Hermitage Golf Course

Tapping Into The Tourism Industry [With A Hole-In-One Social Advertising Strategy]

SUCCESS STORY

In 2018 Nashville began to see a booming increase in tourism with over 119 million visitors & a record-breaking $22 billion in domestic spending. Hermitage Golf Course partnered with Drive Social Media shortly thereafter with the hopes of capitalizing on this momentous tourism growth while simultaneously converting locals into repeat customers. Two years later, their business is up 70% year over year in revenue growth.

$873,644.94

Expected Revenue Generated 4/1/21 - 7/1/21

66.62X

ROI

THEIR STORY

Golf Like No Other

Hermitage Golf Course boasts 2 award-winning courses that trail through the natural TN wetlands. With 36 challenging holes, on-site luxury cabins & wandering Scottish Black Face Sheep, Hermitage has racked up countless awards & accolades, including “The #1 Public Course In TN” by Golf Digest.

Prior to partnering with Drive, they had minimal experience in the advertising industry. Having run a brief stint of radio & print ads, Hermitage was searching for an advertising solution that offered clear & trackable results. In addition, our ground-breaking social strategy opened the window for Hermitage to claim their stake in the $22 billion tourism industry that was overtaking Middle TN.

THEIR GOAL

Driving New Customers To The Course

Hermitage Golf Course partnered with Drive Social Media in June of 2019 with the goal of getting more golfers onto the course. From the booming tourism wave to the steadily-growing local population, they knew the potential for growth was within reach. However, they needed the acumen of our digital marketing strategy to capture & convert these specific audiences.

Although Nashville has its fair share of public golf courses, Hermitage's on-site luxury cabins & affordable daily rates gave them a leg up to competition. With that in mind, Drive created a social advertising strategy to provide, at minimum, a three times return on investment during their first year.

OUR SOLUTION

Custom Campaigns For Custom Audiences

Because Hermitage Golf Course offers the unique opportunity to play private-quality courses at a public price, Drive leaned into this competitive advantage & created campaigns designated to convert Facebook + Instagram users that closely resembled their current customer base.

For example, a golf lover may see an advertisement while scrolling through social media that highlights Hermitage's countless awards & accolades. Although he or she had never golfed at Hermitage before, this avid golfer closely resembles the current customer base & would likely be interested in booking a tee time. From there, all they would have to do is click "learn more" to reserve a spot on the links!

When it came to targeting out-of-towners & tourists, however, we took a different approach. By using carousel ads, we created specific campaigns to target "snowbirds" looking to get out of the cold & onto the course. These campaigns were served to northern states, sources of Nashville’s new spike in tourism, with the strategy of increasing outside foot traffic. From a creative perspective, each slide of the carousel featured enticing value points to convert the out of town golf lovers into Hermitage guests!

OUR SUCCESS

Pacing Above Par With A 66x ROI

Drive prides itself on providing a 3x ROI for every client within the first year & Hermitage Golf Course proved to be no exception. Even amidst a global pandemic, Drive & Hermitage Golf Course continued advertising to reach a lofty 28x ROI at the one year mark.

The campaigns that targeted out of towners & snowbirds has generated a total of 1,007 purchases & $246,054.83 over the course of the prosperous partnership. Furthermore, the most recent round of campaigns, that ran from April 2021 - July 2021 resulted in 458 new purchases, $114,016.18 in revenue & total sum of 66.62x return on investment.

When it comes to analyzing these results, the proof is in the paper. Nearly 2 short years after partnering with Drive Social Media, Hermitage Golf Course is reaching an all-time-high with a 70% growth year-over-year. As COVID-19 restrictions are lessening & tourism traffic is increasing in Nashville, we’re confident that we will maintain Hermitage’s Golf Course’s standing as the most decorated public course in Middle Tennessee while growing their popularity well beyond being a hometown favorite.