The Billiard Congress of America announced it has changed the name of the BCA Instructor Program to the Professional Billiard Instructors Association (PBIA). The change comes as part of a new marketing initiative aimed at promoting the benefits of quality billiard instruction from PBIA Instructors to players of all skill levels. The PBIA is further committed to providing a reputable certification program for individuals wishing to become qualified PBIA instructors.
 
The association today also announced that three industry-leading businesses have signed multi-year partnership agreements to support and promote the PBIA, including Iwan Simonis, PoolDawg and Predator Group.
 
As part of this new initiative, the PBIA has launched a new web site, www.playbetterbilliards.com, aimed at promoting the benefits of seeking out quality instruction from certified PBIA instructors. In addition to offering an easy-to-use search function for locating PBIA instructors, www.playbetterbilliards.com also features PBIA master instructors, PBIA pool schools, an "Ask an Instructor" Q&A section, plus additional content designed to promote better billiard play. The site also provides information on how to become a certified PBIA instructor as well as a PBIA marketing guide that offers marketing tips for certified PBIA instructors.
 
Additionally, an integrated marketing campaign promoting the PBIA was launched in early 2012. The campaign includes a pay-per-click keyword advertising campaign on Google and Facebook aimed towards driving consumers interested in pool instruction to www.playbetterbilliards.com. To date, the online ads promoting the PBIA have been clicked 8,615 times. The site has already had more that 10,000 unique visitors, and there has been more the 3,500 searches for PBIA instructors on the web site.
 
"We hold tightly to the belief that quality billiard instruction enhances an individual's enjoyment of the game, which in turn creates life-long customers for all categories of the billiard industry," said Billiard Congress of America CEO Rob Johnson. "With this belief as the foundation for this new initiative, making our instructor program more consumer friendly via such initiatives as a consumer-driven web site, creating an integrated marketing campaign promoting the benefits of PBIA instruction and by committing to provide qualified, reputable billiard instructors, the PBIA will have a positive impact on the billiard industry."