Charm City Cakes aces display booth at the NSCAA

The 2011 NSCAA Convention is being held in Baltimore. Naturally, we had to get a Charm City Cakes, Ace of Cakes cake. Just had to! But what was it going to look like?

Back in June when we were planning the booth, we had all sorts of ideas. The one that finally emerged was a Maryland blue crab tearing at a soccer ball. The big problem was nobody here at TourneyCentral could draw.

“No problem,” I thought. “I’ll just go to a toy store, find a soccer ball and a toy crab, put them together, shoot that and send it over to the cake folks.” Only in Ohio, Maryland blue crabs are hard to find. Any crab was hard to find. I was just about to give up when I tweeted:

Can anyone draw a Maryland blue crab attacking a soccer ball like a monster truck?

A few days later, I got an email with a sketch attached from Nicole Manzo. Nichole is a talented artist who loves being creative but was apprehensive about studying art. Art doesn’t pay the bills; business skills do.

But the world could not lose one more artist to “practical thinking” and her sketch was going to be my cake. I sent it over to Duff’s crew and they pounced on it, confident they could make an awesome cake from that.

And they did. And they not only made an awesome cake, they each signed Nicole’s sketch which we are going to frame and present to her when we get back home to Dayton.

And this is Nicole’s sketch Katherine and Ben used to build her cake. The Charm City Cakes crew is just awesome for doing this for us. We’re fans forever! (My favorite edit is the lipstick on the crab. Awesome!)

And just because Mary Alice’s voice was in my head, saying “It’s cake. Eat the cake.” and I didn’t get a piece the last time we got a Charm City Cake, we sliced into the cake at about 8:00pm and started serving pieces to hungry soccer coaches who stopped by the booth.

There may be some left, so if you are hungry, booth 1527. Remember, cake at 8:00pm is dessert, but at 8:00am, it is pastry. Yellow cake, chocolate butter cream filling. Awesomely delicious crab cake.

UPDATED
The Fairmont High School Newspaper published the story about Nicole. You can read it here.

What GotSoccer GotWrong about TourneyCentral

Recently, GotSoccer sent out a press release outlining the difference between their tournament management software and TourneyCentral. We, of course, were immediately flattered; not because we particularly care about what GotSoccer thinks of our product but because that told us that their customers and prospects were asking them about TourneyCentral. And they had to defend their product against ours.

That makes us happy.

But GotSoccer did get a few things wrong about TourneyCentral. After all, accuracy at a soccer tournament is very important, even more so when you trust software to drive your event. Accuracy makes sure the right teams (including referees) show up on time and at the correct fields and the right teams advance. Accuracy is critical to most soccer teams, coaches, parents and players when it comes to standings and who gets the trophy. If you are going to start comparing yourself to the big dogs in the yard, it’s important to get the big things right.

Here are just a few things GotSoccer GotWrong about TourneyCentral:
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Increasing a sponsor’s footprint at your soccer tournament

This morning I received an email from a tournament director to see if we could make the sponsor logo bigger. I took a look at the listings under the DEALS area and noticed the logo was already at the maximum size and in the top position. But I also noticed the sponsor had no Super Deal, no additional coupon, no links to their Facebook Fan page or posted video. Fortunately, there is still some time to get these things up and running.

For a player, parent or coach visiting the tournament website, there is no reason to click on the logo if there is no additional information. They know all that is going to happen is a visit to the sponsor’s website. But they don’t know why they would go there other than being sold something, so they don’t click.

Sometimes the easiest thing to ask for is to “make the logo bigger” but the more effective strategy is to make the sponsorship footprint bigger. Think what your sponsor means to the player, parent or coach. Ask the sponsor what special information they have for your audience and make that the SuperDeal. Then ask for a flyer or coupon This does not even need to be a discount, just more information targeted to your tournament-goers and their fans. And a video never, ever hurts. It could even be the sponsor welcoming the teams to your tournament.

If you want to go further, you can post a news story on your front page and email it to the teams. If your sponsor relies on foot traffic during the event, you could send text messages from the Team Applications Module to the team contacts, sparingly of course. You could also tweet out offers using your twitter account.

Think about how you can increase your sponsor’s footprint instead of just their logo size. Chances are, if they have success in year one, they’ll keep coming back every year.

Mason Pre-Season High School Classic – Senior Showcase

Reminder that both the boys and girls senior showcase was recorded and is available on Time Warner Cable. You can also view in on Time Warner Cable’s website. Congratulations to all of the Seniors that played in the Senior Showcase!

This news was posted to Mason Pre-Season High School Classic.

Soccer Tournaments, Soccer Tournament Software, Soccer Tournaments 2010

Sponsors and advertisers need belly buttons, not eyeballs

I once heard an old newspaper advertising salesman say, “We’re not in the business of selling ad impressions; we’re in the business of selling belly buttons.” What he meant by that was that it didn’t matter how many people saw or read the ads; it only mattered how many physical customers the ad brought to the merchant buying the ads.

Belly buttons = real people, in real life, living, breathing and buying.

In our always online world, we tend to forget that soccer tournament website visitors, unique pages views and hits mean absolutely nothing to sponsors and advertisers unless there is some action that follows. That action is almost always a trip to the store, restaurant or shop, followed by a purchase. Nothing else really matters.

Our Advice: Don’t just take sponsorship/advertising orders and artwork for your soccer tournament. Help the advertiser collect belly buttons as well. In the TourneyCentral advertising module, there are opportunities to “sell” the goods and services of your sponsors and advertisers through uploaded brochures and coupons, expanded deal copy and video. In addition, any listing can be linked to a Twitter or Facebook account to further push the belly buttons to the advertiser.

When you hook up your soccer tournament twitter account to your website in the Web Site Maint. Module, any news that you post on your front page will automatically be sent to anyone following you. You can also plug the goods and services of your DEALS sponsors and advertisers with every email you send out to your teams.

While you may not want to overdo the selling to the teams, going the extra mile and letting sponsors and advertisers know you are doing it will help sell more ads in the future.

So quit selling ads and eyeballs and start selling belly buttons. It makes the game a lot more profitable and a whole lot sexier.