Has "Be a Diver" gone awry???

[MANTA III]

I've been thinking about this since my last post... Why just ask of the agencies??? What, as an industry member and obviously ones that seem to care and have an opionion on what others do, or the way they do it.......

What has your company, or you as a person done to increase the awareness and the sport of Scuba Diving to a non diver? Cerich, Net Doc, Apollo, anyone ? Do manufactures have the responsibility to create awareness to the non diver, as well as agencies, retailers and resorts? We all talk it up to the community, but what of outside of the dive communinty?

 

[The Chairman]

What has your company, or you as a person done to increase the awareness and the sport of Scuba Diving to a non diver? Net Doc? We all talk it up to the community, but what of outside of the dive community?

Uh, I make this "community" possible. Not to toot my own horn (toot, toot), but I think ScubaBoard probably does more to attract new divers and promote diving than most any other entity. These are the trenches man, and I have provided a venue for both traditional and very non-traditional marketing here and a lot of it is absolutely free. Now, what did you say that you have done? I'm just askin'.

 

[Jax]

Uh, I make this "community" possible. Not to toot my own horn (toot, toot), but I think ScubaBoard probably does more to attract new divers and promote diving than most any other entity. These are the trenches man, and I have provided a venue for both traditional and very non-traditional marketing here and a lot of it is absolutely free. Now, what did you say that you have done? I'm just askin'.

Was he asking the question of you, or of the agencies? I thought the latter.

 

[mikemill]

Was he asking the question of you, or of the agencies? I thought the latter.

Well he did mention NetDoc by name....

 

[MANTA III]

Well he did mention NetDoc by name....

I did, your right Mike. But also the others...that seem to want to throw rocks at a lot of others on this thread and others in the industry.

Uh, I make this "community" possible. Not to toot my own horn (toot, toot), but I think ScubaBoard probably does more to attract new divers and promote diving than most any other entity. These are the trenches man, and I have provided a venue for both traditional and very non-traditional marketing here and a lot of it is absolutely free.

Nice, thanks... But how do you "attract" NEW divers to the sport? If you poll the number of people that look at this site, not only the members, how many are already divers? I do not challenge that this is a huge community of fellow divers and on forums like this one, fellow professionals that seem to all have an "opinion" on how the industry should be run. (Crap, I hope a non diver doesn't look at these threads!!! We'd scare the crap out of them)

Our retail shop has embraced the DEMA "Be a Diver" program and have ran the commercials on local TV. (The commercial that we have the last 7 seconds to do a direct advertising to our shop. We actually have our website throughout the entire commercial) We reach out through a couple of other venues that a non diver would attend and push our sport. Comes down to how much we want to invest in our future.

We are having a great year... Open Water and DSD's are up 324% this year. Our Continuring education is down doulbe digit... A reversal in the last few years...

We can only attribute the rise in the new diver from the commercial. So, I am happy with DEMA's projects to use my $150 dues.. for the year...(Wife and I spend that much at a coffee shop down the road in a month)

Again, I am speaking about reaching the non diver.. The one that a bunch of letters combined to form a PADI, SDI, NAUI makes absolutely no sense, than other being a Macgraw Hill for the book they must learn from. It is the dive center that makes the sale, not a grouping of letters. (Why I don't understand why the PADI section in the Delta commercial is actually such a big deal..)

For those who just want to throw stones at DEMA's attempt, it will never work for you. I'll keep using it!

 

[RJP]

Uh, I make this "community" possible. Not to toot my own horn (toot, toot), but I think ScubaBoard probably does more to attract new divers and promote diving than most any other entity.

Pete - I'm a big ScubaBoard fan, but I'm not sure how/why ScubaBoard would "attract new divers" as I'm guessing that very few people come here BEFORE they start thinking about scubadiving. In fact, by definition that's just not possible.

ScubaBoard might help usher newbies along once they've gotten the idea in their head, but it's a bit of stretch to think that SB actually attracts them in the first place.

 

[The Chairman]

Pete - I'm a big ScubaBoard fan, but I'm not sure how/why ScubaBoard would "attract new divers" as I'm guessing that very few people come here BEFORE they start thinking about scubadiving. In fact, by definition that's just not possible.

ScubaBoard might help usher newbies along once they've gotten the idea in their head, but it's a bit of stretch to think that SB actually attracts them in the first place.

Our best determination, and it's a SWAG, is that @ %18 - %23 of the people finding ScubaBoard are not certified. How? They Google "Best Restaurant/hotel in Cozumel" or the like as they plan their vacation and just like that they are here. They probably hadn't even considered Scuba Diving on their vacation either... but they are now! Mind you, we have up to a million unique visitors each and every month and average right around 750,000. Do the math.

Mind you, I certainly don't have the capital to do any more than this as ScubaBoard keeps me flat broke. Also, think of all the DIVE EVENTS organized through ScubaBoard. ITK, Vortoberfest, Invade the Rock and the like. Do you think these people organize this and travel to these fun events without spreading the news? ScubaBoardians are far more evangelistic than most churches and people, certified or not, are attracted to the fun that we have here.

Yeah, I don't blink an eye when I say that we might possibly do more than any other entity to attract divers and promote diving!

 

[Rick Inman]

I know that SB helped me get back into diving, after giving up diving for more than 20 years.

My wife and I were planing a vacation to Puerto Vallarta. I did a search and bumped into this site. I read some on Mexico diving and thought, "Gee, I used to dive. Maybe I could dive on our vacation." I did a ScubaBoard search for my agency, NASDS, and read that it had been bought out by SSI. So I called SSI who hooked me up with the local SSI shop and I took a refresher. (my first SB post)

I did some more searching on ScubaBoard and found out what charters NOT to use and which ones to use in Puerto Vallarta, and I selected Pacific Scuba. That was a million dollars of good info and the diving was superb (PV dive report).

Because of the good experience, I came back hooked on diving again! Since then I have dumped thousands of dollars into the diving industry and helped many other people to do the same. I've taken classes with SSI, PADI, IANTD and GUE. I started a little local dive group in my landlocked area and I have about 120 names on the list of divers we help keep active and spending money at our local shops.

Yes, ScubaBoard did help motivate me to get back into diving. Yes, I was searching for vacation destination info, ran into this site, and got the idea to do some diving while I was there. Yes, the people on this board have helped keep me diving and spending money as I've moved through rec to tech and now CCR.

I'm only one person. But I have heard my story repeated from other divers in my travels.

Yes, SB keeps people diving and spending money into the diving industry. You don;t have to like it, but you would be fool-hearty to ignore it.

I would absolutely say that Pete is inappropriately compensated for his contribution to the diving industry, and often people who enjoy the fruit of his labor are the first to ignore it's truth.

Sa la vie!

 

[The Chairman]

While I haven't gotten rich (monetarily) from ScubaBoard, the friends and experiences derived are simply priceless. If all I were looking was money, I would have given up long ago. Friends like Rick are my real "compensation" and they make me one of the richest people on the planet.

 

[RJP]

Yeah, I don't blink an eye when I say that we might possibly do more than any other entity to attract divers and promote diving!

I'm just saying that those are two DIFFERENT things. SB is no doubt a force in the latter. It's the former where I think you're off a bit...

"Not certified" is different than "not yet in the flow." From a marketing standpoint someone who's thinking about diving and is now proactively seeking information has already "been attracted." As I say, SB does a great job of helping to usher those folks along as they move from information gathering to getting certified and becoming divers. SB just didn't have an actual role in "attracting" them in the first place.

PS - run some quick web analytics and it seems you'd be hard pressed to find ScubaBoard doing a search on "best restaurant in Cozumel" or "best hotel in Cozumel" without using SCUBABOARD as one of the search terms. So no one is stumbling upon SB without specifically looking for information on scuba diving.