Start Your Planning - Use RBFF's Free Event Planning Materials to Help!
The dates for next year's National Fishing & Boating Week (NFBW) have been set for June 2 - 10, 2013. National Fishing and Boating Week is a great time to celebrate the joys of boating and fishing and encourages everyone, current boaters or anglers, or new ones to get out on the water. The off season is a great time to begin planning a campaign or special event around this nationwide celebration. Here are some suggestions to consider:
How can you celebrate National Fishing and BoatingWeek?
- Mark Your Calendars: Include NFBW on yourevents calendar. The more individuals that hear about the event,the more widely celebrated the week will become.
- Create a Promotion: Create an online contest or promotion around fishing and boating. For example, last year,RBFF hosted Nature's Waterpark Showdown during NFBW, engaging itsFacebook fans and community members to select the Top 8 Parks for Boating & Fishing in the U.S. The promotion saw great success(link to Sept article) in generating conversations about boating and fishing.
- Free Fishing Days: If you are a state agency,host an event on your Free Fishing Day when people are allowed to fish without a license. Please email your free fishing day(s) to rbff@rbff.org for inclusion on TakeMeFishing.org and our national marketing/PR materials.
- Host an Event: NFBW is a great time to host an event such as a fishing derby, regatta, demonstration, festival or any other family-friendly celebration. To help with event planning, RBFF offers FREE resources to make it easy to plan and promote a successful event from information on logistical how-to's and event ideas, to tips for mobilizing sponsors and partners, to generating media coverage. Use RBFF's Event Planning Kit to help you get organized. This customizable kit is a step-by-step guide to planning, promoting and hosting successful fishing, boating and aquatic conservation events.
- Mark Our Calendars: If you are hosting a boating or fishing event, we can help you spread the word. Add your event to our Community Events Calendar which is seen by all members of our boating and fishing community.
For more information and other ways to celebrate NFBW, visit here.
RBFF Reaches Out to the Hispanic Market
As the largest minority group in the U.S. Hispanics are becoming an increasingly valuable segment within our economy. Recently,Ad Age Magazine reported that "Latinos are fueling growth of the population, Internet usage, technology sales and pumping more than$1 trillion of spending power into the economy."
Similarly, Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment of anglers,forecasted to grow to 18% of the overall market by 2015 (Mintel,2012). With positive perceptions towards fishing and family values,and spending time outdoors, Hispanics have the potential to significantly grow boating and fishing participation in the coming years.
A key strategy this year, RBFF is working to learn more about the Hispanic community, and how they're motivated to add fishing and boating to their outdoor activities consideration set.
"These individuals are very family-oriented and are more likely to engage in group activities rather than individual activities," said RBFF President and CEO Frank Peterson. "We want to help them get out on the water fishing and boating, and enjoying our aquatic natural resources."
PILOT PROGRAM
Using research and previous learnings, RBFF, this fall, conducted a test campaign of Hispanic Marketing to help determine what messaging, creative and digital behaviors resonate with the Hispanic audience. Testing in a market with a high Hispanic population, RBFF worked with the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department to create Spanish-translated versions of the TakeMeFishing.org Texas state pages for parks, fishing licenses, gear and free fishing days. The ad campaign was geo-targeted to reach Hispanic families residing in urban areas of Texas, which are near state parks that offer free fishing, helping to eliminate some common perceived barriers of entry to fishing and boating - accessibility and affordability.
To drive individuals to these pages, RBFF placed advertising through the Batang a Network, Univision and Google, aligning the ads with content such as weather, news and sports. A variety of ads were created, alternating family messages with affordability messages.
Initial results are showing increased web traffic to the Texas Parks & Wildlife license pages, with both the family and affordability messages receiving click through rates performing ator around industry standard. The final results of the campaign will be shared at the 2012 RBFF State Marketing Workshop.
For more information about RBFF's Hispanic efforts, pleasecontact RBFF Marketing Manager Melissa Raynor at mraynor@rbff.org.
RBFF Preps to Welcome 47 States to the MarketingWorkshop
RBFF will host its annual State Marketing Workshop in Dallas, TX December 4 - 6, 2012 with representatives from 47 states, focusing on the importance of implementing customer engagement strategies including the online sales process, customer retention and digital tools.
Participants will hear from Howard Hyden, Founder and President of the Center for Customer Focus. Howard has more than 25 years of business experience including extensive research studies with notable institutions such as Stanford, Harvard, Duke and Kellogg business schools. Recently,he penned the book "Add Value or Stay Home: Turn your business Outside-In." Howard will speak about his proven methodology for transforming organizations into astounding success stories and how this applies to the boating and fishing industry.
Additional agenda items include:
- New RBFF research about the online fishing license customerexperience
- State agency presentations on customer engagement
- Roundtable exercise on building the customer experience
- Panel of experts on digital strategy, including websiteoptimization, social media and e-mail marketing
- Insights from the Hispanic Marketing Pilot Program
- Updates and information from the American SportfishingAssociation (ASA), Discover Boating and Southwick Associates
"We are thrilled to have a record number of states represented at this year's workshop," said RBFF State Initiatives Director Stephanie Hussey. "It's a great opportunity for states to connect with each other to share ideas and program successes, and critical as we work together to grow participation in boating and fishing."
We want to thank our generous sponsors for helping make this event possible - Discover Boating, American Sportfishing Association (ASA), Southwick Associates, J. F. Griffin Publishing, Field &Stream, Outdoor Life, Colle+McVoy, Brunner, Eureka Facts, LLC, Info-Link, Outdoor Channel and SourceLink.
If you are unable to attend this year's event, workshopmaterials and resources (presentations, etc.) will be available inDecember on TakeMeFishing.org. And stay tuned for future webinar announcements on program information.
For more information, e-mail Stephanie Hussey at shussey@rbff.org or call her at(703) 778-5152.
