Drive Club Membership: 3 Lead Generation Strategies for Your Website

Private clubs pride themselves on being the best when it comes to customer service and community. But there's one way that you might be failing to serve your potential members and it could be costing you in revenue and membership. For a long time, private clubs have settled for the status quo when it comes to your websites.

Navigate to almost any private club website and you'll see idyllic photos of gloriously groomed greens that seem like the just jumped out of a calendar spread, but is this really what your prospective members want to see? Are the beautifully curated images going to be the thing that compels people to reach out to a membership director?

What's the purpose of your website?

Let's take a step back: when you think about what the real purpose of your website, what comes to mind? 

Here are a few we've heard:

• Engage with current members
• Showcase our course
• Communicate our events/activities
• Manage tee times/bookings
• Collect new membership prospects

Often, we hear private clubs say that the purpose for their website is to connect the operational platforms important to running their business. However, that's more specific to their "internal" website, which typically is just for the members and isn't outward-facing. In this article, we're discussing your external website. And that has a different role...

Here's the simple truth: Your external website exists to drive your club's revenue. That's it. Your website should be a 24/7 salesperson for your club.

So, how do I turn website visitors into actual leads or business? By using the right lead generation strategies, you can turn those casual visitors into club members. Let's take a look:

1. Go beyond "Contact Us" — Share the information they're looking for

We all know that getting website visitors to fill out your contact us form is ideal. But not every person that visits your website is ready to reach out this way.

What else can you give your visitors that will answer their questions, give them a better window into your club and lead them toward the next step in membership?

As consumers, we know that our email addresses are a form of currency, we understand that if we give our email address on a website, we WILL get contacted in some way.

With that in mind, it's our goal to build resources that your visitors will want to give their email for. Think about what prospective members or customers might be wanting to know: 

1. The Complete Guide to Events at Our Club
2. Everything You Need to Know About a Membership with Our Club
3. Meet the Club Members Download
4. Top 10 Golf Practice Tips

PRO TIP: It's just as important to carefully consider what fields you put on your forms. Don't ask every question you can think of on your form! Long forms can scare away potential submissions. 

2. Meet visitors where they are with pop-up forms and CTAs

Practically every website has a contact form, but think: How often do you fill out that form or even navigate to the contact page?

Why not meet your visitors where they are already viewing your website? By bringing the form to your visitor you have a better chance to capture their contact information while they are browsing around your website. There are two ways we'd suggest doing this:

1. Pop-Up Forms: These are simple forms that conveniently show up on pages where your prospective members are already browsing. Whether your prospects are looking at your membership page, events page or a blog, we want them to be able to engage in the next step, by adding a pop-up form, you can also capture their contact information.
2. Call-To-Action (CTA): If adding a pop-up form seems like too much, a Call-to-Action can be another great way to keep visitors moving through your website. Add buttons on your highly-trafficked pages to lead visitors to your guides and downloads to continue moving them through the buying process.

3. Answer questions about pricing

What's the Number One question you get asked by prospective members?

Let me guess. Is it "How much does a membership cost?"

That's not surprising, right? To a consumer, club membership is a big purchase, like a car. Yet unlike the car shopping experience, clubs often stay away from sharing their membership pricing on their websites!

Usually, clubs don't want to show their pricing information because they don't want to scare away potential customers with a high price, or they don't want the competition to match/lower pricing accordingly.

Today, buyers have the power. And whether we like it or not, price is always an important factor — no matter who the buyer is. By displaying your pricing options on your website, you're encouraging your users to dig in further. Not only that, when the prospect is empowered to access information like pricing, they are pre-qualifying themselves and not wasting the membership director's valuable time. These prospects are actually better qualified!

It's all about being frictionless

"Friction" is anything that gets in the way of a prospect's intent to do research or purchase a product. If your website doesn't answer their questions immediately, doesn't offer any easy way to contact you, or doesn't have helpful content that answers their questions, your website is full of friction.

By taking down barriers, answering questions, and making yourself as available as possible, your website visitors can easily turn themselves into leads.