I don’t think I’ll ever be able to truly understand SEO if this is the title and metadata you need to use to rise to the top of 296,000 results for the Google search, “Mariners Ticketmaster Account.”
Category: Personal (Page 5 of 48)
On one hand, you could say baseball is thriving. Revenues are over Gross revenues are $10 billion, National TV ratings are up, and many teams have lucrative local or regional TV deals that help pay the bills and then some. Plus, every time an NBA or NFL team gets sold for a new record, each team sees its valuation go up as well.
But then there’s that pesky issue of attendance and fan interest. From Forbes, “The 2017 regular season saw a total of 72,670,423 in paid attendance across the league. This was the first time since 2010 that attendance dipped below the 73 million mark, which was surprising.”
People will argue why attendance is down, but most ideas fall around a central theme. The games are too long for today’s environment, often too boring, and the reliance on stats and analysis to make the smartest decisions possible takes the fun and unpredictability out of the game. Heck, even former players think the game is boring now. Jim Kaat says they should only play seven innings.
I made a comment earlier this week that I thought baseball was at its “Kodak Moment.” By that I meant, there was a time in the 1990’s when Kodak was making heaps of cash with a near monopoly on film and film development. Digital cameras kind of existed, but Kodak didn’t want to believe that people would prefer digital over film, so they just to keep looking at their stacks of cash, half-heartedly built some bad digital cameras, and ignored the direction the market was going. It’s easy to forget that in the mid-90’s, Eastman Kodak was a $90 stock. Today it’s barely above $5.00.
Compare that to Major League Baseball today. Heaps of cash, a storied history and a plethora of purists who want to make sure the game never changes. And the new entrants to their market are eSports and a growth in soccer, where people can get in and out of a match in a guaranteed 105 minutes. The market is shifting, and 10 years from now, you might be able to make an argument that the 2017 World Series may have been baseball’s apex.
But a savior has arrived, and its name is Legalized Gambling.
Today betting on a baseball game is dumb. Choose odds on a game or a point spread and hope for the best. It’s unpredictable at best, a monkey throwing darts at worst. Plus, why watch the game? All you need to do is check the score in the morning.
But the 2020 version of Legalized Sports Betting is intriguing. Be in the park or on your couch. Open your mobile phone app. Bet a tiny micro amount on each inning or each at bat. 2.5 to 1 he gets a hit. 2 to 1 they score a run. 10 to 1 there’s a home run in the inning. 1 to 1 there’s a strikeout. You could make 50-100 bets at $.25 to $2.00 per bet and the game would be awesome every pitch. And realistically, you’re probably only going to win or lose $10 to $20 per game unless you are exceedingly good or bad. A small price to pay for three hours of entertainment.
Baseball needs to get behind this. Having people actively involved on a batter by batter basis is akin to Fantasy Football players watching the 4th quarter of a 34-7 blowout to see if their receiver can pick up 60 cheap yards in garbage time. It would be great for the game, and engage a whole new set of fans who need instantaneous entertainment on their mobile devices. This generation of fans wouldn’t even need to watch the whole game – they could log in for an hour, play 20-30 bets, and then move on with their day.
Baseball need to embrace this. Don’t listen to the people who want to make fancier film. Go where the market wants to go.
I tweet for fun and emotional humor release, not to develop an audience. And my typical tweet generates somewhere between 0 and 5 responses. Who knew that I could generate a larger audience by making fun of anarchists? Maybe I should present this strategy in my next client meeting.
For weeks now, I’ve read articles blaming The Bird Scooter for everything from congested sidewalks to world hunger.
But last weekend I was down in San Diego where hundreds of thse things can be found along the Boardwalk in Pacific and Mission Beach.
Source: Thomas Melville, SDNews.com
The concept behind the scooter is simple. Like Car2Go, you download an app and look for a nearby scooter. When you see a scooter close to you, you walk to it, then “Unlock it” using a QR code. Then you ride it where you need and “Lock it” so someone else can use it. Locked scooters are almost impossible to roll anywhere and make a beeping noise that alerts that someone is trying to steal it.
The boardwalk along Pacific Beach and Mission Beach is pretty long. It could take you 40 minutes or more to walk from a bar to your hotel. But with The Bird, you just hop on, and cruise at a nice safe 8-12 MPH, cutting your time by about 66-75%. It costs $1.00 to start it and $0.15 a minute. So it’s roughly the cost of a short Uber ride, but way more fun.
After using it for a weekend, I think the haters in San Francisco are ridiculous. I was able to navigate the scooter through pedestrians, bikers, unicyclists, skateboarders, roller bladers, and other scooter riders. My only near accident was caused by a 5 year old on his non-motorized scooter who decided to come at me head on while in my lane. But it was easy for me to stop the scooter and dodge the kid at the last minute.
Source: Thomas Melville, SDNews.com
Also, you can ride remarkably slow and still keep your balance. In fact, you can literally slow to walking speed if you see someone you know and want to travel at their pace, or see a group of pedestrians going 5-wide and blocking the entire path.
The downside: Even on a small hill, I was pretty uncomfortable, and my repressed teenage memory of crashing into a tree while trying to ride a skateboard down a hill in Bellevue suddenly re-surfaced. So, I don’t know if I’d come down from 6th to 2nd downtown. But for getting around Wallingford, Greenlake or Capitol Hill, these things would be great.
Bikers will yell and scream that you should just ride a bike instead. But really, if you are going out to dinner, do you want to get sweaty riding a bike? No, a scooter is effortless. And a bike is actually much larger than The Bird. You take up way more room on a road or bike lane.
So, what I learned is that the scooter is an effective form of short-form travel in flat areas. I’d like to see it become more prevalent up here. Ignore what the haters in San Francisco say. If they are so worried about being a pedestrian and getting hit by a scooter, then they should jump on a scooter.
It’s Opening Day! Yay Baseball! Is this the year the Mariners break their playoff drought? Here are 9 reasons why we shouldn’t be worried. We’re playoff bound.
1. James Paxton
You say he’s a guy who’s never been able to stay healthy, I say that with all those days on the DL, he has a 29 year old brain with a 26 year old’s arm. He could have 140 games started under his belt, but instead he’s just at 75. His stuff makes grown men cry and he’s ready for a huge year. Let’s write him in at 19-6.
2. Felix Hernandez
He’s spent the last 10 years playing with (and for) a bunch of chumps. It’s human nature – why work your hardest when the rest of your co-workers are drunk by lunch? Now he finally has a team around him that actually inspires – no, forces – him to be good. Big comeback year. Maybe not 2014 good, but let’s mark him for 17-8.
3. Mike Leake
He’s going to be a great #3 starter. Just wind him up, go watch a movie for 2 hours and come grab him in the 7th. If he can pitch to his career 3.98 ERA with THIS lineup, he’ll be 16-9.
4. The other pitchers, minus Edwin Diaz
At this point, the Big 3 have the team at 52-23, 29 games over .500. The rest of the crew with Iwakuma, Ramirez, Gonzales and whoever else we can bring up should be able to grind out at least 22-28. That gets the starters to 74-51 for their 125 decisions. Assuming the bullpen can go about .500 (say 18-19) in their 37 decisions, that gets the team to 92-70. That’s Wild Card worthy. Probably.
5. Edwin Diaz
So why do I think the bullpen can go .500? Because Edwin Diaz is almost un-hittable in the 9th inning, so they won’t have to play Reliever Roulette out there. Guys will settle into their roles and while they may struggle at times, most of the time they’ll have about 3 to 4 arms to get the team through the 7th and 8th. Diaz will blow a couple, but for the most part he’ll make sure the rest of the guys don’t have to work outside of their comfort zone.
6. Mitch Haniger
Remember the beginning of 2017, before he got hurt? He came out strong. He can bat 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th. He’s an All-Star. And he was the guy no one had ever heard of in the Segura for Walker and Marte trade.
7. Dee Gordon
In his last 3 healthy years, he’s hit .289, .333 and .308 with 64, 58 and 60 stolen bases. Now put him in front of Jean Segura and Robinson Cano. He’s going to drive pitchers batty.
8. Jean Segura
.319 and .300 in his last 2 seasons for bad teams. Now he hits with a stolen base threat (Gordon) on 1st and Robinson Cano on deck. The guy may not see a curveball all year. Just swing away Senor.
9. Robinson Cano
Maybe by the end of the year he’ll be down at the #6 hole because Haniger is batting .340. But you can still count on him this year for .280 and 20 HR. Either way, he’s still one of the best 2B in baseball.
Conclusion:
This team is going to hit the ball. They have 3 starters who can throw the ball, a closer who will give batters nightmares, and a cadre of supporting arms that won’t kill them. Keep it simple, stay healthy, and have a few other guys hit near the stats on their baseball card (Cruz, Seager, Zunino, Gamel), and it’s a 92 win team. Not enough to win the West, but enough to earn a one game wildcard playoff game with James Paxton on the hill. From there, who knows what happens?
Last week we started the “Ask a Marketer” Series with Email Marketing tips from Elizabeth Case. This week we shift to paid search, with Local SEM Expert Rick Read.
Q1: Companies seem to be moving almost all of their Paid Ad budget to Google, Facebook and LinkedIn. What are you seeing from clients?
Rick: Yes. Paid media dollars are being moved to Search (Google//Bing), Facebook, and LinkedIn. Search always seems to be a steady driver of clicks and usually if examining the whole funnel search usually plays a role in influencing end clicks elsewhere in the funnel. FB and LI, have great results because of their ability to deliver more engaging content/creative and have powerful targeting capabilities. For all channels I would recommend leveraging custom audiences and re-marketing where you can.
Q2: What kind of landing page work should you do before starting a Paid Search campaign?
Rick: We see best results with a Clear top of page/above the fold CTA. If you at driving to leads to gated content, I recommend testing that to see if it works with your audience and campaigns. Search works best with as few steps to an end action as possible.
Q3: What is the minimum budget you need to make a Paid Search program worthwhile? How much for media, how much to hire help?
Rick: This is a difficult question as it has a lot of dependencies. Vertical, Keywords, brand awareness, and competition. depending on your KPI. You can allocate your funds in equal proportion and as your campaign runs you begin to shift budgets to media that perform better. But avoid the “last click” measurement model, try to measure and take into consideration the value search has on a FB click, even if search doesn’t get the last click.
For search you can use Google’s keyword planner and get an idea of search query volume and average CPC and then project that over the QTR then year. initially you want use this figure and add an additional 10-20% to it and run for 3-6 months and measure the results. You may find you cannot spend the money, or it may not be enough and will require additional investment. As far as staff resources, depending on account size, you may need a minimum of two people. one for PPC and one for Social. One can do it but they are two different practices that are involved enough to be a challenge for a single individual. But there are plenty of Agencies that handle any size business, so that is an option.
Q4: What are some ballpark Paid Search CPC and CPM rates these days for different industries?
Rick: Again this is a difficult question to answer. You can find a lot of info here https://trends.google.com/trends/ . CPC is effected by brand/non-brand keyword mix, Brand power, competition and quality score. etc. We have $40 keywords and keywords as low as $1 on branded terms. so again these are hard numbers to pin down.
Have more questions for Rick? Shoot me an email or find him on LinkedIn..
(This is a work of fiction. I do not believe there is an NFL conspiracy. At least, I’m pretty sure there’s not.)
It’s Playoff time! And our favorite team, the Seattle Seahawks, are seeded um, wait a second?! No Seahawks in the Playoffs? So in order to keep these playoffs interesting, I’m going to make some predictions based on the ludicrous idea that the NFL is scripted by screenwriters in New York.
Overarching themes for the playoffs:
- The NFL need some new and exciting matchups. And one of those is going to be a new Belicheck vs Brady rivalry, with Belichick leaving for New York after a disastrous 2017 post-season. So this year, no Patriots in the Super Bowl.
- There a couple of new cool young QB’s. They’ll lose in the first round.
- There’s one team left that needs a new stadium and new ownership.
- The NFC is going to win.
Week 1:
- Tennessee vs Kansas City: The NFL wants the young but not elite QB’s to do well enough to stay interesting. Mariotta fits that bill. He leads the Titans to victory over the coach that the NFL hates for some reason.
- Falcons vs Rams: Goff vs the NFC West is the storyline in the division for 2018 and beyond. But Matt Ryan’s revenge is more compelling this year. Falcons win, but the Rams are going to be poised and positioned to be the NFC favorite next year.
- Buffalo vs Jacksonville: Buffalo tried to lose this season, and yet the NFL needed them to be a playoff contender so the rich guys in Toronto would want to adopt them. A playoff birth is really all this terrible team needed to get. Now the franchise is worth an extra $250mm dollars. Jacksonville wins.
- Carolina vs New Orleans: The NFL is still annoyed at Cam Newton. Saints make him look silly and he has a meltdown in his press conference.
Week 2:
- Tennessee vs New England: Here’s the dumb upset of the playoffs. It’s inexplicable but the necessary plot twist to cause the Belichick/Brady breakup. Tennessee wins.
- Jacksonville vs Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh has some of the most exciting players in NFL. Plus, I’m pretty sure the Rooney and Mara families have a deal with the NFL where one of them makes the Super Bowl every 3 years. Jacksonville is 2018’s team, this year Pittsburgh wins.
- Atlanta vs Philadelphia: There is something about seeing Philly fans of any sport be miserable. But they’ll be more miserable if they lose next week. Philly wins.
- New Orleans vs Minnesota: Best game of the playoffs. It goes down to the wire and New Orleans wins, because the NFL needs enough time to get Minnesota’s stadium ready for the Super Bowl.
Week 3:
- Tennessee vs Pittsburgh: We can try to pretend this will be competitive, but Pittsburgh blows them out.
- New Orleans vs Philadelphia: As we said before, it’s nice to see Philly fans miserable. And everyone in Pennsylvania would be hoping for an intra-state Super Bowl. So karma leans to the Saints.
Super Bowl
- Pittsburgh vs New Orleans: Brees vs Roethlisberger. Ingram and Kamara vs Bell. Good WR’s on each squad. An exciting Super Bowl ends with the Saints getting screwed on a bad replay call, and the Steelers get the Super Bowl win.
The New Year is upon us. For many people, New Year’s Eve means staying up past our normal bedtimes, drinking champagne past a reasonable hour, and awaking the next morning thinking that the year can only improve from there.
But the good news is that you have the day off from work. You could turn on Netflix, find a show, and spend the next 10-15 hours between your couch and kitchen. But you could also be a little productive with your spare time and dead brain. Here are some suggestions.
- Take a walk around the block: Yeah it’s going to be cold. Probably rainy. One walk around the block will get your blood moving and lungs working. Plus it will get your brain going again – not much, but just enough to accomplish the rest of the stuff on the list.
- Remember your successes from 2017: It’s easy to get hung up on what you want to do better in 2018. Be in better shape, lose weight, make more money, etc… But you did some things really well in 2017. You did some things other people admire. Remember those wins.
- Backup all your photos: Oh some of you are really good at doing this on the fly. But the rest of you have hundreds of photos on your phone that you haven’t put in a safe place for awhile. Sure, I know they all get uploaded to the cloud, but why not save yourself the heartache of wondering if Apple is hack-proof? Just get all your photos on a backup hard drive. It takes very little effort.
- Clean up your phone: While you’re backing up your photos, why not take a spin through the 346 apps on your phone and clean some out. That new cool app you read about on FastCompany or Geekwire probably isn’t even in business anymore. Take an hour and wipe out the clutter.
- Read your LinkedIn profile: Remember that profile you updated the last time you needed a job, or got a new one? Yeah, the world has changed since then. Probably a good time to go in and make sure your professional internet presence reflects who you really are.
- Call some old friends: Hey guess what your friends are doing on Jan 1. Lying on the couch! Give them a call.
- Put all your gift cards in a stack by the front door: Maybe you aren’t like me, but I often receive gift cards that I never remember getting, then have them scattered around the house, so I forget to use them. I like to find them all and put them in one place next to my keys, so I can’t miss them when I’m leaving the house.
- Cook something delicious: Are you hungry now? Debating the prospects of leftovers vs a pizza? The internet makes it easy to find recipes. You can type in something like, “Easy things to cook on New Year’s” and I bet you’ll get a variety of chili and crockpot recipes that are awesome. Spend 20 minutes off the couch, go to the grocery store in your sweats and baseball hat, and then slow cook something that makes you seem like a culinary genius.
- Clean up your bookmarks: You have 100 articles stores somewhere that you meant to read at some point during the year. Either read it or delete it or both. Get a fresh palette of reading material.
- Write down the gifts you wanted and didn’t get this year: In a few months people will ask what you want for your birthday. And you won’t know. But if you have a list of “Xmas Didn’t Gets” in Evernote or GoogleDocs or whatever, you can just email it to them.
Happy New Year everyone. Whatever you do on your own New Year’s Day, I hope it leads to a prosperous and happy campaign.
It’s almost time for New Year’s resolutions. And thanks to our 6-12 holiday parties, we’re all at our maximum weights and feel like sloths crossing a 10 lane highway.
You can read all the web sites you want, and pay to subscribe to all the diet programs that claim they work. But you really need is advice from someone like you, not some egg head marathon runner. So here’s what I’m attempting in 2018.
- When you can’t go to the gym, just walk: Here’s the easiest thing we can do. If you are going to to grocery, mall, whatever… just park far away. That’s an extra 300 yards each way that is moderately useful. Will it drive weight loss? No. But it gets you to understand that walking is good.
- 100 pushups are awesome. 10 pushups are better than 0 pushups: You don’t feel like going to the gym. Me either. So we’re watching TV instead. But the commercials suck, so why not roll off the couch and do 5-10 pushups. Is doing pushups really worse than watching that lame iPhone commercial again?
- Stop with the sodas: If you buy some ginger, lemons, limes, cucumbers, and oranges, along with a decent citrus squeezer, you really never have to buy a sugary soda again. Choose your fruits and spices and make your own flavored waters.
- Research some recipes: I’m not going to tell you what you should eat. But I think we can agree that any restaurant that is making the most amount of money serving affordable food to as many people as possible, is probably cutting a corner somewhere in the nutrition department. The internet is your friend. Look for the things you love to eat, and make them yourself.
- Air Fryers work: I love chicken wings. They’re calorie hell if cooked in oil. But an air fryer cuts out 80% of the calories. Give it a shot.
(This post is part of the continuing series called, “What I Learned.” In this series, I keep track of things that sparked my brain during different events and experiences.)
I’ve long said that the Seattle Sounders do more smart things for their fans and supporters than any team I’ve ever run across. Last week, they held a small event, hosting a pub night at a local bar near the stadium. The bar features a 9 hole indoor putt-pitt course, and as luck would have it, I got to play mini-golf with Sounders CB Chad Marshall and LM Aaron Kovar.
Both guys were great. Marshall was drinking a beer, and talking about golf and his 2 year old kid. Kovar is a friendly kid who looks like a guy you’d sit next to on a bus, going to his job at Amazon.
Of course, I didn’t think of anything really good to ask them until I was already home, but I did learn one thing. We talked a little about language barriers and how the team deals with that in training. Marshall admitted it’s a real problem for teams. Each team has interpreters on staff to translate what the coaches are saying in terms of strategy and game plans. But on the field for example, some players only speak Spanish, one only speaks French, and some – including the Goalkeeper – only speak English. So when a team is defending free kicks, basically the only words they can say to each other are “left, right, and back.”
My takeaway – whenever you see a goal scored from a free kick, especially if someone lost their mark, there was probably some sort of miscommunication between guys who speak different languages. I can only imagine what it must be like in Eurpoean leagues.