Business Tips – Indirect Marketing, Using the PADI Certificates Effectively

Many successful PADI dive centres hold a certification evening on their premises or in a local restaurant or bar, where they award their new divers with a PADI certificate of the various courses they have completed.

We know that this has always been positive as students from various courses get to mingle and promote the course that they have just completed to other attendees; we also know that invited non diving family members and friends are often turned onto the idea of scuba diving.

With all this said, have you ever given any consideration to the certificate presentation?

During many of these evenings that I have attended I've seen dive centres give out both framed and non framed certificates. This got me thinking, how you can build a framed certificate that a diver would be proud to hang on the wall of their office or within their home. My solution was to include the certificate, course title, for example, Open Water Class of 2009 and a photograph with all the names of the recently qualified divers.

Having a certificate like this will immediately add the professionalism to your course that our products and materials already portray. Recently during the Dive Show in Johannesburg A PADI Region Manager hung several of these certificates on the PADI Redistributors/PADI stand and was amazed at how many non divers said that they wanted to do the course with us as we looked so professional with our certificates!

In my opinion the most important factor in the presentation is that you can be sure that the receiving diver will hang their certificate, thereby creating interest for all that look at it. I would even recommend that you insert a few business cards, on the rear of the certificate, as discussed in the article: Divers Bring Divers.

Framed certifications may not be as praticle in resort areas (due to transportation issues); however, certification ceremonies held in the evenings at the end of the week, will appeal to the holiday diver, their family and friends. A regular social event such as this could be the key tool in retaining and acquiring new divers.