Preaching to the Choir

New Divers

Our industry needs new divers. So why is the majority of our marketing to existing divers? We invite our past students to tent sales. We advertise in SCUBA magazines. We market our next class in our current class. Dive equipment manufacturers setup booths at DEMA. But I rarely see any advertising attempting to get new divers.

I remember someone mentioning at my Instructor Examination that dive manufacturers were working to get SCUBA equipment featured in advertisements with a great example being a Honda CR-V ad showing how much dive gear could fit in the back. If I remember correctly, it was going to be featured in Outdoor Magazine, which would be a great, like-minded target audience. Unfortunately, I rarely see these types of cross-promotions anymore.

Expand Your Reach

Existing students and customers are great; they refer other people to you, they keep taking classes and they buy more gear. But why not try offering some kind of referral incentive program? If you refer someone who completes an Open Water Diver certification course, you get Advanced for free. Now that person has a new buddy which likely means they will dive more which equals more equipment sales, they have more experience which means they will be a safer diver and you have another student that you can expand your program through.

Another great way to expand your reach is through marketing online. SCUBA Blogs can help you be found in search engines quickly and easily. Social networks like Twitter and Facebook can help you market to new people. SCUBA Email Marketing can be used to help stay in touch with your existing students and customers so they can remain active. These tools are either free or very inexpensive, yet highly effective, so why not? I’ll be explaining each of these tools in greater detail, so if you have no idea how to get started, don’t worry.