Managing club at Internet communications.

Have you noticed a huge overemphasis on the Internet and its impact on club operations recently? This is a common perception for general managers who are used to trends that slowly evolve in the club industry over decades. But consider the big picture:

* None of your members had a high-speed home connection in 2000, 30 percent did in 2003, and 75 percent have them in 2005.

* Your members are gaining experience using the Web every day. Their expectations for club services delivered via the Web are growing faster than any trend you have ever experienced in the club industry.

* Website technology is already in its fourth generation since being introduced in 1998. This means that many clubs have already replaced or revised their websites two or three times just to keep up with their members.

* In another three years, the Internet will completely dominate your off-premises communications with members.

So maybe that "huge overemphasis" on the Internet is not so misplaced?

The Management Challenge

Managing Internet communications may at first appear daunting, especially if you have a modest technical background, but actually it is no more difficult than managing the production of a nice newsletter.

* First, you need to think about how Internet communications (mainly the website and e-mail) can be applied in each aspect of the organization. Then you need to set goals for each affected member of the staff.

* Second, you need to put someone in overall charge of this communication channel, to ensure that everyone is contributing on time and with an appropriate quality and style. This person should be able to write and have a good touch with members--you do not want a "technician!" Your Web vendor should supply the technical knowledge and support--you need to supply the cultural content and marketing direction.

* Third, you need to push the collection of current content out to the source (e.g., tennis news from the tennis pro), and require timely contributions.

* Fourth, you need to check on progress toward goals. For example, you should always know what percent of your membership you could reach today with an e-mail, or how many emails you have sent to members in the past six months.

Important Components

Here are some of the things you may want to consider when building electronic communications to your members:

* Branding. Your club and facilities have a certain style. This style should be incorporated in your website design and e-mail communications. Over time, website vendors have improved their tools so that, with the fourth generation of technology, they can now create virtually any graphical look, carrying it through the entire website, and yet still allow your staff to change the content on the pages. Insist on quality in keeping with your club's standards. This is, after all, the modern "entrance" to your club.

* Simple tools. Don't burden your staff with complicated or awkward tools. You need to reduce the friction of content creation or it simply will not get finished, and then you will kill your communications channel with stale content. The editing tools should work "in place" (this means you simply go to the website to the place where changes are needed, then start making changes directly without going to some other place to perform edits) and have familiar features that make sense and are easy to use.

* Cross-merchandising. Have you ever gone to the store to buy milk, and bought batteries on the way out the door? This is known as "cross-merchandising" and it can be applied to your website layout as well. Certain parts of the website will attract a lot of traffic; for example, if you take online tee-times, your golfers will beat a path to the tee-times link. You want to take advantage of their passage by enticing them with nice graphics about other events and services. Don't make the mistake of setting up an address for tee-times that does not go through your main website! You don't want to miss any chance for cross-merchandising. Also, make sure your Web vendor allows you to put multiple kinds of information on the same page, so you can "position the batteries" in the right spot.

* E-mail. Without a strong e-mail strategy, your website will probably languish without much traffic. E-mail campaigns should play a role in your planning for every event, and you should also send some periodic emails such as the GM's weekly newsletter. If you would like a copy of an extensive 10 part document on making use of e-mail, just send me a request at: [e-mail].

Your e-mail tools will work better if they can: 1) send graphical e-mails (created with simple tools); 2) automatically send text-only e-mails to those whose computers cannot view graphics; 3) take advantage of "templates" to save design time; 4) send emails at some future date and time--this lets you plan you mailings ahead of time; 5) target certain groups of members based on their characteristics, activities, or requests; and 6) track history, including what was mailed and who opened the e-mails.

* Smart Linking. You want to think of every e-mail as a piece of bait thrown to members in an attempt to "hook" them into greater engagement with the club. The "hooks" are the links back to your website where you have pages of interesting information about upcoming events, etc. Every email should be a "teaser" with just enough information to induce members to click the link to the website, where, like Paul Harvey, you tell "the rest of the story." These Paul Harvey emails require a special technical feature from your email vendor--the links must take the member to the exact page within the website where the rest of the story is posted. If the link only goes to the home page of the website, your members will be frustrated and the negative result will be the opposite of your intent.

* Photos are Key. No part of the content of your website is as important as the photos. Formal shots of your grounds and facilities speak to the quality of the club (use a professional for these shots if you don't already have them). But the informal shots of your members having fun will drive traffic to the website, increase member participation, and ultimately increase their level of engagement with the club. Your Web tools should let you organize your photos in categories and crop or re-size them for various purposes. You should be able to add photos virtually anywhere on any page of the website. Some vendors also provide "slide show" windows where a whole category of photos can be displayed with a single click.

Until recently, the hardest part of working with photos was the delay in uploading them to the vendor's server. Typically only five or six photos could be uploaded at a time, and during the (slow) upload the computer could not be used for anything else. Clubessential has just finished a utility that will upload large numbers of photos at five times the usual speed, while the computer can still be used for other purposes. Other vendors are likely to follow with their own high-speed upload utilities.

* Member Statements. Build traffic and cross-merchandising on your website by displaying member statements online. If you use minimums at your club, the time saved by eliminating phone calls to the accounting department will probably pay for the entire website. Do some of your members want printed chits? Let them print these themselves, saving your staff a lot of effort.

But probably the most important benefit of displaying statements is the elimination of concerns, especially by elderly members, that they are being over-billed. If a member forgets a dinner they had at the club, then sees the bill, they become suspicious. Their next step is to talk to fellow members who probably have similar doubts, starting a whisper campaign that undermines confidence in the club. These rumors can get out of control, causing great damage to the club, but they can be stopped cold when a member can see the chit for their dinner, reminding them of the event. Here is a case where "sunshine" is essential, with a display of full chit detail and a link to send emails directly to the accounting department to clear up any remaining issues.

* Online Bill Payment. Most clubs have avoided allowing members to pay their bills at the website because of the high cost of credit card transactions. New systems are becoming available right now that will enable members to transfer cash directly to pay their bills. The cost per transaction is 25 times less using this method. The best of these systems allow the members to sign up to make payments through the website--so club staff are not tied up with paperwork. Be careful to avoid any system that stores the club's cash in someone else's account as part of the process. Another important consideration: members are most likely to use online bill payment if they keep control and can "opt out" at any time with the click of a couple of buttons.

* Reservations. Web traffic is multiplied when reservations are possible at the website. Various systems are available to make reservations for: tee times, events, tournaments, tennis courts, paddle courts, squash courts, barber chairs, spa treatments, a la carte dining, banquet halls, and in-club hotel rooms. All such systems allow staff to take reservations from call-ins so you can still service all your members, whether Web-connected or not. Whichever of these reservations systems you choose to use, make sure to place them in such a way that you maximize member viewing of your other upcoming activities and events!

* Capturing Marketing Data. All clubs need to build little databases of information about members with certain interests and sometimes about non-members. Perhaps you need to collect information about volunteers to help run an upcoming major event. Or maybe you need to collect names of potential members or potential banquet hall users. Maybe you would like to receive applications for your summer camp or swimming lessons or tennis camp. In all these cases there are similar requirements: you would like to present a handsome set of questions that will attract respondents. Then you want to be able to view, sort, report, and extract the data. Recent innovations in website technology allow you to create such forms and support them with mini-databases. Over time these tools will capture marketing data that will be a valuable club asset.

* Analyzing Sales. Speaking of marketing data, some vendors are now releasing "food and beverage analyzers" that allow you, for example, to search for all the members who have purchased expensive wine in the last three months. Such analysis can pinpoint whom you need to target for certain events or services. Make sure you have an easy way to interface the analysis to your e-mail engine so you can send pretty graphical e-mails to the members you select.

Conclusion

As you can see, much more is possible today than even two years ago, which is fortunate, because twice as many members are interested in communicating via the Internet now, and their expectations for website functionality have doubled.

Managing the club's Internet communications is not much different from managing newsletter communications. The general manager does not need to become a technician to do it well. The focus, as with many other aspects of club management, needs to be on assigning clear responsibilities, setting expectations, and following up to ensure quality and timeliness. The Web vendor should handle the technical issues. The one aspect of Internet communications that takes some mental adjustment is the rate of change: imagine a clubhouse that required a complete renovation every three years!

DR. WILLIAM IVERS

CEO, CLUBESSENTIAL

Dr. William Ivers is the CEO of Clubessential, which hosts 550 websites for clubs, including 13 of the top 20 country clubs in the nation.