Golf
- Public play and outings
- Seasonal and repeat players
- Tournament and league groups
Shepherd’s Hollow
Golf Club
Marketing Architecture
Michigan
Engagement began in October 2023
Overview
In October 2023, Shepherd’s Hollow Golf Club engaged Between Projects to increase leads for its special events venue, The Station.
The scope expanded quickly.
Event leads were a symptom. The issue was structural: brand, digital presence, and marketing infrastructure were out of alignment with the quality of the experience on the ground.
We rebuilt the brand and marketing architecture from the ground up — across golf, weddings, corporate events, and dining.
The Problem
Shepherd’s Hollow had evolved.
Its marketing hadn’t.
When The Station opened in 2020, the club expanded from a premier public golf destination into a full-service events venue. Early demand was strong. By 2023, momentum had slowed.
- Event leads were declining
- Wedding bookings for 2024–2025 were behind pace
- Forecasting gaps were creating real revenue risk
In weddings especially, long booking cycles mean missed demand compounds. The gap deepens every quarter it goes unaddressed.
The issue wasn’t awareness. It was misalignment.
The brand didn’t reflect the property. The digital experience underrepresented the offering. Marketing lacked structure across audiences and services.
The business had outgrown its system.
The Approach
A full-system problem
from the start.
We treated this as a full-system problem from the start.
The key insight: Shepherd’s Hollow isn’t a collection of offerings. It’s a place. Golf, weddings, events, and dining all draw from the same underlying asset — a rare physical environment with a distinct sense of experience. The marketing treated them as separate products. They needed to function as expressions of a single identity.
This required rebuilding both perception and infrastructure.
The Solution
A complete brand
and marketing system.
We designed and implemented a complete brand and marketing system.
Between Projects led strategy, brand direction, and digital execution, in collaboration with Also Known As Studio and Search Influence.
The system covered:
- Brand strategy + identity — repositioning Shepherd’s Hollow as a destination, not just a venue
- Website redesign + development — rebuilding the digital experience to reflect the property and convert across multiple use cases
- Service-line integration — aligning golf, weddings, corporate events, and dining under a single narrative
- Lead generation — structured inquiry and conversion pathways across audiences
- Media + analytics — coordinated digital marketing with clear performance tracking
The goal wasn’t to promote individual services in isolation. It was to build a system where each reinforces the others.
Marketing Architecture
1. Studies
Before strategy or creative, we study: audience behavior, competitive landscape, performance data, and the on-site experience itself.
For Shepherd’s Hollow, this included:
- Audience behavior across golf, weddings, and events
- Competitive landscape in the Michigan market
- Existing performance data across channels
- On-site experience and physical differentiators
The finding was clear: the experience on the ground far exceeded how the property was represented digitally. That gap was both the problem and the opportunity.
Marketing Architecture
2. Blueprint
We developed a unified positioning:
“A Place Like No Other”
Place as the product, not the backdrop.
From there:
- Audience segments redefined across all service lines
- Customer journeys mapped from discovery through booking
- Messaging structured around environment, experience, and versatility
Every decision ran through a single filter: does this reflect what it’s actually like to be here?
Audience Segmentation
Weddings & Events
- Engaged couples
- Corporate event planners
- Private dining groups
Dining & Experience
- Local diners
- Visiting guests
- Seasonal visitors
Marketing Architecture
3. Design / Build
We translated the strategy into a working system.
In collaboration with Also Known As Studio, we refined the visual identity and built a full website redesign — content systems, conversion pathways, and creative tailored to weddings, golf outings, and private events across all seasons.
The result was a digital experience that matched the quality of the physical space — and converted accordingly.
Marketing Architecture
4. Optimization
Post-launch, the system operated as a continuous feedback loop.
- Lead volume and conversion tracked across service lines
- Budget and messaging adjusted to performance
- Seasonal demand patterns actively managed
As performance improved, the system scaled — driving growth across multiple areas of the business at once.
Results
Two consecutive
record years.
+80%
Web traffic year-over-year
Fully
Booked
2024 and 2025 wedding seasons
Best revenue years on record
+125%
Golf bookings year-over-year
Best July and August in club history
What This Demonstrates
When a business expands,
its marketing has to evolve with it.
Not in spend or volume, but in structure and quality.
Shepherd’s Hollow didn’t need more promotion. It needed alignment: a brand that unified multiple revenue streams, a digital experience built to convert across use cases, and a system where each service line reinforced the others rather than competing for attention.
Once the structure was in place, growth followed — and held across two consecutive record years.
Credits
- Lead Studio + Marketing Architecture + Creative Direction
- Between Projects
- Brand Design
- Also Known As Studio
- Digital Marketing
- Search Influence
- Web Design + Development
- Between Projects