Communication Confusion: How to Reach Your Members Where They Are

Most private clubs lack a true communications strategy. Instead, they have a communications reflex, reacting instead of planning.

It’s usually when “we need to get something out” on a topic like a board decision, a new policy, or something that’s happened on campus, and in most cases, the communication is a club-wide email. By the way, it’s not because email was the right tool for that message, but because it’s usually the only tool and the one that everyone defaults to. Some clubs may use text messaging, more use social media as a communications channel, and in most cases, there’s little, if any, coordination between all channels. This isn’t negligent; it’s simply because these channels have emerged quickly, and clubs don’t have someone dedicated to overseeing the execution, let alone the strategic planning, for club communications.

It’s a buckshot approach. There’s no real game plan, and messages get fired across different channels, and while it makes perfect sense for the person hitting “send,” the member just sees a barrage of disconnected messages. You know there’s a better way, you just don’t have the time to figure it out, or the staff member to delegate it to.

The Real Problem Is Ownership

Ask most clubs who's responsible for member communications, and you'll get a vague answer, at best. The GM sends some things. The membership director sends others. The board president fires off an email when something feels urgent. The head golf pro sends golf emails. Everyone is communicating, and no one owns communication.

That distinction matters more than which app or platform you're using. If everyone is responsible, no one is responsible.

How we got here makes sense. For years, clubs didn’t need a dedicated communications staff member, internal team, or outside help. It wasn’t that long ago that club communication was a printed monthly newsletter that you could pick up at the front desk or receive by snail mail.

Digital communication changed everything. Today, members want to be notified on their terms, their schedule, and the places they receive information. Here’s the catch: everyone has different preferences, and that makes this once basic task extremely complicated.

Every Channel Has a Job

Here's the framework I use with clubs when we untangle this. It's not complicated, but almost no one has written it down.

Blog

Your club blog is the home for your information. Your announcements, updates, member stories, and dining specials are found here. This is the hub of your communications “hub and spoke” model.

Don’t have a blog? Believe it or not, your software platform probably has one built in. It might not be very powerful, but it’s there, and it can do the job for now. One person is the gatekeeper and editor of all information that is shared in this hub.

Email

Email is your official record. It's where formal decisions, sequenced announcements, and anything requiring documentation live. Emails wait patiently in an inbox, but that convenience is also what makes it easy to bury.

If this email is something your members are going to need to reference in the future, make sure there’s a version of this announcement/information on your blog. It doesn’t need to be long or drawn out, but make an entry and make it easy for members to find.

Text Messages

Text messages are for time-sensitive action. A reminder that the vote closes tomorrow. A nudge that the town hall starts in an hour. The golf course is closed due to rain. Text is interruptive by design, so it should be reserved for moments that genuinely need that kind of attention. Sure, you can use it for reminders for upcoming events as well, but try not to use it for trivial, meaningless matters, or members will tune it out exactly when you need them most.

Club Newsletter

The newsletter is for context and narrative. This is where you explain the *why* behind a decision, tell the story of a project's progress, and build the case over time rather than all at once. It can also be a wonderful tool to link people back to the blog.

Did you post an inspiring member's story on the blog? Tease the newsletter reader and link them back to the blog. A newsletter has rhythm, and members expect it on a schedule. This makes your newsletter the right place to build understanding gradually, instead of dumping a major decision on people cold.

Social Media

Social media is for culture. It's where members see the club as a living community. Here you show events, behind-the-scenes moments, staff recognition. It's definitely not the place to announce a capital assessment vote, but it’s a great place to remind people that a town hall exists and show them who else is going. Social media supports the campaign, but it shouldn't carry it.

Print and Mail

Print and mail still matter. Yes, print still matters. With all we’ve written about as it relates to generational membership challenges, keep print alive as needed. For your membership's most senior or least digitally engaged segment, a physical letter may feel old-fashioned to you, but it's often the only channel that reaches them at all.

Personal Outreach

Personal, one-to-one outreach is the channel clubs forget entirely: phone calls from board members. Face-to-face conversations in the grill room. Ambassador teams sharing information about a new capital project or a GM pulling aside a skeptical long-time member before a meeting. This is the highest-trust channel you have, and it's almost never built into the plan. Too often it's left to chance, dependent on whether someone happens to run into the right member at the right time.

Where to start

If you're a GM who knows this is a problem but hasn't been able to name why, start here: pull up your last major member communication and map it against these six channels. Which ones did you use? Which ones were planned versus reactive? Who was responsible for personal outreach, and did it actually happen?

If you're a board member who's lived through a rocky announcement, or a failed vote, you may have blamed the message, the messenger, the members, the timing, the tone. However, the real issue is usually one level up. There was never a plan for how that message was supposed to move through the club in the first place, and there is no one whose job it is to make sure it gets done properly.

Communication confusion isn't a content problem. It's an infrastructure problem. And infrastructure, unlike a single email, can actually be built.