More than a place to play.
CLIENT CASE STUDY
How TopMotto Consulting repositioned Island Pickle in Mashpee, Massachusetts from a pickleball facility into a community sport and social club and grew membership revenue.
At a glance
Island Pickle is a 37,000-square-foot indoor sport and social club on Cape Cod. TopMotto led a four-month repositioning that turned a pickleball facility into a community destination and grew membership revenue significantly within months of launch.
Client: Island Pickle, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Facility: 37,000 sq. ft. of indoor pickleball courts, golf simulators, a tavern, juice bar, and patio.
Engagement: Market positioning, competitive analysis, product-market fit, brand strategy, membership and loyalty redesign, marketing enablement, and a new website.
Timeline: Roughly five months, from kickoff to launch.
Headline result: 33%+ growth after launch.
A world-class facility, an undersized identity.
Island Pickle opened as a multimillion-dollar build: 37,000 square feet of courts, simulators, and food and beverage. But it was positioned, priced, and marketed as a place to play pickleball. And that framing capped what it could become.
People loved playing at Island Pickle and they loved the food. But Island Pickle’s brand identity made one of the most ambitious indoor sport venues on Cape Cod look like a gym with a restaurant attached, rather than a club and social scene worth belonging to.
The model strained in the ways a recreation facility does: In good weather, members defected to free public outdoor courts. Membership pricing had changed often and grown into tiers that were hard to choose between. And the tavern, juice bar, and patio sat underused because court activity was not feeding them.
The core problem was not pricing or facilities. It was identity. Island Pickle had everything it needed to be a destination and was telling the market it was a place to play and eat.
Rebuilding the brand identity to capture the market
TopMotto reframed Island Pickle from a place to play into a community sport and social club; and built the strategy, systems, and marketing to make the new positioning real.
We started with analysis and building an identity foundation
TopMotto ran a market and customer analysis to map the competitive landscape and understand what members actually valued, then led a brand identity workshop with Island Pickle’s executive team, board members, and investors. Aligning the people who built and funded the business was the foundation everything else stood on.
The brand became how the business runs
TopMotto reimagined Island Pickle’s brand identity as a set of strategic operating principles for every employee. The new positioning did not just live in marketing; it guided how the team showed up each day. Members felt the difference, and employees became more engaged and more loyal to Island Pickle.
A membership community worth with a sense of belonging
TopMotto replaced a tangle of membership tiers with a simple, stackable membership and built a new loyalty program that rewards play and keeps members coming back. Belonging, not court time, became the product. Members became “Community members”; guests became “Visitors.”
Marketing built to drive top line growth and loyalty
TopMotto equipped the marketing team with a new marketing and social media approach to drive identity, influencers, and program participation, to convert first-timers into repeat visitors and members, turning marketing communications into a reliable engine for traffic and loyalty.
A website that works like a club, not a brochure
TopMotto built an entirely new website. Where the old site was a static brochure, the new one is a living resource for members managing their play, for prospects weighing a membership, for first-timers learning the game, and for Cape Cod visitors looking for something fun to do and good food to eat.
Membership, revenue, and loyalty grew
Within months of launching the new positioning, Island Pickle’s subscribed social members grew by more than 33%. The launch of the new brand drew more than 58,000 Instagram views, and 94,000 Facebook views. A new “just come play” membership created a funnel for new Pickle ball players to come try the facility and convert to one of the new membership tiers.
The change showed up beyond the numbers. Members embraced the new experience, and the team rallied behind a brand they understood and believed in. Island Pickle stopped competing with free outdoor courts and started offering something those courts never could: a community and a place to belong.
What’s next: a second sports complex
The repositioning set up the next phase of growth for Island Pickle. TopMotto is now working with Island Pickle’s parent company on market research, a feasibility study, and initial market positioning for a new indoor sports complex to be built adjacent to Island Pickle, extending a repeatable model with product-market fit into an even larger opportunity.