’s valuable, give readers a reason to open your email and see what you have to say. The first step to getting better engagement is to give a good reason to actually open the email.

Use Short Paragraphs and Simple Lists

You don’t need to write an essay. It’s proven that people only read a few sentences before tuning out so don’t put big blocks of text in your email, it should a be few short sentences that push readers to engage with something on your site. Drive them to a form or an event RSVP on your website, make them curious about you are offering and they will want to know more.

Make a Clear Call to Action

You golf course emails wont get engagement if you don’t provide something to actually engage with. After you explain why golfers should be excited about your big announcement, next event, or upcoming tournament give them a very big and clear option to read more about the event on your website. It’s as simple as putting a big button that begs to be clicked and drives them straight to a dedicated landing page on your website.

Offer Something of Value Directly in the Email

Make your email subscribers feel special by including a discount code for tee times or products at your restaurant and pro shop. Even letting them know a special deal weekend package or product you will be offering tells your subscribers that you are keeping them in the loop and that your value them. Take it a step further and provide a simple promocode with a link to a webpage where they can directly redeem it online.

If at First You Don’t Succeed…

Golf course email marketing is about iteration. If the first thing you tried didn’t work as well as you hoped, use click reporting in you email marketing software to determine what went wrong.

A low open rate (typically less than 10%) means you didn’t create value in your subject line, a low click rate means your email didn’t capture the readers attention or give them any reason to click. High opens low clicks, means your subject line made some big promises but you didn’t deliver on whatever was inside of the email.

Looking at these metrics will help you determine what aspects of your mailings you need to improve upon. Over time you will see changes in patterns and slowly learn what kinds of email, subject lines, and content engage your audience most.

Lightspeed Wants to Help You Get the Most Out of Your Emails

For those who use Mailchimp as their principal email marketing software we’ve created three free email templates you can easily copy into Mailchimp to use for your next sendout. Just download the template and customize with your own words, pictures, and call-to-actions!

Now go forth and enjoy a season full of good email blasts, tons of engagement, and lots of golf.