Grow
Boating's Discover Boating Update -- Funding Model Approved; Assessment
Starts July 1
June 13, 2005
The Discover
Boating Update brings you all the news from the Grow Boating Initiative and
its six task forces: Marketing & Communications, Dealers Standards
& Quality, Product Standards & Quality, Sales Statistics, Water
Access and Funding.
In an effort to communicate with all
industry stakeholders, we ask that all boat manufacturers pass this
newsletter along to their dealer networks, and that all recipients forward
it on to any and all industry colleagues they feel would benefit from the
included information.
Look for your next issue of the Discover
Boating Update in early July.
Funding Model Approved – Member Assessments Start
July 1
The NMMA Board
helped make the Grow Boating Initiative a reality at their latest board
meeting, approving a mandatory assessment for all NMMA member boat and
engine manufacturers. A $16 million annual budget has been established for
Grow Boating beginning in 2006. With an initial commitment of three years,
this adds up to nearly $50 million!!
Starting July 1, NMMA boat manufacturer members will be assessed based on
the horsepower of engines they purchase for their boats. Engine
manufacturers will invoice NMMA members for the Grow Boating assessment
based on the number of engines they ship to boatbuilders.
Engine manufacturers will be assessed on all loose engines shipped to
dealers, and will be required, as a condition of NMMA membership, to report
their total shipments to dealers on a monthly basis and remit the Grow
Boating fee to NMMA for these engine shipments.
Through this assessment, it is expected that between $12 and $14 million
will be raised annually to fund the Grow Boating campaign. In the coming
months, accessory and trailer manufacturers, marine trade associations,
retailers, marinas and boat yards, bankers, insurance providers and other
industry segments are expected to announce how they will support the
ongoing campaign. We’ll keep you posted in the Discover Boating
Update!
Task Force to Overhaul DiscoverBoating.com, 2006 plans to
be presented at IBEX
The Marketing Task Force has created a subcommittee comprised of
Internet experts from industry stakeholder companies to provide oversight
for the redesign of DiscoverBoating.com. The improved site will include
information geared toward both current owners and consumers that are
interested in getting into boating. Efforts to date are being made to
improve the site's ability to accumulate and disseminate consumer leads.
As the summer progresses, improved graphic design and additional features
will be introduced.
The Task Force and staff are working with our national advertising
agency, Carmichael Lynch on fine tuning strategy and creative for the
impending launch of the Discover Boating advertising campaign. The
campaign is scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2006. Agency and
Grow Boating staffs are meeting to develop media schedules, guerilla
marketing and public relations plans to support the launch. Plans will be
presented at this year’s IBEX convention, being held October 19-21
at the Miami BeachConvention Center.
For information, contact Carl Blackwell at (312) 946-6277; cblackwell@nmma.org.
2003-04 Mobile Tour
Leads to Big Sales – 2005 Off to Great Start
More than 1,000 attendees at the 2003 and 2004
Discover Boating and Take Me Fishing Mobile Tour have purchased boats
since their visit to the mobile marketing display, resulting in
approximately $15.7 million in sales, based on the average price of new and
pre-owned boats. These findings come from Info-Link Technologies, which
tracked boat sales by request of NMMA.
The 2005 Tour is off to a strong start as well, as more than 300
“hot leads” have been generated during the first month of the
seven-month tour. Hot leads are individuals that are ready “right
now” to purchase a boat; they go through a special qualification
process with tour staff. In addition, more than 17,000 people have
entered to win one of four boats, creating an already large database of
consumers interested in boat ownership. Discover Boating director Steve
Tadd estimates that this list will grow to 70,000-90,000 people.
The next stop for the Tour is at the Perimeter Mall in Atlanta, GA
from June 17-19 for a Mini Boat Show. For more information, visit www.DiscoverBoating.com.
NMMA president
Thom Dammrich met with reporters from Time magazine, Smart Money, Popular
Mechanics, Best Life, Boating and other magazines to discuss the state of
the boating industry, highlighting data revealed in the new 2004
Recreational Boating Statistical Abstract. Dammrich also participated in an
interview with a Forbes magazine reporter prior to the media tour about the
industry’s Grow Boating initiative.
Discover Boating director Steve Tadd participated in a satellite media tour
on Wednesday, May 11, from Surfside Three Marina at Chelsea Piers. The tour
generated nearly half a million impressions with approximately $8.7 million
in media value. Meanwhile, a Discover Boating radio media tour generated
nearly two million more impressions. Tadd also made an appearance on Fox
& Friends (audience approximately 400,000) on Friday, June 3, educating
viewers on the various boats currently available.
If you would like your products to be considered for future PR
opportunities, contact NMMA Public Relations manager Ellen Hopkins at (312)
946-6249; ehopkins@nmma.org.
The NMMA Certified advertising campaign starts in earnest this
month, educating consumers and industry stakeholders on the benefits of
buying boats that are NMMA Certified using ABYC Standards. The initial NMMA
Certified ad campaign runs through September and can be seen in a number
of trade and consumer boating publications, including: Boat &
Motor Dealer, Boat U.S., Boating, Boating Industry, Boating World,
Cruising World, Houseboat, Pontoon & Deckboat, Sailing World, Salt
Water Sportsman, SAIL, Soundings Trade Only, Trailer Boats
and Yachting,
Industry publications are throwing their support behind the Grow Boating
Initiative, helping NMMA to save more than $300,000 on the print
advertising campaign.
Boating World,
Boating Life
and Great
Lakes Boating magazines are also helping to
promote the NMMA Certified program by indicating which boats are NMMA
Certified in their boat reviews. NMMA’s PR team is working with
other key consumer boating publications to ask them to highlight NMMA
Certification in their boat reviews as well.
If your boats are NMMA Certified, are you using the NMMA Certified logo
in your literature and advertising?
Click graphic to view one
version of the new NMMA Certified ads.
Dealer Certification Pilot Program Getting Underway
This summer, a
group of 20-25 dealers will participate in a Dealer Certification pilot
program developed by the Grow Boating Dealer Standards & Quality Task
Force and Five Star Solutions. Dealers participating in the program are
working to improve the consistency and quality of the sales and service
experience they provided to their customers.
The program is based on a set of Dealer Standards and Consumer Bill of
Rights that the Dealer Standards & Quality Task Force developed under
the direction of Task Force chair Larry Russo, president of Russo Marine.
The Dealer Standards address human resources, facilities, the sales process
and the service process. The Consumer Bill of Rights is designed to be
posted in dealerships, telling customers what they should expect in
relation to sales, service and operations.
The national rollout of the full program is expected in the fourth quarter
of 2005 or first quarter of 2006. In the meantime, you can click here to
download the Consumer Bill of Rights, or here for the
Dealer Standards.
Working with the RecreationalMarineResearchCenter, NMMA has
launched a national boater participation/demographic study. This study of
10,000 households will be conducted by Harris Interactive, of the Harris
Poll Research Group, and will estimate, on a national basis, trends in
boating participation and boat ownership. It will also provide demographic
information of both groups. For information on this study, contact James
Petru at (312) 946-6202; jpetru@nmma.org.
Charged with the
goal of increasing access to water for recreational boaters, a new Water
Access Task Force has been added to the industry’s Grow Boating
Initiative. Tom Errath, manager of Water Access at Brunswick Marine, will
serve as the Task Force chair.
“We need to turn our attention and resources to creating a strategic
planning process for preserving, promoting and developing boating access
facilities including marinas, launch ramps and other contact points to the
water,” says NMMA chairman and Perko, Inc. vice president of
Marketing George Bellwoar, who spearheaded the creation of the Task Force.
For more information, click here.
Anyone interested in participating on the Task Force should contact NMMA
Director of Marinas and Boating Access, Jim Frye at (202) 737-9773; jfrye@nmma.org.
Frye also serves as president of the Association of Marina Industries.
Based on the same
vision of ensuring customer satisfaction, American boat manufacturers and
dealers have worked together to draft guideline language for dealer
agreements. Representatives from the two groups made the announcement at a
joint press conference at the American Boating Congress.
The guidelines address various areas of operation between the two
interests, including warranties, succession, territory, transfer,
termination protocol and sharing of financial data.
For those who are
unfamiliar with the Grow Boating Initiative, NMMA has put together a series
of answers for the most frequently asked questions. Click here to find out more about
Grow Boating, or visit the website at www.GrowBoating.org.
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