Results Through June Continue Coming Up Roses: Why?
Given our Jupiter-bestowed reputation as the “industry contrarians,” those buying into that argument won’t be surprised by the headline. More thoughtful and independent-minded industry stakeholders will see in the above our constant curiosity in not just observing and reporting industry metrics and trends but trying to figure out the core drivers of those results, where the current trend apex or nadir will be and some educated guess regarding its duration. My first marketing category manager at Kraft shared this bit of wisdom with me that applies to our current situation and curiosity, “Marketing is not simply increasing sales, it’s the knowledge of the underlying consumer behavior which allows the marketer to manipulate their purchases almost at will in the future.”
It’s in pursuit of the latter objective that in this issue I’ll walk through several hypotheses of what could be driving the continued success of rounds, golf revenue and even briefly touch on the consumer equipment strength that’s been reported this year continuing the strong H2 of ’20:
- What happened in June and how did we finish H1? Using the results from our pilot participants & Charter Members of GMRC, I’ll give you a topline of how we did vs. my last month’s “call” (rounds -3% vs. strong ’20 baseline month)
- Three potential scenarios for golf’s surprising stamina as competitive diversions re-emerge for consumers’ discretionary time and income
- How Customer Franchise Analysis would provide visibility into the size, shape and playing patterns of your customer base (both new and existing golfers) vs. just counting the mounting rounds and revenue in your PoS system (albeit that’s a nice problem to have for golf)
Our subscribers can read on for this month’s provocative poke at our current prosperity and trying to understand how and if we can manipulate it higher, make it last longer or at least establish the current plateau as a new base vs. giving back the current surge gains. Our Executive Summary recipients can get the rest of the story one of three ways:
- Subscribe to the Golf Market Research Center (GMRC) – We’re now in the Charter Member subscription period (6/1-9/15). Facilities subscribing to GMRC ($500/yr, $450 for NGCOA members) during this period get the following value-added services as part of the “bundle”:
- OtR annual subscription (you can read the rest of this article!)
- ’20 State of the Industry report suite
- Cognilogic Weather Impact: Historical facility-specific Golf Playable Hours & Capacity Rounds, accessible daily via web portal
- Cognilogic Foresight: 60 day forecast of Capacity Rounds including comparison to prior year, the 10-year norm and select forecast facts (i.e. hi/lo temp, precipitation amount etc.), accessible daily via web portal
- GMRC program revshare: Set up as a cooperative, Charter Members will get annual discounts on their service based on the number of participants and revenue through GMRC in Year 2 and beyond
- Three ways to get more information on the program:
- By reading the 2-pg program summary or
- By viewing the 18 minute webinar demo by yours truly (you have to register to view the video, don’t worry, you’re not signing up for anything, we just want to know who’s viewing our content as the quid pro quo)
- By emailing me
- Subscribe to the Pellucid Publications Membership for $495/yr (for non-facility entities or facilities that don’t want to participate in GMRC but want insights) – Annual subscribers get access to the following:
- Outside the Ropes monthly digital newsletter
- Annual State of the Industry report portfolio (PowerPoint presentation, PDF commentary report, access to Jim/Stuart video of presentation)
- Geographic Weather Impact Tracking (US, 45 regions, 61 markets) or Cognilogic for Golf Playable Hours/Capacity Rounds for individual facilities
- Top 25 US Golf Markets Ranking Scorecard (25+ dimensions, scoring and ranking for largest 25 markets) or Golf Local Market Analysis data workbook for up to 3 draw areas for individual facilities
- National Consumer Franchise Health Scorecard (expanded data and tables underlying this issue’s summary figures)
- Subscribe to OtR – 12 monthly issues for $130/yr with a money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied at any time during your subscription. Subscribers also get access to the historical archive of past issues (last two years) via the members-only section of the Pellucid website
