Distribution Channel Clarity – Benchmark Distribution & Heat Maps
When you have the numbers generated from your actual played rounds, you are an equal at the table when negotiating with your online marketing partners. So often the message from your online partner is to offer more inventory at a ‘better’ rate. Your marketing partner presents you with their data and says, look at how we are growing your online revenue! But at the expense of what? How can you evaluate whether the growth in online bookings from your online marketing partner is helping, or heaven forbid, hurting you? Sagacity Golf enables you to bring your numbers to the meeting.
Observations based on the data above: 3rd Party rounds are 20% and are high vs. the market. 3rd Party Website rounds are booked at the highest average rate per round. The ratio of paid rounds vs. barter rounds is 1:2.5 (for every one barter round, 2.5 paid rounds are booked). Barter Rounds at 7% is high and the Opportunity Cost calculation of $79,923 for the last twelve months is significant. So the question is, Can you spend the $80,000 and do a better job of selling your inventory directly to your consumer?
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Heat Maps – Third Party Rounds Paid
Know Where Paid 3rd Party Rounds Impact Your Tee Sheet
The heat map shown above is a very simple, color-coded visual to quickly tell where rounds are being booked on your tee sheet. If you’re like most courses, you’ll find that the majority of 3rd Party rounds are booked on the busiest days and times of the year.
Your takeaway with this information is to make sure you have your times priced in relation to where they are being booked on the tee sheet!
Heat Maps – Third Party Barter Rounds Played
Keep Your Marketing Partner Honest
So often, you battle with your marketing partner on where the barter rounds are being booked. You authorize 12:52 PM, but sometimes you notice 11:00 AM, or 12:00 PM, or some other unauthorized time was booked. Maybe, in the end, you’re okay with it, but with Benchmark you have a monthly report, where at a glance you can quickly determine where the barter rounds were booked.
To minimize your cost, provide barter during the slowest part of the day.
Always Remember:
Execute a Customer Conversion Campaign
Changing your customer’s booking behavior may be easier than you think. Many golf courses are shifting the balance of power away from their marketing partners by actively targeting customers who book rounds through third-parties. The courses use simple but effective incentives that persuade golfers to book direct instead.
Here are the steps:
- Set up your website to accept promotion codes.
- Target third-party golfers when they come in.
- Greet them and offer a promotion to book direct.
- Measure the results monthly.
- Evaluate, modify and repeat.
We have been utilizing the Sagacity Golf benchmarking platform for several months now and we are very pleased. This report provides a third party verification of how we are doing on several key metrics as measured against our competitors in the market and also against our historical results. The data we provide takes a couple of minutes each month and by the 11th of each month we have a comprehensive report. In addition to the benchmarking it has helped us verify our pricing strategy and we are using it to make key decisions going forward.
Mike Bennett
Commonwealth Golf Asset Management
