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.
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:
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:
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.
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:
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.
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:
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.