Campaign introduces more Canadians to boating

Discover Boating Canada has announced that its 2014 campaign increased the number of people who visited manufacturer websites to shop by 19%. This can be attributed to the campaign’s focus on increasing awareness of the boating lifestyle in order to introduce more Canadians to boating.

Discover Boating Canada built on the success of the 2013 campaign by increasing awareness of the boating lifestyle thereby increasing the number of people who visited DiscoverBoating.ca. As a result, Discover Boating Canada increased the number of people it sent to manufacturer websites to shop. Awareness of the fun and togetherness of being out on the water is essential to get people interested in buying boats. By targeting those who are most likely to be interested in boating, Discover Boating Canada increased brand awareness and achieved 117,491,482 impressions. As a result, the number of people who visited DiscoverBoating.ca increased in 2014 by 13% to 363,000 and the number of people Discover Boating Canada sent to manufacturer websites increased 19% to 118,600.

Generating potential boat sales utilizing the Beginner’s Guide to Boating, a popular printed guide to help educate would-be boaters, was also a focus this year. The Beginner’s Guide to Boating is available to consumers and offers step-by-step information on getting started in boating and a call-to-action to try the Boat Selector Tool on DiscoverBoating.ca. This year, the campaign focused on increasing sign-ups for the Beginner’s Guide resulting in 3,003 requests, 45% more than 2013.

The number of people Discover Boating sends to manufacturer websites, also known as referrals, has been an excellent metric of the campaign’s success. In fact, as more and more consumers adjust their privacy habits online they are becoming more averse to sharing personal information. This is happening across the internet and impacting all industries. As a result, while leads continue to be a focus, we’re seeing more people gravitate toward visiting manufacturer sites, which gives them the freedom to shop and explore on their own. This is in contrast to what we’re seeing with leads where they are less interested in providing personal information or being contacted directly. The results speak volumes in that more people choose to visit manufacturer sites than to be contacted by a dealer. We encourage you to check your own website analytics (you can use Google Analytics) to see how many people DiscoverBoating.ca is sending to your website.

The campaign also increased engagement and expanded its online community on Facebook and Twitter. On the public relations front, the campaign generated positive news stories across Canada in print, online and broadcast media outlets.

Source: Tracey Hart, Director of Discover Boating Canada, thart@nmma.org.