Divesoft is a Czech company based in Roudnice nad Labem. They produce diving equipment and their main business is focused on rebreathers production, particularly CCR Liberty, that are sold around the world and used by professional divers.
Divesoft hasn't been seen in media before they started cooperating with us (beginning of 2019). They need to raise brand awareness and spread knowledge about their products among their target group (tech/professional divers).
Our KPIs are at least 1 output/month, better 2-3 outputs/month in foreign diving media/websites/print/online magazines.
Firstly, we had to make extensive research on diving media and make a connection with editors and pro divers who use Divesoft equipment at the same time.
This took us a couple of months. We found out it will be better to focus on specific media, not countries. Most of the online magazines are in English with worldwide coverage and Divesoft business is not focused on specific countries.
We started with the publishing of references on CCR Liberty by pro divers mainly in US/UK diving media (e.g. Dive Magazine).
Further, we promoted a new product Divesoft launched - SOLO analyzer - mostly thanks to barter cooperations (e.g. Dykking).
As soon as we gained more connections and got to the diving community, we found out that most of the divers using Divesoft gear take part in various expeditions and/or are considered for celebrities in the diving world.
Therefore we started to create interesting stories in cooperation with such pro divers/ambassadors where usually Divesoft equipment is mentioned but it has no commercial tone as technical demands are a common part of any expedition and these stories are very attractive for diving media.
We usually provide one unique story exclusively to one medium (it's usually a requirement of a medium when we agree on a story publishing without sponsoring). Writing and publishing one such a story usually takes around 10-15 hours (research, communication with divers and editors, writing, approval, pictures ensuring, etc.). The diving community is not so big so it happens often that editors of various diving media know each other well and if we offered one story to more magazines we would lose their trust and possibility of future cooperation.
We prepare around 3 exclusive stories per month (depends on provided materials) because sometimes it can take up to 6 months until it's published.
In addition, we prepare press releases about news, events, various activities that Divesoft participates in, and these we publish in the diving websites/online magazines. (Before lockdown we wrote regularly about Divesoft's presence in diving events/exhibitions.)
With this strategy, we can achieve the KPIs - having on average around 3 quality outputs per month. We've chosen this solution because it enables us to place stories where Divesoft is mentioned in relevant diving media with almost zero budget on the advertisement and there is a possibility of a long-term and continuous increase of brand awareness and credibility.
More than 40 media outputs (including social media sharing) were featured in 2019, and more than 90 media outputs (including social media sharing) were featured so far this year (7/2020).
We accomplished such success in 2020 thanks to more solid relationships with divers, editors, and Divesoft. Moreover, Divesoft participated in the project helping in the pandemic situation due to Covid-19 (lung ventilator production) and this topic was extremely attractive for media so they shared the story and didn't require exclusiveness. Additionally, Divesoft marketing is powered now and supported by closer cooperation with ambassadors so we get better materials we can transform into attractive stories and our outputs are powered by Divesoft's marketing activities.
Thanks to the solid relationship with Divesoft we gained these successful results and Divesoft's trust so we can continue in our cooperation despite the pandemic situation affected their business negatively.
We built media relations around the world for the customer from zero and we've been still working on that. The biggest success is a published interview with Czech police diver in one of the most popular diving magazines DAN (3 pages incl. pics with zero budget on the ad: DAN: Czech police divers train others to save lives). Another big success was a published story on DAN Europe Blog about "Future of rebreathers" where opinions of 5 Divesoft's ambassadors were mentioned so they further shared this story on their social media so it was spread widely and it gained lots of positive feedbacks (DAN EU: Is there a rebreather in your future).
