Tom Jones, a certified custom clubfitter and Titleist Performance Institute-certified trainer, is the marketing director at Sun ‘N Air Golf Center in Danvers, Mass.

Tom Jones on the importance of stressing the amenities that set your demo days apart:
Being a facility that does hundreds of clubfittings every year, we’ve found that getting all the big names, such as Titleist, Cobra, TaylorMade, Callaway, Mizuno, Adams, Nike, Cleveland, and Ping, together at the same demo day is a great opportunity for both us and our customers. But more important than gathering all the big names together is stressing to our customers what sets our demo days apart from all the others. For starters, we emphasize that being a facility with an outdoor range allows golfers true, immediate, and real-life feedback; no simulators needed! In addition, we offer free clubfittings on the spot. This serves to not only get customers the clubs that they like, but get them specified to their personal needs as well. We also provide free food and drink at our demo days, which proves very useful due to the long duration of the demo and clubfitting process. For our facility, days like these help to act as great exposure to customers, allowing them to see everything we have to offer; that includes an ice cream stand and fun events that are not related to the classic driving range experience.

Tom Jones on the business impact of stressing the amenities that set your demo days apart:
We make $8,000-$9,000 more than we would on an average day, and do approximately 10 percent of our yearly shop sales with these events. Beyond that, the biggest thing the success of these demo days provides us is a way to promote our golf center on a much grander scale. First, the infusion of money allows us to do a media blitz to promote the event. Second, it serves to act as confirmation that we are doing the right thing by taking the extra time and effort to do all the custom orders which our customers demand of us. In addition, being only 20 miles north of Boston, we draw customers from a wide geographic area for our demo days. That allows us to expand our geographic reach through referrals and word of mouth, which can pay off in a very positive way for our bottom line.