Is there an invaluable business tool hidden inside your club website?
By Srishti Singh
How do you view your website? Hopefully, it’s more than an online brochure. At the very least, it should be a means to help promote your club. But there’s really much more it could and should be doing for you.
Leading clubs understand the full potential that the website holds. After all, web-based technologies allow you to do so much today. For example, your website can give your members the ability to find club events, make reservations, connect with other members, and access their accounts. And for the club, it can enable you to collect member payments, manage club resources, and access member behavioral data to help inform your decisions. With a custom website build, you can unlock these capabilities. Moreover, you may be surprised at just how affordable it is to give your club website this invaluable functionality.
Exploring everything your club website can do
A custom-built club website can enable capabilities that can have an impact across the club. It helps maximize what you and your members can do through the website and the club app.
Account management
One of the greatest conveniences you can offer members is to allow them to manage their accounts whenever and virtually wherever they want. With a custom site, you can enable this convenience by making account management available through the website or app.
Members can sign in to view current charges, see past statements (with the ability to drill down into the details), make a payment, and track minimums. And you can message members through the site and push notifications through the app.
All of this gives your members the experience that they have come to appreciate with other online services they use.
Reservations
Building participation is critical to optimizing member engagement and even driving revenues. Making it easy and fast for people to make reservations is vital, especially in today’s world, where many distractions can pull them away.
With top-notch reservation functionality, you can make it simple for members to register for an event, make a dining reservation, and schedule a tee time – whether on their smartphone, laptop, or the club app. And that’s just the beginning. You could make it easy for members to:
- Reserve a court
- Reserve a ball machine, a practice bay, and more
- Register for a golf event
- See instructors’ schedules and sign up for lessons, requesting their favorite teacher
- Book a spa visit
- Book a room
If it’s easy for your members to sign up or make a reservation, their participation at your club will increase.
Events
The advanced functionality of a custom-built site can improve the success of the events you plan at your club.
For example, you can build a capability that allows you can create an event in the back office functionality of your site. Once you do, it will populate the member website and the smartphone app, displaying on the club calendar and offering a link to make a reservation.
You can even build in “Featured Events” functionality that allows you to highlight an event on the member website and app using rich graphics and links to make a reservation.
Ecommerce
When you go beyond a simple cookie-cutter site, you can start to include things like e-commerce functionality. This allows you to sell merchandise through your website like club-branded apparel and other items. You can even set up a marketplace feature that members can use to shop for groceries and other essentials via the club app or website.
You can connect your online sales capabilities with your backend inventory and retail POS systems for real-time inventory integration.
Hotel, Marina, & POA
A bespoke website allows you to customize the capabilities to fit the unique offering of your club.
You can enable online booking for your hotel, allowing members to reserve a room through the website or the club app. You can even offer functionality like touchless door access using the app.
For clubs with marinas, the website can be configured to display slip assignments, offer a member boat directory, and more.
Clubs with property owners' associations can allow members to manage their accounts from the website or app. They can take care of billing online, initiate and track a work order, and schedule a visitor with the gatehouse, to name a few capabilities.
Administration & Insights
A custom build can integrate the functionalities that can help alleviate the management of your website. That means making adding new pages and updating information easily – sometimes even automating it.
Plus, you’ll be able to draw valuable insights from the analytics on your site, giving you a deeper understanding of what is important to members. It’s the information that can help you make more informed decisions about your club.
Discover what’s possible
There is a reason why leading clubs opt for a custom build on their websites. They understand the crucial role it can play in the club's success.
If you’re evaluating your site, take the time to consider a custom solution. You may discover the opportunity to uncover an invaluable business tool inside your club's website.
If you’d like to see how a custom website solution can benefit your club, request a demo of the Design Agency solution from Northstar. You’ll discover a comprehensive approach that can deliver an advanced solution as unique as the experience you provide at your club. Talk to Northstar today.