Cool New Marketing Technologies: Caught and Served

Archive for the ‘Social Media Marketing’ Category

Social Media for Golf Clubs

By Steve Gogolak

Yes, everyone, including golf clubs, can take advantage of social media.  I gave a presentation today up at the Andover Country Club for the New England Golf Summit to a few hundred professionals in the golf industry.  It was a lively audience, many of whom have a direct impact on their clubs’ ability to recruit new members, communicate with current members and, most importantly, promote the game of golf.

First off, Cramer also gave away copies of The Story of Golf and we hope everyone enjoys the program.  Here’s a preview:


Here’s the slide deck I used:

What is Social Media for NE Golf Summit

View more presentations from sgogolak

If you have a LinkedIn account and are interested in what your InMap looks like (the map of your social network as documented by LinkedIn) find the InMaps Beta here.

And here are the videos played during the presentation:

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Forrester’s CMO Mandate: Adapt or Perish

By Steve Gogolak

CMO Mandate PDF

Forrester published a lengthy report back in November of 2010, just in time just too late to have a major impact on 2011 marketing budgets, titled, “CMO Mandate: Adapt or Perish.”  I came across the report again as Who’s Blogging What sent out a notice featuring the report a few days ago. I thumbed through it once again to see if there was anything I had missed that might be interesting now that we’re half way through Q1 2011 and the marketing business has clearly returned with a vengeance.

ADAPT Temonilogy Chart

Key Points

  • Organizational Restructuring is paramount.   The author of the report, Chris Stutzman, stresses that marketing organizations need to become more nimble, honing the ability to react quickly to unexpected change.
  • Experiment.  We’ve heard this a million times and the key is to understand what you pour significant effort into vs what you simply try out.  The argument here, and I agree completely, is that a small experiment is never a bad idea, even if it leads nowhere.
  • HEROs.  Highly Empowered and Resourceful Operatives.  Catchy term that plugs Forrester’s book, Empowered, but the concept is sound.  Put the best people in a position to affect and influence the organization, empower them with proper resources and then stand back and watch what they do.

Quite possibly the most difficult change that any and all organizations will have to make is the need to personally participate in digital communication. What social media has truly done to companies is expose the people behind them by emphasizing that there ARE people behind them.  Now consumers and business buyers EXPECT to have access to those people, their opinions and thought leadership (because everyone has to be a thought leader now).  Suddenly executives who thought they only had to face inward to talk to their own organization now have to turn around and face the massive crowd that expects them to say something intelligent… and frequently.

Self Diagnostic

Self Diagnostic

This is a really useful tool to see where you stand.  Check out the complete report for more info about how to apply it.

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Clever MSN Ad on Pandora Gives Free, 3 Day Pandora One Access (Ad Free)

By Greg Jones


I love Pandora, but I’m too cheap to pay for the ad-free version called Pandora One, therefore I get assaulted several times an hour with annoying audio ads… Until today. Today I loaded Pandora, listened to a few hours of music, completely ignoring the ads, until one from MSN came on offering a free 3 day trial to Pandora One – so I did what I never do, I clicked!

The Pandora player reloaded, the Ads are gone for 3 whole days, and the background/sidebar ad is going to stay MSN branded instead of cycling through the normal bevvy of advertisers. This is awesome for me, because I don’t want to pay for Pandora One, and don’t want to listen to ads. This is also awesome for MSN, because they know I will have 24 hours of exposure (3 days x 8 hours) to their ad, they also get the satisfaction of knowing none of their fellow advertisers will be served to my desktop. They have in effect, sponsored my listening for a short period of time. They just gave me something of value for interacting with their brand. This is also awesome for Pandora, because they are constantly struggling to find a happy balance between paying the bills and keeping their listeners happy.

I hope more people take note of ads that give back. This instant reward forms an immediate connection between individual and a brand. Pretty worthwhile if you ask me!

Posted in Branding & Design, Creative Approach, Digital Marketing, Marketing Technology, Social Media Marketing, User Experience | 1 Comment »