How BoatTEST.com Became a World-Wide Brand

Because BoatTEST.com started 10 years ago as a small, undercapitalized company competing with new websites (one funded with $30 million of VC money) and giant veteran publishing companies, building a world-class brand has been exciting, to say the least. BoatTEST.com was the proverbial David against not one but many Goliaths. But not only did BoatTEST.com survive the last decade, it flourished, becoming the world’s leading provider -- by any measure -- of independent 3rd party content for the world’s buyers of new and used powerboats.

In the beginning there was a $30 million boating website giant, but BoatTEST.com’s co-founder had been in that valley before and understood the advantages of being quick, nimble and having a reason for being.

In 2000 BoatTEST.com was founded by Capt. Chris Kelly and Jeff Hammond. In the mid 1980s Hammond had started a magazine called Power and Motoryacht on a shoestring going up against publishing giants such as CBS, Time-Warner, Hearst and Ziff-Davis. All of these companies owned boating magazines which had been around a long time. But within four years of its founding it was the #2 boating magazine in the world and went on to be #1 in the mid-1990s.

Both Kelly and Hammond were life-long boaters who over the years had owned a couple of dozen boats, mostly power. Hammond also had edited, published or owned over eight boating magazines in his lengthy career. To him boating was a lifestyle, a way of living. Boats and boating were central to his career, recreation and hobby.

In 2000 the giants against which the new company would compete against had different names but they were just as imposing. Not to worry.

From the beginning, BoatTEST.com cared about boat buyers and owners.

Because Kelly and Hammond had bought, operated, owned, repaired, tested, and sold boats they had a strong appreciation for the problems, frustrations and dilemmas facing boat buyers and boat owners. Like virtually everyone else who is a boat owner, the BoatTEST.com founders felt that the crime of owning a boat warrants the punishment received. Boating is a way of life for many people.

BoatTEST.com’s search engine was designed to expose buyers to many brands thereby help them discover models that they had never considered.

Our "Reason for Being"

BoatTEST.com’s reason for being was to help boaters find the right boat for their needs and wants. The founders knew that most boaters traveled in small circles and needed to be exposed to brands and models of boats that they may not have known about or considered otherwise. Aware of the pitfalls and costly expense of making mistakes in the selection of a boat or engine, the founding philosophy of BoatTEST.com was always to help the boater find his way among the claims and promises that issued forth from colorful advertising by marine marketers.

Boat builders' websites were actually of limited value in helping a buyer make a decision simply because beyond the boats' specifications and equipment lists, most of what is said about the boats is hype. Every builder's boats are the best, fastest, strongest, etc. So-called "consumer sites" popped up and simply copied this information. That's why there was a need for BoatTEST.com's independent approach.

Pleasure Boater TV broadcasts a BoatTEST.com boat test in nearly every one of its weekly TV programs.

In a nutshell, it was that credo that has held BoatTEST.com in good stead with boat buyers around the world for the last ten years, through the most turbulent times the boating industry had ever since WW II. Unlike one well capitalized website, BoatTEST.com’s goal was not to eliminate dealers, nor to prop-up the shrinking fortunes of a magazine going south, nor to get into e-commerce, nor to create an on-line monopoly of websites and magazines to soak-up an industry’s advertising dollars.

Rather, BoatTEST.com’s goal was to help people making what was usually the second largest investment of their life; to help them do it with their eyes open in order to gain the most pleasure and enjoyment possible. By putting BoatTEST.com members first, the founders felt that over time they would naturally gain a large audience of boat buyers and boat owners committed to the sport.

BoatTEST.com’s tests are available on the largest classified boating website in North America, BoatTrader.com.

Collaborate or Die!

Because BoatTEST.com’s goal was to share knowledge that would help boaters from making costly mistakes, it wanted to share its tests, reports and videos with everyone in the boating community. Once a critical mass of videos and tests had been built it began sharing its content with other websites. That alone was a sea change in the publishing world.

The concept of sharing was an anathema to many people and businesses, particularly in the Age of Greed. For “old media” sharing is largely counter-intuitive. There, publishers jealously guard their content turf like junkyard dogs. That attitude insures that their articles get only minimum distribution. BoatTEST.com, on the other hand, shared its boat tests right from the beginning, striving for maximum distribution.

During the last ten years, BoatTEST.com’s videos have appeared with regularity on scores of other websites, cable TV programs, satellite TV, as well as to be distributed in DVD form. Its captain’s reports and articles have appeared in boating magazines and newspapers all over the world translated into numerous languages.

BoatTEST.com tests are available on the largest classified boating website in Europe, Boatshop24.com.

BoatTEST.com captain’s reports and boat tests and e-newsletter news articles have been translated into Russian, Hungarian, Arabic, and Chinese among other languages and appeared in boating magazines all over the world. Our boat test videos appear on Pleasure Boating’s weekly cable channel program, on Marine Biz TV which is broadcast all over Asia by satellite from Mumbai, India, and even on BoatersTV, an Internet webcaster.

Over 700 BoatTEST.com videos are on YouTube.

The Age of YouTube

When YouTube got rolling in 2006, BoatTEST.com test videos were uploaded. There are now over 700 BoatTEST.com videos on YouTube and many on Yahoo and Bing video websites, as well. And while we will continue to upload our videos on general sites like these, have no mistake about where boaters go when they want serious, detailed information about boats – they go to the source.

That is why BoatTEST.com has always shared its videos with boat builders and boat dealers. In 2002 we built what at the time we called a “module” that could be placed on a builder or dealer’s website. It would both keep a visitor on a dealer/builder site and at the same time provide all of the test information and videos they wanted from our BoatTEST.com server. In this way other sites would not “lose” their traffic, but would gain valuable content and video.

This is a BoatTEST.com “widget” that appears on Formula’s website next to its 350 SS. Formula visitors can see independent 3rd-party information and never leave Formula’s web pages.

Sharing with Widgets

Several years after BoatTEST.com started its program the Internet industry codified this concept of sharing information without asking viewers to leave a website and invented the term “widget” to describe the software and process. This is just another example of an area where BoatTEST.com was using cutting-edge technology the last 10 years.

BoatTEST.com members who are diligent researchers will recognize that some builders have these BoatTEST.com “widgets” on their pages of tested models.

They will also notice that some brands we have tested do not make the BoatTEST.com widgets available on their websites. In most cases these builders do not want to "promote" BoatTEST.com.

Dealers Love Widgets

Boat dealers work hard to build traffic to their websites, and many are happy to have our videos and tests available in our easy-to-use “widgets.” As a result BoatTEST.com tests appear on dealer websites all over the world. These videos are automatically updated as new tests are added and the boat dealers only have to add the "widget" to their website once and then forget it.

Glastron is one of a number of builders who have put a link to our 3rd party tests right on their home page. Builders who do this report that visitors to their site love getting our videos and to see what our captains have to say.

Available on Used-Boat Listing Sites

For the last several years BoatTEST.com videos have been available on major used boat listing sites around the world. Because our archive of 1300 tests goes back nearly 15 years we have tested sisterships of many of the boats that are for sale world-wide. BoatTrader.com, the largest listing site in the U.S. tested our videos with their listings and was amazed at how our video tests improved the research experience for people on their website.

BoatsPlus.com.au, the largest boating classified website in Australia uses BoatTEST.com’s videos on both their new boat and used boat listings.

According to BoatTrader.com, dealers participating in Boat Trader’s beta test of the BoatTEST.com videos increased visits to their Boat Trader dealer gallery by 35%, generated 17% more sales leads, and saw an average of a 91% increase in overall inventory views, than did classifieds without the videos in the control sample.

Sharing World-Wide

Today, BoatTEST.com videos tests are available on BoatShop24.com, the largest used-boat listing site in Europe, and on BoatsPlus.com.au, the largest classified site in Australia. We expect to expand this distribution in the coming year to other listing websites around the world, as well as general interest boating sites.

BoatTEST.com has become so popular that it now has imitators using the same name in both Australia and in Canada in violation of International copyright law.

Florida Sport Fishing magazine has been using BoatTEST.com’s video test of sportfishing boats only for several years and is drawing more and more traffic to its website each year as a result.

Magazine Websites

BoatTEST.com a has standing offer to share its tests and videos with major magazine websites which are now shifting gears as print advertising is rapidly drying up. Several magazines have programs underway with BoatTEST.com and they use the same “widgets” used by boat dealers and builders. By distributing our 3rd party content in this way the magazines’ website readers can access BoaTEST.com's extensive archives. Smart, young print publishers are rapidly moving beyond the “exclusivity” paradigm of “old media” and are sharing content to the benefit of all boaters, including their readers.

Marine Biz TV is an interesting mix of commercial and recreational boating videos that are beamed by satellite all over Asia from Mumbai, India, and shown on webcasts. BoatTEST.com boat test videos make up much of their recreational boating content.

Strong Brand Awareness

Today, BoatTEST.com is the brand known around the world for giving authoritative, factual information to aid in the buying of a powerboat. By means of its performance tests, videos and Captain’s Reports consumers receive information that is available nowhere else. Because of the website’s functionality consumers can compare up to 75 different criteria among six boats at the same time, as well as get valuable information about engines and other gear as well.

Some boat buyers start with BoatTEST.com in their quest for their next boat, some finish there, and some drop by again and again during their research journey. Increasingly over the last ten years boat dealers have been telling us that when customers walk into their showrooms they often know more about the boats there than the salesmen. We are glad to have played some small part in the education of the world’s boat buyers.