Tennis Industry News

How do you fill your programs and events, even well before your club opens for the season? If you’re Jon Jacobson, director of tennis at the Forest Hill Swim & Tennis Club in Ellicott City, Md., you use TennisConnect Retailer.

“As of the last week in February, virtually all my summer events were filled up, with people on waiting lists,” he says. “I haven’t had to make one phone call. Now, as soon as we put our schedule online, we start getting signups. It’s just unbelievable. We’ve just put our summer camps online and we already have 40 or 50 signups.”

Jacobson says that once he set up links to the tennis calendar and the home page, people started using the website (www.foresthilltennis.com) to sign up for events. “I’ve been in the business for a long time, and I can’t imagine how I used to do this before,” he says. “You didn’t typically see players until Memorial Day weekend, then you would go back and forth with them and were always scrambling to sign them up.”

Now, he says, for a June 8 women’s guest day event, he had 20 teams signed up by mid-March, with another seven teams on a waiting list—“without making a single phone call.”

Jacobson estimates that he’s added well over 100 player signups per year to his events by using the TennisConnect enrollment software, and that he’s increased revenues by thousands of dollars, just on program enrollments through TennisConnect. “When you have events that are run well and run on time, and camps where people can sign up early and make summer plans, it translates into more people coming to take clinics and lessons,” he adds.

“I’ll send out a weekly newsletter to remind members about what’s coming up. And the clinics lead to more private lessons. It’s brought many more people to the club, which has increased my business.” He started a women’s round robin last year and immediately had 56 people sign up, so they were forced to limit it this year.

Forest Hill has 10 courts (eight lighted hard courts and two Har-Tru) and has 475 member families. Jacobson says he still has yet to tap into all the features that TennisConnect offers. “We don’t take court reservations yet. During all our events, we try to keep at least three courts open for walk-up play.” He uses the String Center and is planning on using it much more extensively this year.

“I use the email system to contact the entire membership, or I can easily break it down to contact just kids, couples, families, etc.,” he says. “Or I can email only those who have enrolled in a particular event, without bothering the entire club membership.”

“There’s no question,” he adds, “TennisConnect has made my job so much easier.”