Recognising the importance of the role of the modern-day club professional, all of Foremost Golf’s business, retail and marketing solutions are designed to help members save time, become more profitable and enjoy a successful career.
More than 1,000 retailers utilise the group’s array of industry-leading support services, helping to improve all aspects of their business.
The Challenge
Foremost Golf provide full-service email marketing for more than 600 independent golf professionals and retailers. This involves managing the customer sign-up process, online client profiles, and launching regular email newsletters on behalf of the golfing professional to their community. Managing these processes efficiently for 600 clubs is no mean feat, but Foremost Golf set out to personalise the customer experience even further by tailoring content based on preferences, gender and ability.
Their key objectives:
- Automate newsletter creation to maximise efficiency, freeing up time and expertise in the team
- Deliver personalised content based on individuals’ preferences
- Increase long-term engagement with professional and amateur golfers alike
The Strategy
Customers can register to receive newsletters from their local golfing professional by visiting their personal website hosted by Foremost Golf. Using Adestra’s API, customer details are automatically imported into Adestra from the sign-up form. Within Adestra there is an individual project folder set up for each golf professional, allowing Foremost Golf to send custom weekly mailings to each database, populated with the golfing professional or club’s specific content, a personalised ‘from name’ and sign-off. The campaigns are triggered automatically via the API.
The flexible workspace and folder structure within Adestra allow Foremost Golf to easily navigate to an individual client’s campaigns, data and reporting view, whilst also being able to report and benchmark across all email activity.
Foremost Golf are further developing their personalisation strategy to utilise the data collected from end customers when they complete a profile. Conditional statements are used to serve relevant imagery and content depending on gender and golfing ability. For example, a beginner and a more advanced golfer will each be shown golf clubs that are appropriate for their ability. A similar approach is taken based on subscriber gender.
The Results
Foremost Golf have seen their read rates increase by 15 per cent and their click-through rates have increased by 11 per cent since they have started to use personalisation based on gender and ability.
Foremost Golf plan to test tactics to encourage even more golfers to complete their profile following sign-up. They are also developing a welcome program template to on-board new sign-ups before dropping them into regular weekly communication. They are also developing a re-engagement program to ensure the minimum drop off occurs with those golfers who on-board. Foremost Golf are in dialogue with Adestra in relation to an automated purge/removal of inactive email addresses.