Your Golf Card program on auto-pilot
The Links Card handles it all from A-Z
strategic benefits
keep funding in your state
We're more than happy to keep a majority of the revenue in your state for the long term benefit of golf in your community
Automatic earnings
As part of this partnership, you'll earn on all the sales that come from your state.
full service
Running a great discount card program takes a lot of time and resources. The Links Card handles it all from A-Z so you can stay focused on your core operations.
faster launch
Using our established systems, marketing, and processes, you can start earning from our partnership much faster than trying to build one on our own.
earn more with a bigger reach
Because we're soley dedicated to the administration and sales of The Links Card, we can leverage strategic partnerships and marketing systems that increases our distribution - and the funding your assocation receives.
92% rating from courses
In a survey we did this year, courses gave us a 92% approval rating for our program with the main benefits being improving yields and free marketing
- Raise $1 million total by end of year 5
- Add 5,000 new GHIN members to each state
- Onboard 60 additional courses
- Setup 4 distribution channels
- Add 10 distribution partners
Launch ASAP
The Links Card has processes and systems in place so you can launch as our partner within 2 weeks
- Pre-written emails to courses
- Course follow up
- Course onboarding
- Suggested website updates
- Pre-launch promotions
- Coordinated marketing campaigns
Sales and service
The Links Card handles 99% of the work involved with a golf card program allowing you to stay focused on what you do best.
- Sales support
- Customer service
- Website updates
- Digital marketing + remarketing
- Physical marketing collateral
- Fulfillment
- Email campaigns
- Revenue tracking
- Finding additional distribution
- GHIN upsells
- After sale onboarding to encourage a better experience
- and more
Process Design
Need a new way of things to get done? We'll design the frontend and backend systems to make it happen
- Marketing flows
- API integrations
- In person event support
- Course servicing
- Custom requests
*Most requests are included in the administration of the program, but some special requests will be have a service fee
association responsibilities
Affiliate, endorsement, or partnership annoucement
To maximize our effectiveness with onboarding courses, we would need some type of signal from your association that we're partners. It's one thing to say we'll donate proceeds, but it's a whole different ball game if you publicly say we're partners.
Ideally, we could get a 20 second video from each director in support
Send 1-3 pre-written emails to courses
Introductions to the decision makers with your backing can get us started in the right direction. We can even write custom intros for you that explain what we're trying to accomplish and mail merge it for you.
Once done, we can handle the follow up calls/emails, onboarding process, and offer design
Quick website update
We'd need a link from your website to ours that will be used for attribution and sales tracking.
We're happy to work with your website team to create the most effective placement and continuing placements in different areas to maximize traffic
Course Follow Ups
In 3-4 weeks, we'd like to see some additional support with course outreach
An email to your GHIN customers (optional)
Might as well leverage your existing customers.
This step is optional in case you want to sell directly on your website, but in terms of effectiveness, the sales copy and sales process on The Links Card website will be produce more revenue.
Introductions to strategic partners (optional)
We can work with your strategic partners to maximize traffic and sales.
We can work with your tourism boards, business partners, and even youth golf teams to create maximum impact for golf in your state
Week 1
Course onboarding
- Written or video testimonials from the 3 executive directors
- Personalized emails to courses with intros to TLC
- Announcements
- Attribution Setup
- Domain referrals
- Dedicated landing pages
- Tracked short links you can share with partners
- Pre-Sale Setup
- Upsells
- Smooth out checkout process
- Email blasts to lists to build excitement
Week 2
- Course onboarding
- Email/phone follow ups from TLC
- Online Sales Launch
- Email blasts to GHIN lists
- Email blasts to TLC list
- Email blasts to GSW list
- Paid ads by TLC
- Partner Introductions
- SGAs to introduce TLC strategic partners to coordinate larger reach. Ex: Tourism boards
Week 3
- Course onboarding
- Continuation by TLC with outreach/follow ups
- Price Analysis Meeting
- Discussion for remodel of price structure based on demand/course onboarding
- Optimization
- Ads
- Website flows
- Attribution
Week 4
- Course onboarding
- Continuation by TLC with outreach/follow ups
- End of month
- First checks sent out
- Summary of achievments for the month
- Outreach for additional distribution
- Charity tournaments
- Pro shops
- Bloggers
- Launch of physical individual state cards
June – August
- Maximize Sales
- Ads
- Distribution opportunities
- Email blasts
- Strategic partnerships
September – October
- Structured Price Reduction
- Give people the chance to try out the membership for a reduced price – ie, lead gen for next season
Late Oct – Jan 2023
- Course Commitments
- Continuation by TLC with outreach/follow ups
- Price Analysis Meeting
- Discussion for remodel of price structure based on demand/course onboarding
- Major operational changes
- Process redesign
- Card redesign
- 2023 Presales
- Discounted 2023 pricing
Feb Onwards
- 2023 Launch!
Q&A
- Control – Will the states have control of pricing?
- Data – Will the states have access to the people buying/using the card from each of our states?
- Branding – Is there a branding opportunity to get the tri-states logo’s and message to the customer via this card.
- Sales – Maine has many snowbirds; how does Maine receive a percentage of the Links card if the “State of sale” in FL?
- GHIN Upsells – I would like to hear your thoughts. Each state has a USGA/AGA online option that may make data entry and activation very easy for all.
- 50/80/60 – I want to make sure I understand the delineation between each %. Same with 2-year attribution tag.
- Golf Course Onboarding – The “key” to a good card is getting course participation. I would like to hear your thoughts on this topic and the role each state needs to play in this.
- Course admin – I would like to hear how the courses will record rounds or not and what we can do to make use of the card easy for them.
- What are the decision making limitations of the executive director position?
- How quickly can decisions be made if it has to go to a committee?
- Timeline restrictions with US Open coming up?
- Are there any decisions you want to be brought in on?
Automatic earnings
Through our partnership, you’ll receive a portion of every sale on The Links Card’s website based in your state, or tracked through your referral links.
- Marketing costs covered by us
- Automatic monthly payouts
- Save time while we organize campaigns with your strategic partners
- Free remarketing
of sales in your state for customers we find
*tracked by billing address or the purchase of a state specific card
**When we use other distribution channels like retailers, courses, or charity fundraisers, it will be 50% of the net sale.
of a sale when its tracked from your own or your partners campaigns (see below)
of a tracked customer’s next sale(s) for 2 years.
Exclusive Wholesale pricing
Naturally, you may want to sell at your in person events or on your own website to control your own sales cycle.
We’re happy to support your sales efforts through different mediums with favored nation wholesale pricing and attribution.
- 2 years attribution tag when they register their card
- In person event support
- Custom event marketing collateral design
- Process design to make transactions easy
- Customer service after the sale
Digital Cards
Fulfilled by usPhysical Card
Fulfilled by youPhysical Card
Fulfilled by The Links Cardcustomizable tracking and attribution
Digital Referrals
When you run your own digital campaigns, there are several ways to attribute the sale to your organization.
Because every campaign is different, we can customize how we attribute digital sales to create a frictionless purchasing experience
Full Domain Attribution
We can designate your state's website as the referral domain. Any web traffic from your site is tagged as yours for 30 days with last click attribution.
Last click example: Customer comes to us from mainegolf.com but their next visit is from vtga.com. Vermont would earn the sales' attribution.
Tracked Short Links
Tracked short links are great for email, social media campaigns, or in person events if you'd like someone to visit the sales page.
Example: me.thelinkscard.com
vt.thelinkscard.com
nh.thelinkscard.com
The user would be redirected to your dedicated landing page (see below)
Referral Links
How it works: Your organization receives a link with your referral ID that will tag a visitor when clicked.
How to use them: Great for posting on your website, social media, or emailing out to your patrons.
You can also create a QR code for printed materials.
Campaigns: You can add campaign parameters which allows you to track different sources.
Example: ?campaign=Xtournament or ?campaign=Ytournament
Can work in conjuction with tracked short links
Ex: me.thinkscard.com/y
Dedicated Branded Landing Page
How it works: No referral links needed. You receive a dedicated page on our website that will act as your referral attributor
How to use: Simply refer people to a page dedicated to your organization.
Benefits: Visitors will know exactly who they're supporting and how much of their purchase goes back to you.
Use Case: If any of your own partners add a link to their website, they can point them to this landing page.
Ex: A corporate sponsor sends out an email to their list and refers them to your dedicated landing page so they can read more.
Upsell In Person
Being at the right place at the right time has its benefits. Leverage your on-the-ground team to sell The Links Card
Code Based - Digital Cards
You'll receive your choice of a list of codes or pre-printed cards with unique redemption codes.
Sign up customers on the spot using a unique checkout page or distribute codes so they can register later.
Codes are charged once activated
This option is only good for digital memberships
Physical Membership Cards - Pre-Paid
Physical cards provide a sort of instant satisfaction that might be necessary for an in-person event.
Cards are pre-paid and registration by the customer is not required. But we encourage you to enforce it so a buyer is tagged to you.
The Tracking Dashboard
We want to display full transparency.
- You can track visits where someone visited our site from your link
- Referrals – those who purchased while tagged to you
- 2 Year Attributed Customers – those who purchased or registered a card tagged to you
- See expected payouts
- and more
Course Onboarding - Pareto Principle
40% Easy
We expect 40% of courses that will eventually join to require minimal work from your associations – an endorsement or follow up call/email from The Links Card will be enough.
40% Moderate
Another 40% will require a few follow ups from The Links Card and an additional email or phone call from the state association
20% Difficult
The last 20% will require 80% of the work to onboard. They will require multiple follow ups and emails from The Links Card and the state association. They’re unlikely to join in 2022 but may consider it in 2023 after seeing the numbers.
Throughout the process, we can re-evaluate the priority of course outreach to ensure we’re all utilizing our resources properly.