_Having worked in various online marketing roles for Toronto agencies and internet start-ups, Nigel Da Costa used his experience to help found “Golflogic.ca”:http://www.golflogic.ca. Golflogic.ca is a free online destination and membership club where Canadian golfers find the best deals and promotions in the golf industry and is a place for advertisers to speak with this coveted audience._
*One Degree: What’s the story behind golflogic.ca?*
I’ve been playing golf now for seven years and have destroyed some of the finest courses in Ontario but I quickly noticed prices rising at a rapid pace and lots of new golf courses being built each year. I spoke with a few people in the industry who mentioned the supply was already exceeding demand and courses were struggling to find golfers…and golfers were struggling to find challenging yet affordable places to play.
The only answer to both problems were coupon books. Golfers were able to find deals and golf courses were able create incentives for golfers to visit their courses during slow times. The issue I had with the books is the deals were static. Once the book was printed, no new deals were ever going to be offered and once I used my coupons at a certain course, I couldn’t use them again. Also, many of the deals weren’t relevant. I live in the GTA(Greater Toronto Area) but many of the courses were located more than a three-hour drive from me. Golf courses also found the coupon books restrictive because they often needed golfers on short notice.
There was an obvious gap the web could quickly bridge. On our site we were able to post deals within hours and change and alter them anytime the courses asked. We also started a very popular e-mail newsletter which listed last minute golf deals for our members to take part in. Within a year we had 30 courses working with us (and this number should more than double this year) and our membership is already at 6,000 golfers.
*One Degree: Your business seems to be built around memberships. Can you explain a bit about your business model?*
Category: Five Questions
Robert Scoble (“wikipedia”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Scoble) is a technical evangelist who works for “Microsoft”:http://www.microsoft.com/ and maintains the popular blog, “Scobleizer”:http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/. He lives in Bothell, Washington, USA.
Although Scoble often promotes Microsoft products like Tablet PCs and Windows Vista, at the same time he criticises his own employer and praises its competitors. He publishes his cell phone number on his blog and urges people to contact him directly with issues, as well as accepting comments on his blog. His new book _Naked Conversations_ takes you to more than 180 companies and shows you how they are using corporate blogs to change their PR, their marketing, and their product development. The book’s blog is at “nakedconversations.com.”:http://www.nakedconversations.com
(Disclosure: “I”:http://www.schafer.com/ am mentioned in passing in a section of the book discussing how my wife, “parenting expert Alyson Schafer”:http://www.alyson.ca/ uses her blog to build her business.)
*One Degree: You and “Shel Israel”:http://seems2shel.typepad.com/itseemstome/ wrote Naked Conversations ( “amazon.com”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/047174719X/imho-20 | “amazon.ca”:http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/047174719X/imho0b-20 ) in a very open way. Can you talk a bit about how you used blogs to _create_ Naked Conversations and how that impacted the final work?*
Yeah, we blogged every step of the book from the first moment of its conception. That quickly attracted attention and got two book publishers to bid for our work. That should be lesson #1. Most authors have to beg to get their work even considered. We didn’t need to do that. Why? Because hundreds of bloggers were linking to us and talking about our blog from the first moments. Even now we’re the #1 Google result for “corporate blog book.”
But, if you stop at just the PR and relationship-building aspects of a blog, you’ll miss the deeper impact (even though they are pretty cool all by themselves). By putting the book up on the blog our readers got involved and improved the book immeasurably. They fixed spelling and factual errors. They augmented our reporting and suggested many of the interviews we ended up performing. Without them the book simply would not have been the same.
*One Degree: Similarly, the buzz on the book seems to be building from the blogosphere out – a successful strategy for a number of books recently – how much of this has been organic and how much is a calculated marketing strategy? I’m thinking in particular of things “like”:http://blog.softtechvc.com/2006/02/naked_conversat.html “having”:http://www.lightbox5.com/movabletype/archives/2006/02/naked_conversat.html “the”:http://blogbusinesssummit.com/2006/01/naked_conversat_1.htm “launch”:http://www.julieleung.com/archives/002081.html “party”:http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/02/18/thank-you-for-coming-to-techcrunch-5/ at noted “Techcrunch”:http://www.techcrunch.com/ blogger “Mike Arrington’s”:http://www.crunchnotes.com/ home instead of a more traditional book launch.*
Adam Froman founded “Delvinia Interactive”:http://www.delvinia.com/ in 1998 and has led its growth to become one of the leading digital agencies in Canada.
He has received several awards, including CANARIE’s prestigious “Application of Technology” I-Way Award for pioneering innovative uses of technology related to the development of Canada’s information highway.
Adam is the Founder and Executive Producer of the “Canadian New Media Awards”:http://www.cnma.ca/, and is a member of the CMA and the Market Research Industry Association (MRIA), formerly the PMRS.
*One Degree: You are (obviously) a strong believer in the relevance of the CNMAs to the Canadian industry. Can you flesh out what you feel the CNMA adds to our industry?*
The intent of the awards is to recognize the work of the industry and the people within it at a national level. My vision has been to create an environment where the leaders of the industry (the approximately 50 finalists) from across the country can come together, share experiences, build relationships and celebrate our Canadian talent. We create a memorable experience for the finalists and eventual winners both leading up to the event, during the event and after the event. It has always been my desire to create an environment where we as Canadians working in new media can celebrate our capabilities together.
I am not aware of any other awards event in the Canadian new media industry that has the longevity nor the continued focus to achieve this vision as we have with the CNMA. According to a survey we just launched regarding the CNMA, over 70% of industry respondents felt that the CNMA is important to the industry.
*One Degree: The CNMA is sponsored by many levels of government. Do you feel that, in general, our leaders are more aware of the importance of the Internet and supporting a vibrant industry?*