FOREMOST HELP MEMBERS TURN SURVEY RESPONSES INTO LESSONS & RETAIL SALES

Foremost’s biennial EMP (Elite Marketing Programme) Customer Survey, which takes the pulse of more than 40,000 golfers from across the group’s membership base, has once again unveiled a cascade of sales opportunities and insights for its member professionals and partner suppliers.

The scale and scope of the 2023 survey demonstrates the powerful connection that the Elite Marketing Programme helps Foremost member professionals to establish within their community, and the level of engagement that Foremost’s digital communications command. The carefully designed survey is an added service to the EMP package providing access to a trove of up-to-date information on a detailed and relevant customer database.

Covering a broad spectrum of questions, the fully-automated survey, which took around eight minutes to complete, delved into golfers’ current equipment, experience with lessons and fitting, and what brands they were interested to try next, as well as gender, age, and handicap.

More than three quarters of total respondents said they were happy to be contacted off the back of the survey and, as a result, EMP member professionals are each being presented with hundreds of customer leads, worth thousands of pounds to their business. Certain answers triggered automated digital communications sent on behalf of the pro to help drive business and follow up on the survey responses. Respondents received these if their answers indicated an interest in hardware upgrades, gapping and lessons, and many of these included customers who said they haven’t had a lesson from a pro in over two years.

A crucial aspect of the survey is helping to start conversation and drive engagement with customers knowing that once a customer is integrated into a pro’s network, lessons feed retail opportunities and start the positive cycle towards a loyal and satisfied customer.
The powerful localised information is presented to the pro via the EMP Gateway platform in an easy-to-use dashboard. Furthermore, to help members fully realise the potential of the survey results, Foremost’s team of Marketing Editors help follow up on an individual basis with campaigns, activities, and suggestions on brand selections to capitalise on the opportunity the survey provides and complete the support Foremost offers throughout the whole process.

Commenting on the impact of the survey, Foremost Head of Retail Marketing, Jack Richecoeur, said: “By design, the survey results come out ahead of the winter season when our member professionals have slightly more time available to follow up with individual customers. Our EMP support team is absolutely crucial to ensuring our members are able to capitalise on the results of the survey and this one-to-one interaction is a key part of our support.”

In addition to supplying valuable information for member professionals, the survey gives EMP supplier partners insight into thousands of dedicated green-grass consumers and their purchasing intent. “Understanding our customers better helps us improve our tailored marketing which is a significant benefit to suppliers,” continued Richecoeur. “We are constantly exploring new ways of providing the best possible service for members and communicating with consumers about the products and services they are interested in.”

Like the professionals, suppliers get their own dashboard where they can analyse the data received and look to target marketing in areas where opportunities present themselves.

Delivering this in-depth information and the means to act on it has provided Foremost members and suppliers with a huge opportunity going into the winter months ahead. The group has shared initial data findings with its pros and partners and will be revealing more information that highlights the real trends occurring in the market on a macro and micro level in the new year. GR