Marketing: Are we ok, or do we need help?

[Edward3c]

I think some technical divers get burned out because they focus too much on skills and training and too little on having fun.

It's not only technical, I see the same thing happen with those going through a commercial training outfit. The operator is constantly pushing the next course forgetting that customers need fun. I often take people in for a fun dive just to remind them why they took the sport up in the first place.

King regards

 

[Scott]

So, with that instructive tale put out there... what does scuba diving promise, to whom, and who is the competition?

Many in the industry locally will site that other recreational activities are our competition. While it may be to a point I will say it is, and you have already mentioned it, kids. Kids soccer, kids baseball, kids dance......

 

[Julieofthesea]

By coincidence, I was speaking with a friend who is heavily involved in the industry just a few days ago. He said that the number of active divers worldwide is about half of what it was 10 years ago. Is that a symptom that something is wrong with how business is conducted or just a fluke of the economy and demographics? If it is a trend that is largely induced by how businesses conduct themselves, that is a problem worth exploring.

This is true. DEMA posts certification numbers on their website.

Local dive shops refuse to look at this revenue stream, and it makes me insane. Let's think about this. Dive shop sponsors a trip. Let's say they are going en mass to....CocoView. Travel person e-mails out booking forms, makes sure they have everyone's flight arrangements, makes sure all participants have passports that expire farther than 6 months out, etc.

LDS number 2 has a pizza party 2 weeks prior to the trip. Everyone bring in their computer, we'll change the battery for free (just buy the battery). Bring your passport with you so we can write down the number (and check the expiration date). Those who bring in their computer will bring their reg set with them, and many will need service. Who of us go into a dive shop without buying a little something? Everyone have a safety sausage/tank banger/o-ring lube/lip balm? Meet your trip leader (if you haven't) and the rest of your traveling companions. The lone guy in the corner? He will meet the buddy team he will be diving with.

The results are the same, except LDS#2 sold $1500 worth of knick-knacks that wouldn't have been sold if the divers hadn't come in for $50 worth of pizza. everyone got their battery freshened, so there won't be any issues on the dive boat the first morning, and the LDS had 2 weeks to service those regs that needed it.

Most LDSs don't add the extra bit of fun to diving.

The most successful LDSs promote travel with these pre-trip parties. I worked for a dive travel wholesaler for 4 years and I've seen this first hand.

I thought this might be a useful discussion until I saw this post. Please go research some industry numbers over a 20 year period including interviews with sales people who have been in the industry for at least 15 years. Then come back to the discussion with a more complete insight. It will be hard for many people in the industry to take the conversation seriously if this is valid as your point of view. Get enough info to ask specific questions. One of my favorite topics is the trade show survey done in 2004 where over 90% of the respondent retailers requested the show be returned to a functional buying cycle. As a manufacturing sales manager, I considered those people my customer and the only people that mattered in the discussion. However DEMA reported that a very small majority of all industry "stakeholders" were interested in returning the show to January. My question was and is, what stakeholder group is more important than the customers attending our show? Obviously, DEMA disagreed and many manufacturers walked away from the DEMA Show Table, if not the entire organization. Some have returned and some have not. Bottom line: the primary event stirring energy, an exchange of ideas and generating commerce in the industry has become merely a social event that people attend if convenient. Of course in 99-01 I attended most of the A1 committee meetings and repeatedly asked for the results of the survey showing that our customers endorsed the change of time venue and I was certainly not alone, as far as I know we are still waiting to see those results. This is but one example symptom of the illness rotting our industry from the head down. My apologies that my examples seem dated but the illness has not changed and like many of my peers, I now find the industry association too irrelevant to bother following. I think you may have some good ideas but in my personal opinion you need a better feel for the ball field before you enter the game. Just my personal 2 cents for what they are worth. Best of Luck with the venture.

So you're still mad at DEMA because they moved the month from January? Hi Mike, I've worked in the industry for 16 years. I owned a dive store for 7 years, I was a rep for DAN for 7 years (I probably tried to visit your place in Dunn) and I was the director of marketing for a dive travel wholesaler for 4 years. (Did I say that already?) I'm in the game, you're warning is too late. My last two bosses were on the DEMA board of directors. I know DEMA isn't popular here, but I know how hard they work to promote the industry.

Mike, I'd even go the other way and suggest the people best able to help guide the industry into the future from a marketing standpoint probably need to come from outside the industry. (I'm going to stop using "finger quotes" every time I say "scuba industry" but know that I continue to maintain that there is no such thing - certainly not in the customer's mind, which is the only one that matters.)

A marketing agency focused on the scuba industry is potentially doomed to have such horrible myopia as to be worth less than simply "doing the same thing, hoping for a different result." (Nevermind the fact that conflicts of interest would make it impossible to have more than one LDS client, one gear client, one liveaboard client, etc)

Scuba could use thinking from a large ad agency/marketing firm, but there's no one who speaks for the industry to hire us. I reached out to DEMA several years ago with an offer to enlist some of the best and brightest folks at my company (we own ad agencies such as McCann Erickson, Lowe+Partners, Hill-Holliday, DraftFCB, Deutch, Campbell-Ewald, The Martin Agency and others as well as PR powerhouses like Weber-Shandwick, Golin-Harris, Powell-Tate, Carmichael-Lynch-Spong and others) but I never even heard back from them. I think they were too busy talking to themselves to spare the time to talk to someone who could actually help.

What needs are met by scuba diving? Is there one, single "need" that scuba diving in general meets for all divers?

Totally agree on the ad agency thing. My favorite topic of discussion is to point out how the Dairy Industry hired an agency that used celebrities in the "Got Milk" campaign. I would like DEMA to hire a famous person like, Jessica Alba, to be an official spokesperson.

I also liked the insight on the different diver buyer personas.

As for the needs being met by scuba diving. It's an activity for water lovers to be reminded that they are alive.

SO here's my question for the business owners. My goal is to to help the scuba industry grow, what could I do specifically to HELP you? Do you need tips for making the most of social media? Do you need help generating ideas for blog posts? Can I offer ideas to help attract customers to your website with better SEO? Could I organize a dive show in January where the LDS can sell dive gear? What are your problems that need solving?

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

 

[Wookie]

SO here's my question for the business owners. My goal is to to help the scuba industry grow, what could I do specifically to HELP you? Do you need tips for making the most of social media? Do you need help generating ideas for blog posts? Can I offer ideas to help attract customers to your website with better SEO? Could I organize a dive show in January where the LDS can sell dive gear? What are your problems that need solving?

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

Dive shows are lame. They needn't be, and BTS is a great example of one that isn't, the Long Beach show is another. Aside from that, pretty lame. I would love to be all over a consumer show, or many consumer shows, but the organization is very poor, mostly run by volunteers who have been managing the same old show forever. Ask Ken Knezick how hard it is to run SeaSpace for 20 years, and no one would step into his shoes and run the show. I don't know how Zig keeps BTS fresh, that would be a good place to start. I am not a DEMA hater, I show every year, but my goodness the show is stale. Same old folks in the same old tired booths hawking the same old stuff to the same old folks. The parties (TDI tech party, SSI party, Diver's Direct Party, Rebreather World Party) are great fun and social events, though. Hey, wait a minute, what did I just say? The show sucks but the parties are fun? What no one has said is that Scuba isn't fun anymore. We have too many rules, we (operators) worry too much about liability, it just isn't fun.

So. You figure out how to get the fun back in scuba, and I'll follow you anywhere.

What about cross marketing? What about a scuba pavilion at the Surf Expo show? Same demographic we're looking for. What about (God forbid) a scuba pavilion at a hunting/fishing show? The hunters I know in Texas spend a ton of cash on the deer lease, build swamp buggies or lease trucks (with seats 20 feet in the air) so they can shoot things that move from many yards away. That ain't cheap. It's fun, though. How about the Miami or Ft. Lauderdale boat show? These are yachties and yachtie dreamers attending, they may not be able to afford a 200 footer of their own, but maybe they want to go on a liveaboard.

I have friends who use the pool at the country club for confined water. Guess where their clients come from? That's right, the country club. OBTW, they charge $1150 for OW class including Mask Fins and Snorkel. They tried charging less, but the clients thought they weren't getting a quality product. They do their open water sessions at AKR or COZ or Cayman Brac. They mostly sign up whole families. Those folks aren't my clients, that isn't the type of boat I run, but they are certainly someone in the scuba industry's clients.

Maybe someone needs better SEO, I don't know, but when some consultant comes around offering to increase my SEO, I run the other way. Maybe someone needs to teach me how to use social media, but I'm pretty sure I piss off a wide audience all by my lonesome. Maybe not. If you want to do something for me, work with my webmaster to keep the landing page of my website fresh. I'm tired of doing it, and so is he. And so are most of the LDS websites I visit. Most LDS website landing pages look like they haven't changed in 10 years, when some volunteer store employee did the website for free the first time. Most of all, do this at a price that would make any other industry consultant cringe, because that's what the LDS wants from the operator, because that's what the client wants from the LDS.

 

[RJP]

Totally agree on the ad agency thing. My favorite topic of discussion is to point out how the Dairy Industry hired an agency that used celebrities in the "Got Milk" campaign. I would like DEMA to hire a famous person like, Jessica Alba, to be an official spokesperson.

Funny you should mention the MilkPEP campaign, as that is done by our Deutsch division's NY office. Interestingly, this is very specifically not a "spokesperson" campaign in that the celebrities in the campaign are simply featured in the ads. Strategically, the decision was made to feature a wide range of people in order to broaden the appeal - going with one specific person often serves to limit the appeal of a campaign. Certainly limits the shelf-life of a campaign. (No pun intended.) Ironically, the original version of the campaign done by Goodby/Silverstein for the California milk processors board - which won many awards and has been selected as one of the top campaigns of all time - did not contain a celebrity.

[video=youtube;OLSsswr6z9Y]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLSsswr6z9Y[/video]

As for the needs being met by scuba diving. It's an activity for water lovers to be reminded that they are alive.

Very, very limiting. Why tie to "water lovers"? That may seem to make sense, on it's face, but the fact that scuba takes place in water doesn't mean it's only for water lovers. Much less further limiting it to the even smaller subset of waterlovers who need to be reminded they are alive.

Scuba is likely not for people who HATE the water... but there are plenty of people out there who would not raise their hand currently as "a water lover" who would probably be interested in and enjoy scuba diving if it were positioned to them properly.

Sure, "water lovers" might over-index in terms of underlying appeal of scuba... but it's neither necessary nor sufficient.

SO here's my question for the business owners.... What are your problems that need solving?

You'll merely perpetuate the problem, by focusing on solving "business's" problems. You need to figure out what customer segment has a problem that scuba can solve! The business that figures that one out will bring in more customers - and money - than they will know what to do with.

Suggested reading:
Theodore Levitt's seminal "Marketing Myopia" article in Harvard Business review, 1960. (Anything Ted wrote will make anyone a better marketer.)

Kim and Mauborgne's "Blue Ocean Strategy" (also in HBR, circa 2005) is incredibly valuable for today's marketers... and the whole "blue ocean" metaphor makes it even more on-point.

Kevin Keller's "Three Questions You Need to Ask About Your Brand" (HBR 2002) especially the section on competitive framing.

And for anyone who doubts the ability of advertising to motivate a change in behavior, there's Rory Sutherland's informative and entertaining TED talk from a few years ago... stick with it through the "Shreddies" example which begins around the 12min mark.

Rory Sutherland: Life lessons from an ad man | Video on TED.com

 

[SeaHorse81]

accidental post

 

[RJP]

Maybe someone needs better SEO, I don't know, but when some consultant comes around offering to increase my SEO, I run the other way.

The industry doesn't need SEO... the industry needs more people searching for information about scuba diving.

I could develop an exquisitely sophisticated and effective SEO strategy for buggy whips... but that will do nothing to increase the demand for buggy whips.

 

[Akimbo]

…Discretionary income has been flat across all segments but the most affluent. Households w/income >$100k control 82% of US discretionary income, according to the US Conference Board. This has become even more concentrated, as the percentage of households with ANY discretionary income has declined a few percentage points over the last few years.

But even harder than finding discretionary income, is finding free time. ...

Not my field or area of interest but this doesn’t “sound” like the full picture. The demographics I was referring to was all of us boomers.

Even though most of our income is down from peak earnings, most of the people I meet in my age group are experiencing big jumps in discretionary funds. Homes are paid for or payments are low, kids are out of the house and school, most are happy with their paid-for cars and will replace them with a less expensive one when necessary, and have outgrown most desire for bling. Overhead is really low. We travel and eat out a lot. I would “think” this would be a very positive trend for Scuba diving during the next decade or two.

I wonder how much of the decline can be attributed to boomers entering the sport 10-20 years ago and getting too busy as family and career demands peaked? “Perhaps” that trend is reversing? I know several boomers who are re-entering the sport, replacing gear but not taking courses. Not conclusive, just a local observation. I would think that golf would be the big gainer here.

 

[RJP]

Not my field or area of interest but this doesn’t “sound” like the full picture. The demographics I was referring to was all of us boomers.

Even though most of our income is down from peak earnings, most of the people I meet in my age group are experiencing big jumps in discretionary funds. Homes are paid for or payments are low, kids are out of the house and school, most are happy with their paid-for cars and will replace them with a less expensive one when necessary, and have outgrown most desire for bling. Overhead is really low. We travel and eat out a lot. I would “think” this would be a very positive trend for Scuba diving during the next decade or two.

I wonder how much of the decline can be attributed to boomers entering the sport 10-20 years ago and getting too busy as family and career demands peaked? “Perhaps” that trend is reversing? I know several boomers who are re-entering the sport, replacing gear but not taking courses. Not conclusive, just a local observation. I would think that golf would be the big gainer here.

Yup, you've swerved into one of the dynamics. And it's not just the relative age of various segments. Someone who got into diving when they were in their 20s is a very very different person when they are in their 50's. Sure, some of them may come back... but there are few things I did when I was 25 that appeal to me now, as I'm approaching 50. Note - golf participation in the US is on the decline, from high of 30MM in 2003 to under 25MM in 2011, and the number of "core golfers" (those who play 8 or more rounds per year is down from a high of ~20MM in 1998 to under 15MM currently.

And further at issue is that today's 25yr old - Gen Y, Millenial, whatever you want to call them - are different 25yr olds than Baby Boomer 25yr olds were when they were 25. They want different things, they want them in a different way, and they want do do them with their friends. A millenial is far less likely to go engage in an activity on their own or with one or two people than they would be to engage in something that they can do in a group of 10 friends. How likely is it that a large portion of the 25-34yr old audience will bring their 9 closest friends to sign up for a scuba class.

Interestingly, there is a key insight about what Millennials seek that scuba could be well-positioned to satisfy. If only there was an organization in "the industry" with the vision to hire someone who knows what that is...

:d

 

[TSandM]

I'm sure we need to do something to make scuba more visible and more appealing across the board.

But the last question from the OP, about what she could do to help individual dive shops, pushed a button for me. We work with what is really (or at least used to be) an excellent dive shop, in terms of the things I think a shop ought to be and do, although with some notable exceptions. For a long time, we really wanted to do what we could to help the shop, and made lots of suggestions, some of them essentially cost-free and simple, and others requiring more effort or some money. Not one of the suggestions we've made has ever been implemented. I offered to go to the seminars PADI was running on how to use their EVE software, while I was at DEMA, because the software is set up to do some of the things I think the shop ought to be doing (for a simple example, sending out reminders to people that their gear service is due) and I was not only turned down, but it was done with irritation.

I've seen multiple shops rude to customers. I've seen owners whose personal opinions simply won't allow them to deal with customers who are different. I've seen a shop absolutely refuse to pump or bank Nitrox on a regular basis, even though a great many divers around here use it, and even though the shop has lost customers who have gone elsewhere just to get gas, but never come back as buyers. We have a charter boat in our area that serves some beautiful diving, but many of us won't go out on the boat because the owner has made the process so unpleasant and difficult.

No matter how good a national or international marketing campaign for diving is, it will founder if the experience the customer has with shops and charters is negative.