46 OCTOBER 2014 | International Boat Industry www.ibi-plus.com

Strategy & Finance

profile | dominion marine media

Ian atkIns explaIns the busIness phIlosophy behInd domInIon marIne medIa’s

network of boat sales websItes and Its european expansIon

Words: ed slack

The network effect

Having a great product no longer translates directly into success, just as having a captive audience doesn’t necessarily mean your

message will find fertile ground. Connecting the two is the secret.

online boat sales publisher dominion marine media (dmm) is doing just that. Having evolved over nearly 20 years into what in business speak is now referred to as a ‘two-sided network’, dmm is a conduit between product and consumer that is self-fuelling as the value grows by matching demand from both sides.

Globally, dmm, which comprises Yachtworld, boats.com, US-based Boat Trader and the Cosas de Barcos web portal brands, features more than 520,000 boats for sale in the US and a further 140,000 in europe with a combined estimated value of almost $28bn.

in august this year ian atkins was named dmm’s president, having spent the last decade as Vp and general manager of its marine portals. His appointment, along with the promotions of Kristeen lankford to vice president, sales; marius deBeer to vice president, technology; and Courtney Chalmers to vice president, marketing, signifies a new phase for the business as dmm’s parent,

dominion enterprises – a multi-million dollar media conglomerate with interests ranging from home rental and parenting portals and magazines, to software and direct marketing solutions – looks to grow the marine side of its business and its profile in europe.

earlier this year, aided by the financial clout of dominion enterprises, dmm acquired online boat sales portals Cosas de Barcos in Spain, inautia in italy and inautia in france. “in europe we’ve learned slowly and painfully that unless you are a really relevant local service provider, it’s very hard to grow in a local market,” atkins told IBI.

Single Market focuSatkins describes inautia and Cosas de Barcos as driven, focused enterprises. Cosas de Barcos alone has more than 650 registered dealership customers and features more than 53,000 boats for sale in Spain. “focus on specific markets is critical, if you don’t have that focus it takes too long to grow,” claims atkins. “You have to be intense – localising the website is everything.”

Such focused ‘intensity’ might dictate an acquisitive strategy, but atkins insists that for the online brokerage business in europe there are relatively few opportunities. “if one came up we

wouldn’t rule it out, but we see organic growth being the more likely path.”

But dmm’s business model is about more than selling boats online. it’s role as a conduit in that network connecting consumer and product involves everything from providing software solutions – up to 50% of its revenues now come from selling business and inventory

management software packages – to helping define and develop marketing strategies and spend off the back of its extensive accumulated boat sales data that dmm perceives as its crown jewels. “We can demonstrate value to oems, dealers and brokers,” claims atkins. “We can show them the direct trail when someone clicks on a boat on one of our sites, leading all the way to the sale.”

The ‘stats’ look impressive. 62% of european boat

We can show the direct trail

when someone clicks on a boat on one of our sites, leading all the way to the sale

dMM president

Ian atkins

Curriculum vitae

Present role: President of Dominion Marine Media.

experience: Over a

decade as DMM VP and

general manager of its marine

portals. Atkins has also held

the role of managing director

at Westerly Yachts, and

Ancasta Boat Sales. He also

served as sales director at

Ancasta Ltd.

P046_IBI_october_profile_DMM-mg-bs.indd 1 09/10/2014 16:34

47International Boat Industry | OCTOBER 2014www.ibi-plus.com

sales are researched using dmm sites; its portals account for 75% of all marine-related traffic in the US and, according to info-link Technologies, inc., 12% of all boat sales in the US start on a dmm portal. IBI, through its IBI Plus daily online market intelligence and data service, recently entered into an agreement with dmm to host its quarterly YachtWorld market index that tracks brokerage sales and trends throughout europe and the US.

dmm is investing heavily in sites and software for use on smart phones (nearly 50% of its traffic is through mobiles) and is developing new platforms and dealer management tools to give the industry innovative solutions to running their businesses.

The group has come a long way since its first tentative steps in the marine sector back in the early days of the internet.

Start-uP SucceSSatkins left ancasta in 1996 to run sailboat builder Westerly. in early 2000 he got the call from an old friend, Stuart Johnstone, whose family owned and ran J/Boats for which atkins had been a dealer in europe via ancasta. Johnstone had funding to launch the boats.com business as the first recreational marine web portal, and he asked atkins to join. it was a tough sell to begin with. The challenge was convincing brokers to advertise. later that year the start-up acquired YachtWorld.com and slowly but surely the sites gathered momentum.

in 2004 dominion enterprises acquired the start-up, putting the three portals under one roof. Boat Trader, which consisted of 30 different regional publications aimed at US dealers and private party sellers, brought print and internet advertising together for the first time, a combination atkins describes as being more valuable than the sum of their parts. it proved a winning formula.

Today dmm has 150 employees spread across offices in norfolk (Virginia) and Seattle (Washington) in the US, the UK, italy, Germany and Spain, and a state-of-the-art iT office in Vancouver, Canada that supports the development and maintenance of all its sites, which attract 52 million visitors per year. its recent forays into italy, france and Spain extend that coverage and leave it ideally placed to take full advantage of the upswing in the european leisure marine market, something atkins anticipates. “The US has seen 6-7% growth for the last two years and we now see europe starting to do the same,” he says. “The UK’s been strong for about 18 months and Germany has been generally solid throughout,” he adds. “europe’s been a little slower – italy and france are in the doldrums, but Spain is still providing pretty steady business.”

The wary might view atkins’ views as an optimist’s portrayal of what to many on both sides of the

atlantic still feel is a fragmented, fragile recovery. To the doubters, atkins points to Brunswick’s recent decision to ditch its bowling business and plough all resources into boating. “These guys are smart; they know what they’re doing,” he says. That the US boat builder’s decision resonates particularly with atkins should be no surprise. Brunswick’s endorsement is surely driven not by instinct, but by data, an increasingly precious commodity that dmm, as linchpin in that two-sided network between supplier and consumer, is both mining and banking on.

P046_IBI_october_profile_DMM-mg-bs.indd 2 09/10/2014 16:34