During this year’s 2014 American Boating Congress, the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas was honored with the first-ever ABC Ambassador Award.
A new honor given out by the National Marine Manufacturers Association and announced in an NMMA press release today, the Ambassador award was developed this year to thank the ABC co-host organization that promoted the event through the most marketing activity. A record 38 organizations from across the entire boating industry came together in 2014 as co-hosts in support of ABC.
These co-hosts have spent months planning and promoting ABC. And for the first time, a full-scale joint marketing plan was put into place by the co-hosts to make sure that more people than ever before knew about ABC and why it is so important. Co-hosts sent emails to their network of contacts, included articles in their newsletters, used ads on their websites and included content on their Twitter feeds. And as a direct result of the hard work put in by our co-hosts, this year’s event has seen exponential growth.
However, out of all 38 co-host organizations, MRAA stood out as a leader, according to the release. The release noted that MRAA staff made multiple personal phone calls to industry contacts, talking with key decision makers about the importance of attending ABC and the importance of their dealers attending the event. MRAA reached hundreds of people with this same message daily, and thousands of people weekly through their newsletters and emails.
MRAA’s digital marketing strategy for ABC included regular postings on social media about the event, frequent bulk email campaigns and countless press releases posted to their website and sent to trade media. MRAA promoted ABC at the annual Marine Dealer Conference & Expo with an insert in the registration bags and presented on the importance of ABC at a number of its Marine Retail University events. MRAA President, Matt Gruhn, even filmed a personal video message, inviting others to attend ABC and explaining why the event is so important to him.
“We believe in the power of the American Boating Congress and all that it can do for our industry,” says Gruhn. “The 2014 event once again yielded great results with more than 250 Hill visits and some outstanding meetings with legislators from across the country. We’ve seen great progress in the number of attendees at this event, but we also believe we have a lot of room for growth, and we look forward to contributing to that again next year.”
The American Boating Congress would like to wholeheartedly thank all 38 co-host organizations for their own outstanding achievements in making this year’s event such a success.
