This past week I was featured in PGA Magazine’s Best Practice section. The questions and answers are below.
As seen in PGA Magazine 3/10/12:
Mike Attara on Player Development: Use Online Registration to Grow Your Database
Mike Attara, a five-time New Jersey PGA Section President’s Plaque winner and the 2005 New Jersey PGA Section Merchandiser for Public Facilities, is a PGA Certified Professional and president of Spirit Golf Management in Yardley, Pa.
Mike Attara on the importance of using online registration to grow your database:
Our management company oversees four golf facilities, and all of them host player development and Play Golf America programs. Registration for all of these programs is handled online using the www.PlayGolfAmerica.com website. In fact, using the online registration capabilities of Play Golf America is so easy and successful that we use it for registration for all of our programs: Family Fridays, leagues, instruction clinics, and anything else we offer to the public. It only takes a few minutes to get your facility and its programs on the Play Golf America website; the site walks you through the process. This makes registration easy for the consumer and for us, and it also helps us compile and grow a large database of golfers that we can market to. Once we have golfers in our database, it’s easy to shoot them a quick email about anything from a new program we’re offering to a rain delay that might impact that day’s events.
Mike Attara on the business impact of using online registration to grow your database:
We have more than 4,000 names in our database, and it is a very effective way to market to our customers. Once a golfer has been to your facility and started a relationship with you, they’re going to open emails that come from you. We’ve been able to save money on advertising because of the large number of golfers we can reach through our database. It also offers a lot of convenience to the consumer: When a parent gets an email about registering for an upcoming junior camp, they can go online and register right away before the camps fill up. In this business, you have to create your own opportunities. Using the Play Golf America website for registrations creates growth opportunities in an easy, cost-effective manner that provides both the PGA Member and the facility with new revenue opportunities.
Feel free to reach out to me with any questions or comments at mikea@spiritgolf.net
Spirit Golf Management. Growing the game one course at a time.