Become a Member of the Dive Industry Association 
by Gene Muchanski, Executive Director
Dive Industry Association, Inc.

Step 6 to uniting the diving industry is to become an Active Member of the Dive Industry Association.  Becoming a dues paying Member of Dive Industry Association helps fund the projects the association undertakes to promote and help grow the industry.  By becoming an Active Member of the association, Dive Industry Professionals are participating in the industry’s growth and success.  Without active members that care enough to get involved in their profession, an industry would wither and die.

The whole purpose of this Unifying the Diving Industry campaign is to get Dive Industry Professionals engaged in their industry and work with their peers to make this a better place to work and recreate.  Think of your annual dues payment and a few hours of your time as a means to promote and grow the industry in a cooperative manner.

For critics of the industry, who complain about decreasing sales, loss of our customer base and a decreased interest in scuba diving, let me assure you that this campaign can help breathe new life and vitality into our recreation, hobby, and profession.  Steps 1-3 of our campaign focuses on three things that industry professionals could sign up for and observe – for free.  Step 4 & 5 focuses on two things that we could do for the cause.  A little bit of effort but still no cost.  Now in Step 6 we are asking the industry to make an investment of $125 to help fund the marketing tools and technologies the association uses to promote scuba diving and adventure travel to the general public.  Purchasing marketing tools, electronic hardware, and software programs to build websites, blogs, press releases, advertisements and marketing campaigns is expensive.  If one company had to pay for everything, very little would get accomplished.  You can only do limited things on a limited budget.  However, if every business in our industry pitched in just a little, imagine what we could do to promote our Members and our trade?  That’s the purpose of Dive Industry Association, and as you’ll see in Step 9, the Dive Industry Foundation.

The Dive Industry Association has been exceeding industry expectations since 2001. Our motto is “Building a Better Industry, One Member at a Time.”  We maintain a full time office in Melbourne, Florida.  We use volunteer staff to run the association and 100% of the revenue we receive from dues is spent on marketing tools and technologies to promote our membership and their role in the diving industry.  We publish a Weekly News press release service every Tuesday and a Monthly Newsletter we call The Dive Industry Professional.  DIA Members receive 24 free press releases per year.  That’s a $4,800 savings over our competitor’s rack rate.  The Association maintains a number of websites, blogs, directories and social media networks.  We promote our Members to the general public via direct mail, print media, electronic mail, social media, face-to-face marketing at shows & events and in direct referrals.  Using our connections with dive industry professionals in the trade and the tens of thousands of consumers we connect with, our major purpose is to network our members with each other and refer their goods and services to the general consuming public.  We use 21st century marketing technology to distribute our message to our target audience about our members.

The difference between the Dive Industry Association and the non-profit Dive industry Foundation is that DIA Members pay an annual membership fee that we use to pay for the marketing materials we use to promote them.  It only seems fair that when we pay for software programs and internet charges we can promote our members using only their dues money instead of charging them an extra fee for the service.  When you add it all up, the cost savings to our Members is pretty extensive.

The Dive Industry Association is always looking for better ways to serve its Members.  Most of our successful promotions have been successful because of the acquisition and use of 21st Century Marketing Tools & Technologies.  If there is a cost to the new tools and techniques, then that technology is used to support our dues paying members as part of their membership.  Our Dive Industry Digital and Print Directory is an excellent example.  The Association hired a Graphic Professional to design the site, print 2,000 copies and host it on its own website URL.  Our Members received a free listing and we sold advertising space to help pay for a portion of the project.  This year we took the Directory project in-house, using the Adobe Suite.  We also plan to use our new software to turn our Monthly Newsletter, The Dive Industry Professional, into a Magazine.

The Dive Industry Association is set up to focus on the Business of Diving in a recreational industry.  Our working Members spend most of their time running their businesses and any assistance they can get to learn about modern tools and technologies that help make them more Professional, more Productive and more Profitable is welcomed.  We realize that serving your current customers is a full time job and keeping in touch with your former customers can be very time consuming.  We also know that prospecting for new customers is the most costly part of your marketing budget and the most time consuming task.  That’s where Dive Industry Association becomes a welcomed partner and associate.

Are you ready to join the Dive Industry Association Network? Our complete Membership benefits are listed on https://diveindustrynews.net/membership/ A Membership Request Form is listed on the same website under “Membership Application”