Have you ever gone shopping for a name-brand item, only to discover it was out? Catastrophe, right?! So you buy the generic and, sometimes, you discover it’s just as good as what you were searching for. AND THAT’S AWESOME!
But, sometimes, generic is LESS THAN. You regret even going shopping that day let alone purchasing that off-name product. AND THAT’S A BUMMER!
If only there were someone to tell you when it’s okay to go with generic and when you absolutely have to put in the effort to get that fancy item you were seeking.
Well, Teesnap’s Managed Marketing team can help you with at least one of these situations, and it’s about writing copy in your EMAILS. Here, generic is NEVER okay; emails must be special enough that people want to read them.
Are the emails you send worth reading or are they just a bunch of images with offers that are easily ignored? You know the email. It has a bunch of pictures that you loaded into your email program. Then, you wrote what you believed to be a catchy phrase to get someone to sign up for whatever it was that you were pitching at the time: lessons, holiday party, weekend promotion, etc.
Let’s not forget the Call to Action that most golf courses put in their email: Call the Clubhouse for Details.
Why do most golf courses tell the person IN AN EMAIL to CALL the clubhouse for details?
Of course, there are a few golf courses that provide a link to their website. However, it is usually just a direct link to the main page of their website. It rarely has anything to do with what the email is selling. This doesn’t make sense. No one enjoys trying to navigate websites to figure out where the information is located. People want a direct link to the exact page that explains what the email is selling.
Don’t you?
Two Times You Hit Send
There are two main times to hit send for an email: Broadcast & Action-Triggered.
Let’s take a closer look.
Broadcast Emails
These are the types of emails that most golf courses send. They are sent out to the entire population of your list and provide widespread information. Hence, the name Broadcast. These emails might include your newsletter or golf course-wide promotions.
Action-Triggered Emails
These types of emails are when you begin to build a relationship with your golfers. Action-Triggered emails are sent when your customer performs a specified action. These are sent when they book a tee time, schedule a lesson, ask for a donation, inquire about a special event, schedule a party, sign up for your newsletter, etc.
Teesnap users can easily set up Action-Triggered emails by creating segments of customers in their database. These segments can be set up based on the behavior of the golfer with an automated email set up to be distributed when a golfer leaves or enters a particular segment.
For example: You want to encourage golfers to book their tee times online. In order to reward this behavior, you might set up a segment that autofills with a golfer’s information when he has booked online a certain number of times. The automated email would then be sent out thanking them for booking online. You might even include a discount or promotion that will make your golfers continue this behavior.
Consider Your Customer’s Journey
When you write your emails, you need to have a specific goal in mind. What is your email trying to achieve? When thinking about your goal, you need to consider your golfer’s journey.
Most often, the customer journey will follow some form of this path:
CUSTOMER’S JOURNEY
- Become Aware
- Subscribe
- Engage
- Convert to Customer (make tee time, book event, schedule lesson, etc.)
- Excitement in Experience
- Loyalty & Advocacy
Your goal with the overall strategy is to teach your golfers how to behave at your course. You’re going to do this through storytelling. If you are an upscale course, then you’ll share stories that paint that picture. You’ll discuss a business meeting that you had at your course recently, or you’ll provide a testimonial from one of your members.
If you’re a daily-fee course, then you’ll tell the story with the overall appearance you want for an Average Joe golfer. If you’re casual, then you might inject humor in your storytelling. The most important part is that your language must speak to your golfer.
You want to be inside of your golfer’s head.
Types of Emails
Emails can be grouped in three main buckets: Promotional, Transactional, and Relational. Too often, businesses only focus on the Promotional bucket.
People are either Bucket Dippers or Bucket Fillers. Which type would you like to be? As a business owner, you want to be filling another’s bucket. Yes, you “dip” when your golfers pay, but the services you give should leave your customers with the sense that their buckets are close to overflowing.
The same can be true of types of emails. You want to make sure you’re constantly filling all three of your golfers’ buckets, transactional, promotional, and relational, so they continue to engage with your golf course. Transactional and Relational emails help to fill your golfers’ buckets. Promotional emails dip from your golfers’ buckets.
By keeping a balance, you will eliminate the need to communicate with your golfers by slashing your pricing.
Let’s Dive a Little Deeper into those three types of emails.
Promotional Emails
These are for promotion.
- Specials
- Upcoming Events
- Golf Outings
- Sale Announcements
- Upgrade Offers
This is the most common type of email that businesses send. They are important, but you should be making sure you build a relationship with your golfer by also including Transactional and Relational emails in your overall marketing strategy.
Transactional Emails
These are prompted by an action taken by your golfer.
- Book a Tee Time Confirmation
- Fill out Inquiry Form Online
- Buy from your Website
- Thank You Follow Up
- Password Reminder
- Unsubscribe Email
Chances are that you haven’t really thought a whole lot about these types of emails. The fact is that they are quite a bit more important in telling your story than you realize. This is where you show your golf course’s personality. If you’re using the canned email that your service suggested, then you’re missing out on building a relationship with your golfer.
If you struggle with this, then word the email like you’re writing to a friend. What are the standard things you say when someone books a tee time? Do you tell them where your bag drop is located? Give them a procedure on how to check in? Explain how to check in or where the starter is located? How is your wording for the description of your dress code? These types of things help to paint a picture of your golf course’s personality.
For instance, in a confirmation email when someone books a tee time, you might address your dress policy. In it, you could make a reference that kilts are optional, but encouraged. You wouldn’t believe how many golfers will reference that email when they check in. They will want to meet the person behind the kilt comment. Showing the human behind your emails has the same impact of mowing perfect stripes.
Relational Emails
These are used when you’re sharing information with your golfer.
- Social Updates
- Welcome Series
- Surveys
- Newsletter
- Intro to Blog Articles
- Contests
Think of it like a service that you’re providing to your golfer. They help to build the overall relationship with your golfer by including them in your social activity both online and offline.
In your overall email marketing strategy, you should be including all three types of emails.
Structuring Your Emails
Now that we’ve gone over the times when and why you should send an email, let’s dive a little deeper into the overall structure of the email.
Not everyone has the benefit of having an English degree. Many golf operators just like playing golf. They don’t like writing. That’s understandable. However, we bet you never suffer from TALKERS block, do you?
When you’re writing an email, you need to pretend like you’re speaking to your golf partner. Don’t picture the thousands of people on your list. Just imagine your perfect golfer the one with whom you can identify, and then write directly to him. If you’re struggling with this, then talk to someone about what you’re interested in sharing in an email. Chances are that the words will start flowing, and it’ll come more naturally to you once you hear yourself talking about the subject.
There are four main parts that make up the structure of an email.
Just to be clear, this is not in reference to those junk emails that are canned inside of your email marketing company. Those are useless in building relationships with your golfers.
We mean actually talking to your golfers and building an interest with them until they decide they’re going to purchase something.
The four main parts that create an email:
- Intro
- Body
- Closing
- P.S.
That looks familiar, right? Did you just take a trip down memory lane to your high school English days? To break that down into more detail, let’s examine them more closely.
- Intro
- This is a story, sentence, or question that grabs your reader’s attention. This might be where you provide proof that what you’re selling works.
- Body
- Here is where you explain what you want the reader to know. You elaborate on the direct benefits of your subject.
- Closing
- Here, you give them a time frame. Recap and then provide a sense of real urgency.
- P.S.
- This is where you can highlight the email and get people to head over to the page of your website where additional information can be found.
There are many ways you can use this overall strategy to write good emails.
LET’S TAKE THE GOLF WORLD BY STORM and start writing excellent, actionable emails that provide the perfect representation of the great game of golf!
