Dear Golf Industry Professional
We’re likely the only golf industry publication that won’t headline, feature prominently or even comment on Tiger’s amazing comeback performance at The Masters in their April missive. Why? Because, as great a story as it is, it doesn’t materially impact the golf industry operations world which we cover and likely also doesn’t meaningfully impact either player development or increasing involvement. We remain steadfastly focused on covering and providing insights into developments and trends which shape the health of the industry and success of the individual operators which are at the center of our universe. This month headlines with Publisher Jim K’s observation that GolfNow, in their TopGolf alliance and expanding pay-to-play daily email advertising model, has finally revealed that their revenue future is in eyeballs and their customer is, first and foremost, golfers. While this won’t be a revelation to Pellucid followers, it’s just increasingly revealed now to the rest of the general population that this has always been the strategic plan. Click below to follow the signs and support points for his perspective:
In addition, the April issue covers the following unique and novel topics which have become the Perspective hallmark:
- Contributing Editor Stuart Lindsay outlines how “the cat is (increasingly) out of the bag” regarding how the digital and social media behemoths are connecting disparate data points on their users and members to both guide their audiences to monetized content as well as selling that information/access to targeted users based on your web behavior. Stuart’s advice? “Do unto others before you have it done unto you”
- Contributing Writer Harvey Silverman asks whether social golfer apps have fulfilled their promise and, if so, why have so many failed and the few that have survived are not scaling and profitable like the reasonable number of successful apps in other industries? He looks at the story-in-progress of 18Birdies and how they’re re-positioning to try and find a favorable wind after some initial hard knocks and lessons learned
- Plus the monthly Industry Scorecard (the only integrated scorecard of multi-source performance indicators) including the March weather impact results (solidly up) and the February YtD Utilization (up solidly, Played Rounds double-digit decline didn’t match larger drop in Available Rounds). We also chart the monthly timeseries for the year of Golf Playable Hours and Utilization while our Market Focus starts at the top of our recently-updated Top 25 scorecard with the healthiest major US golf market, San Diego CA. Rounding out the issue, our Comings & Goings section catalogues, classifies and comments on 17 activities during the past month
We recognize and thank our continuing sponsors; KemperSports, Troon Golf and EZLinks Golf. For all those service providers and suppliers to the golf industry out there with the latest-and-greatest to offer to the industry thought-leaders who read our monthly publication, might we suggest considering joining our merry little band through our most popular 12-month sponsorship program? (offered at an improved value relative to our entry-level six month sponsorship rate) Twelve-month sponsors also receive all Pellucid industry-standard reports (State of the Industry, Outside the Ropes, Monthly Weather Impact Tracking (Nat’l, Reg’l, Markets), Top 25 US Golf Markets Scorecard and National Golf Consumer Franchise Health Scorecard). Sponsorship provides monthly exposure to approximately 30K industry leaders and followers and associates your brand with Pellucid’s effort to expand intelligent thinking on today’s most challenging industry issues. For more “opportunistic” spenders, we might suggest one of our smaller-bite Ad Partner programs for those who may not be able to make a 6 or 12-month commitment (as short as 3 months are now available) or who may not need a half page or more exposure (quarter pages now available).
If you’re interested in knowing more about sponsorship opportunities or are interested in a preview of our ad partner options, contact Publisher Jim Koppenhaver (847.808.7651, jim@pellucidcorp.com ).
If you know of associates who would benefit from the topics and insights covered in this issue, feel free to forward this email and encourage them to register on the Pellucid website (www.pellucidcorp.com/news/elist) to join the conversation, discussion and debate.
We also continue to spread the word on Pellucid’s next-generation golf course database, the Internet Golf Course Database (IGDB) with partners Apparation LLC, Never-Search and GolfCourseRanking.com. IGDB now powers Pellucid’s Golf Local Market Analyzer and has added functionality to our project work like being able to tally and profile course closures within key US markets over time. While no database will ever be 100% accurate, we continue to be surprised at the quantity and range of inconsistencies in course directories out there as well as the fact that most of the major tee time providers and recommendation sites (like GolfAdvisor) are propagating these phantom facilities and errors 5-10 fold for people doing Google searches online. Talk about an “echo chamber”… For more information on our comprehensive database, updated quarterly and refreshed completely every 9 months (all 15K+ US courses), contact Jim Koppenhaver.
