Why Your Club Website is the MVP of Your Membership Team [ep. 37]

Websites are constantly evolving. No longer is your website an online brochure. It should be a critical part of your membership and marketing team. Remember the early days of websites? Some businesses didn’t think they even needed one. They were really basic and let’s face it, were more of a digital brochure. Lots of copy, a few pictures and of course, no video. In the early years, the idea of having a website that could drive new members, increase revenue and answer questions for members and prospective members was unheard of. It just didn’t exist.

Today, people who come to your website want to know more about your amenities, your staff and mostly, they want to know about your members to see if they’ll fit in. They are looking for answers and they want them now - are you able to help them, even if it’s after hours?

In this episode, Lisa Schmidtke, a seasoned website developer and designer, and I get into websites to talk about what you can do to make your website the top performing of your membership team. 

Episode Highlights:

• 2:53: Ed and Lisa discuss the missed opportunity in having website images of amenities without people.
• 5:03: What is organic search as it relates to a website and why that matters when it comes to getting found online.
• 7:39: Ed explains how most club websites are missing key pieces of information that help them get found online.
• 9:14: The impact of a blog on your website.
• 12:06: Ed and Lisa talk about how blog content can attract the next generation members who are looking for kids activities online and may not realize they can find them at your club.
• 14:58: Ed and Lisa talk about automating your new member inquiries.
• 17:22: Optimizing the time your Membership Director spends with prospective members.
• 23:33: Lisa talks about what progressive club leaders should think about when building a new public facing website.
• 27:31: Lisa and Ed talk about hidden costs and the fact that when some website developers in the club space offer "free" public facing websites, they're not really free.

Podcast Transcript

Ed Heil [00:00:00] Hey there, Lisa. How are you doing today?

Lisa Schmidtke [00:00:03] I'm great. How are you, Ed?

Ed Heil [00:00:04] I'm doing just fine, thanks. Thanks for for joining in on the fun here with Crushing Club Marketing.

Lisa Schmidtke [00:00:10] Happy to be here.

Ed Heil [00:00:11] All right. So in full disclosure, Lisa and I do work together. So the conversations that we're having have been had before to some degree, but to frame it up for you to just, you know, to be able to hear some some different thoughts around web design and development, you know, we thought that it might be helpful for Lisa to share her insights because Lisa, as we mentioned, has her career has been in building and designing websites and and so much more expert in this area than I am, for sure. So looking forward to the conversation today, Lisa.

Lisa Schmidtke [00:00:51] Yeah, I am as well.

Ed Heil [00:00:52] All right. So let's just talk a little bit about we'll just dive right into this because club websites are, you know, depends first of all, it depends on the type of club you're at. We recognize the fact that there are some clubs and there's very few, but there are, you know, the elite clubs in this country that really don't need to worry about this. I mean, in my opinion, I think in I think you would agree that all clubs really should think about how they're presenting themselves online these days, because it's an opportunity to show your club off and your space, your membership to some degree. But recognizing this might not be a priority for some clubs or for the vast majority of other clubs. How they look and come across online is pretty important.

Lisa Schmidtke [00:01:37] Yeah. Yeah. I would agree. In just like you said, even if they're not using it as a marketing tool or a lead generation tool, you know, inevitably somebody, one of their members may be a guest of a member is going to go to access the website. And, you know, it's got to reflect