Marketing the Seattle Boat Show:
What’s New for ’08?

For the sake of this discussion, let’s boil down event producing to three simple steps:

1. Create an event that people want to see.
2. Get the word out to the right people.
3. Produce a great event when the time comes.

As far as Step 1 is concerned, I think we are in good shape. Over the past four years we have created the largest boat show on the West Coast. Our 600 + exhibitors at two locations have become the boater’s equivalent to “heaven on earth.”

Step 2 is what I want to talk about in detail this month - getting the word out to the right people.

Over the last eight years, we have gathered a great deal of information about attendees from their ages, where the live, their incomes and their likes and dislikes. Knowing where our customers live is critical in “getting the word out to them.” Turns out 84 percent of our attendees live in Western Washington. Another four percent live in Eastern Washington and the remaining 12 percent live outside the State of Washington.

Using the 80/20 rule, I think it is obvious that we should spend most of our effort to increase attendance right in our own backyard… and we do. Having said that, the number of people traveling from out of state to see our show is growing. Last year we sold advance tickets in 36 states. We also know that attendees from outside the state are four times more likely to buy multi-day tickets. So as we put together the marketing plan for the 2008 show, we decided to spend a small portion of the budget advertising nationally.

We created a special ad with the headline “It’s different out here” and purchased three months worth of ads in two national magazines: Yachting, plus Power and Motoryacht as well as the regional publication, Sea Magazine. The ads promote the show as the gateway to boating in the Pacific Northwest, Canada and Alaska. John Thorburn, our Communications Director created a unique “landing page” which is featured in the ads and contains lots of information that visitors form out of state would appreciate. You can see for yourself at www.seattleboatshow.com/visit.

It should be fun to see if we can move the meter this year and increase our out of state attendees. Stay tuned.

The second thing I wanted to talk about is also part of Step 2, namely how do we reach our current customer base as well as attract new attendees to the show.

Most of us know that traditional advertising methods like newspaper, radio and TV are under assault everyday by hundreds, if not thousands, of internet options. I assume that anyone and everyone who is responsible for marketing a product or service is trying hard to keep up with the times, figure out where to spend their marketing dollars and make every advertising dollar work as hard as possible. We know that radio and TV are constantly dividing themselves into even smaller segments and those who read the paper versions of newspapers are declining.

Our challenge, like others is to find the most cost efficient way to reach our target audiences and to find out which of the internet tools we should be using.

I am proud of our track record of using the internet to market the Seattle Boat Show. We were the first to use e-ticketing in the country. We have built a real sense of community with the 30,000 people in our electronic database who have attended the show in the past. Our Seattle Boat Show website is content rich and easy to use. I could go on listing what we have done right, but I know we can do better.

We need to take advantage of those internet solutions that work for us and we need to aggressively try new approaches. Just doing it the same old way is not going to get us where we want to go. We will be trying some new internet tactics for this year’s show so if you have any ideas, please let me know. I am always available by phone or email (206-634-0911 or michael@nmta.net). Stay tuned.

With warm regards,

Michael Campbell
President
michael@nmta.net

P.S. Step 3 comes up January 24 – February 3 and all of us are ready for the challenge.