To me, it is basic common sense that advertising to golfers is the best way to increase play at your club. Now, I'm not all that smart - don't even think about asking me to do math or spelling. However, pick up any Sunday newspaper and count the number of advertisements for a local golf course.

It is a known fact that roughly 10% of the population plays golf (actually it is closer to 8 or 9). So, if everyone reads the local newspaper, then, (at the very best) only 10% of the readers you are paying big bucks to reach with a local add, even play the game. What are the chances that they will even see your ad? FYI.. I don't read the local newspaper. I haven't done so in close to 10 years. So, there is at least one player that will never see your add.

So, are you advertising in the local papers? How much are you spending? What are the results? Are you even able to measure them? It doesn't matter what the circulation of the paper is. What truly matters is how many qualified leads you generate and how many of those leads you are able to turn into sales. With a circulation of 10,000 and the fact that only 10% (at best) are golfers, your target leads are roughly 1,000. Now let's say that you get lucky and 5% of the target leads even see your ad. Now you're down to 50. If this sounds like your facility's demographics, then you are spending $20 for every qualified lead. If you are good enough to turn 10% of your qualified leads into sales, then you will have 5 new customers at a cost to you of $200 EACH! Think about it. You are paying people $200 to play at your course.

If you could send out an Advertisement that is guaranteed to reach an audience consisting of 100% golfers, and mostly golfers who have already played at your course, and you can send the same offer you place in the local paper, how much more valuable would that advertisement be to you? How much more would you pay? Add to that the ability to measure the results. Now how much would you pay?

Using our StarterHut Tee Sheet, you can do exactly that and it will cost you exactly $0.00 to do so! However, you do have to have a good email list for this to work. In part one of this two-part lesson I will show you a few methods for building your email list. In part two, I will show you how to put that list to use.

First let's start with your method for taking reservations on your StarterHut Tee Sheet.

From the StarterHut Tee Sheet, Click on the Admin toolbox icon at the top of the screen. Drill down to Setting - Option - Walk In.

Set the email to be "Requested" as shown below and click the "Update All" button.

Exit and return to the Tee Sheet.

Now as you do Quick Book reservations, you will be prompted for an email address. Since you set email to Request (vs. Require) above, you will be prompted for the email but not required to enter it for the reservation. Of course the other fields there have some benefits as well, but for now let's just do email.

For the Public, Semi-Private and Resort courses, this will quickly build a list of "QUALIFIED LEADS" for your course. Here is a group of people you can reach directly via email FOR FREE that are guaranteed to be golfers and are already interested in your club enough that they played it at least once. For the Private Clubs, here is a list of "QUALIFIED LEADS" that you can reach directly via email for free that are perfect targets for potential members, players for open events, potential clients for Monday outings, etc. Every single one of these leads plays golf, unlike the 90%+ of the people that read your ad in the local paper (who do not play golf).

Of course, there are other ways to get theses Qualified Leads. Consider business cards for a free round drawing. Or one of my favorites: Put a kid out on the 1st tee with a digital camera. Take a photo of the foursome prior to Tee-Off. Offer to email them each a copy of the photo. Everyone will give you their email address! This does, however, require some manual entry to get them into your database.

Want to build your email list without having to enter a single keystroke? Upgrade to our On-Line Tee Time Reservation system. As golfers register on your On-Line Reservations site, their email and contact information is automatically entered into your PSK Database. It doesn't get any easier that that! The On-Line Tee Time system is integrated into your existing web site and we take care of all the maintenance. Call Mike Stanovich at 800-793-1872 for all the details.

Next Week: How to use StarterHut email to reach out to these Qualified Leads.

Enjoy!