The Pellucid Perspective - May 2013 - (Page 7)

GOLF MARKETING TECHNOLOGY Who’s that knocking at your door? A look at some providers trying to sell you, and your product By Harvey Silverman A s an information and research company, we are often contacted by people touting their “next best thing for golf ” and asking us to review their offerings and provide an opinion. In very few cases these have led to paid research and consulting gigs, but more often than not it’s a “Can I pick your brain?” exercise which either leaves us intrigued with the possibilities presented, or shaking our heads in disbelief. Either way it gives us a heads up on what’s coming down the line, and we thought our readers might want to be aware of what and who is behind that solicitous email or voicemail. What follows is a briefing, as it were, on new companies which have contacted us or those we know of from other sources, and which may be knocking at your door soon (if they haven’t already). For purposes of fairness and the free market belief that the market will dictate acceptance and success, we will refrain from offering a thumbs up or thumbs down opinion. In no particular order… Bid4Golf.com is an auction site. It is a Canadian venture that to this point has 42 Canadian courses and six Texas courses available on its site. Their pay per bid auction allows members to win green fees to purchase at prices that are 70, 80, 90- even 99% off the retail price. Members pay up to $.65 per bid, and that is how Bid4Golf.com makes their money. Each bid can be for as little as $.01. They claim that participating golf courses get full rate on all auctioned green fees (not tee times). But reviewing their “Won auctions” page, you’ll see winners who won at $.08, or $2.75, or $.77. Bid4Golf is counting on multiple bids generating revenue at a $.65 per bid pace to generate revenue and pay the course its full rate. eWORDofMOUTH.com is a multi-channel marketing suite. eWORDofMOUTH is a “platform that provides companies a managed suite of integrated technologies built on the insight that word of mouth marketing is the most effective and credible way to spread a brand’s message and achieve rapid, measurable, bottom line results.” It is not specifically golf-centric – its website includes testimonials from a golf facility as well as a pizza restaurant chain, an automotive service center, and a casual dine-in restaurant, among a few others. Teeagent.com is a member-based tee time reseller with a social component. Based in Florida, Tee Agent hand-picks the top three golf courses in a city based on their own assessment of quality and playing conditions. They negotiate exclusive membership rates with courses, and increase the rates as tee times are sold. Members who purchase can select any open tee time within a two-week window. Playing partners can join the tee time using Facebook or email. Tee times posted for sale on the website for a few Florida courses are being sold for 30-40% off “rack” rates. San Francisco and Dalwww.PellucidCorp.com las are “coming soon,” with the goal of having participating courses in cities worldwide. Back9booking.com is not to be confused with the Back 9 Network, a startup golf and lifestyle channel. Back9booking is a Chicago based (why are so many golf technology companies based in Chicago?) third party tee time aggregator. It was born out of the frustration of trying to find weekend tee times in a market renowned for its “permanent tee time” structure, and having to scour websites or make numerous phone calls to find a desirable tee time. Truth be known, that’s one of the reasons EZLinks was founded back in the mid-1990’s. They promise a system that gives golf courses additional exposure beyond their normal marketing reach without any increase in fixed costs. Presumably, that indicates they operate on a commission structure with participating courses. As of this writing, there are about 50 courses presented on the website, but none outside of the Chicago/Illinois area so far. TeeLeader is a new tee sheet and web booking engine being offered at no charge to golf courses. Their revenue model is transaction-fee based, $1.99 per round booked. It is a cloudbased system with no software residing on premises. It might be a good fit for the 2-3000 courses (by our estimate) still using paper tee sheets, but the cloud-based application requires a consistent and fast Internet connection, something a lot of courses still don’t have (hard to believe, right?). A demonstration of the product revealed some clever features and programming, as well as ease of use (which is always a relative term). TeeLeader was built by one of the programmers who built the Tee Connect tee sheet/web booking engine, now being used by Active Golf, and Golf Sigma. Digital Caddies has been around for 10 or so years and has brought in Mike Loustalot, formerly of GolfNow, as its new President and Director. Digital Caddies is a public company on the OTC Pink Sheet (symbol CADY), with a stock price as of this writing of $.49 per share and over 46 million shares outstanding. The product is a tablet-based, cart mounted GPS system offered “free for qualified golf courses.” Their list of course benefits is no different from what other GPS companies have touted for years, in particular the part about increasing rounds and revenue. Its revenue is derived from advertising sales and ads displayed on the cart screens. That model has been chased for years by various GPS companies because golfers are a good target market for many consumer companies. We’ll see if Digital Caddies can build a large enough critical mass to attract the ever elusive advertising dollar. Teemapping.com is another third party tee time aggregator but with a different twist. When opening the website, it maps the golfer’s location by IP address, and displays a local map with The Pellucid PersPecTive 7 http://www.Back9booking.com http://www.Bid4Golf.com http://www.Bid4Golf.com http://www.eWORDofMOUTH.com http://www.Teeagent.com http://www.Teemapping.com http://WWW.PELLUCIDCORP.COM

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Pellucid Perspective - May 2013

The Pellucid Perspective - May 2013
Contents
The battle for the soul of golf
Is it time for nine?
Who’s that knocking at your door?
Dire participation projections inspire “Tour Test” concept
Familiar faces in new golf industry places
April golf weather impact: Not as bad as March, but off double digits
San Diego: America’s healthiest golf market?
Escalante Golf to buy 4 Houston area clubs
The big Why-Me-jian

The Pellucid Perspective - May 2013