Turning the Tables

Okay, here's something different. A reader who turned the tables by interviewing me for his blog. Here's a link to Scott Morrison's excellent blog, Turfhugger.com...

Past Ten, Next Ten: Interview with Pat Jones

Gratitude

Hey Everybody...

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know I did. Here's a special column I wrote (click link below) because I wanted to share my sense of gratitude for our readers, our clients and all the wonderful things that have happened in my life since coming to GCI full time earlier this year. Enjoy...and thanks!

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=10W0KgxLwwGrFoUcJWg0or9lbi5OzYoqXdS9NPYb58ww

Does Your Ad Really Work?

That's a worrisome question for any marketing manager who invests significantly in print advertising. You can have the best program in the world and make the best media buys (like, for example, Golf Course Industry!) and still not achieve your goals if your creative is off target.

Well, your nice friends at GIE Media are about to help you stop worrying and stay ON TARGET. We've gone old-school and hired Readex Market Research to conduct an independent "On Target" study of the effectiveness of all full-page and spread ads in our January issue.

And it's FREE.

All you have to do is place an ad at your regular rate in the January issue and you'll get an amazing report back detailing how customers (superintendents in particular) felt about your ad's visual appeal, ability to deliver information, clarity, etc. You'll also see the basics of how other advertisers' ads performed and get dozens of verbatim comments from customers regarding your ad.

Did I mention you get this for FREE?

We're also doing this type of study in Lawn & Landscape and several of our other magazines in different markets, so you can get feedback on all of your creative targeted at different segments.

And, by the way, it's FREE.

Got a question about the Readex On Target study in the January issue of GCI. Call me or your rep right now. Don't miss a chance to find out what customers really think of your ads.

Planning and Integration

I recently spoke at the ITODA meeting in Santa Fe, N.M., to a group consisting of of key suppliers and independent distributors from around North America. My presentation covered a wide range of marketing topics, notably using social media (like this here blog!), e-newsletters, YouTube-style videos and other newfangled stuff.

Yet, the concept that commanded the most post-presentation questions and comments was an old-fashioned one: integrating your marketing plan.

I think that too many marketing managers were shoved into the digital corner too fast by owners and CEOs who said, "Hey, we can check our marketing plan off the to-do list for 20% of what we used to spend by going digital. Besides, all the cool companies are doing it."

A lot of those marketing managers have since felt a little air escaping from their brand balloons as they've noticed that their non-print programs, while often targeted and interesting, don't have the same "bigness" as their old print-centric programs. In short, they pushed the pendulum too far to the digital side.

The solution -- as with most problems -- is to find a happy medium. The solution is to build an integrated program that starts with the branding presence that ONLY print can give you and then achieves specific marketing goals that leverage the strengths of digital: targeting, differentiation and technology platforms that allow you to bring your story to life through video, animation and other e-media.

One senior product manager for a supplier approached me after the event and said, "For the love of God, please send me your presentation so I can convince my boss that we can't abandon print." I was, of course, happy to oblige him and I'll do the same for you. Just e-mail me at pjones@gie.net and I'll send it your way.

Check Out the 2011 Media Kit!

Here's the fabulous new 2011 GCI Digital Media Kit.

http://mediakit.golfcourseindustry.com/gci/magazine.html

It contains everything you need to know to create a complete, integrated marketing plan to sell more effectively and efficiently next year.

Start the Presses!

Many marketing pundits and bloggers have written obituaries for printed newspapers and magazines the past few years, but too few have stopped to think about the value of good old-fashioned dead-tree-and-ink communications.

Fortunately, our pal Joe Pulizzi stepped in to do exactly that in the latest Folio magazine. Here's the entire article (http://www.foliomag.com/2010/seven-reasons-print-will-make-comeback-2011) but let me summarize Joe's key points:

1. People are actually starting to pay attention to print things they receive in the mail. In a world where our banking, our communications with family and friends and our access to news is largely digital, that beautiful printed magazine in your mailbox is....different. And different is good when you're trying to get noticed.

2. Magazines like ours still do the best job of identifying and capturing data about customers. It's EXPENSIVE -- as you might know -- to track down and get information about customers. We do it for you and, when you advertise, you take advantage of that work.

3. Print still excites people. Let me ask you this question: If a reporter called you and wanted to interview you for a story, would you be more interested and more proud to be a source if it was in the printed publication vs. an online source. Print has gravitas.

There's one final reason that print MUST be a part of a good marketing mix that Joe doesn't mention: the concept of BIGNESS. A print presence in GCI or other good industry magazines reinforces the strength of your brand or, if you're still a growth company, puts you shoulder to shoulder with established brands.

Superintendents consistently say that the main thing they value from print advertisements is a sense that the advertiser is a sound, stable company that supports their profession. Isn't that pretty much the baseline message you want to send to all of your customers?

Season in Review

What a weird an wonderful (depending on who you are and where you are) season in the world of golf. A few observations...

- This was the first "crisis" year in the new recession/downturn paradigm for golf. The do-more-with-less chickens came home to roost for many facilities where budgets had been cut and experienced superintendents were let go to save a few bucks. That short-term thinking led to major turf loss, "closed for the season" signs and general disgruntlement among golfers who actually wanted to play and enjoy the hot sunny days.

- Many Northern and Transition zone facilities felt the pain of early warmth/humidity -- perfect disease conditions -- then extreme heat and heavy rains. As a result, the Poa annua just checked out. Patchy fairways became the norm around the country -- even at higher-end facilities -- and golfers were scratching their heads and looking for a patch of grass to roll their ball onto.

- Chemical manufacturers, who had been licking their collective chops early on, quickly noticed something strange about this "great" disease year: they weren't selling all that much more product than in the past few good weather years. Why? A lot of clubs in hard-hit areas simply let their fairways go after the initial damage was done. Yes they treated greens to keep them alive, but many decided not to try to save the larger fairway acreage out of sheer frustration or tighter budgets.

- For basic manufacturers and larger formulators, generic pressure obviously made margins thinner.

- For the first time in many years, guys who lost turf also lost jobs. In some cases, the agronomic problems could have been the straw that broke the camel's back (other factors may have already put them at risk). But in a few cases we've heard about, superintendents who had performed extremely well over the long term just got canned because members didn't like what happened this summer. Patience does not appear to be a hallmark of clubs in a tighter, more competitive market.

I think we're seeing the beginnings of the "new sense of normal" in the golf market. Combine what happened this year agronomically and economically with the "brown is beautiful" rhetoric being espoused by USGA and it seems like we'll begin to see a new segment of facilities who are placing less emphasis on tee-to-green lushness. Others (high-end private clubs) however, are still sticking to the Augusta National look and not putting up with any diminishment of quality because they think they can always find a better superintendent if they're not happy with what they have.

Basically, the market continues to segment itself and you should too. Think about the demographics created by this new paradigm and how your product line fits. Do you appeal to that new segment of facilities who are willing to roll back quality a bit for economic or environmental reasons? Or, should you hone in on the money-is-no-object, quality-at-any-cost clubs? Think about that as you make your marketing plan for 2011.

Speaking of which, our Media Kits are done and will be distributed beginning this week. It's time to plan for 2011...and it's time to make GCI the centerpiece of your new program.

2011 Editorial Planners Are Done

It may only be August, but our roadmap for key editorial coverage for 2011 is already done and ready for your planning use.

GCI's 2011 Editorial Calendar is complete and we'd be happy to do a review with you to answer your questions about topics, the focus of particular articles, etc. The plan includes all of our technical features, case studies, product focus articles and themes for each issue, so it's extremely detailed. It doesn't include cover stories (which we like to plan closer to publication to keep them topical) or "Real Science" research articles which need to be flexible since we're often working with PhDs who don't necessarily understand the concept of a "deadline." (Just kidding.)

Our complete electronic media kit will be posted soon. But, in the mean time, our sales team will be scheduling calls with many of you to discuss the 2011 Editorial Calendar with our editors and make sure we have the right industry and customer sources lined up. To schedule a call or get a copy of the calendar, just contact your GCI sales rep or e-mail me at pjones@gie.net.

More Cool Video Stuff...

Golf Course Industry Magazine : The Past, Present and Future of RISE

Toro at The 150th Open Championship

PrimeraTurf

Just returned from the PrimeraTurf annual meeting in Cincinnati the past three days. The event was well-attended and, as always, the best "hallway conversation" meeting in the industry.

The actual meeting was notable for several things. First, the "speed dating" format used to manage meetings between suppliers and distributors. Manufacturers set up shop in hotel suites and distributors went door to door to meet for a 30-minute block of time. Then, it was on to the next one. So, every half an hour, the hotel resembled a high school hallway with everyone emerging from one classroom and meandering about and chatting with others until the bell rang for the next class. Funny, but highly efficient and a great value compared to flying around the country to meet individually.

Also notable was the discussion about Canadian "cosmetic use" pesticide bans. This nasty little trend has been going on for more than a decade north of the border and, the consensus is, will continue to pop up in the U.S. more frequently in future. The most notable lesson of the Canadian experience in attempting to fight these bans was that science and fact were weak ammunition against fear and emotion. "It doesn't matter how many big fat studies you have showing your product's safety when the opposition trots out one leukemia-riddled child in a wheelchair who they say might have gotten cancer because of pesticides," said the leader of the Canadian equivalent of RISE.

The final and most notable thing at PrimeraTurf was the vuvuzela-like buzz around the hallways about a very, very large fertilizer company's not-so-quiet efforts to either acquire or hire distribution. In short, the company is moving toward owning its own supply chain rather than working through regional and local guys. Obviously, PrimeraTurf members and others are concerned about new competition and what will happen to existing agreements to distribute the company's products to golf courses, LCOs and others. While most distributors reported a great start to the year, concerns about this development and ongoing frustration with the number of new players selling post-patent products and deflating market values had quite a few folks I talked with scratching their heads and wondering about the future.

The only thing I know is the future always has room for good service, good support and good relationships with customers. Those that stick with that, innovate and continue to be passionate about the market will survive and thrive.

As usual, I took my camera along, so look for another series of videos about the PrimeraTurf meeting featuring all sorts of people from T&O sales and manufacturing on the GCI and L&L websites in a few weeks.

Mark, We Hardly Knew Ye

I've already had a pile of calls and e-mails 20 minutes after it was publicly announced that Mark Woodward is gone as CEO of the GCSAA.

Here's what I know...absolutely nothing except that we all know what leaving to "pursue other career interests" means. I'm sure I'll get all the juicy details in a day or so, but this really was a surprise to me too. Mainly, because I wasn't paying any attention to them because I do not care what they do internally anymore.

There was a time when I paid a great deal of attention to the internal politics of the GCSAA. The whole PDI thing. Board members losing their positions. The saga of Steve Mona applying for other jobs. Their inability to lure several other prime candidates before the job eventually went to Woodward. Staff dissention and downsizing. It was a lot of fun for a while, but it's just gotten old.

Frankly, I've come to the conclusion that the GCSAA is largely irrelevant to the average superintendent -- and therefore to our editorial interests -- these days. Yes, they run a fine education program. Yes, the show is still an important -- if somewhat smaller -- platform for the industry. But does anything else that GCSAA does or says really mean a lot?

Where's the PR program? Where's the serious lobbying? Where's the much-vaunted effort to promote the role of the superintendent to owners? Where's the strategic research on how golf courses positively impact the environment?

I wish Mark well and I wish them well. But seriously, does this have any impact on your business?

August Issue Update

I'm currently vegging out on a beautiful Father's Day and awaiting the carnage that will be the final round of the U.S. Open on a golf course that -- thanks to Mike Davis of the USGA and superintendent Chris Dalhamer -- is so dry and windy it will kick the butts of the best players in the world. But, while I'm killing time waiting for the bloodbath to begin, here's the August GCI editorial preview that we sent out a few days ago:

Cover Story: The characteristics that make great superintendents great.

Feature: What's new in fairway mowing -- products and practices.

Feature: Painting greens -- a growing trend.

Product Focus: Turf varieties for greens renovations.

Special: The 2010 Golf Course Builders Excellence Awards -- see if your products were used by the winners.

Bigfoot Attacks GCI!

I'm sure that you've already made the GCI website your homepage and visit it hourly, but in case you haven't, click http://www.golfcourseindustry.com/ now to check out an extremely cool bit of digital marketing courtesy of our friends at Valent.

SPOILER ALERT! Don't read on if you don't want to know what happens. Last chance...

Okay, you'll notice that an animated Bigfoot jumps into the frame and "cleans" your screen for you. Pretty slick, huh? The animation programming was developed by Archer Malmo, Valent's Memphis-based agency, in cooperation with our digital geniuses here at GIE Media.

The point here is that we can help ANY client take a good idea and make it a reality. We truly are trailblazers in multimedia and digital, so let your imagination run wild and then give us a call to bring your brainstorm to life.

Coolest Cover Ever?

Okay, I've been involved with a lot of issues of a lot of magazines through the years, but this cover image might be one of the neatest I've ever seen.

It's a perfect complement to our story on how government and private industry do battle for revenue in the golf market (and, obviously, the differing views on whether it's even a good idea for munis to compete with daily fees).

Pretty slick, huh? I wake up every morning and thank my lucky stars that we have Andrea Vagas as our creative director and that she and Mike Zawacki are capable of dreaming up content & art packages like this that scream "OPEN ME UP AND READ ME RIGHT NOW!" every time an issue of GCI hits a reader's inbox.

A Mini-Surge for the Market?

We were in North Carolina last week visiting major clients and playing bad golf at some nice courses. Aside from hacking up a few clubs, it was mainly a "listening tour" to see how companies are faring this spring and get a sense of their marketing needs for 2011. A few things were clear from the trip:

1. The market has definitely picked up. Everyone we talked with reported good to strong first quarter sales that were continuing deep into the second quarter. Clearly, better weather (both for golf and for disease pressure) played a big role, but there's also a sense that the excess inventory issues have resolved themselves. In fact, shortages of several key chemical products and some popular mowing units seemed to be the biggest problem.

2. People are already fully engaged in strategy/marketing plans for 2011. No one is taking this upswing for granted and the idea of getting ahead of the game is very appealing.

3. There was excellent response to our basic message of being a creative partner for integrated marketing strategies across the board in all the green markets (golf, lawn, greenhouse/nursery and even pest control). We outlined our capabilities in multimedia/video, social media and traditional print media and every client we spoke with seemed to like the approach. In short, we can be one-stop shopping for vitually any strategy at a time when marketing managers need all the extra arms and legs they can get.

One marketing manager at a very large company said this following a very productive gete together last week: "We've been waiting a long time for a publishing company to come in and meet with us like this." You should wait either...get in touch now to begin talking about your needs for the rest of 2010 and 2011. And maybe you can join us for some bad golf while we're talking business.

Speaking of bad golf, here's one of our hosts, Mike Brown (red shirt, right) from Starmount Forest CC in Greensboro. Like a growing number of superintendents, Mike has emerged as the club's general manager thanks to business savvy and an understanding of what really makes members tick.

We also visited Mike Haq at Brier Creek CC in Cary. The big takeaway from talking with Mike was the big upswing in rounds at his place. He is projecting nearly a 50% increase in play if conditions continue on pace. "People are ready to play again," he said.

Create a Flood of Business in July

I will spare you a long set-up about the importance of water in our business and just tell you that GCI is on top of it. Once again in our July issue, we'll be showcasing the products, innovations and ideas driving irrigation and other water management practices in the golf market.

The 2010 Smart Water Supplement will create a perfect editorial environment to put your products top of mind with superintendents, developers, architects and others who'll read this special report. We're covering, among other things:

• Irrigation controllers and software


• Moisture sensing systems


• Wetting agents in and out of fertigation systems


• High-efficiency heads


• Water treatment products, drainage, remote management and more...

If you're in the business of moving, managing, treating or conserving water on golf courses, you should contact me or your GCI rep to get your ad in the pipeline before June 15.

The TOCA Meeting

Most of you probably know that TOCA is one of the Green Industry's alphabet soup acronyms for the Turf & Ornamental Communicators Association. The group was founded 21+ years ago to promote better relationships between editors, PR people, corporate communicators and brand managers in our happy little business. I think that Cindy Code, Den Gardner (man of mystery) and I are the remaining TOCA "founders" who are still active in the industry.

TOCA has a limited but good agenda:

• Host an annual meeting every May featuring education and schmoozing;


• Conduct an awards program to recognize excellence in publishing, multimedia, advertising and other forms of marketing;


• Host interim breakfast event at GIS and GIE+E (or whatever the hell its called these days)

TOCA just held its 21st annual meeting in Tucson last week. A few observations:

• There were 50+ attendees, including editors from most of the major golf/turf publications, agency folks from the big chemical and equipment makers and lead business managers from fertilizer, chemical and iron companies. Pretty good turnout considering the economy, a West Coast site and the fact that total membership is about 150.


• The education focused largely on social media like Twitter and Facebook. The key takeaway from the seminars was that we should all be heavily engaged in social media because...well, just because. I personally think Facebook has merit as a communications tool but I secretly hope Twitter dies a painful, lonely and unlamented death.


• The TOCA awards program is a conundrum. Some publishers and ad agencies take it very seriously and enter a pile of stuff. GCI entered a total of five submissions and took firsts for best 2-page+ article layout (Andrea Vagas), best original Web story (Marisa Palmieri) and best column (guess who). I'm delighted to say that Andrea also won best of show for her layout of our article, "Is Social Media Right for Your Career?" Very cool. The other magazines did well too and some companies like Deere and Syngenta took home a lot of hardware for creative ads and media relations campaigns.


• Every year, one organization seems to dominate the awards. This year, our friends over at TurfNet entered and won about six zillion awards for their doggie calendar (again) and a video about a TurfNet-sponsored trip to Ireland. Good for them -- they were smart enough to enter in a bunch of somewhat underutilized categories -- but I'm honestly not sure how stuff like this helps advance the art and science of golf course management.

The problem is that after 20 years and a vast expansion of the number of categories ("Best Use of Editorial or Opinion in Video/DVD"????), there still aren't enough companies that take the time to enter and make the awards more competitive. A bunch of big and mid-sized companies need to join TOCA, participate in the meeting and enter their best stuff in the contest. I'm not saying the work that was honored wasn't great...but why not see where your marketing stuff stands versus others in the industry?

But, far more important than the awards is the opportunity presented by the annual meeting. The great thing about the TOCA meeting is that editors and people who want to talk to editors are all in the same place and there's no trade show or busy conference agenda. We can actually all schmooze each other and get things done. I had five very productive side meetings and could have had more if I'd planned my time a little better. For the cost of one trip -- maybe $900 total -- I was able to do business, hear some great story ideas, attend a couple of interesting education events and even play some bad golf in the desert.

In short, I think if TOCA isn't part of your business mix, it should be. It's a great meeting to begin your marketing planning for the next fiscal year, compare notes with colleagues, hang out with magazine folks and see how your creative stacks up against the rest of the market.

Find out more at http://www.toca.org/.

Print in a Digital World

I participated in a panel discussion yesterday at a publishing industry conference here in Cleveland that focused on the role of print in a digital world. The short version is ALL publishers are furiously attempting to come to grips with the ongoing evolution of business communications. Personally, I wake up thinking about this and go to sleep still pondering on it (that, and why I ate a quart of Ben & Jerry's at 11 p.m.).

Anyway, here are a few key points from the presentations I thought were worth sharing:

To paraphrase Mark Twain, "the rumors of print's demise have been greatly exagerated." It's been far too easy for marketing managers to bow to the financial pressure from CEOs to reduce costs by jumping on the all-digital bandwagon. Print is still a critical component of any integrated program in B-2-B. Fight for it because you know it really matters.

That said, the future of printed publications demands that they be "thought leaders" in their markets. "Me-too" magazines that run 3rd or 4th in popularity are, in a word, doomed.

"Thought-leading" magazines are those that present unique, exclusive content that adds perspective to content and enhances the professional and personal life of the reader.

Both articles and ads in print have tremendous value in terms of:

CREDIBILITY: There is still something very tangible about an article or ad that runs in print. It stands out, it's memorable and it seems more "real" than digital. Consider the impact a research article has in a printed magazine vs. the same content online. Would reprints of a web-based article have the same sales impact as reprints of a print-published piece? I think not.

BIGNESS: This is my word for the fact that print advertising creates a sense of industry participation because of size (full page) and presence (frequency) that digital can't always duplicate. Running a good print schedule tells readers that you are a "player" in the market and you're investing in things that matter to them.

BRAND PARTNERSHIP: By choosing your print placements in one of those "thought-leading" publications, you show the reader that you can discern which magazine serves their needs most effectively by aligning your brand with it.

The bottom line is that marketers and media companies need to find the right mix that fits the specific demographic of their targeted segment. Superintendents I talk with seem to like the combination of digital products we send them now, but they still value having our print publication tremendously. They're tactile people...they like to hold, read, re-read and keep magazines. Don't lose sight of your goal -- connecting with customers -- by forgetting what really matters to them.

The April Issue Rocks!

Our April issue mailed over the weekend. (We're catching up and getting back to normal early-in-the-month mailing dates to further separate GCI from other mags.)

Awesome cover story on how a Colorado course is getting really creative to work through bankruptcy.

Also, our own Tim Moraghan has an excellent interview with Tom Trammell, the agronomy director at Doral, about prepping for the World Golf Championships. http://www.golfcourseindustry.com/gci-0410-tim-morgahan-outside-the-ropes-world-golf-championship.aspx

By the way, I am ASTOUNDED that none of you have jumped all over the chance to secure the right-hand ad position opposite Tim's monthly column in GCI. Our research before the GIS revealed that he is the second-most-respected columnist in the industry. (I'll let you guess who was first in that poll.) And, to top it off, we'll be moving his column far forward starting with the May issue (see my earlier post about planned changes in our folio structure).

Get in touch with me right away if you want to put your ad message next to Tim on a regular basis. First-come, first-served!

Customer Blogs

Okay, how many of you guys are blogging for your customers?

I know our old friend Steve Garske at Par Aide has been doing it for years and BASF has several team members who contribute to blogs on their Turf Talk site, but I'm curious to hear from others. Comment here or e-mail me...we'll hook you up on our gigantic blogroll page on the GCI web site (http://www.golfcourseindustry.com/BlogRoll.aspx).

http://garske.wordpress.com/

http://basfturftalk.com/

Chuck Borman

A lot of you probably know Chuck "The Colonel" Borman from his years as executive director of the Carolinas GCSA and his time before that at COO of the GCSAA. Chuck is semi-officially retired from the association (he still consults a bit with the new guy, Tim Kreger), but he's keeping busy with stuff.

For example, Chuck has replaced yours truly on the Aquatrols Board of Directors. He's one of five independent directors who, along with members of the Moore family, help to lead the New Jersey-based wetting agent manufacturer. He joins our old friends Joe O'Brien (now of 1st Tee) and Brian Vinchesi, the irrigation genius, as members of the board.

Here are Chuck and I hamming it up in front of the company's headquarters following his first (and my last) board meeting last week...

Okay, so I went to Philly and had some fun

Matt Shaffer is a damned fine superintendent at a damned fine golf course...a little place called Merion in the Philly burb of Ardmore. He'll be hosting the U.S. Open in 2013 and you can be sure he and the membership there are going to make it a Major to remember. A few facts I can share from a largely off-the-record conversation with my old friend Matt...




- The regular annual maintenance budget (for 36 holes and lots of extra stuff) is around $3 million. That's in the top 1/2-percent of all courses. The national average maintenance budget is still around $500,000. Only about 9 percent of facilities have budgets of $1 million or more.










- The new maintenance facility will be very special. Most notably, it will have the first "green roof" of any golf course structure in the nation (to my knowledge). The photo on the right shows crews pouring a 3-inch concrete roof in preparation for putting down a soil bed and planting fescue. Yes, the green roof will have its own irrigation system. Total cost: $4.1 million. Projected completion date: September 1.


- Merion's short -- it'll play less than 7,000 yards for the Open. So, Matt and the USGA will use incredibly difficult bunkers (the famed "White Faces") and ultra-quick greens to defend par and uphold the pride of the membership. You have to see the bunkers up close to believe them. According to Matt, Ernie Els has played there numerous times and said the bunkers were the toughest he'd ever seen...anywhere.







- Yesterday (April 14) when I was there, the famed East course greens and approaches were being DryJected.




















- Check out the new, ground-driven topdressing brushes (below) one of Matt's former assistants invented and started selling recently.























- Matt with our old buddy Joe Liebsch, a former superintendent turned DryJect guy.





Check out Joe's war wound. This is what happens when you're whizzing around a course trying to finish a job and a section of hose gets wrapped around your leg!


- Like a lot of top-end facilities, Matt has a mix of equipment from different manufacturers. Unlike most, he has a fairly small chemical inventory. He uses less fungicide and herbicide than the majority thanks to intense cultural practices, soil amendments and nutrition programs.


- Seven guys who worked for Matt previously are now at Top 100 facilities...not bad.


Anyway, hope you enjoyed this little travelogue from my afternoon at one of the world's greatest courses. Look for more on my Philly trip soon.

Hit the Summer Selling Season Hard

Here's a sneak preview of our June editorial lineup. Very cool stuff, including some great technical content on Weed Management, Topdressing and the ever popular topic of Liquid Fertilization.

And, since I've mentioned June, there's a myth out there that advertising in summer issues is pointless because "superintendents are too busy to read the magazines." Au contraire, mon frere. Every time I've researched month-to-month reading habits, there was very little decline in ACTUAL seasonal readership. They make time to read the issue even if they'll claim, when asked generally, that they're too busy in the summer. Also, remember that more than half the golf courses in the US are below the Mason-Dixon line and summertime is their off time when they are certainly likely to read their magazines.

JUNE SNEAK PREVIEW:

Be Your Own Boss: Our cover story looks at how the economic downturn is actually increasing opportunities for superintendents to move into ownership under sweat-equity deals. Find out how they're doing it and what it means for the market.
The Perfect Edge: What products are superintendents using to create just the right edge effect on their bunkers?
Topdressing and Disease: What topdressing practices and equipment are superintendents using and what's the latest on the impact on disease suppression.
Liquid Love: The trend towards non-traditional plant nutrition continues to grow in golf. How are more courses integrating foliars and other liquids into their programs?
Product Focus: Case studies on how superintendents are choosing which overseeders to buy.
Real Science: Our research gurus look at the latest in summertime weed control.

It ain't broke, but we're fixin' it anyway

A bunch of folks have asked me what my plans are for the magazine now that I'm back in the saddle, so let's chat about that.

As I wrote in the print issue last month, the good news for me is that GCI is already a damned fine publication. Superintendents (and assistants, GMs, owners, etc.) seem to universally recognize that we're the most improved book in the market, we have a great mix of technical, non-technical and opinion and we have terrific columnists.

That said, we can always improve. So, starting in May, here are a few new and different things you'll see in GCI:

• We're launching a new section called "The Whiteboard" at the front of the magazine that allows us to run short, interesting items, weird pictures, infographs, quotes, and top product and people news blurbs in a cool way.


• We're spreading our columnists throughout the magazine folio instead of bunching several of them up at the front. This will help improve the readability of the magazine by breaking up the flow between longer stories and the one-page op/ed pieces everyone loves so much.


• Speaking of which, it's pretty clear that Tim Moraghan's column is a big hit with readers and we'll be moving him far front in the magazine. Tim, the former USGA Championship Agronomist, is just outstanding as a writer and we want to give him more prominence.


• Our research section, which typically features Ph.D.-driven turf studies, is being retitled "Real Science" and will focus even more intensively on applied research being done in the field.

I think our content has been excellent in general, but you will definitely be seeing more of what I like to call "Killer Covers." These are those in-depth cover stories that get everyone talking. Those stories are FUN and they further GCI's most important mission: to provoke discussion that improves and advances our industry.

Hello Friends!

Yup, I've finally been suckered into blogging...but there's a twist. This blog is dedicated to those of us in the business of marketing and selling to golf course superintendents and turf professionals. In short, it's just for folks like you who need to know:

- How superintendents make purchasing decisions
- Trends influencing the market
- Research you can use to plan your strategies
- Strengths and weaknesses of different marketing platforms
- Budget issues facing superintendents
- New and unique opportunities to reach customers.

So, I'll be on here regularly posting observations about the market, relevant research updates, news you can use, sneak previews of print and video items and a whole lot more.

As always, just call or e-mail if you need any help from me or the staff at Golf Course Industry!

Best...

Pat