Longitudes Group Selects MapBusinessOnline Pro for Golf Industry Sales Analysis

Background

Longitudes Group (LG) – a Buffalo Groupe company - maintains supply and demand models for various outdoor sports. They service clients from retail and manufacturing industries associated with these sports. On the supply side, Longitudes tracks retail store openings and closings and maintains a database of attributes for each brick-and-mortar retailer. The demand side analysis comes from consumer participation in each sport based on data collected at the ZIP code level.

Golf has matured into a major recreational pastime for many American adults. A 2020 National Golf Foundation study put the number of active golfers at roughly 24.8 million. Longitudes Group has developed a golf consumer demand model based on spending per avid golfer by ZIP code. Base data for this location-based analysis comes from golf courses and sports retailers across the USA.

Avid golfers, playing more than 25 rounds per year, drive nearly 70% of consumer spending for the entire sport. The supply-side of the golf industry includes green grass golf pro shops, off-course golf specialty retailers, and sporting goods retail stores.

The USA Golf industry continues to expand. Golf popularity is growing more than ever due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Golf is, by its nature, a socially distanced sport. Avid outdoor sports enthusiasts worldwide have turned to golf as a place to enjoy their competitive spirit safely. In contrast, other sports took a year or more off to avoid exposure to the Coronavirus. During the Pandemic, young adults especially turned to golf as a sport of choice, and this trend will feed industry expansion for decades.

The Challenge

Retail and sales representative clients working with Longitudes Group desired a data-driven strategy to track and optimize sales performance. The industry sought methods to track sales wins within each territory and distribution channel. Golf retailers needed to visualize opportunities by territory and track progress by dollars sold, market share gains, and retailer penetration down to the store level.

Longitudes Group needed a software program that could geographically display their location-based golf industry sales data and help their clients to:

• Create and manage sales territories covering the USA sports equipment industry.
• Track and report on sales activity by territory and channel assignments.
• Improve and optimize sales performances and product distribution.
• Visualize market penetration across all channels by dollars sold.
• Accurately describe golf industry resources, stores, and course locations geographically.

The Solution

Longitudes Group found their solution in MapBusinessOnline Pro, an advanced business mapping solution that provides a graphic presentation solution for golf industry analysis and a data platform for tracking and presenting company sales campaigns.

Longitudes Group (LG) used MapBusinessOnline Pro with its USA base data to visualize sales opportunities and optimization strategies for its golf client base. LG now builds compelling business models with accurate sales territories for each subscribing golf client. These sales territories provide golf business visualizations and data tracking analysis, essential for managing sports-related product sales across all stores and channels.

The Longitudes Group territory customization process follows these steps:

1. LG creates sales territories based on client-defined ZIP code areas and the salesperson's maximum driving time and distance capabilities.
2. LG imports golf supplier location data for all customers, geolocating addresses against an accurate MapBusinessOnline map background.
3. Finally, the LG proprietary model of avid golfer spending data by ZIP code compliments the online business mapping analysis. The spend data by location is aggregated by sales territory, providing market revenue values for nine golf equipment lines.

LG helps define client sales territories around existing retail accounts, showing market penetration by channel and measuring market share overall. Analysis results are compiled in the MapBusinessOnline data window using the Choose Columns database manager. Based on this location-based analysis, golf industry market reports are exported from MapBusinessOnline and shared with constituent golf industry partners.

Drive Time Calculations Assist with Optimization

With territories established, Longitudes Group can offer data-driven recommendations to clients based on the market value of any territory, retail store penetration, and drive time estimates for traveling sales representation. MapBusinessOnline Pro's driving time and distance analysis features are excellent for LG's territory optimization scheme.

Territory market potential and sales transaction activity are balanced against the driving distance limits associated with each sales territory. Drive times are calculated from the salesperson's office address and overlayed onto existing territories. These drive time windows depict reasonable driving distances from a primary home address.

Sales territory optimization or balancing is achieved by reassigning sales territories based on anticipated sales and considering the driving times between home locations and accounts. Southern California highway traffic necessitates territories to be balanced to optimize revenue opportunities while minimizing windshield time, which can be significant. Long-distance travel days for one client are discouraged in favor of spending time with multiple accounts in more concentrated areas.

Before MapBusinessOnline optimization

After MapBusinessOnline optimization

Longitudes Group used MapBusinessOnline Pro to optimize their sales territories based on the following criteria:

1. While Las Vegas is a major golf destination, the city lacks the facilities to justify a full-time Golf Club sales rep. The Las Vegas area was reassigned to the Phoenix-based Territory 2. This allowed the Los Angeles Sales rep to focus on accounts within the Los Angeles metro area.
2. Arizona is split north/south through the Phoenix-Scottsdale metro area. The Southern Arizona rep is also responsible for the New Mexico to El Paso, the TX area. Removing southern Arizona from Territory 2 gave the sales rep time to take over the periodic drive to Las Vegas.
3. The overall optimization strategy equalized the sales potential for all territories. Now territory driving times, workloads, and compensation opportunities were balanced across the sales team.

Longitudes Group also applies the MapBusinessOnline data summary tool to visualize counts of retailers within each distribution channel and provide accurate demographic category estimates of total market size and market segmentation by territory.

The Results

In summary, Longitudes Group uses MapBusinessOnline Pro to develop entire sales models for their clients in the sports equipment industry. MapBusinessOnline Pro provides a unique set of location-based sales and marketing features that:

• Generate Informative Map Visualizations that expose sales opportunities and suggest business growth strategies for retailers and channels.
• Create Location-based Resource Maps highlighting industry resources and sports client locations, up to 250,000 location records per map.
• Develop Retail-centered Sales Territories that display map layer boundaries and color code areas by demographic makeup. Each territory presents a complete market analysis tailored explicitly for the golf industry.
• Export Sales Territory Reports by store and sales channel for each retail client. Each territory offers exportable sales reporting, easily opened within Microsoft Excel.
• Build a Map-based Demographic Market Analysis that manages and tracks sports industry sales campaigns and unique marketing programs as required.
• Conduct Driving Time and Distance Analysis to monitor sales travel parameters and balance sales territories - optimizing opportunities while balancing sales workloads and minimizing travel expenses.

With MapBusinessOnline Pro as their geospatial software, Longitudes Group can offer an affordable sales territory and market analysis solution supporting their golf industry and general sports retailing clients across the USA.