Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/173871
LAUNCH Analysis, data, solutions, news and perspectives to move your business forward. Discover Boating delivering more impressions, buzz Discover Boating recently released its midyear marketing report, which showed strong results for the program. This year, 500 million advertising impressions have been delivered by the program. At the same time, traffic to DiscoverBoating.com is up 18.5 percent and the site has referred more than 600,000 consumers to manufacturer websites through July – an increase of 285 percent over 2012. "We've learned and gotten much more 285% » increase in consumer referrals by Discover Boating through July cost-effective with our advertising and the second thing we've done is we've improved the navigation on our website," said Discover Boating President Carl Blackwell. "So now it'll take two or three clicks when before it would have taken five or six clicks to get to a manufacturer website." With several years of experience managing these campaigns, Discover Boating has gotten better with both organic SEO and search advertising, Blackwell said, delivering more traffic at a lower cost. Discover Boating has also launched numerous new initiatives in advertising and public relations to get the word out about boating, most notably a new cinema advertising campaign. Discover Boating ran advertisements over the Easter and Memorial Day weekends, both of which saw record box office, meaning big exposure for the ads. "What was more interesting for us is that the spots really resonated with the consumer," Blackwell said. "Seventy-six percent of the people that were interviewed remembered our spots; 63 percent of consumers that saw the spot really liked the spot and the rest were just neutral on it." Online video continues to be successful as well, with the click-to-completion rate – when someone watches the entire video – exceeding industry benchmarks. CARL BLACKWELL "In some places where we were advertising we were the highest-ranked click-to-completion ad," Blackwell said. "That tells us that we're definitely making an impact with our commercials." The campaign has also continued to grow its social media reach. Discover Boating now has more than 650,000 fans on Facebook and has increased its Twitter followers by HOT SPOTS Texas leads ski boat growth Though the ski boat market is a sleeper segment not always talked about, it is up 7.7 percent nationwide. Houston has seen tremendous ski boat growth, up 35.9 percent in two years. Other Lone Star State leaders include Austin, up 22.1 percent, and Dallas-Fort Worth, reporting a 2.1 percent increase. The Midwest has also had its fair share of success in the ski boat segment, with Detroit seeing a 25.4 percent hike, and Minneapolis-St. Paul growing 15.5 percent. 8 | Boating Industry | October 2013 P08x10-BI13OCT-Launch.indd 8 -12.8% 15.5% Seattle-Tacoma, WA Minneapolis-St.Paul, MN Detroit, MI Denver, CO 25.4% 15.9% Charlotte-Gastonia, NC 2.1% 12.9% 22.6% Dallas-Fort Worth, TX Los Angeles, CA Austin, TX The ski boat market is popular in Texas, where three regions have seen significant increases over the past two years. 6.9% 22.1% 35.9% Atlanta, GA Houston, TX www.BoatingIndustry.com 9/5/13 11:23 AM