But today, each and every speciality retailer in the giant malls of America is asking each and every customer for their email address at the checkout. The mall is no longer enough. The fight for the consumer has moved far beyond the shop window or an extravagant television advert.
Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Borders, or even Victoria’s Secret, now focus on reaching consumers on their email accounts as the way of enticing you to visit a location or purchase a product.
In many of those emails the battle around price and promotion and offer continues to intensify. However, for speciality retailers who have more to offer than just a low-priced product, email helps to start a conversation based around the value that can be added through expertise – a conversation that is very difficult to have if the communication is through a shop window or a sign hanging from a ceiling.
For the golf professional who offers the golfer ‘more yards or metres’, ‘straighter, more accurate shots’ and ‘fewer putts in a round’, there is now a medium we can use to reach out to golfers, rather than wait for ‘traffic by the window’. So what if you are not in the high street or a mall? You can now reach your golfers on their laptop, their blackberry and their iPhone with a conversation about improving their game.
The new battle for the customers’ hearts and minds is happening online and not in the shopping mall. That’s good news for the golf professionals, as long as they have their customers’ contact details.
Don’t be left behind. To find out how you should be gathering email and contact details please go to www.foremostgolf.com/gatheremails
