18/06/10

Swanston Golf Club has enjoyed an astounding turn-around in fortunes in recent years and the club have put it down to their pro-active Marketing activities.

Just 5 years ago Swanston GC’s membership numbers had declined to 280. A strategy was put in place to turn things around and the club have just done that with their recent Open Day another excellent example of what can be achieved with a well-planned approach. Swanston now boast a membership of over 850.

The Open Day was widely promoted by the club and resulted in 120 people attending, the majority of whom brought along their voucher to arrange for a free round of golf at the course. 50% of attendees on the day enquired about membership, these are now being followed up by the club. Swanston offer a variety of membership options to potential members of the club including family memberships, limited play memberships and tiered age group memberships, even discounted memberships for members of the armed forces. Director of Golf at Swanston Stewart Snedden says that their flexible approach to membership has been the key to their success,

“We want to make golf accessible for all and our membership options reflect that. An SGU golfing trends survey a few years ago revealed that twice as many people in Scotland say they are golfers, as those that are members of golf clubs.  That means that there’s a lot of potential members out there that are not finding what they want with ‘traditional’ golf memberships.  At Swanston we threw out the rule-book five years ago and decided that a fresh new approach was required reducing the barriers preventing new members joining golf clubs.”

“This has not been everyone’s cup of tea, but there’s no doubt that it’s working.  The brand new 9-hole short-course has been the key to helping new golfers of all ages gain confidence before moving on to a full-size course – it’s also a great fun course for scratch golfers and we aspire to host a Scottish Par-3 Championships one day.  Our 140 juniors, under the age of 14, play on this course exclusively until they gain their first handicap.” 

Having the flexibility and facilities for new and existing members is one thing but making people aware of them is another and Swanston have invested heavily in doing just that. The memberships driven from the recent Open Day have not only paid for the marketing activity but also provided increase funds for further improving facilities for members of the club. When asked if Swanston will run an Open Day again Snedden commented,

“Most definitely, it has to be done, even if you don’t need new members, the minute you stop becoming pro-active is the minute things start going backwards. The timing of it has to be good though, which involves planning the day well in advance. One thing we may do next time is plan even further in advance.”

Finally when asked what advice Swanston would give to fellow clubs in Scotland on marketing themselves Snedden again stressed the importance of being as flexible as possible, as golfers looking for value for money more than ever,

“Clubs have now got to be much more proactive especially in the current economic climate. Golf is not a necessity, it is a luxury, people are looking for quality facilities at a fair price, not ‘cheap’ golf when they are considering joining a golf club. Having easy parking, being open to all of the family, having good direct debit variable schemes are all simple but effective steps that can make a difference"

For more information on membership availability at the club please visit the Swanston Golf Club website.