People who love sports...

Creating an Even Greater Buzz

Today we celebrate a very exciting milestone in our  company’s relatively short history, not just for our dedicated employees but, most important, for our customers. With the acquisition of GolfBuzz, which we  announced this morning, Active Athlete has furthered its commitment to help both  advertisers and publishers connect with sports  enthusiasts.

Over the past two years, I’ve watched the development of  many wonderful online communities and, at the same time, technology advancing at  a rapid pace. It’s in the spirit of helping these communities continue to flourish that we continue to empower publishers with new loyalty-building and  revenue-generating tools. Such is the case with GolfBuzz’s proven content  management, social media and widget technology platform, which Active  Athlete will extend across its network of more than 180 sites, benefiting virtually any community of sports enthusiasts.

By continuing to combine our domain knowledge with emerging technology--for example, we recently leveraged advanced text messaging and Web browsing to engage a mobile audience for three Ironman events--Active Athlete is delivering innovative solutions that drive significant value for consumers, advertisers and publishers alike.

That’s what we’re all about, and our acquisition of GolfBuzz is testament to this. I encourage you to read more about the goodness of GolfBuzz in today’s press release. We are extremely excited to have their people and technology now part of the Active Athlete family!

Marc Andresen Blogging

I recently stumbled upon Marc Andreessen's Blog - http://blog.pmarca.com/. He's got some great stuff on there from how to hire, cool mac apps, and how to be more productive are some of my top choices. Check it out, i found it very insightful. Not sure about the no set meetings. I'm too anal.

To find stuff like Marc's Blog is pretty cool. Think about our access to information and more importantly access to other people. I see advertisers getting wrapped up by the unpredictability of User Generated Content but think why I am conversing. The upside of connecting with people passions and being apart of their conversions is the difference maker. Yes, I understand the risks but today publishers have ways to help mitigate these. We must be apart of the conversion or they will happen without us. Find people's passions and you'll find loyal customers.

Relating to your consumer: PART DEUX

In working side by side with advertising clients, I see many of them struggling to figure out how to relate to certain desired demographics of users like Active Athletes and change with the times. 101 marketing teaches us to go where the customers are. Today countless online social mediums exist and it is up to us to use them to educate ourselves and to better advance our advertising objectives.

Here is a great example from the Action Sports Category of a marketer using Myspace to connect with their specific audience. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=32686956&MyToken=7a7af6a3-d2f3-45ee-9be2-86d4335e20dc 

We too are taking the plunge and are creating a Myspace page for Active Athlete Media/Action Sports. So, stay tuned as I will publish our experience. 

The most important challenge before us in marketing is arguably how to relate to our customer, not just serve them an ad. How do we navigate this changing world where the user is in control? I may have some of the answers but certainly not all. I welcome help for all in getting us there.