Creating a Dive Industry World View
 by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

I learned a long time ago that We don’t see things as they are – We see them as we are.   You might say that’s a little philosophically deep for a Dive Industry Professional to be writing about, but when you think about it, that statement explains why we have so many problems with marketing communications in our industry.  A world view is the way we see the world.  The way individuals see the world is based on a combination of their heredity, environment, education, and experience.  Every individual on the planet may see things a little differently, based on their individual uniqueness.  Based on the things that we see, feel, read, learn, and experience (our inputs), our world view is forever changing.  When our world view adapts, grows, or changes, the things we communicate (our outputs) change accordingly.

Creating a unified world view of the recreational diving industry is something the Global Diving Community would benefit from greatly.  Creating a unified world view is not a complicated or difficult undertaking.  It just requires an initial commitment and a daily focus on defining the recreational diving industry as it is and explaining how it functions.  It is important to recognize that we are not trying to change a person’s world view or the way they process information, but we can educate the Global Diving Community about the Global Diving Business Network and let individuals experience the diving industry for themselves.  With additional education and experience, divers and the general public will have a clearer understanding of the true dive industry world view.  Whether you and your business are included in their world view of the diving industry is up to you.

Currently in the recreational diving industry, we receive our information from countless individual sources. There is no shortage of data about the diving industry and the programs, products, and services that are sold by the dive equipment manufacturers, training agencies, travel companies and lifestyle product producers.   We continually get input from magazines and their advertisers, in both print and digital formats, from social media, internet communications, websites, emails, catalogs, and in-person at trade and consumer dive shows.  I don’t know how many companies are bombarding their customers with their monthly newsletters and daily email advertisements, but if your email in-box is anything like mine, it’s way too many.  As a Trade Association, we are on the mailing lists of hundreds of diving businesses.  Somehow, we learned how to penetrate their limited circle of influence and get on their mailing list.  With that said, we get way too many emails from a few.  We get a few emails from many.  Surprisingly enough, we never get any correspondence from the vast majority of diving businesses.  Most of the correspondence we receive is not educational or informative in nature.  It is usually correspondence with a request to buy something.  The critical flaw with this type of correspondence is that the messages are sent out to everyone on their list, with no regard to the receiver’s demographic or their need for the item offered for sale.  It is the classical shotgun approach, shooting at the flock, with the hope of hitting a single bird.  From a professional marketing standpoint, these companies are sending out requests for someone to buy their products, not knowing if the target audience has a need, want, or desire for their product.

The Dive Industry Association is in the business of bringing buyers and sellers together.  We are students of the industry, and we know how products flow from creation to consumption, through the supply and demand channels of distribution.  We have identified the sellers of diving and diving related programs, products, and services and we work with them to acquire, retain, and sell to qualified buyers.  We use an integrated marketing approach of working with Dive Industry Professionals in the supply and demand chains.  On a consulting basis we have worked with demand side businesses to attract and sell to key buyers.  As a public service to the industry, we created a Trade Directory for buyers and sellers.  As a public service to the 1,100 + Retail Dive Centers in the United States we have created and actively maintain a website directory of all active retail dive stores that can be accessed for free by the consuming public.  Our Dive Store Directory is published on www.divelocal.org  To make it easier for divers to find an active dive store in their vicinity, we divided the United States into 9 Territories.  The territories are NE, NC, NW, MA, SE, FL, SC, SW, SP.  Each territory is broken down by state.  Our association lists each dive store by their name, city, state, and website address.  If a dive store has a website listed, it has been verified by us in the past year.  Check it out to see if I am correct.  If a dive store does not have a website address, it will be researched and verified or deleted within the next 12 months.  Every year we verify all the dive stores in our directory, at a rate of one state per week, and we report it in our Weekly News press release service.  Incidentally, the dive store press releases are usually the most read releases in the Weekly News.  The dive store directories on each page are pretty good, but they are not perfect.  Dive stores go out of business all the time and new ones enter the market without telling us.  That’s why we need manufacturers, sales reps, training agencies and their reps, and dive stores to pitch in and help us with our research.  Our competitors read our weekly dive store reports all the time.  You would think they could help us with our research!

The current listing of dive stores on DIVE LOCAL’s website has brought customers and more business to local dive stores, at no cost to them.  It has also helped Dive Industry Professionals in other stakeholder groups to identify, and hopefully do business with dive stores that have been verified by us to be currently in business.  When we are finished with the program on dive stores, we will be able to expand it to included other stakeholder groups in the supply and demand chains.  We already have plans to initiate similar programs for the other 3 Pillars of the Local Diving Communities – Dive Boats, Dive Clubs, and Dive Instructors.

As a Trade Association we are documenting a Recreational Diving Industry World View as we see it.  Our world view is based on the industry’s collective research, education, and experience.  It is not “the world, according to one person.”  It may have started out that way, but as more people get involved with our research, the world view of the recreational diving industry becomes clearer for everyone.    Our ultimate goal is to create a unified Global Diving Community and supply them with the programs, products, and services they require. To do that we need to know the companies that are in the business of creating and supplying these types of products.  As a Marketing and Trade Association that is on mission to bring buyers and sellers together, that is what we specialize in.  For a minimal annual membership fee, our supply side members can be referred or introduced to qualified buyers that we identify and maintain a business relationship with.   Our magazine, The Dive Industry Professional, features business articles about the diving industry every month.  Our DIVE LOCAL Series covers how we support local diving businesses like Dive Stores, Dive Boats, Dive Clubs, and Dive Instructors.  The focus of our local and regional advertising is to show local divers how they can learn to dive, buy their gear, go diving, and stay active in the recreational diving community.  And that’s only the demand side of our industry economic development plan.  Wait until the diving industry learns what we have planned for the supply side of the industry.

This is an exciting time to become part of the Global Diving Business Network.  For more information about global marketing opportunities, contact Gene Muchanski, Executive Director of the Dive Industry Association, 2294 Botanica Circle, West Melbourne, FL 32904.  Phone: 321-914-3778.  Email: gene@diveindustry.net  Web: www.diveindustry.net

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