ScottishGolf

Scottish Golf is the national governing body for the sport of golf in Scotland. They provide support to Scotland’s 575 affiliated golf clubs, representing and adding value to around 209,000 golf club members.

The structure of golf courses and clubs vary greatly and normally operate as either a private, semi-private, pay-as-you-play or part of a resort. The resources available at each varies enormously with some employing a professional team to run each area of the business, whilst others mainly manage operations through a committee of volunteers. The majority of clubs do not have access to in-house expertise on specific areas, meaning marketing and sales activities are often undertaken without strategic foundation and delivered on an ad hoc basis. This means initiatives lack the planning and implementation to deliver a measurable ROI and often fail to put the measures in place to sustain and grow the business.

We developed a comprehensive document template covering some of the core aspects of effective customer engagement including brand positioning and messaging, identifying your customers, developing the customer experience (including customer/user journey), maximising the value of website and digital marketing channels, digital asset development (film and imagery), data collection and management, and B2C and B2B comms. The approach included meeting clubs individually to ensure the plan focused on the individual requirements of each club and the delivery resources available. Each bespoke plan provided a breakdown of recommendations for the club to deliver either independently or with support from our business.

In 2022, 50 clubs were awarded access to the support, with 38 successfully applying in 2023. The courses involved ranged from semi-private clubs turning over seven figures to local 9-hole community managed clubs located in the Western Isles of Scotland. Feedback from clubs was unanimously positive with Scottish Golf providing each club in the 2023 fund with a £500 grant for use towards marketing initiatives such as the capture of film and imagery, website audit and social media planning.