In the past 12 months, Golf Journeys has grown into one of Australia's fastest-growing travel companies for golf enthusiasts. Mark Hawley, the owner, knows more than anyone that this was no sheer stroke of luck. Achieving that kind of growth is due to a relentless effort from himself and his team to grow the business. The thing that he knows, almost better than anyone, is that the golf niche within the travel industry is lucrative and crowded with entrenched travel companies willing to pay almost anything to attract new customers and keep their loyalty.
Mark and his team knew that to take these competitors head on they would need to attract a steady stream of new customer interest online and use their website to convert this interest into hot leads and paying customers. It was clear that Golf Journeys wanted to get found online and build their brand presence locally and nationally.
"We believe the customer journey begins as soon as the prospect discovers us online, which is why we need to focus on the customer journey and producing marketing assets and destination guides to make the process from discovery to booking effortless..." - Golf Journeys
Challenges
- Difficult, hyper-competitive niche
- Extremely entrenched competitors
- Desire to significantly increase the volume of leads
- A strict deadline to launch before travel restrictions lifted
- Needed to facilitate online bookings 24/7 for unique events
Difficult, hyper-competitive niche
As golf is a sport with hardcore fans and affluent social players, the market attracts a considerable number of customers willing to pay large quantities of cash to improve their game or play at unique destinations. Because of this, the golf travel niche is super competitive to find marketing traction in.
Desired a significant increase in new leads
A filled lead pipeline is the biggest key to success for any service-based business in 2022. Golf Journeys understood that their website needed to meet their high-performance expectations and convert prospects into leads and customers for their business.
Deeply entrenched competitors
The majority of golf travel companies that operate in Australia have been in business for decades and enjoy funding from wealthy investors or strategic business alliances. Golf Journeys needed to find market traction fast to avoid running out of their initial startup funds and needed to differentiate itself to take marketshare away from their competitors.
Strict deadlines to adhere to
Golf Journeys knew that to see the best results possible, they would need to find a partner to build and launch their website and marketing funnels before the national and international travel restrictions in 2021 were eased by national and international goverments. Golf Journeys had less than six months to start capturing leads and get their first events sold out.
Required a unique online booking system
Mark's vision for his business to outperform his competitors online meant that he would have to take his sales process online to increase his overall sales figures. With over 10 years experience in the events industry he knew that the most popular online booking systems were not suitable for his company. He needed a cost-effective online booking system that was flexible, available 24/7, and could handle a large volume of unique events.
Solutions
The Falcon's first promise to the Golf Journeys team was to design and build their new website with the latest web design techniques and methods for customer lead generation. From there, The Falcon would assist with setting up marketing funnels and take care of the technical side of marketing, such as getting the SEO campaigns ready.
The Golf Journeys team knew they were working with a partner they could rely on very early into the project. The Falcon had presented a vision for the website tailored to overcome almost every marketing challenge originally encountered by Golf Journeys.
- Design & development of a custom company website
- Evergreen SEO assistance to attract new customers
- Easy to update "destination guide" for every major destination
- Development of a custom lead generation funnel for each event
- Comprehensive online booking system setup & website integration
- Online payment processor setup & integration
Results:
Working closely with the Golf Journeys team The Falcon was able to make the Golf Journeys customer experience one of the best in the country. Since the website's launch, the golf travel company has received awards and recognition from local governments and leading golf publications. The unwavering pursuit to improve the company's customer journey from discovery to customer booking is what made this project so successful and profitable for Golf Journeys. With the marketing foundations laid, the company will see exponential returns for many years.
- 226% increase in new clients
- 75% faster landing page deployment
- 3,059% increase in search engine traffic
- 1,102% increase in new event registrations
"We basically smashed every goal we set and the website is a huge part of that." - Mark H, Golf Journeys
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