Brian Ghidinelli

Recent Posts

Tracking results for editorial calendars

Date

August 14, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

Editorial calendars help you plan what, where and when to post content online

We gave two presentations earlier this year at the BMW CCA and SCCA National Convention on social media strategy for car clubs. One of our recommendations was to use an editorial calendar in order to help plan content and marketing in advance. So long as everything remains in the head of a single volunteer, it's impossible to share the workload. We saw many eyes grow wide with excitement as we talked about scheduling all of the emails, Facebook posts and tweets for an event in one sitting using a social media dashboard like

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Topics: Marketing

PCA and BMW CCA Membership Verification

Date

September 9, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

In 2009 we launched our first membership verification service where any organization could upload a file of valid members or participants and validate against it using rules on their registration form. We simultaneously released our first integration to support real-time verification for Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) organizers.

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Topics: Features

Online Attendee Check In

Date

August 14, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

icon for new Checked In attendee statusWe've always worked to reduce the amount of paper needed leading up to an event. Killing spreadsheets is our guilty pleasure. But in most cases the time comes when the registrar prints out a final set of reports, shuts down the computer and heads to the event relying only on paper. Today, we're excited to introduce a new "Checked In" status and the corresponding on-site Check In feature that helps eliminate paper at the event too!

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Topics: Features

Improved SCCA Weekend Membership Billing

Date

August 14, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

Sports Car Club of America logoLast year we helped our SCCA customers process more than 2000 weekend memberships online rather than having the participant fill out a triple-carbon form at the event during registration. It saves a ton of time, keeps lines short and removes one more paperwork roadblock to having fun. If you are an SCCA region and aren't familiar with how to sell weekend memberships in advance, check out the overview.

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Topics: Features

Changes to Autocross PAX

Date

October 11, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

Autocrossing Mustang by Randy_fThe recent introduction of three new indexed classes from SCCA National (RTA, RTR and RTF) have led us to a lot of discussion about PAX support in MotorsportReg.com. This is not an SCCA-specific issue as many BMW CCA and PCA groups also have indexed classes for their autocrosses. I won't say we have been wrong for the last ~five years since adding class modifiers, but we certainly could have been more right.

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Topics: Features

SCCA National Convention Presentation

Date

June 11, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

Following up on our presentation at the BMW CCA Congress last week, we presented our session on "How to Rule the Web (or at least get started)" yesterday in Las Vegas at the SCCA National Convention.



These slides are a slightly updated version of the BMW CCA deck so please download these.



Thanks for all of the great questions and comments. Now get out there and make one small step for 2012 to build on!

Update 3/6: I just learned this morning that in addition to Twitter and Facebook, HootSuite's social media dashboard also has installable apps for Flickr, YouTube and Tumblr. This gives you one single place to create and curate your content as we discussed during the preso. Give it a look!
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Topics: Marketing, Travel

BMW CCA Presentation Download

Date

June 11, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

BMW Car Club of America (BMW CCA)I'm on my way back from Ft. Worth, Texas from two days with the leadership of BMW CCA chapters from around the country. Every few years, the club holds a gathering for membership, treasurers and driving event staff to get together, share ideas and pow-wow.

I have previously attended this event in Atlanta and Salt Lake City but this time I was on the presentation schedule delivering my "How to Rule the Web (or at least get started)". Covering web, email and social media, this talk originated last year at the SCCA National Convention but was more narrowly focused. Based on some patterns I've observed over the past twelve months, I freshened up the content and included a few more recommendations.

The challenge of a conference like this is the wide range of audience expertise. There are some groups who have sophisticated online marketing programs updated daily and others who don't yet have a Facebook fan page. I attempted to provide enough introductory background at each step so inexperienced listeners have a feel for the who, what, where, when and why but also get specific with best practices and strategies for clubs that have a head start.

In addition to a complete printout, I've extracted all of my "Next Action" slides and links so there is a short document that can be shared within an organization. As I offered in my talk, I hope you find this information helping in planning, budgeting and executing your online marketing strategy. Membership recruitment and retention starts and ends with the troops on the ground (that's you)!



Don't forget to listen!


Listening through social media for customer serviceThere is a great article from SocialMediaExaminer.com all about dealing with unhappy customers over social media. Improve retention by using your social media accounts or dashboard to listen to what people are saying about you and intervene to correct a poor experience. Don't forget to also set up a Google Alert which will send you an email any time your organization appears in a web page new to Google's index. These are great ways to keep your ear close to the ground.

Photo credits


http://www.flickr.com/photos/pasukaru76/5268559005/sizes/o/in/photostream/
http://www.surrealplaces.com/
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/10/06/social-media-home-bases-and-outposts/
http://reallymichelle.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/ice-ice-baby/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alfon18/4304973338/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ceardach/4549876293/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/elycefeliz/6354180481/
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Topics: Customers, Travel

Welcome Mercedes-Benz Club of America!

Date

August 14, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

Mercedes-Benz Club of America logoWe are very excited to announce our new relationship with the Mercedes-Benz Club of America. Beginning in 2012, MotorsportReg.com will be the Official Registration Service to the 83 Sections and 30,000 members who support the silver arrows.

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Topics: Customers

Updated Google Analytics Integration

Date

August 14, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

Back in December we released the first cut of our Google Analytics Integration which allows customers to enter their GA identifier in MotorsportReg.com and start picking up analytics on their registration funnels.

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Topics: Features

Upcoming Convention Schedule

Date

August 14, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

On the road again...For most of our customers, late November through February is the "off-season". For us here at HQ, this is often our busiest time of the year. The phones and inboxes are pretty quiet but we're heads down working on sales and marketing programs, deploying major updates to our service that would be too disruptive for the middle of the season and we're also on the road a lot visiting and speaking with customers.

Here's our travel and convention schedule so far for the 2011-2012 off-season:

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Topics: Travel

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