The “Hourglass” of Marketing for your dive shop.

There are 8 core stages of marketing for your dive shop.

1. There is the available local Market of scuba divers.

2. There is lead Capture. This is where you attract and collect contact information for prospective customers (leads).

3. Then you Nurture your leads through educational content, address their questions and hesitations. (hint: it could take upwards of 30 interactions with your business before a leads chooses to buy.)

4. You Close the sale. This is where the sale is made.

Between 4 and 5, you deliver the service or product. This could be an Open Water Class, an equipment sale, or even a trip.

5. After you deliver on the sale and you (hopefully) have a satisfied customer, you take time and attention to Recognize their accomplishment. (C-Card, Diplomas, T-Shirts, and Photos are a great way to recognize new customers)

6. Following the Recognition, it’s a great time to Evangelize your new customer and ask for a review. (hint: 89% of consumers are likely to buy from a business that responds to their reviews.)

7. (This could be the most important step in the process.) Your goal in 7 is to Reactivate your new customer and get the next sale. This is where specialty or advanced classes, and dive travel play a key role.

8. Once you have a repeat customer, you want to bring them into your store’s Community. (hint: You know you are successful here when your customers are engaging with you and your shop outside of scuba diving at local meetups, bike rides, and happy hours.)(another hint: Success here also helps keep your professional pipeline full.)

I encourage you to take some time and evaluate where in this “hourglass” you are winning and where you may need some extra focus.

Over the next 8 weeks, I will be diving deeper into each of the above sections. I will provide examples and activities that could take place in each of the different sections.

One simple way to be thinking of about this concept in your business is to answer the following the question:

Where do I currently need more customers? Open Water? Advanced? Specialties? Travel? Equipment?

This question alone will tell you a lot about what is going well and what area you need more focus. Please reply to this email and share with me the answer.