• by Staff Writers , June 19, 2019

Before 1979, all golf clubs were made of wood. Then, a golf salesman got the idea to make a club of metal and TaylorMade Golf was born. 

John Gonsalves, the brand's VP, Digital & Direct to Consumer, got attention when he declared that golf has the most potential for data and particularly that it appeals to data geeks. Data #1: "There are 56 million golfers." 

TaylorMade Golf wants to learn where, when, how and with what they play as well as to understand their scores, shots and trends, and to influence their decisions and behaviors, which leads to brand loyalty. "The problem," he admitted, "is deconstructing all this data and how to use it."

Gonsalves said the really interesting part is the on-course data, "what happens out in the wild": location, what's in the bag, driving distance, dispersion, all culminating in a stake called strokes gained. 

TaylorMade developed an app called myRoundPro that has 100,000 users, three million holes played, 14 million shots and 900,000 clubs logged. But how to execute on this information? Emails, push messaging help find users where they are at the right time with contextual creative giving you prescriptive information and useful insights.

It began with the basics, a welcome series, a how-to, summaries and a profile. The result was a focus on performance-based metrics: driving stats, GIR, strokes gained, trends, and comparisons. Armed with this information, the brand can offer golfers advice on how to up their game.

Gonsalves shared three lessons:

1. Don't take data for granted
2. Automation is still manual
3. Ideas aren't the problem

Find the rest of this video here, and see the rest of our Email Insider Summit Agenda page.