2016 DEVON & CORNWALL Development Conference Report

Over 100 interested parties comprising club managers, secretaries, and committee members, PGA professionals and others attended the 2016 Devon and Cornwall Development Conference held this year at the St Mellion International resort on Wednesday this week. They were treated to a number of valuable presentations from a variety of industry professionals again focussed on the need for customer service, business growth, increasing participation and member retention.

County Development Officers for Devon and Cornwall Paul Cloke and Simon Wood welcomed those attending the annual event and which the pair had organised as part of their roles to grow the game across both counties.

Kicking off the morning session was the director of 59 Club, Matt Roberts (pictured above), who oversees a benchmarking company, endorsed by the PGA and focusing on member surveys and mystery shopper audits within the leisure industry, with the aim of increasing customer satisfaction, revenue and profits in the process.

Roberts delivered a thought provoking presentation pitted with on occasions almost unbelievable real life examples of poor customer service with the reminder to those listening that only one bad experience can send a golfer away to a competitor and in so doing do untold damage to reputation and in turn profits.

He emphasised the need for dealing sympathetically and efficiently with membership enquiries and subsequent appointments. He made it clear that very simple steps can enhance the entire process into membership and subsequent retention. Having an established process in place is key and then encouraging staff to go the extra mile in all that they do will influence for the good.

Matt Roberts can be contacted via enquiries@59club.com

Next up was keynote speaker Andy Poulton (pictured right), the managing director of Enterprise Online Marketing Solutions. He presented on the need for great websites, search engine optimisation and social media whilst also providing many useful tips for all of these.

Poulton spoke of how in today’s connected world Digital Marketing and the World Wide Web forms an essential part of business marketing and the need for club websites to be easy to find in all the places your existing and potential customers are likely to visit and the need to ensure you are professionally representing your business.

In order to achieve more sales, more leads, phone calls and enquiries more newsletter subscriptions and more downloads it is essential to have a good website, effective Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) ensuring you appear in Google, Bing and Yahoo search results and an active presence on all the Social Media sites that your clients are likely to be using.

For websites to be considered great they need to be found quickly and easily, be navigable and easy to understand across the range of mediums (mobile phones, tablets and computers) Poulton provided tips on the best fonts, ensuring correct spelling and grammar in order that websites grab attention, generate interest, build desire and promote action.

He also emphasised the need for websites to be reviewed for performance using analytics measuring their performance and to ensure there is good fresh content on a regular basis.

Social media should be utilised to raise awareness, build credibility, for news and updates, to share ideas and information, for two way conversation, to stay in touch with existing clients, and to meet a new and potentially vast audience. Facebook is generally considered to be the best of the social media opportunities with many golf related groups which members can join and interact with. The groups themselves reach enormous audiences in an instant even to the highest professional levels.

Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube and Google+ all have merits with blogs being particularly popular. Hootsuite was referred to as a medium for joining all your social media in one place and enabling postings on one to be delivered across all platforms. Don’t delay, start today was the closing thought.

Andy Poulton can be contacted via andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk

Closing the morning session, England Golf’s Press Officer, Lyndsey Hewison, spoke of how to promote your club within the local and wider press. She posed the question ‘What is newsy about your club?’ and provided examples of the variety of people events and happenings which would interest the media. These ranged from staff appointments and achievements to club successes, individual and team golf achievements, challenges, landmarks, holes in one, charity and celebrity events and presentation evenings.

Clubs should grasp the many opportunities which exist for them to build their club profile, attract members and visitor alike, and to publicise and make more use of their facilities. In order to assist this a press officer should be appointed to gather and approve information and to act as a club spokesman. England Golf continues to offer assistance where any form of publicity is concerned and template materials are available.

Press releases should be short and accurate, should contain your contact details and are finished off with quality pictures, suitably captioned to inform on the content. Be aware of backgrounds in photographs!!

Lyndsey Hewison can be contacted via pr@englandgolf.org

Post lunch Sharon Heeley, Senior Regional Manager, England Golf delivered a presentation based on the Increased Membership Participation (IMP) project taking place currently across the three neighbouring counties of Warwickshire, Staffordshire and Northamptonshire. The latter is now a merged county (Union and Association). The project funded by England Golf, and in turn by county membership, commenced in early 2015 and is under scrutiny as it seeks to establish whether IMP can deliver positive results in terms of increasing participation and transition into club membership.

IMP - a two year pilot - seeks to establish new approaches and ways of working which lead to the growth of golf in each of the 3 pilot counties by September 2016. Additional resources and personnel have been placed in the three counties and the structure behind this was explained.

The new ideas include a programme called ‘The Summer of Golf’, ‘Golf Express’ and market segmentation and retention packages.

The Summer of Golf saw weekly informal sessions at park venues, 3 days a week for 21 weeks with a dedicated Community Golf Coach. The venues proved very successful two of them attracting a total of 923 participants with some attending 15 times across the period. There was additional professional involvement as well as volunteer ambassadors and those taking part cited the relaxed informal nature as attracting them. The No.1 reason for participation was that the sessions were free. Photographs accompanying the presentation displayed the variety of attendees with some office workers literally attending in shirts and ties.

The 2015 programme was constantly monitored and as a result the 2016 phase will be enhanced with an additional park venue, adult only as well as family sessions, and an increased transition to events at local golf clubs.

Also targeted were a number of local employers (Virgin Media & Jaguar) and the interest from these proved considerable.

For any further information please contact Sharon via s.heeley@englandgolf.org

Further developing the theme on the IMP project was Gareth Shaw, Development Officer, Staffordshire. He made the early point that too many people find 18 holes of golf intimidating and research had shown as many as 11% were in favour of 9 hole forms of golf. Reasons behind this were those of time, commitment cost and other sporting interests. He recommended the research carried out by Syngenta which can readily be accessed on the internet.https://www.golfenvironment.org/assets/0003/3125/syngenta_growing_golf_in_the_uk_summary_report.pdf. This research shows that 31% of golfers are leaving the game because it takes too long to play and a 9-hole option would encourage then to play more often.

Shaw’s involvement in the IMP project has centred on promoting ‘Golf Express’ and 9 hole green fees and competitions. The resulting statistics support a considerable appetite for the reduced formats and he referred to a number of groups now promoting them. (Sprint6golf, Tee Forward, Super6s, British Speedsport and Night Golf.) 2016 will see a further rollout of 9 hole promotions. The programme has been endorsed by high profile professionals including Justin Rose and Lee Westwood.

Of particular note was Gareth’s reference to existing 9 hole facilities having a unique selling point - one which they should market to the full by promoting and creating shorter golfing formats. Where many established 18 hole courses may find some or more difficulty in staging 9 hole events, the existing 9 hole courses already have a readymade starting point.

Gareth Shaw can be contacted via g.shaw@englandgolf.org

As the conference drew to a close there were presentations from two PGA Professionals local to Devon and Cornwall. First Ben Thorn of Sidmouth GC, a club with little or no practice facilities, spoke of their campaign to attract new members. After social media, local press and leaflet distribution they offered a 5 week course Learn to Play Golf for just £25 followed by a further 5 week on course follow up for £35 (both courses for £50).

The lack of practice facilities was resolved by agreement with an adjoining campsite owner who had a pitch and putt area. The courses and a family fun day saw 80 people take part. Of the original 80 half entered into a trial club membership at the club and in turn this has led to 20 becoming members - a great return.

Ben can be contacted via benthorngolfpro@hotmail.co.uk

Given the so called ‘graveyard slot’ at the end of the day, Cornwall’s Director of Junior Development, and PGA Advanced Professional, Matt Tucknott managed to retain the attendee’s interest with a presentation centred on Getting into Golf and Staying in Golf. Tucknott suggested the PGA Professional should be a good middle man and a facilitator of opportunities for existing and potential golfers. Performance should be continually reviewed and learning taken from it.

He spoke of the successful West Cornwall GC programme to attract members and also of the need to give people what they want. He cited a number of ‘alternatives’ which might add to attracting people to clubs including quick golf, indoor golf, night golf, foot golf and suggested different, exciting even crazy formats have their place. Get Into Golf Birthday parties for youngsters have proved another means of introducing others to the game.

In a varied presentation he also spoke of his personal commitments at a variety of venues across the county and the interaction with many different bodies, such as being an ambassador for Ocean BMW Falmouth - all with the aim of introducing more people to golf. Ocean BMW are sponsors of golf in Cornwall and are regularly involved in supporting the local game. He promoted the use of social media as a means of communicating with a large audience and also the need to get into the local schools. Doing the latter he has a regular newsletter slot at a school with in excess of 1000 pupils. Low cost advertising such as this does work.

Having stressed earlier the need for clubs and individuals to ask themselves - Where am I, where do I want to be and how do I get there, in closing he posed the question ‘I know where I’m going, do you and does your club?

Matt can be contacted via matthew.tucknott@sky.com

In closing the conference the Development Officers thanked not only all those who had addressed delegates but also St Mellion for hosting the event and for providing refreshments. All of the presentations made on the day have been circulated to the attendees. If you would like one yourself then please contact Paul Cloke via p.cloke@englandgolf.org

Report courtesy of Chris Pountney, Cornwall Golf Union

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