The Complete Guide:HubSpot for Private Clubs

You may already possess a CRM, or at least a robust prospective member database. How much work does it take to nurture the leads in that database? Outdated or unreliable information within the CRM compromises lead quality and leaves potential revenue untapped. 

Without a cohesive strategy to engage and re-engage these leads (and members), valuable opportunities slip through the cracks.

Lead management is often the first step, and usually one of the longest. But HubSpot can help you organize your leads and create segmented lists of prospects based on specific criteria–like membership type or activity level. This helps you send targeted lead communication and personalized experiences for each stage of the prospect member’s journey.

Resource: HubSpot CRM Customizations for Better Lead Management and Conversions

Think about the emails that your club sends to prospects. Are you using the same messaging, regardless of prospect type? Email personalization can instantly distinguish your club from competitors–and surprisingly, less than 30% of marketers are using it.

For prospecting, emails can include information about club amenities, programming, courses, communities, etc. You can then use various personalization tokens to tailor the email by contact name, company, lifecycle stage, list membership, and more. 

With personalized emails in HubSpot, you serve up relevant subject lines, links, attachments, and call-to-actions for each targeted member group. Here’s an example of an email series targeting a golf-oriented membership prospect.

Resource: Liven Up Your Email Marketing: Ideas to Test, Temptations to Avoid

You may have the ideal messaging mix for your target audiences, but are those emails reaching them at the right time? Are you answering the right questions for their lifecycle stage or lead status? That’s where automated workflows and sales sequences come into play.

With automated email workflows in HubSpot, you can create workflows for various prospective member journeys. For member prospecting, consider creating workflows for the following lifecycle stages:

Lifecycle stages:

•  Subscriber: The prospect subscribed to your blog.
•  Lead: The prospect downloaded your membership guide.
•  Qualified: The prospect asked about club dues or membership costs.

Once you establish these stages, you can then create email workflows for all contacts that downloaded a similar asset or converted on the same CTA, since those contacts are at a similar stage in their journey. You can also set triggers to initiate an email or add a contact into a workflow that will deliver relevant content at the perfect time.

Resource: 4 Key HubSpot Features for Private Club Marketing

Most private club websites are split into two experiences: front-end, public views for prospective members, and back-end, private views for current members. Both are typically run on the same club platform, but they might not be connected to a marketing automation platform–or share the same experience for anyone accessing them. Member portals may hold most of the club’s information, which leaves the public-facing site to recruit with minimal content.

You can provide some customization on the front end with static pages–if you have the time to build out multiple versions of a page for different audiences. We’d wager that many membership directors don’t have that luxury.

Prospect needs evolve as they move through the membership journey, and one technology platform can’t (and shouldn’t) serve all member recruitment functions. An early-stage lead wants to know about club amenities and community; a late-stage lead asks about cost. If you’re running a static front-end website experience, you’ll either need to manually create dozens of custom landing pages–or hope that your existing content answers enough questions.

Dynamic or “smart” content recognizes a user’s behavior and presents information related to their current needs. In HubSpot, dynamic content is fueled by a centralized marketing database, which stores your contacts’ downloads and interaction history with your club.

Some examples of dynamic content in HubSpot include:

•  Tailored landing page messaging that adjusts based on the visitor's demographics, interests, or browsing behavior.

•  Dynamic calls-to-action that adjust based on the visitor's stage in the membership journey.

•  Personalized email content, driven by a segmented email list based on member interests or prior interactions.

Dynamic content helps clubs shape content to resonate with each visitor, ultimately leading to a higher conversion rate and attracting more qualified potential members.

Case Study: Golfer’s Paradise Attracting Next Generation of Members: Oak Hill Country Club

Private club members have diverse reasons for joining–and different ways they wish to interact with management. Clubs must tailor their communication approaches to ensure everyone feels valued and has a seamless experience–and that starts by keeping track of how members communicate.

•  Active, engaged members might ask for information about upcoming events, inquire about booking facilities, or seek recommendations for specific club services.

•  Socially-focused members might ask about social events, guest policies, or dress code requirements.

•  Facility users might reach out for information about operating hours for specific facilities, book reservations for fitness classes, or report equipment malfunctions.

•  The “silent majority” of members might not interact with management at all–except when renewal time arrives.

HubSpot's CRM allows membership directors to effectively store, organize, and manage member information. This includes tracking member interactions, preferences, and engagement history.

•  Each member contact record contains data about the member’s interactions with your club–everything from emails sent, calls made, downloads of member newsletters or guides, and so on.

•  HubSpot can also coordinate communication methods with members, whether they prefer to receive pre-event or post-event communications, feedback, surveys, or just renewal reminders.

By tracking member engagement within your club, you’re more likely to understand their unique needs–and less likely to overwhelm them with irrelevant information.

Case Study: Bringing Members Home: Greystone Golf and Country Club

Member needs, like prospect needs, also evolve as they engage with your club. A new member might need help navigating the golf course or scheduling their first fitness classes. A long-time member might use the club’s resources to host exclusive events or advocate for member needs at board meetings. A static website experience may not be able to adapt to these diverse needs.

In HubSpot, dynamic content works for current members, too. One example involves the development of smart content, which uses rules to dynamically adjust design and content elements based on specific criteria.

You can base these smart content rules on various factors, including:

•  Device type (phone, desktop, tablet)
•  Membership type (golf, fitness, etc.)
•  Preferred language
•  Lifecycle Stage, as set in HubSpot CRM (retention, loyalty)

This means that your members can engage with the club’s content in the manner they prefer, while allowing you to cater to the different needs and preferences of each member group.

If you’re tracking event registrations through an existing database, or even in copious spreadsheets, it increases the risk of missed registrations and unhappy guests. Each event has its own identity, so it should also have customized outreach.

HubSpot custom event pages allow you to track RSVPs and handle registrations, keeping those responses separate from other events. Event pages can also integrate with tools like Eventbrite, for seamless event promotion and management. This means that you move beyond one-size-fits-all event templates, and you can tailor event descriptions and visuals to appeal to specific member segments.

Resource: Revamping Club Membership: Sandra Petti’s Journey with HubSpot

Event management requires a seamless blend of promotion, logistics, execution, and engagement. But if every stage is hampered by manual work, the task list becomes impossible. Membership directors simply don’t have the time to scour event registration forms, collect contact data, organize it into a spreadsheet, and build several emails for each stage of the event.

HubSpot’s automated event messaging allows you to send automated event reminders, follow-up emails, and post-event feedback requests to enhance member engagement and satisfaction. You can create a simple automated workflow to track attendee engagement and set enrollment triggers to send the next message within the workflow.

For example, an event-based simple workflow might have triggers from the following actions:

•  Email bounced when sent to contact

•  Contact clicked a link

•  Contact marked email as spam

•  Contact opened email

•  Contact received email

•  Contact replied to email

Automated workflows eliminate the need for membership directors to manually send out individual emails for each stage of the event process. This frees up valuable time to focus on other aspects of event management.

Resource: Harnessing Technology for Club Success: Lessons from Industry Insiders

Golf management companies that oversee multiple facilities can’t operate from a single member pipeline when coordinating events. Each club has unique sales and event management processes, with unique stages that require different pipelines. Not all club members fit the same mold. They might vary in size, industry, or geography, or various segments of the audience might be looking for entirely different experiences. 

With such varied member profiles and needs, not all sales cycles should be created equal.

With a Sales Professional account or higher, golf management companies can build multiple pipelines for their clubs. This enables club membership teams to work more efficiently and to customize their processes around the unique needs of their members.

Your reporting needs should match your club’s needs. Without proper data analysis tools and dashboards, you could miss valuable insights into member behavior, trends, and preferences. Basic, universal dashboards might bridge some of this gap, but they also limit your ability to report on specific member segments (like renewals, active facility users, etc.)

A lack of valuable, actionable data creates a decision-making vacuum for a private club. Without a complete view of member and prospect activity, club managers and membership directors fall back on what they know–driven by personal experience and gut instinct.

Experience matters, but it’s derived from subjective intuition. You may know how to communicate with your current members, but will that insight work for the next generation of prospects?

HubSpot’s custom dashboards and analytics reporting give you a greater understanding of member and prospect activity at every stage of their respective lifecycles.

•  For member acquisition, you can track website traffic sources, marketing campaign conversions, and application activity. This would allow you to assess recruitment efforts and identify potential improvements.

•  For member engagement, you can segment member categories by new, active, or lapsed members. This can help identify which members are more receptive to additional communication–and which prefer the silent approach.

Custom reporting dashboards allow you to understand your members and prospects on a deeper level, and adapt your services to meet their evolving needs.

Resource: Elevating Private Club Marketing Into the Digital Age

Most content management systems still require users to know HTML and CSS, which are complex languages. They might have clunky interfaces or lack user-friendly features for adding, editing, and publishing content. Membership directors don’t have the time to learn code.

HubSpot’s Website Builder uses a Drag-and-Drop feature to place website elements onto a page. No code required. Clubs can assign different levels of feature permissions for each user, which can allow staff to edit and publish content without needing any coding experience or training.

You can also try a variety of templates and design options tailored to different club or member needs. This long-term, sustainable approach helps your website reflect your club’s unique brand and appeal.

Resource: Creating Drag and Drop Websites Using Website Builders

If a club’s website development and marketing operate separately, it can dilute the user experience. Messaging between the website and marketing materials may be inconsistent, which could confuse potential members and damage the club's brand image.

In HubSpot, your website is hosted in the Content Hub, a comprehensive, AI-powered content marketing platform that can help you scale your marketing efforts. The Content Hub integrates your website with your suite of marketing tools, including email marketing, online advertising, social media management, search engine optimization (SEO), CRM, and more. 

Within the Content Hub, you can manage all their website and marketing efforts from a single dashboard. This can simplify your processes and ensure a cohesive strategy.

Resource: Attract New Members: Your Private Club Website Isn't Just for Member Engagement

If a club’s website development occurs apart from a CRM, prospect profiles might lack valuable information about online behavior. You might miss lead referral sources, website page visits, or content downloads. Missing this data also makes it difficult to know if they’re just looking for information or ready for a tour. 

HubSpot’s CRM seamlessly integrates with the Content Hub, allowing clubs to manage prospective member information, track interactions, and automate communications. This integration ensures that all contact data is centralized and easily accessible, facilitating better relationship management and personalized communications. Closed-loop reporting tools enable clubs to evaluate the ROI of their advertising campaigns. 

It can also provide valuable clues for targeted renewal campaigns.

Resource: Beyond HubSpot CRM: Using HubSpot Content Hub® for Managing Your Website

Manual content and social development consume a significant amount of a membership director's time. This means less time for customized member engagement, less time for campaign analysis, and less time to organize and segment member lists.

Task automation in HubSpot can relieve directors from constant publishing pressure. In Marketing Hub, you automate nurturing contacts after they engage with your content. You can add contacts who clicked a specific link in a marketing email to a static list for future email targeting. You can also create simple workflows that execute multiple actions, like updating a contact record and sending a follow-up message after a form submission.

All this means you save time and ensure consistency in member communication, event management, and administrative processes.

Resource: Incorporating Advanced Workflows to Convert More Leads to Customers

If your club manages social media profiles on various platforms, it can be a hassle to manage social publishing–especially if you lose track of platform logins, passwords, or users. You’d also need to keep each social platform open to monitor comments or reviews–people don’t appreciate long response times on social media.

HubSpot offers the ability to schedule and publish social media posts directly within the platform You can link a Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube (Enterprise level only) account within HubSpot. Tracking engagement metrics across various social media platforms. Once you connect to a platform, you can create, edit, schedule, or post a social update. 

At the Professional and Enterprise levels, you can also use inbox streams to identify trending content, respond to social conversations, gather intelligence about new followers, and see social stream posts.

Resource:Mastering Social Media for Clubs: Go Beyond Likes and Shares

Content includes all the forms that your club uses to communicate with prospects and members. Everything from emails, social posts, blogs, guides, website pages, advertisements, newsletters, and beyond–all of it should connect your club’s offerings to prospect and member needs.

It’s easier said than done, and extremely difficult without a strategy. Private clubs need a strong, targeted, and relevant content strategy to attract new members, engage existing ones, and cultivate a thriving community. 

HubSpot’s content tools can help build and execute that strategy. Within HubSpot, you can manage blog posts, newsletters, and other content marketing efforts to keep members informed and engaged. 

Some common content tools include:

•  Persona generators, which can generate professional, customizable member persona documents

•  Blog and newsletter templates, which can shorten production time

•  Video and podcast hosting, which can allow clubs to expand audio/video options and highlight club amenities

Resource: Are You in the 63% Navigating Without a Content Marketing Strategy?

HubSpot's Starter plans cater to growing private clubs that need more advanced features than the free tools. 

These plans include additional functionalities, such as:

•  Removing HubSpot branding from forms and emails

•  Marketing automation, including simple workflows for ad campaign creation & management, form conversions, and emails

•  Enhanced customer support

•  CMS for a website up to 50 pages

Starter plans allow private clubs to create personalized marketing campaigns, automate member follow-ups, and maintain a professional online appearance. This can help attract and retain members by delivering a high-quality digital experience.

HubSpot’s Professional plans cater to private clubs that need comprehensive tools for robust marketing campaigns, sales processes, and member service operations. 

These plans come at a higher monthly fee, but they offer advanced features, such as:

•  Advanced marketing automation, including omnichannel and account-based marketing workflows

•  A/B testing

•  Detailed analytics and reporting dashboards

•  Higher-level website integrations

•  Smart content

Professional plans allow mid-sized private clubs to build deeper engagement with members through targeted marketing efforts, sophisticated event promotion, and enhanced member feedback.

HubSpot’s Enterprise plans cater to large private clubs and golf management organizations with complex needs. They’re designed for clubs that require robust tools to manage extensive marketing and sales operations across multiple facilities and member segments. Enterprise plans offer the most advanced features and the highest levels of customization and support. 

These plans include capabilities like:

•  Advanced reporting, up to 500 custom reports, and 100 million events per custom reporting query

•  Custom objects, which store almost any type of data in HubSpot, including subscriptions, locations, shipments, events, and more

•  Predictive lead scoring, which automatically scores and ranks leads based on hundreds of factors

•  Enhanced security features

•  Management for more than one domain name in the same portal

Enterprise plans offer the flexibility and power to drive large-scale, strategic initiatives, such as comprehensive member acquisition campaigns, detailed member segmentation, and personalized member journeys.

In addition to the core plans, HubSpot offers various add-ons and usage-based fees for additional functionalities, which can help private clubs with unique needs. 

These add-ons can include:

•  Advanced reporting

•  API calls

•  Increased limits on contacts and marketing emails

With these add-ons, HubSpot allows private clubs to customize their subscriptions based on their specific requirements, such as integrating with existing club management software or scaling up marketing efforts during peak membership drives. This means that clubs only pay for the needed features, making it a cost-effective solution.

HubSpot knows private clubs have different needs and budgets. Clubs can choose between monthly or annual billing, with discounts for annual commitments. Additionally, HubSpot often provides bundled pricing for multiple hubs (Marketing, Sales, Service, CMS), to offer more value at a reduced cost. 

These flexible pricing options make it easier for private clubs to find a plan that fits their budget, while still accessing the tools they need to enhance member experiences and operations.

HubSpot can easily link to the member-facing website built on any club operational system, including Janus, Northstar, ClubEssential, or MembersFirst. It’s a cloud-based platform, which means it exists entirely online, sharing and collecting information with your current system. You don’t need to add new on-site infrastructure or server space.

HubSpot offers self-paced and guided training lessons for onboarding, integration, and ongoing maintenance. HubSpot Academy offers free courses and certifications, and the Customer Training Center offers virtual and in-person classroom training.

For more targeted training, consider partnering with a HubSpot Integration Agency that specializes in both HubSpot and the private club industry.

You can read how Milwaukee Athletic Club, Hazeltine National Golf Club, and Greystone Golf & Country Club used HubSpot to better understand and connect with prospective and current members.