Squire Creek Country Club is a private country club located in Choudrant, Louisiana, 30 minutes outside of Monroe (population 50,000). Founded in 2002, Squire Creek combines an unparalleled family experience with the values of service, camaraderie and elegance.
Squire Creek’s golf course has been ranked as number one in the state of Louisiana four times, and was ranked as the No. 5 best new course in the United States by Golf Digest. In addition, Squire Creek is the home golf course for the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs golf team.
CHALLENGE
A number of the club’s challenges are a result of their geography. After plotting their members, our analysis of the map revealed that less than two-thirds of club members lived within a 15 minute drive time, 20% below the national average. Additionally, the entire population within 40 minutes was just over 125,000, a further testament of the challenges they faced.
In addition to seeking Full Resident Golf Memberships, the club also had a goal to enhance the club’s non-golf categories due to the quality of their amenities, including six lighted tennis courts, two exercise facilities and massage therapy, three restaurant options and a lodge featuring a combined total of seven rooms available to members and their guests.
Finally, Squire Creek expressed a desire to explore various outreach strategies beyond the current footprint of their existing members. They were interested in the ability to pursue a marketing campaign that extended beyond the fundamental model of relying on members to recruit new members.
SOLUTION
The success of the three previous year’s member referral efforts proved that their members were very proud of their club and introducing it to their friends. Founded on those results we introduced a member referral initiative in the spring of last year.
We then focused on the club’s desire to extend their reach with social media and other digital outreach campaigns. Based on our member plot map, there was an ideal outline of clusters where these outreach campaigns would target. Through multiple campaigns, each focused on specific demographics, geographic areas and interests of each separate membership (golf, tennis, fitness, etc…), we were able to reach, engage and produce a pipeline of prospective candidates directly to the club’s membership sales team.
These included some of the following campaigns:
Social Media and Facebook – in order to help promote the club’s lifestyle, story, amenities and facilities, we implemented a social media campaign promoting each one of the club’s various amenities to specific audiences.
Golfing Household Email Outreach Campaign – Promoting Squire Creek’s Non-Resident Membership categories was also a priority for the club in 2019. Since the club already had a number of Non-Resident members who resided in the Dallas, TX (3 hour drive) and Shreveport, LA (1 hour drive) metro areas, we implemented an email campaign which targeted golfing households in those respective cities.
Louisiana Tech Alumni Email Campaign – The Club also expressed a desire to identify prominent alumni of Louisiana Tech and develop a campaign to those prospects. Again, a tailored message with the emphasis on school pride, the collegiate golf team and Squire Creek as one of the premier private clubs in the entire state of Louisiana was developed to reach new prospects.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Due to the collaborative efforts, bolstered by a strong and supportive management team, Squire Creek and CGM have enjoyed a continuing partnership each year since.
From 2015 through 2019, the following cumulative results were achieved:
Since hiring CGM in 2015, 315 new families now call Squire Creek home.
Greatly increased the number of young families; with a third of those new Members being under the age of 40.
Helped to double the number of Social and Sport Memberships, a primary goal from the start, with another third of those new members joining in non-golfing categories.
Created a pipeline of prospective 98 qualified leads through our outreach efforts and provided an active pool of interested consumers in the years to come.
In addition to the 98 leads generated above, we also generated an additional 40 prospective leads directly from current Members.
FINAL WORD
“Creative Golf Marketing makes the process of creating a membership plan easy and seamless. They take the time to get to know you, your club, and develop a strategic plan specific to your demographics and club dynamics. Over the past five years, we have attracted over 300 member families to our Club and our attrition rates are far below industry averages. I cannot imagine a future without Creative Golf Marketing.”
RICK MAIER, CCM, GENERAL MANAGER SQUIRE CREEK COUNTRY CLUB
Membership Marketing, Recruitment and Retention are what Creative Golf Marketing thrives on. If you need assistance in setting goals, developing a game plan, and executing it to achieve success, please Click here or call (800) 526-8794 and we can start planning today.