IMPROVE THE MARKETING PERFORMANCE OF YOUR CLUB WEBSITE

Frankly, most private club websites do a pretty crappy job of membership marketing. While Pipeline doesn’t build websites, we do help them perform better. Here are some basic tips to improve the membership marketing performance of your club website:

1. Don’t provide all the information.  The human brain is drawn towards clarity and away from clutter. Our survival instincts force our brains to conserve calories and discard information we don’t need. Introduce too much information and the brain tunes out in order to conserve calories. So resist the urge to list every amenity and feature – just break them down into broad strokes. Just like a first date, you should only provide enough information to be relevant and create interest.
    

2. Dumb it down.  Most of us are so close to our clubs that when we talk about them, we talk over the heads of our audience. In marketing we call this the Curse of Knowledge – or the gap between the level we should be communicating at, and our actual level. We want to shrink this gap as much as possible and communicate at an introductory level without getting overly primitive. Instead of touting your Har-Tru Hydrocourt tennis courts, explain how as a member you will enjoy the game more than ever playing on the club’s state-of-the-art surfaces.
    

3. Include an easy to understand tagline. The tagline is a critical piece of information that describes what you offer and how it will make life better. It should be prominently displayed on the home page above the fold (before someone has to scroll down). Say it clearly and don’t get poetic. For example: “The private club lifestyle your entire family will love.”  Remember, people don’t always choose the best solution, they choose the one that is easiest to understand.
    

4. Have an obvious direct call to action.  Determine the primary purpose of your website and then create a clear and easy to understand direct call to action matched to that purpose. If your objective is to create interest in membership, then an example might be “Learn more about membership” or “Visit the Club”.  If your purpose is to engage members, then consider a direct call to action like “What’s Going on at the Club?”  Make the button stand out and remember the top right corner is the most valuable real estate for a website – a great place for a call to action.
    

5. Visually display the members experience. Images are really important. They need to show resolution to an internal conflict that your potential member is facing. Pictures of smiling, happy, excited members are always better than pictures of golf courses and clubhouses. Testimonials are great too, but use them sparingly.

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