How Scottsdale Golf Packagers Find You

Very few golf packagers have the money to spend on expensive, glossy ads in national golf magazines. What little they do have budgeted for marketing purposes is most likely spent on SEO (search engine optimization) for their websites. Or if they are aggressive enough they will work with a search engine company like Google where they can buy what's called, "Sponsored Links". These are paid ads that take them to the top of the search results when, for example, you do a search for "Scottsdale Golf". They feel they have a much better chance of getting you to pay a visit to their site if they get listed at the top. This is done on a "pay per click" basis where each time their link is clicked Google charges them a fee. Depending on the popularity of certain keywords, Google will place a value on each click of anywhere between one dime and several dollars. It is then up to the packager to impress you with their site to the point where you call them on their toll-free number. This can get expensive depending on the competition for the keywords they choose and most packagers that are paying attention watch their conversion ratio of calls to sales very closely.

A Pretty Picture Doesn't Lie? 

A golf packagers website may impress you with the most spectacular, professionally shot pictures of hotels and golf courses (supplied by the PR firms of the course and hotel management companies) but if you have trouble navigating their site or you get confused by their "stay and play" packages - off you go. And the packager may never find out why you left because nobody takes the time to tell them. They have to find out the hard way, business is bad, so they try another approach. This is why so many of them don't last, they don't have the resources to continue to experiment until they hit on what works.

Components Of A Package 

A typical golf package will have at least two components, a place to stay and guaranteed tee times, but they can include everything from airfare and car rental to restaurant reservations and other activities like hot air ballooning, desert jeep tours, gold panning and numerous others. Of course most packagers will also offer a la carte options like rooms only or tee times only and some just won't do golf only. Once you call a golf packager it is up to them to convince you that A. They know what they are talking about. B. That they can give you a fair price. And C. That they can do what they say they will do. There are many ways to check out the credentials of a golf packager, let's say you like their price and the package is what you want but you just aren't getting that warm and fuzzy about them - calling one of their suppliers is one way to find out or you can simply shop elsewhere. Don't be too surprised (and it really doesn't happen that often) if the hotel or course you call has never heard of them, if the packager is not in Scottsdale they can be anywhere and unscrupulous people have been known to load packages on a website, steal pictures from the golf course and hotel websites, send invoices, do nothing and see who is dumb enough to pay them.