Whether you’re an expert at using your Clubessential website, or you are brand new to the club, we’ve got you covered with this Clubessential Website Spring Opening Guide.
New season, new faces - and some returning ones too. It’s that time of year where private clubs are doing some spring cleaning to re-open for the new year. While you’re at it, it’s probably a great idea to freshen up on your website skills.
Your Clubessential website is active all year long, however, now is the time where it needs to be in tip top shape since this is your busy season. Members will be looking to the website for what events are going on, to sign up for tee times, or to subscribe to your latest communications to stay active in the club community.
Whether you’re an expert at using your Clubessential website, or you are brand new to the club, we’ve got you covered with this Clubessential Website Spring Opening Guide. In this guide we will cover all of your needs for getting your Website ready this season:
- Clubessential Online Education
- Clubessential Knowledge Base
- Adding New Employees to Your Clubessential Website
- Updating Your Clubessential Calendar of Events
- Event Marketing Plan
- Targeted Email Marketing Plan
- Updating Website Content
Clubessential Online Education
Stumbling over how to add events? Or forgot how to create a new email group? It can be easy to forget all that you can do with your website, which is why we have created two ways to learn Clubessential’s tools.
If you’re looking for a complete refresher, or need to train new employees, our guided Online Education Program is the best way to learn Clubessential products. If you’re just looking to brush up on a few skills, then our Knowledge Base is the perfect place to review. Here’s what you get with both of these options below.
Clubessential Online Education
Learning should be easy, fast, and on your own time! That’s why we’ve created a comprehensive Online Learning Program that allows you to learn on your own, and on your own time. Our Website Training teaches you everything you need to know to start working with Clubessential products right away. This program takes about 5 hours to complete, and is broken out into short lessons that allow you to take this at your own pace. Inside each course, you’ll have a video tutorial and a guide, so you can choose which learning option is best for you. This program is perfect for those that haven’t used Clubessential products before, or those that want an in-depth refresher of our tools.
This year, we’ve also extended our Online Learning Program to include our Reservation Systems: Tee Times, Dining, and Courts. So, if you’re looking for more training beyond the website, we have you covered.
Getting Started with Online Education
Getting started is easy! All you need to do is send our Education team a email. Let us know who needs training by providing the employee’s name, email, and what products they need to be trained on (Web, Tee Times, Dining, Courts). We’ll get them started ASAP!
If you have more questions about this program, please contact your Clubessential Representative today.
Clubessential Knowledge Base
You need answers fast. Skip the wait and head straight to our Knowledge Base for fast information on all of your Clubessential products. If you need to brush up on a few skills, or have a question about using your product, the Knowledge Base is a great place to start. Inside the Knowledge Base, you’ll find helpful articles, downloadable guides, and video tutorials.
Additionally, the Knowledge Base is also a great resource to access past webinars that cover topics like industry trends to using our products more effectively. You will also find registration links for future webinars as well.
Adding New Employees to Your Clubessential Website
Ok, so now that you know where you’ll go for all of your Clubessential website training needs, let’s review how to add any new employees you may have to the Staff Directory. Adding new employees to the website is a crucial step. You may have new employees that will be helping to manage the website, or perhaps you use the website to communicate to your employees. Since employees typically are not in your accounting system, they must be added manually. Let’s break this down, step by step:
Step 1: From the private side of the website, hover over Admin and access the Directory.
Step 2: Add the staff’s information to the required Profile fields. Note: for Membership Number, use the employees last name. If you enter a fake membership number, you run the risk of this being a future member number.
Step 3: Under User Type and Admin Level in the Directory, change the User Type to Staff. Under Admin Level, determine what type of privileges the employee should have:
- No Admin Access: the employee can login to the website, but the employee will only be able to view/access the website with the same privileges as members (meaning no editing rights whatsoever).
- Site Editor: the employee will be able to edit content, but will not be able to access the Admin Toolbar to make administrative changes.
- Site Admin: full editing access and administrative access to the website.
Step 4: Click ‘Add Membership’ at the bottom of the Profile page. Note: this verbiage may vary depending on your website.
Updating Your Clubessential Calendar of Events
Events are a major draw for most private clubs, so it’s important that your Calendar of Events are completely up to date and loaded for the new season. Having your events readily available to members encourages registration and allows you to market effectively. Using online registration via the Calendar also takes the pressure off Club Staff from fielding registration calls, plus it’s easy for members to register any time, anywhere! It may take a bit of prep work to load all of your events at once, but then you’ll be set for the season. This also leaves more time for planning how to market those events throughout the year.
To freshen up on how to add events, watch our video tutorial below, or read our Calendar & Event Manager Guide.
Event Marketing Plan
So now you have all of your events loaded to the calendar, but letting them sit on the calendar won’t get you very far. An effective event marketing strategy is crucial to getting the message out.
A great area to market upcoming events is on your member home page. This is the first page members access when logging in to your website, and real estate here is in high demand for their attention. Most club websites have a photo gallery on this page to help marketing upcoming events. Since your events are already on the calendar, it’s time to update this section accordingly! Review how to do this with our Photo Album Guide.
Another easy way to market events is by using your Cross Marketing sections throughout the website. Whether it be on your club online statements, thank you pages, Directory, or on other website pages, cross marketing is an easy way to boost visibility for whatever you’re trying to marketing. Cross Marketing sections are managed by using the Axis Editor, so it’s just like editing content on a page; which means you can add text, images, and hyperlinks. To learn how to manage this, read our Cross Marketing Guide.
Lastly, we’ve created this 5 Step list to market your events effectively. Read our Event Marketing Blog here.
Targeted Email Marketing Plan
With members circulating your private club during your busy season, you’ll need an effective marketing plan for all of your events and services at the club. There are many ways you can market to your membership, but the easiest and most effective way of communication is via email. The blast email tool within your Clubessential website makes it easy to communicate with members. In conjunction with the email tool, you may also create endless groups for target marketing efforts.
This time of year is the perfect time to review what Opt-In and Dynamic Groups you have set up. Review each group to make sure they’re still applicable this year of what and who you’re trying to market this season. How do you know if these groups have been successful? You can check your email communications from the previous season using Mail Reporting. What were your open rates and click throughs on various email communications? If you have low numbers for certain communications, it may be time to revisit the content you’re sending and who you’re sending this to.
Once you’ve determined your marketing and group strategy for the new season, you can make edits, delete, or add new groups easily. To review how to work with groups, watch our tutorial below or read our Groups Guide.
Once your groups are in place, you can begin crafting and sending targeted emails to your membership. By breaking your membership into smaller groups, and allowing your members to determine what communications they receive by using Opt-In Groups, your email marketing campaigns should be more successful. So, it’s also important to ensure that the type of content you’re sending is relevant. As a rule, shorter emails with one call to action produces the best results.
It isn’t just about what content goes in your emails, but it’s also how much you’re sending. Too much email communication can be a bad thing. How many times have you deleted an email from a company because you simply just get too many? Less is always more when it comes to email communication. Remember, there are other ways than email to get the message out. For more tips on how many emails you should be sending read our Quality Over Quantity Blog article.
Updating Website Content
Website content should never be static, which means updating it at least once a year is essential. Why update your content? Refreshing your content can help boost your search rankings AND it’s a great way to draw members back to the website for new information. This can seem like a daunting task, but you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Not every single piece of content needs to be updated, and sometimes it’s just about merging some content pages together.
Before you start thinking about what to update and where, read our Ultimate Guide to Update Your Content.
While you’re updating content, you may want to change the visibility, name, or editing rights to your content pages. Last year, Clubessential released an update allowing Admins the ability to make changes to their page properties and security. Meaning, you can change who can see and edit pages, and you can even change page names! Watch our video tutorial below to get started.
Additionally, you can also rearrange pages as needed on your website. This can help to boost content pages that may need more visibility, or to move excess pages to a new section after updating their content. Rearranging pages is an easy way to reinvent your website with the pages you already have. Learn how to rearrange pages with the tutorial below.
Congratulations! You are now ready to start working with your Clubessential Website this season. To get started with our Reservation Tools for the new season, please visit our Reservation Season Opening Guide.