Good As New Golf Balls celebrates its 10th anniversary by launching its new user-friendly Web site.

The seventh Bob Beamon Golf & Tennis Classic, benefitting the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Southern Florida and Deliver the Dream, will be held Dec. 9-10 in Delray Beach, Fla.

Editor's note: Golf Press Association publisher Alex Miceli recently spoke with Suzy da Silva and Nicole Licata, both of whom teamed to create CCM Marketing. For information, go to www.ccmmarketing.com/team.html.

Q.: How did the company get started?

NICOLE LICATA: We started in July of 2001. So we're 3-years-old. Susan and I partnered after working together at another ad agency. We partnered clearly because we were looking for a different kind of ad agency. One that's more ethical and one that really walks along the whole path of advertising with the client.

Since Suzy and I are partners and we own it, we're the ones that talk to the client day-in and day-out ... no matter who the client is they're always going to talk to one of us and we're going to use our experience, over 30 years of it, to basically walk them through their whole entire advertising campaign whatever their goals might be.

And that has not changed; that initial goal has not changed. What has changed is really focusing on, we really turned it into a lot of niche [work] for golf ... our primary focus lately has been as, you know, a huge player in the golf industry. And we actually book probably about 80 percent of our business in golf.

Q.: Now how did that evolve, doing most of your business with the golf industry?

SUZY DA SILVA: Well, from our old company we started dabbling quite a bit in golf. We were the ones that initially worked with the Adams [Golf] campaign and the Orlimar campaign when they were basically just up and coming. No one had ever really heard of them.

And the way we got them out was with the half-hour infomercial and now look at them? They're huge.

So we're on that ground level working with them and it has just built upon them moving from that agency to this agency and now we're doing a hundred times that.

NICOLE LICATA: We have a relationship with The Golf Channel that was built from that old relationship, the our old company, and then we went to the our current company and we have really worked on our relationship with The Golf Channel, the relationship with new golf clients and also with using the history that we have from working with people like Adams Golf, Orlimar Golf ... we worked with Liquid Metal, we worked with McHenry Metals. You name it in golf and a majority of it has come through us. At one of the two companies.

Q.: Something that Barney Adams said one time I met with him still resonates with me, even to this day. About six or seven years, when Barney Adams used to go out on the driving ranges and step on golf balls and show how the Tight Lies [clubs] worked. He said that people don't realize that infomercials are not necessarily to sell the product off the infomercial or off the television, but driving more people to stores and supporting the store sales more than people would realize?

SUZY DA SILVA: Yes, and well that is true.

There are so many facets to an infomercial. First of all, it's an educational tool. You've got 30 minutes to educate your viewer on whatever. Whether it's just telling, the technology between behind a car or a driver or equipment. Or whether it's telling the story of the technology in your club and how it's going to improve your game, and wanting them to just buy it directly there.

Q.: So if I'm someone starting out and trying to sell a product ... I think a perfect example now is the Perfect Club. Obviously that started as an infomercial?

NICOLE LICATA: Right.

Q.: And now it has done, I think from all accounts that I've heard, very well.

NICOLE LICATA: Yes.

Q.: But if you were trying to come up with the Adams product, which was a single club when it started, or the Orlimar product, which was relatively a single club when it started. The Perfect Club was obviously a single club when it started; what would you tell someone, what do they have to look for, what would be the cost of entry outside of development costs of the product just to get their product to market and to sell it?

NICOLE LICATA: Well, it really depends on the avenue that you're going to take.

If you're going to do an infomercial, your production costs are a lot higher. If you're doing a [commercial] spot, the production costs are a lot less, because it's only 30, 60, 90 seconds. So that's a variable right there.

On top of what your media costs are for your tests, which could be anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000, depending upon what your goals are.

And then there is also the cost of telemarketing, there's the costs of fulfillment, which is actually being able to send the product out. As well as some costs making a copy of the show to send to the stations, and then your inventory.

Even if you've already developed it, you still have to source it and you have to have the inventory in-house in order to send it when the phones start to ring.

Q.: Anything that you get into now, at least if it's from a club standpoint, is not an inexpensive proposition?

NICOLE LICATA: No, not at all. There is a feeling out there, that maybe infomercials are a quick fix for getting on air. And it's not.

There are a lot of costs involved in it. And really important, you have to have decent markup in there. Because only so many products can work on television.

If your cost isn't at least five times more marked up, preferably, then really you don't want to do it on television. Unless you have another goal. Or unless it's purely retail or purely what have you.

And a purely retail client like one of the majors, if they wanted to run an infomercial or a spot via direct response, it's a great way to expand your customer base.

You know exactly who your customers are, so you can offer them some free discounts at their local retailer and send them stuff. It basically helps the retailer; it builds a database so that you can actually do expanded advertising, via direct mail, Internet, etcetera.

Q.: I'm starting fresh with a product and I've been convinced to come and talk to you. If I come to you with a product and it's a club and I have enough money, what do you look at or what are you trying to look at to determine which way you go with me?

NICOLE LICATA: Well, if you're starting fresh and you have a club, I'm assuming that the costs that you're going to have to sell to the consumer is over a hundred dollars easy. That's just a given.

So I would assume that you need to tell somebody a special unique story.

Because every product that's just being sold has to have a unique selling point. It has to have a reason, a compelling reason for the audience to want to buy it.

Second of all, I need to make sure that have you a reason for them, that they're going to actually feel like they're getting a good deal. Not only are they getting a new technology, but it's going to better their game, that you cannot get it anywhere else, and this is such a great deal.

So in those cases you can't really tell all that in 30 or 60 seconds.

You're going to probably need a half hour to go and explain the technology, explain why it's better than the competition, explain how it's going to improve your game, and explain exactly why this is such a great deal and why you really need to pick up the phone right now an order it.

Q.: So your focus is really on the television side, right?

NICOLE LICATA: Yes. Although we do direct mail and everything else, but we really focus on TV.

Q.: Now if I come to you and say 'OK, I agree with you, I've got to do a 30-minute spot,' I'm then going to say to you 'OK, where am I going to do this? Where is the best? Is it regional television, The Golf Channel?' What do you usually come back to me with?

NICOLE LICATA: Well, a lot of that has to do with budgets.

I mean reality is reality. You are a golf product. There's only one station out there that is 100 percent golfers. You can run on CNBC and have 80 million viewers, but what percentage of those are golfers? The Golf Channel is the only station that has a 100 percent golfers as viewers.

So I probably would say your best bet is to run at least a portion of your budget on The Golf Channel. That's assuming have you a golf product, obviously.

Between The Golf Channel, regional sports [networks] ... we're looking for males, we're looking for males with money.

We probably do a test on The Golf Channel, maybe a little bit of the regional sports [networks] and possibly on some local broadcasts that might be next to some golf tournaments.

Q.: What should I then expect if, in fact, I have a good story and if, in fact, it's a unique product? How long will it take before I really start seeing some benefit out of what we're doing?

NICOLE LICATA: Well, if you do a half hour, you pretty much almost immediately know how well it's doing.

After one airing, you've got a pretty good idea, especially if it's a large airing on something like The Golf Channel. You'll have a pretty good idea of where you fall, how much money you're going to bring back for the money spent.

And if your goal is just to purely make money, then if you're doing better than what your break even is ' and a break even would be a cost of your media plus your costs of goods, which would cover telemarketing, etcetera ' if you're hitting what your goal is, let's say that for every

$1 you spend you want to bring back $1.75, then you would say, 'All right, well we did that' and then we would actually throw more money at it, we would actually spend more money in order to make more money.

So you keep on airing and you're continually making money in that direction.

Q.: If I run a 30-minute spot and basically don't get any phone calls or get very few phone calls, should I assume that my product is not what people are looking for or should I look at the 30-minute spot itself and say, 'Maybe I need to go do it a different way?'

NICOLE LICATA: It depends on what the exact results were. I mean, if you got a ton of calls and nobody ordered, you definitely got the interest, but for whatever reason you couldn't close at the tele mark terse.

So maybe there's confusion in your offer that people thought they were getting one thing and then they got on the phone and were getting something else.

Maybe your telemarketing firm can't handle the calls. Maybe you don't get any calls at all, there's not even a call. Well, that's also very odd, so then you would think that maybe there was a problem with the telephone number. Maybe somebody typed it in wrong. I mean it could be something easy like that.

If you do like a .5 rating or you don't do as well as you need and it seems like a far cry to get to where you need to be, you have to sit down and consider the pros and cons of making changes to the show and trying to make it work or saying, 'Hey, maybe this isn't a product that will work.'

Q.: Have there been occasions where you have someone come in to you and say here's my product, here's the hook on the product, here's why it's so great and everything else, and you look at them and say 'I just don't think that this is going to work?'

NICOLE LICATA: Yes. Absolutely. We have it quite often.

We usually turn more people down than we actually take because of that.

Because everybody thinks their product is their baby, so it's hard to tell you that your child isn't as good looking as you think he is, but I would rather not take your business and lose your money than take it and not be truthful with you.

SUZY DA SILVA: And we still have people that will. We will tell them 'No, no, don't run, really it's against our opinion, please save your money,' and they will still go do it.

And if we won't do it, they will go to somebody else who will do it. But we try to use our expertise from being in the business and being in golf for so long to let them know, 'Hey, you know, this isn't going to work.'

Q.: You mentioned early on in the conversation about the scruples of some of the people that do this. If I'm a novice to this process, what am I looking for?

NICOLE LICATA: One thing that is huge is referrals and just talking to people who have actually worked with golf products.

If you're in the golf industry and you're going to somebody ' selling a golf product is a lot different than selling just any widget. Because it's a niche market. There's only so many golfers out there. And to hit them, you really have to know what you're doing.

Second of all, there are a lot of scams in this business. There are people who will promise you that for $50,000 they're going to make your infomercial and they're going to run you on The Golf Channel and all these great stations for $50,000 and that's it.

And it just doesn't make sense, it's impossible for that to happen unless you're running on local cable, which isn't really The Golf Channel. That might be Comcast San Diego Golf Channel. So you have to really look out for the pitfalls that there are people out there who are trying to take advantage of somebody who doesn't know how it works.

And you have to go and you have to do your due diligence and talk to people and if they can have a conversation with you and explain in layman terms how it works, and they can give you exact information and if you can call it and back up some of it, that's your best bet, because there are a lot of people out there trying to take advantage of people.

Q.: You have a pretty good relationship with The Golf Channel. Can you talk about what you're doing with The Golf Channel going forward?

NICOLE LICATA: Well, we are basically one of the preferred agencies for long form with The Golf Channel and we're probably one of the largest billing agencies.

Right now what we're doing is just talking about, talking to them about how going forward we can work better together, better service the clients, help everybody to work together.

It's more of a strategy planning, 'Hey, this is what we have seen in the in the past year or so, how can we change these things that are problems and which things have worked real well that we can continue. What kind of support can we give people who have golf products?'

Q.: It's interesting because The Golf Channel, there's no way to determine its viewership. You can determine how many households it's in, but you can't determine how many people are actually watching it.

NICOLE LICATA: Right. And there's only so many golfers out there.

Q.: Right. And that's even in question.

NICOLE LICATA: Yes. Depending upon how many games they play a year.

Q.: But clearly you've been working with The Golf Channel doing what you call long format or infomercials. For how long?

NICOLE LICATA: Well, we have been doing both long form, short form, Internet, etcetera ...

In 1997, I came into the business at with another agency, but we were working with The Golf Channel at that time. CCM's been working with them since its inception.

And so it has been three years there and for me and, gosh, what is that?

10?

Q.: The reason I mention this is because obviously you in some ways are a barometer on how good The Golf Channel actually is. Because you're not going to keep going back to them and spending dollars there if your clients aren't getting response, correct?

NICOLE LICATA: And our clients wouldn't keep on spending there if they weren't getting response. Or using us for that matter, you know.

SUZY DA SILVA: Instead of using Nielsen, per say, we clearly can just show sales instead.

NICOLE LICATA: Ours is direct. I mean we know the second it airs which people are ordering from it.

We don't know how many people watched it and, you know, we'll have arguments with people all day long about how many people are watching that, at that exact time period.

All I know is that this is how many orders I can get for a normal product at that time.

Q.: Have you seen those numbers get better and better, as The Golf Channel was consumed by Comcast and expanded its households?

NICOLE LICATA: Definitely as the households expand you do see some, sometimes it takes a couple of weeks for it to actually get into people's households. But you will see it as The Golf Channel gets bigger, you definitely see more calls, more orders and they're getting a lot better programming as well.

And that helps too, the more people who watch, the more people who are consistent watchers, the better it is for the advertisers, whether it's direct response, infomercials, Internet. It's the one place to turn if you're a golf lover.

Q.: There are very few women that I can think of who are in this industry.

NICOLE LICATA: Let's just say when we first started, we would go to the PGA Show. This is, of course, before I was married and it was the best place to be as a woman. (Laughter.) The more we get into it, you know, it's all about learning the sport, understanding the business.

It's fun. And it's fun to be in a male-based business, as well. Because we're giving it another look. We're giving it the female perspective, I guess.

Q.: Do you find that there are barriers to being two women in this industry?

NICOLE LICATA: There are some. We have had clients who really don't want to work with women. And sometimes it's hard, because they don't want to take your advice as a woman.

But for the most part anybody who is a smart business person is willing to go with the person who is the best and can treat them the best and who gets them the most money for their company.

So sure, you stumble here and there, but for the most part you would rather not work with those people anyway.

SUZY DA SILVA: And it's not like we're giving them advice on their golf game, we're giving them advice on what we have been doing since forever about media buying.