AMF Partner Profile

• Easy-to-use content management tools that allow you to add text and images with ease at any time.
• Proactive communication with your members and customers with integrated email marketing tools.
• Support for online forms, surveys, and ecommerce.
• Website traffic analysis with one of the most powerful web-tracking software tools available.

By servicing a wide range of businesses and industries, IMAVEX avoids becoming too focused on "what sells" in an industry, as many niche-market website providers do. Since 2001, IMAVEX has quickly grown to serve more than 400 businesses and organizations. For more information visit IMAVEX at www.imavex.com. #

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AMF Members Only Specials
IMAVEX is offering AMF "Members Only" discounts on all website design and hosting services.  ClubWorksite is their workhorse solution that works best for most golf industry needs.  IMAVEX is offering AMF members a significant reduction to the normal ClubWorksite build-out and monthly subscription fees as well as custom design and development services such as Video streaming, e-commerce integration and various other premium website functions. Members should contact IMAVEX by submitting the following form (below) to take advantage of this very special opportunity.  You can also directly reach the IMAVEX sales team by calling 317.774.7460.

ClubWorksite by IMAVEX Inquiry

	* Required Fields * Your Name: * Club or organization you are representing: * Phone Number: * Email Address: Best time to reach you (check all that apply): Before Noon Lunch (12 - 1pm) Afternoon After 5pm Weekdays Weekends Comments - Questions - Needs: * Required Fields

Advice from IMAVEX for AMF Members

7 Tips to a Great Golf Website
by Steve Burzynski, IMAVEX Partner

Today, a golf facility or golf instructor website should be the backbone to all of your sales, marketing and communication efforts.  It should be the hub for customer relations by providing visitors the ability to find any club-related information at anytime.
    A well designed and constantly updated website truly has unlimited potential as it is not limited by space or time.  It can become a powerful sales and marketing medium by integrating elements such as full color pictures, animation, streaming video and interactive calls to action.  In fact, the internet is the only medium where a user (member, student, guest, etc.) can actually take steps to start a relationship directly from the medium (i.e. request club information, register online for an event or lesson, purchase a gift certificate or set up a tee time).
    It doesn’t have to be some “scary techno-jargon” thing you want to avoid, as there are solutions that are designed strategically for golf and country clubs.  These solutions, such as IMAVEX's ClubWorksite, provide a number of integrated content management, proactive communication and eCommerce tools that are easy for the “non-technical” to use.  Furthermore, they provide members, students and other users easy access to timely and useful information. Here are seven tips to getting more from your website:

(1) Design: 
The overall look and feel of a website is extremely important as it’s very possibly the first impression that someone may have of the club.  Furthermore, the overall design also plays a role in how the members feel about their association with the club or teacher.  It’s an extension of the club or teacher's personality. Most people think of design as the logo, colors and imagery, but it’s so much more than that.  The design is strategically architecting the website with the target audience (i.e. the user) in mind with the goal of making their visit enjoyable and most importantly, valuable.

(2) The Home Page Should Engage: 
Since the website should be a place for people to easily find the information they are looking for, then the home page should engage the user (i.e. get them to click on something).  Users will visit the club’s website for a variety of reasons and if the proper research is done, the home page can be laid out to quickly “engage” them.  In other words, put them on the path to finding what they are looking for.

(3) Fresh and Timely Content: 
The website should be “sticky.”  Kind of a strange word to associate with a website, but what is meant by that is the website should provide valuable information that is fresh and timely that lures a member or user to visit frequently.  The golf club’s website provider should provide the club’s staff (administration, golf pro, and etc.) with either tools to quickly and easily make unlimited updates from anywhere at anytime or offer a full-service maintenance solution where requests are submitted and are quickly updated on behalf of the club by the website provider.
    Some examples of critical content for a golf club’s or golf instructor's website include:  calendar of events, club news, golf course conditions, online registration for events, upcoming instruction programs, student successes and member statements. 

(4) Automatic Content Updates and Notifications: 
Having a website solution that has the capabilities to integrate and display new and fresh content without anyone at the club even thinking about it is not only really “cool,” but it frees up staff and it helps address the “stickiness” of the website (as discussed previously).  Through the use of date specific pages and integrated RSS news feeds, this can easily be accomplished. Furthermore, the club website should be able to allow members the ability to be notified of desired club events via email and cell phone (text messaging).

(5) Interactive and Multimedia:
Whether it’s a video overview of the club, a tip by the club pro or a hole by tour interactive tour of the golf course, users are becoming very accepting of interactive and multimedia content.  In fact it’s getting to the point where it’s becoming expected and desired.  One critical point to keep in mind is that user studies show that people enjoy this type of content as long as it’s not forced on them (i.e. automatically plays) and they can control the experience.  It is also critical that the delivery of the content is immediate and smooth.  If it isn’t, the club’s website has just accomplished the opposite of why the multimedia content was placed on the site in the first place.

(6) eCommerce: 
More and more golf clubs are integrating eCommerce solutions within their websites.  When I say eCommerce, I’m not only referring to an online shopping cart within the website to allow for the sale of logo items and gift cards, but also the ability for users to register for events and pay member statements online as well.

(7) Getting Traffic to Your Website: 
We’ve discussed a lot of elements that enhance and enrich the user experience of an instructor's or club’s website and some of the things needed to keep them coming back.  The last item I want to look at is related to driving traffic from the search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN.
    The club website needs to be strategically architected so that the search engines can easily “crawl and index” the website.  This is where it is very important to be working with a website provider that has the knowledge and experience to apply search engine optimization (SEO) techniques while following the guidelines of the search engines.
    For clubs that have facilities to host outside events such as weddings and outings, search engine marketing (SEM) is a method where engaged users, who are in the research or buy mode, can be sent to specific pages within the club’s website.  For example, let’s say someone performs a Google search for ‘central Florida weddings.’  A properly laid out SEM campaign will display an ad that is most relevant for what the user searched for and track the entire process from search to sale, ultimately providing the club with a quantifiable return on investment (ROI).


A sample home page designed for the Classic Club by IMAVEX.