A Club’s Guide to Great Marketing Strategy

Kayla Canon, the marketing brand manager at Club Automation, shares four questions to help guide your club’s marketing strategy. 

We use marketing to inform how we feel about products and interact with the businesses that sell them, and so do your members. With so many businesses competing for your members’ attention, building a well-defined marketing strategy can help you cut through the noise and get your message in front of your audience. So where do you start?  

Here are four questions you can ask to develop a marketing strategy that drives awareness and growth for your club.

1. What is your goal? 

Each decision you make when building your marketing strategy should reflect your goal. Think through what you’re trying to accomplish and clearly define the “why” driving your new campaign. Are you trying to increase sign-ups for your new group fitness class? Do you want to build awareness for your new aquatics offerings?  

Your goal will influence the audience you speak to and the communication methods you use. Defining it clearly will be crucial to your campaign’s success.  

2. Who is your audience? 

If you want your campaign to stand out you need to target the right audience. Broadcasting your message to everyone on your mailing list may produce short-term results, but over time you’ll become white noise. Your strategy is the most effective when you can share the right message with the right audience.  

Let’s say your goal is to promote your new pickleball lessons. Members who only interact with your tennis offerings may show less interest, and targeting them with this message may not produce the results you’re looking for. However, marketing the class to members who frequently reserve pickleball courts could provide a greater ROI.  

3. What do you want your audience to do? 

Your marketing won’t show results without a clear call-to-action (CTA).  

A CTA gives your audience direction on what to do and guides them along a path to where you want them to go. Do you want them to register for a class online, or sign up for a free trial? A clear CTA will show your audience what step you want them to take.  

When writing your CTA, try to be as clear and specific as possible. Using text to clearly describe what you want the viewer to do will make them more inclined to follow through.  

Your CTA’s visibility can also impact its success. Using visual cues like font size and color can increase the visibility of your CTA, but its placement within the message is equally as important. Try to include a CTA where your audience would be ready to take action, such as at the bottom or right of the content they just finished reading.  

4. What do you need to tweak? 

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to marketing.  

Your message and your audience are unique, and the only way to find what resonates with them is to test, test, test. Once your marketing campaign is live, continue to test and hone the message.  

Email subject lines, font size, imagery, tone — nothing should be exempt from testing. Even a small tweak can increase your returns. Regularly examining how your message is being received can help drive your campaign’s success.