ADA Compliance for Marine Industry Websites

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Welcome to the Marine Marketing Podcast, where we cover marketing and website topics for the Marine industry. While you’re listening, subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any future episodes. And now, here’s your host, Harry Casimir.

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Hello and welcome to the Boat Marketing Podcast. I’m Harry Casimir, your host, CEO and founder of Boat Marketing Pros. Today’s episode, we are going to do a deep dive and share with you why making your website ADA compliance is so important. So the first question is, what is ADA compliance? We’re going to go back a little bit and talk about the history. How did we get here? I’m going to state a few dates here that may not be super accurate, but close enough to where you get this sense of how did we come about to have website ADA compliance in the conversation. So in The architectural Barriers Act was passed by Congress that basically we move any barriers that prevent someone to access federal information. Meaning that when someone is physically unable to open a door, and if the door is too heavy, that makes it very difficult for that person to come in. So that was 1968. Fast forward two years later, 1970, the Urban Mass Transportation Act, which mandates wheelchair, lift, and all transit vehicles, which is basically all busses, trains, and so forth. Then where the initial act we have today that really set off the rest of how all of the ADA compliance come to place since 1973, when the Rehabilitation Act prohibited discriminations by federal agency when it comes to technology.

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So meaning that just because someone cannot press a button and keypad because they don’t have the finger, you cannot discriminate against them for that. That same act, they enhanced it to fast forward to 1982 when the Telecommunications Act for this disabled past that make telephone services for the hearing impairments to be able to access the telephone. Again, all those are building up from the 1973 Act. In 1973, the Voting Accessibility Act for Older and Handicap People was passed. In 1988, the Fair Housing Act mandates that the protection of individuals with disability and accessibility requirements for multifamily units, all of that. Then come the 1990s. That’s where things really changed. In 1990, the American Disability Act, what we know today as ADA, was basically one of the biggest major revamp of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. That a complete re-event of it set into motion what we know today that really impacted almost everything. So how you open the door when you go to a restaurant, to basically how you listen to music, all of that really have a big impact on all those different services and products we looked at as standard today for many of us. So that happened in 1990 when that prohibit discrimination against individual with disabilities and any various areas, whether they’re for both employment and telecommunication.

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So when they fast forward in 1990, Section 508, 508 was added to expand government accessibility requirement for all digital content. That really set off and really kick things to high gear when it comes to digital accessibility, when it comes to computer itself. In 1999, that’s when Cag 1.0 was introduced. Cag stands for Web Content Accessibility Guide, WCAG 1.0. It is set by the World W3 World Conservium, that’s actually set to create the standard on how webmasters, web designers, and web developers, how they should design a website that is in compliance with this standard so that people with disabilities could access this website. And you can fast forward to 2003, the The Department of Justice finally published a notice to promote how accessibility should work for all those different website that government provide money to. So what that really means in 2003, the Department of Justice says that if the US government, so take it as state, local, and federal government, if they spend money something, then the public should have full access to it regardless of the individual’s type of disability. Meaning that, especially, specifically for website. Every single municipality This county and state website, according to the Department of Justice, should need to be an ADA compliance.

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Now, whether that’s the case, that’s a different story completely. And let’s fast forward to 2008, which is very interesting because this is when CAG 2.0 was offered, really giving you full detail and created a true criteria on how even the design, the description of each of the elements on the website, how they should be presented so that people with disability can access those website. And so that was 2008, building up from the 2003 Department of Justice Publish notice. Then in 2018, the Department of Justice, again, clarifies its stance on website with ADA compliance. Basically, really, what they add to this is making sure that people with mobile devices have the same access that someone with a desktop, computer, or laptop have when it comes to accessing the web. Now, between the 2017, 2008, a few updates on this is how many of this impact many businesses, and we’re going to go over that in a second. Fast forward to 2020, the Unlicer Accessibility Act was introduced to the House. As a representative, as we speak today, this law has not been enacted, and many of us actually, as an agency that specializes in ADA compliance website, we cannot wait to have this law officially passed.

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That way, it can be very clear where the line is at. At the moment, as I mentioned in 2003, when the Department of Justice in 2018, when they published their notice, it’s clearly stated that federal, state, and local government website are required to have their website compliance. But it never really say business, but technically, within that fine point, it stated that if you provide a product good or service to the public, then you need to have your website ADA compliance. Meaning that, for example, if you are selling cookie online, that’s a good example, then your website should be ADA compliance according to the way Department of Justice see it. Whether you agree with that’s a different thing completely. In 2020, the US House representative tried to rectify actually recreate this, creating a whole new act that we call Online Accessibility Act. A little bit a revision of our 08 article within the ADA Compliance Act from 1990. But this one will focus exclusively on online presence, so website to mobile devices and everything. And this one is a little bit clearer. Hopefully, it gets passed through Congress, but time will tell. I’m not going to go into the detail what it means, and you can find that information online.

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But what we do know, between 2017 to 2020, there were about 8,000 lawsuits filed in federal court for website that did not meet ADA compliance. And what that means is basically anybody can file a lawsuit against you if your website is not ADA compliance, technically. When are they going to win, that’s a different story completely because there are a lot of gray area here and how someone can actually win a lawsuit against you when it comes to ADA compliance for a website. But I’m not a lawyer. That’s my disclaimer here. I wanted to go through the history a little bit. I know that’s a lot to unpack, but understanding the context how we get here, it’s good sometimes to know how do I navigate through all that basically as a business owner, a director of marketing, however, whatever the position that you have at your company, how do you ensure that you are not in hot water with this? And what are some of the tools? What’s available? What can you do or what should you do or should be aware of? So this is what we’re here to talk about. So in this episode, we’re just going to explore the importance of why your website, accessibility, ADA compliance is so important.

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And we’re I’m not going to talk about the difference between accessibility and actual compliancy. There are two different things, and it’s really misunderstood by many business owners that have a website that really want to stay out of legal trouble. And at the end, Sometimes I feel bad because many of them don’t understand the difference in that a recipe to get you in trouble. Sometimes if you don’t understand the difference between what you’re looking at and what you need. We We are going to talk about how different agency and how they approach this and how you as a business owner, marketing director, general manager, whatever the position you have in the company or possibly even from a legal aspect for your company, how you can make sure your website is in compliance. Let’s dive into ADA compliance for a website and its significance for your website in the marine industry. As I mentioned before, website accessibility is crucial because it’s not just that you have a website that’s good enough, but having opened it up for other individuals that are able to access your website is very important. One of the things you may notice, especially during COVID, a lot of people coop up inside their house.

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Now, it’s really showcasing their disability because they don’t have a lot to do. Let’s say you physically couldn’t go anywhere, someone would have to go with you wherever you may wanted to go. It was never a problem because there was no COVID, and it’s not a big deal. But when COVID happened, then you couldn’t really go in a lot of places. So you stay in-house, so therefore, you need more accessibility to the web. And that really exacerbated the issue in terms of people that are not able to access certain website. This is why it’s so important and how it can impact your business in having your website ADA compliance, how it can create a positive impact for your user experience and create customer satisfaction and so forth. So the American Disability Act, ADA Compliance, especially Section 508 that deal with electronics, device, and online digital records, really break down into three key elements. You have the law itself, which is part of the ADA Compliance, the 508 section. Then you have the Department of Justice that’s basically provide notice and what should be considered compliancy and not on their guide. Then there is the W3 World Conservium that’s basically set those guidelines.

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Based on the law, they look at the law and to some degree work in conjunction with the Department of Justice to create those guidelines to determine what make a website truly ADA compliant. With that guideline, a developer, a designer, or a business owner can look at this guideline and determine whether the website meets compliance. There are a lot of different tools out there which we’re going to talk about in a moment. Why do you need your website to be ADA compliant? The first thing is for a few reasons, But one of the obvious one is you open the door for more people to access your website, especially for some of the elderlies that may not be able to access your website. They might even have their own kids that have disability access your website. You basically open the door for more people to access your product and services. The second piece, a website actually that meet ADA compliance, oftentimes is a website that’s actually well-built. So there’s a lot of extra piece of software that usually get installed on website that are very unnecessary in my eye. But when you meet the DA compliance, you actually have to remove all those bloated software.

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So that make your website really lean. Although, according to Google, there isn’t really a pro and con. Google is really in difference for a DA compliance. That’s what they said. If you look at how SEO impacted your ranking, and if your website If you meet ADA compliance, which means the website speed, the loading, the imagery, all that have to be accounted for ADA compliance, those are the things that you have to do for a CEO anyways, which is basically if you meet ADA compliance, you are half that way there. That’s part of some of the reason. Now, I want to address two things here. There’s a big difference between accessibility and compliancy. Accessibility is your ability to access the website with a website meet compliance by using existing tools that in the market right now to view a website. Let’s give an example. Let’s say someone has a physical disability that prevent them from typing on the keyboard, but they can use their eyes or they can use their brain to move the mouse throughout the website. There are software that make the person be able to click certain button on this website. Basically, even this website is not in compliance, but it’s able to manage that’s accessibility.

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But when a website meet compliance, meaning that all those barrier that you have to install a software to get that person to access your website, you don’t need any of those software. In a sense, most of those widget at the bottom of those websites, when you visit them, they’re basically accessibility tools that make that website accessible to people with disability, but they are not in compliance. Websites that are in compliance, a website, you don’t even see the content, that little icon at the bottom in their website, because the website is built from the ground up. The code of that website is built to be in compliance. That’s the big difference between the two of them. Now you might ask, Harry, how do you go about getting your website to be in compliance? A couple of ways you can do that. The first thing you want to do is to do an audit of your website. There are free tools out there. There’s AX, there’s too many of them actually. The browsers are getting smarter, Chrome browser, so Firefox and Microsoft Edge. All of them are getting more smarter at helping you identify a website that is not accessible/consulting Compliance.

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You can actually do an audit on your website. But for us, we look at four different components on your website to help determine compliancy and maintain compliancy. The first one is an audit. Audit is the process of actually run to the website. We use both tools, software to part of it automate, and then we have team members on our staff that actually knows how to to identify key element that are not in compliance. So that’s the first thing you do in audit. The second thing is remediation. Remediation is the process of going through the audit and make changes that the audit request or suggests to make on that website to make it compliance. The second thing is a re-audit of the website. Now, this is very critical because once you audit a website, you do the remediation, meaning is you make those updates, you have to come back, re-audit the website to ensure that most, if not all of them, there’s changes that you saw earlier that needed to be made or actually… And then there the monitoring and logging of changes and log. So this is crucial. Once your website meets ADA compliance, it is important to ensure you stay in compliancy.

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A good example, your website could be meet compliance this morning. Let’s say you meet compliance at 90%, 95% this morning at 07:00 AM, and then someone logged in on your website that have access to it, make changes, and did not pay attention or did not follow the proper guideline to ensure that you maintain your compliancy, they can get your website out of compliancy within that nanosecond. Now, that doesn’t mean that you’re going to get sued, but this is very important important to understand how that impact you stand in compliancy. Making sure that identify those are three key components that you have to be aware of and making sure that you do. Now, Coming back to how do you go about getting your website or making sure your website is in compliance. There are many tools out there, including Apps, that you can use to take a look at your web accessibility. Actually, within Google Chrome browser, when you’re on your website, you can actually go to the developer tools and click Accessibility. This is give you a good amount. I guess we were even talking about this a while back. We see Google Chrome give you a good 60% of good way of whether your website isn’t accessible or not.

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And that can give you a sense of where you are. What are the things that you should be looking for as a business owner or a person in charge of your website to ensure that you stay out of legal trouble for compliancy? One is run an audit on your website, making sure all the content, all the information are in place. And then once you have that audit done, it’s going to give you a bunch of information. One, there are information that’s called blocks. There are information that’s called errors, warning, and alert. Four different types. Depending on what tools you use, some tools give you different naming for them. But for the most part, you want to take care of the blocks and errors right away. As soon as you see them, you want to change and update those right away because blocks are really what it means. It’s blocking people from accessing specific things on your website. Those blocks, oftentimes, is not just a barrier for people with disabilities. It’s actually a barrier for even normal people that come to your website that need to just browse your website. Compliancy Oftentimes, it’s not just for people with disabilities.

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It’s actually a good thing for your business to ensure your website is clean and well-coded. That’s the beauty of having your website business compliance because the website is very clean, very light, very fast, and easy to navigate. That’s almost a guarantee your website will meet those if it is properly optimized for compliancy. I find it very convoluted and can be very overwhelming for a business that really want to run a business and you don’t have the time for this. This is one of those things that it’s best to consult with people that actually do this day in, day out to ensure that you meet compliancy and also get with someone that really truly understand this stuff and that can get you some ideas. So as we close up in this ADA Compliance episode for Marine Industry website, remember, the accessibility is not not just a legal obligation to avoid getting sued or demand letter from lawyers, but it’s also an opportunity to create exclusivity and welcoming online environment for your business. As I mentioned earlier, people with disabilities are oftentimes people that’s really taking care of all their loved one as well, that able to do certain things.

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So by prioritizing your website accessibility and ensuring make sure you meet basic QDA compliance, giving other people good access to information, and enhance your user experience, and also demonstrate your commitment to exclusivity in the online space for your business and product. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of Board Marketing Podcast. If you find this information valuable, make sure to subscribe to our podcast, wherever podcast available. We are syndicating to all those different places. And don’t forget to visit our website, bootmarketingpost. Com. And under our resources section, there are tons of valuable resources that you can get information from different blog posts, white papers, and even the webinar that we have as well, and more episode of our podcast, so you can listen to more of the content we have. If you have any questions and topics for a feature episode, feel free to email us, podcast@bootmarketingpost. Com. Until next time, my friend. Happy selling, and stay tuned for more exciting episode. Appreciate you.

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Thanks. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Marine Marketing Podcast. If you have any questions, send them to media@boatmarketingpros. Com. For additional resources, visit boatmarketingpros. Com/resources.

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Hello and welcome to the Marine Marketing Podcast, where we cover marketing and website topics for the Marine industry. While you’re listening, subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any future episodes. And now, here’s your host, Harry Casimir.

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Hello and welcome to the Boat Marketing Podcast. Your go to source for digital marketing strategy, tailored for the Marine industry, specifically. I am your host, Harry Casimir, I’m the founder of Boat Marketing Pros. We are a digital marketing agency. We help marine businesses go to the next level. In today’s episode, we will explore the power of E-newsletter. Sometimes you may hear of email marketing, e-mail newsletters, and how you can engage your audience to make sure you drive more leads, more sales, and your customer loyalty stays up all the time. So let’s dive in. I’m going to tell you something personally, I believe, e-newsletters, and email marketing, is probably one of the most underrated piece of marketing that are often overlooked by business owners. You’d be surprised what this can do. In this episode, we will dive deep in the benefits of newsletters for marine businesses, different strategies your audience can use, and the different segments you can create, how to create engaging content, design some effective templates that really help your company to just go to the next level, and also how you can even help agencies or freelancers, whoever is working on your email marketing, e-newsletters, and how they can make it more effective for you.

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What I want to go over first though is I want to cover eight different type of newsletters, email marketing newsletters that you can use to ensure that you win customer day in and day out? The first one we’re going to go over is nurture. The second one is proposal. The third one is reactivation. Fourth, constellation. Fifth, review. Sixth one is referral. The seven one is prospecting, possibly by email. And the eighth one is specials. We’re going to go over all of that in terms of using email marketing for your company’s advantage to build your brand and your business, and create loyalty among your customers. Basically, where are we? Why nowadays more and more people using advertising versus e-newsletters? Because in the early days, e-newsletters was the king. Now, because everybody is getting so many emails on day in and day out, are we going to go over why e-newsletters continue to be one of the most effective marketing piece? Because we become reliant so much on pay ads, and there’s advantage to that. Pay ads give you a quick result. You just put it up today, and you get a lead, two leads, three leads tomorrow or right away.

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So that pays off right away, and you really go to specific targeting. You only want certain group of people in a specific demographic with that income. You can actually target those. There usually were very warm leads that come into pay advertising. Of course, oftentimes, if it’s done very well, it can be very profitable. Now, on the flip side, pay advertising can be expensive. There are a lot of competitors bidding for the same keywords that you are bidding for. Oftentimes, you are playing against bigger players that have bigger pocket, bigger budgets. So it’s a very steep hill to climb. So what do you do? A lot of it the thing with e-newsletters and email marketing, it’s a fault within ourselves, within the business. So that’s how we often time don’t really keep up. Because the problem is you will see, actually 50 to 60 % of inbound leads that come into a business, that’s been reported, uncovered. Imagine every two leads that a business get, one of them never get called, never get followed up on. 90% of web forms, meaning contact forms on those websites that, say, request a quote, 90% of them don’t convert.

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There are a few reasons they don’t convert. Then 80% of sales, as you guys know, one of the biggest problem with sales is that lots of follow-up is required, especially when you comes to business to consumer. It’s even more, so you’re looking at least seven to eight follow-ups before someone can actually see that. And oftentimes, very well, most salespeople give up, and the first 50% of salespeople give up on their first try, so they don’t even follow up more. As a business, how do you get over the hub, 80% of buyers, actually e-newsletters, buyers, say no four times before they say yes to buy something. If they don’t subscribe, they most likely will come back. What the conversion looks like when it comes to follow-up and email? As I mentioned, it takes up to five, six and seven follow-up to get someone. And oftentimes, the eighth follow-up, 20% of the time to the eighth follow-up, the ninth follow-up, they convert that into a customer. So what do you do? What do you do as a business to ensure you solve that problem? As of today, consumers, they get bombarded with tons of information on a daily basis.

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Ads, email, social media, you name it, they have it. You might ask, so what’s the solution to ensure that those leads get follow-up and making sure that you convert them eventually? So newsletter, email marketing is one of the sure ways to do that. And as I mentioned, there are eight different ways you can create this newsletter, which we’re going to go over one by one. But first, let’s talk about, uncovering the art of engaging newsletters for your marine business, specifically for the industry. As I mentioned, there are tons of benefits to the newsletter itself, from building loyalty, generating more leads, create customer awareness, so people know of your brands or when they see you online and display ads or Google search ads, when they come to your showroom, they are really well aware of who you are. And the other thing that you are able to do with email marketing is that you can create a very specific segment list of different audience that you have to create personalized information for them. Someone who buys a Bay board may not be so interested in a cruiser that’s going to hit the open water. Those are the two different type of marketing.

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Again, I’m not saying they are not able to. It’s just that those people think differently. People that want to stay in the Bay, they just want to stay in the Bay. So if you are able to personalize that type of message, you are in good place. And this is where segmenting your audience comes into place when you it comes to email newsletter. Obviously, creating the right content is crucial. That content is addressing their needs, their standpoint, and speaking to them directly. Creating a word map, and a clear blueprint on how to address each one of those is crucial. Now, let’s come back to those different email marketing campaigns that you can create to ensure you bring the user back to your business. Whether you are a boat dealer, boat rental, boat club, those emails, what we’re going to share with you here today, is basically can be used for almost any campaign. So the first one we’re going to talk about is prospecting. What is prospecting? It’s basically a call email you use for when you collect people’s email address, however method that you use. There are many different methods to do that, but those emails are emails that you can possibly even get for free.

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Use those emails to reach out to people to do that. One of the things you do not want to do, though, is spam people that did not request for your email. You have to be strategic on how to go about prospecting, especially prospecting to the end consumers. Business to business is a little bit, not easier, but a little bit simpler, whereas business to consumer is a little bit trickier. But you still can do that by getting the right information at the right time. The next one is nurturing campaign. Nurturing campaign is really what it means. It’s basically the consumer path to conversion and the potential. The lead path, the customer path to become a sales, really start with their brand, awareness. They start to educate themselves, and now they are informed. Once they become informed, they will engage. And once they engage, it’s much easier to Then that’s where the nurturing campaign comes to place. Because you can create those different drip campaign that would actually get people to know your brand, educate them about your product and services, inform them about what this can do for them. Then now you ask them to get engaged with you.

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But until then, don’t do that. Then this is where nurturing campaign comes to place. There’s constellation campaign. This is basically everybody that bought from you in the past is pure gold. This is like easy money. Think of it this way. Let’s use boat rental as an example. Boat rental, if you’re in business for the last 5, 10 years, you have to have hundreds, if not thousands of customers come through. Most of them give you their email address and sometimes even their cell phone. And oftentimes, people that bought today will most likely buy tomorrow or the next week. Those people, it’s not even a constellation. We call this reactivation, but it’s one and the same to some degree. People that you can actually use to retarget and send an email to them to remind them how much you miss them and you would love to hear back from them or get them back. You miss them, you want them, and you will see how that tie in into offering as well. And reactivation campaign means that people that went cold on you. People you haven’t heard in a while, people that we have done business with that came to your business.

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You can do this in two different ways. One of them is obviously sending the email, but also you can actually include text messages within the system as well. And a lot of it, those are per goal. Special offers, which is one of the last one, is offer that basically brings past, even present, and even possibly people that I’ve never dealt with, a possibly a way to bring them back. So simply sending an email that says, Hey, we would love to help. Here are the few things that we haven’t… Here are what’s going on. Here’s the new model and the dealer that has come in, and we actually have a special or the manufacturer is offering a 2% off or $5,000 credit. All of that are promotion special that you’re running. And maybe you both went through that basically have a slow season. To bring that off, offer a 10%, 20% off, and anybody that went between that date to that date. All of that opportunities that you can use for email marketing. The other one is review campaign. Review campaigns does two things. Obviously, a customer you serve, work with you, they leave, you send them, you request a review from them.

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But you also keep your brand right in front of their face. They cannot forget about you. This is why review campaign so important. The other one is the proposal campaign. I have seen this over and over where businesses send a proposal and forget about follow-up. Once you send that proposal, there should be an automatic email campaign that just go and go. It’s crucial to do that because, again, when you’re in front of someone all the time, they cannot forget about you. The worst that can happen is to tell you, No, I don’t want to move forward. At least now, you I don’t have to think about them anymore. Another one is, refer our campaign. Refer our campaign is basically asking your existing customers to refer you. There is no right or wrong way to ask. It’s just ask. Ask them, Hey, we want to increase our business this year, we would love to get your feedback or possibly even refer a couple of your business friends to us. Now, here are a few rules that I have when it comes to email marketing, especially when it comes to outreach. Be a human. Sometimes every time you read an email, you feel like a robot is worth this.

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Especially now with AI, artificial intelligence going well and everybody using it to write, it’s very hard to actually get good content out from people. You be a good human. Don’t be salesy. People hate to be paged, although people love to buy, but if it’s paged too early, they’re going to run away from you. Keep your pitching for later once they get to know you and they open your email a few times. Make it very personal. Instead of saying info@mycompany or contact@mycompany, send it with your name, your name@yourcompany.com, whatever the domain name is, so they can see it’s very personal. It means that you actually take time to do this, and people respect that. And the secret is in the follow-up. So email e-newsletters is really truly a way to follow up and making sure customers to get to the information that you want them. There are a lot of different lead follow-up systems, CRM out there to do that. I believe most of you guys are already using some type of software, get your team to use it to do that for you. Where do we go for a newsletter? E-newsletters should not, don’t make it complicated.

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As a marine industry business, what type of newsletter should you be sending? I just went over eight of them, and I think you could use all But let’s focus on the two key newsletters as a marine business that you want to make sure that you get whenever you have a chance. How often you should send them is at least once a month and send one newsletter, and I would swap them where one of them would be informational education, and the other one would be more of a branding and request engagement/making a call to action. We swap it one at a time. The first one, for example, January, you send a new newsletter. Talk about New Year. We’re looking forward to see you at the dealer or at the ramp. Here are the three things to be aware of, blah, blah, blah. It’s more of it, informational/educational, just so you know. The second one in February, you will send, it’s more of, Hey, I cannot believe it’s already February. Love to see how you engage. How’s your goal so far? I would love to see how we can help you reach it. Or relaxing underwater is one of the best meditation I heard people say it.

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Why don’t you join us X, Y, and Z? Whatever that might be. What that does is basically swapping those different newsletter will really help your brain stay in front of people. So even the customer that bought from you, they might even forget if you exist. Not like that, but people have a lot of things going on. But because your newsletter, they already give you your email, you have that information, just send us the email newsletter constantly to them. For most marine business, you don’t have to send it too often unless you’re in the e-commerce space. That’s a different beast on itself. But if you are a standard marine business, whether it be a boat dealer, boat club, boat rental, even a repair shop, you should take that chance and get a newsletter going at least once a month to ensure that you get people to be aware of your brand and stay in form of your brand and encourage people to forward other people. And keep it simple. So create a template in one of our favorite newsletter system, and then make sure it’s automated. You can actually automate most of the stuff that we mentioned to you.

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And this is something that we do ourselves for ourselves and for our existing clients. I believe in newsletter is one of the most underrated piece of software in the market from a marketing perspective, and you should be using it. So as we conclude with this episode, remember that engaging newsletter can strengthen relationship, drive your brands to the next level, and eventually drive result. Whether you’re a manufacturer, a dealer, or a boat rental, or a club, there’s a lot of potential in using newsletters to bring in more business to your fun talk. Also crafting compelling content that visually appealing and make people want to read your newsletter, capture the information, and hopefully, and hopefully convert a few of them into leads. Thank you for joining us on the Boat Marketing Podcast. For more digital marketing tips tailored to the marine industry, please visit boatmarketingpros.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and follow us. If you have any questions and ideas for future topics, please email us at podcast@boatmarketingpros.com, and we love to hear from you. Until next time my friend. Smooth sailing!

[00:18:58.570]

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Marine Marketing Podcast. If you have any questions, send them to media@boatmarketingpros.com. For additional resources, visit boatmarketingpros.com/resources

Welcome to the Marine Marketing Podcast, where we cover marketing and website topics for the marine industry. While you’re listening, subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any future episodes. And now here’s your host, Harry Casimir.

[00:00:17.170]
Hello and welcome to the Boat Marketing Podcast, your destination for effective digital marketing strategy. I’m your host, Harry Casimir. Founder of Boat Marketing Pros. Digital marketing agency specialize and work exclusively with marine business like yours. In today’s episode, we will do a deep dive into the world of video marketing, video content creation, and explore how it can mix with for your marine business, whether you’re a boat dealer, boat rental, boat club, boat manufacturer, for that matter. We’re going to talk about how you can effectively create many, many different video types to get your business be seen. Get ready to set, sail with your video content. So video marketing And video content creation in the last few years has become probably the most effective tools to engage your target audience, showcasing product and services, and really drive lots of conversion. And for businesses that actually do rely on video conversion, they can tell you if they really track customer journey, you can see the trend on how the customer convert to this. So in this episode, we’re going to explore the importance of video content creation, video marketing in general for marine business, and provide you with some actionable techniques/strategies on creating compelling content, leveraging video and to the customer journey so that it can easily help you get more engagement and close more sales.

[00:02:12.040]
And we will also talk about how distributing those type of content and promoting them effectively and how you can use in-house team in combination with outside team to successfully create good marketing campaign that will win good result. Without further ado, let’s dive right in. To embark on this marketing video generating content piece, I want to answer a few questions that I often got is, well, we don’t have a video on our team. It’s time consuming, too much work. I don’t want to say it’s an excuse because sometimes you just don’t have that. But nowadays, with most phone that you have on your hands, actually, you already have a very good camera. And oftentimes, we see better result with those phone camera than the professionally done. I’m not saying professionally done video or not good. They just people feel the authenticity behind a video that you shoot from your phone video. They just can feel it. The handshaking. So all those filler words that come with shooting a video on the spot with your phone camera really bring a lot of authenticity to your content and really help bring you to the next level. I want to address that where you don’t really need full gear equipment.

[00:03:43.710]
I know some of you guys are very technical with your stuff. If you want to buy a full-fledged video cam, that’s up to you and bravo to you. But many of us can use our phone to shoot perfectly good videos. With that out of the way, let’s go into the importance of video marketing, why it’s so crucial to do that in your company. Actually, this can be one of the game changer for your company in terms of providing this content to customers and why you need to pay very, very close attention to how you create this content and build charts, build credibility, connect with your target audience in a way that you may have not been able to. We’re going to take example in terms of most of the things that we do from a marine industry perspective, boarding in general, still a mystery for many people, even for those that do own a boat. Obviously, a lot of people that own boats, sometimes they are lifetime boaters. They’ve been in boarding for a long time, but even them, they may not have time for this, but they want to feel at a level where the business they’re working with understand what they need.

[00:05:01.710]
And that is one way to build that choice is providing content, education content, learning content to get them to understand and trust you. So a good example is a dealer, for example. How do you create video walkthrough? I know many manufacturers really provide us walk through, but they’re very, very, very crystallized high level where if you have one of your sales person, sell people, a broker that actually walked the boat piece by piece, said, This brand-new board just came, or this is the brand-new model, or this is the revamp model of X, Y, and Z brand, and this is what been going on, this is what you should be looking at, this is the new joysticks? Adjustment they make to this. Those can make a big difference and really attract even your own existing customer to come back to see more and want to buy more. That’s just an example of a boat dealer. The same can go for even a boat rental operation where you want people that will fly 600, 700 miles just to come to a location where they’re going to rent your boat. You want to give them a feel, an idea of what this location looks like, how clean your boats are, and obviously, you’re not even comparing to competitors, but your competitor don’t even have those videos, you become the differentiator because of those videos.

[00:06:27.720]
So this is a good opportunity. Now, how do you create very compelling, engaging video content that keep people engaged but also want to see more? Well, a lot of it, I find some of the best videos are off-script, but I know many of us want to have a little script somewhere. So maybe you create a quick outline for the content you want to go over. So that can be very, very helpful. Good example. Let’s say you want to go over some of the electronics in the boat, you want to go over the steering. You want to go over some of the joystick, you want to go even over how the draft is a little bit different than the previous model. You want to go over the T-T. All of those different components, you can just put a quick outline on the key topics you want to touch and stick with that because this is very, very important because oftentimes, most of us, when we’re excited about something, we go in tandem and start talking about all that stuff. Focus on those things that this is why some of us, it’s good for us to have a quick outline on what we want to talk about.

[00:07:35.700]
That’s one of the best way to create a very engaging video in terms of talk about the key points and also add layers to that key points in a form of a storytelling/providing visual component to help the user visualize what’s going on. When you talk about the Joystick, Not only are you showing your own hand where that joystick is located within the panel, but maybe you can actually incorporate the manufacturer’s video that’s really going to go into a little bit more detail about joystick. But your voice over that part of the video as well. That makes it look seamless. Those little things can really, really be important. In addition to those visual effect, but also incorporate very good music that really cater to your target audience. Not every audience want a really mellow music. Not every audience want a country music. Not every audience wants to hear a RnB. You know what your audience was most likely like, and try to cater to them as much as possible. That way, when they hear that beat, it doesn’t really irritate them and want them to leave your video. This is very crucial But it’s also you don’t want to put a beat that’s too loud taking over the content.

[00:09:05.680]
So what role does video content play in the customer journey to eventually become a customer? Well, in my opinion, and I have seen this, video can play probably one of the most important roles in terms of when you engage to when they’re buying. Because that video, couple of videos that you have They might do a very good job at explaining what that one component that person had in their head. They were not sure if they want to make that move. Because of your video, you build that effective brand awareness, you educate them within that video and demonstrate that project, that specific feature and benefit of it, that alone can inspire someone to take action that they otherwise wouldn’t make sometimes. Look at video as a piece to create informative product showcase so that your customer can take a look at, but also use video for many different things. So showcasing different things within your company. So your team working in the shop show how they uncouple an engine and possibly even we’re putting it together, not the whole detail, but enough to make someone feel like, wow, those guys have a full shop. They have a team that actually know how to work on X, Y, and Z brand.

[00:10:35.320]
All of that are pieces of journey that you can take the customer into to help create this conversion that you need. Another component is We talk about how do you go about distributing and promoting those videos. But there are a lot of different channels. Your audience by now better. You heard me say that all the time, the 3M’s and most businesses. Once you determine your market, which is your target audience, really the next big piece for you component on this is the message. How do you distribute that message? How do you get a message that resonate with them? And then the last piece is the media, which is the medium, the channels, that message going to resonate with them, where they are located to give that message. And that’s where distribution and promoting that video come from. So you create a fantastic video that really resonate with your clientele with the right message, then the next step is, how do you make sure that message get to the right people from the right angle? So that’s where your channels, where that video need to be posted on YouTube, posted on your social media, posting on your website, and possibly even added to a newsletter so people can actually click and watch it eventually.

[00:11:55.730]
You need to ensure that video get to the right audience. And once you get to the right audience, then the game is over. It’s just you collecting praise and leads and possibly more sales. That is why it’s so important to understand your customers and also understand the message in that way with them, but also understand where they hang out. So leverage, take advantage of social media platforms. Make sure your video is fully optimized, especially for SEO. Make sure you distribute that to those different channels that’s available to you, from YouTube LinkedIn, Meta, which basically both Facebook and Instagram, Twitter, all of these different channels, you can push content, get that out there, but also collaborate with other industry influencer. So get engaged with them, share their content, but also ask them to share your content as well if needed, and possibly even use those videos to even run your own ads. We talk about how you get those content distributed and how you can expand your video reach by generating buzz within the marine industry. But now we’re going to talk about how does one go about helping get someone else to help you? There are lots of other ways to get other people to help you creating more content.

[00:13:17.020]
For us here at Boot Marketing Boards, we help boot dealers and boot manufacturers develop a clear plan on how we execute content production from your and the one that we will create for you as well. Because there’s a lot of things that going on in the company day in, day out. Actually, if you had the time, you probably would have four, five, seven, eight videos a day from your company, different things the team does. And from how they’re closing a lead, how they’re closing a sales, to how they’re working in the back, repower a motor, for example, washing a new boat or receiving a new piece of inventory, we load that, all of that video content that we can use to get your brand, your name, and get people to feel like they engage with your business. So optimize those business to create a strategy using this type of video content strategy as part of your tactic to bring in more customers to learn more about your business and eventually become clientele. There are tons of to produce videos, and this is just the tip-up aspect we talk about here. There are a ton of different tools now that allow you to actually quickly create a video and get this edited.

[00:14:42.820]
And the possibility is unlimited. So don’t be limited to not having good equipment. Your phone camera is good enough to shoot some very, very good video. So as we saw toward the end of this episode, so remember the importance and the huge value video marketing has to the marine industry can be very, very impactful if you do it right. So your potential customer attention and building trust to the customer journey, I believe video is and will be forced to be working with. And you should incorporate that within your marketing strategy so that you can make a lasting impact on this potential customer, eventually customer. And where’s this possibility? So again, what I would suggest is make it part of the culture, make it part of your team effort so people can shoot videos, and sometime you have one person to actually help put them together and maybe work with a marketing company like us who can take those different pieces of footage and then piece them together for you and create something that can be very useful and bring more people in. All right, this is a wrap for us. Thank you so much for joining us in this boot marketing podcast today.

[00:16:01.650]
And this Boat Marketing Podcast today and the place for all digital marketing tips tailored to the marine industry. And if you need more of that, visit us at boatmarketingpros.com. And don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast wherever you receive your podcast at. We are sending it to all the different channels. If you have any questions about any feature episodes and topics that you would like to see or comments you want to send over to us, please email us at podcast@boatmarketing.com. Would love to hear from you. Until then, my friend. Smooth sailing, and see you. Peace.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Marine Marketing Podcast. If you have any questions, send them to media@boatmarketingpros.com. For additional resources, visit boatmarketingpros.com/resources

Welcome to the Marine Marketing Podcast, where we cover marketing and website topics for the marine industry. While you’re listening, subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any future episodes. And now here’s your host, Harry Casimir.

[00:00:17.60] – Harry
Hey. Welcome back to another episode of Marine Marketing Podcast, your trusted source for navigating the digital world in the current marine industry. I’m your host, Harry Casimir, CEO of Boat Marketing Pros. You guys know Boat Marketing Pros is a digital marketing agency located in Florida. We help marine businesses take more leads, get more sales, and go to the next level. Today, we have an exceptional team members from our own company parent agency, Atilus. So this episode is Planning and Managing your Online Presence, and our guest today is Valerie Baker. She is the project manager and account manager at Atilus and Boat Marketing Pros. She helps clients navigate and stay relevant on the web. So today, we have the pleasure to have Valerie with us, and she has lots of insight to share with us, and I cannot wait. So, Valerie, I happen to call her Val internally. So a lot of times, you will probably hear me say Val. Thank you so much for joining me today. Please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you.

[00:01:42.00] – Val
Of course. Thanks, Harry. I’m excited to be part of this episode of the podcast. I’ve been with Atilus and BMP for almost seven years. So I have a lot of digital experience. Here and excited to give some insight for all of the marine businesses out there.

[00:02:00.00] – Harry
Valerie is overseeing our clients’ digital marketing presence, whether you are a boat dealer, manufacturer, or club. And some of you guys who are listening to this, have already been working with her. Again, thanks, for joining me. We are going to dive right into digital marketing and web presence. How do you stay relevant online from a planning and managing perspective? So this is where we kick off here. So, Val, in your role overseeing clients’ accounts and managing accounts and managing projects because you’re overseeing the team as well. How crucial is a solid online strategy for our clients to succeed?

[00:02:44.90] – Valerie
Yeah. So a digital strategy really can make or break a business. Having a strong digital strategy let’s you go from the top to the bottom, and everyone knows exactly what you need to do and how we’re going to execute on everything without a solid strategy you’re just gonna be flopping in the wind and not sure where you’re gonna go. A weak sail doesn’t go very fast.

[00:03:12.59] – Harry
Good point. And it’s very interesting you touched on that. I feel like It’s a cliche, but if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. And yep, it goes the same way from a marketing perspective. Now often what we have seen is client come to us, and they don’t really have a clear marketing plan to go to market. So they come in, we just have if you where you spot here or a billboard there or we have a website that was built in eighteen hundreds. So all of that oftentimes, some businesses consider that as a plan to stay relevant. Can you add to why and how should a company go about changing the perception and change the mindset of not having a clear plan to maintain web presence and be competitive.

[00:04:14.59] – Valerie
Yes. The first part really is to have a strong website, something that outlines your services and where you’re located, All of the information on how someone can contact you is really the first pillar and stepping stone for any good strategy. And then you can get into the digital marketing, whether it be Google PPC or Bing or, local SEO, so showing up on Google when someone’s looking, for you on the map. And then organic social media is typically the next step, and creating blog post as well. So there’s a lot of little steps, but starting off with a strong website that has enough Content and is updated regularly is really that first pillar.

[00:05:02.10] – Harry
That’s awesome. It’s funny that you talk about website as a very key pillar. So let’s dive into it a little bit when it comes to website because website, it’s obviously it’s the storefront of almost any business nowadays. And, a few of my videos, I even state that website is probably one of the cheapest, best employee you can have at your company. Even better than the owner sometimes or the president because they stayed up twenty four seven, and they don’t really complain much, unless, of course, you don’t take care of them and this is the different take. Right? How do you ensure your website itself regardless of what industry you are in? How do you ensure it is optimized? And to what extent you optimize it and why it’s important.

[00:06:03.30] – Valerie
Yeah. So there’s a lot of different pieces there. First looks are always important. So you wanna start off with a clean, easy design with a clear call to action at the very top, as well as some eye grabbing something, like, along those lines to draw the users in, and then you need to highlight your services. So, regardless of what industry you’re in, you’re gonna have some kind of service or some kind of product, and that needs to be front and center. So whether you’re a boat dealer, you wanna show some of your inventory, or if you also do repairs, you can highlight your service department, Something like that. Just wanna make sure that it’s all there front and center. When someone loads on the website, they know exactly where to go.

[00:06:51.39] – Harry
That’s awesome. And, yeah, if I could add to what you said, one of the things I often see in a website, if you think of it, it’s your business. Right? And oftentimes, that’s the only interaction they will have with you. And yep well you have to make that first impression. When they get to this website, the website got to load fast. You have to present the information that’s relevant to them and get them to what they need.

[00:07:21.39] – Valerie
Exactly.

[00:07:23.69] – Harry
Yeah. So if I could add also one of the thing why you want your website to be updated, I have this conversation with a colleague of mine yesterday, actually, because your website is optimized once it’s optimized properly, it’s indexed by search engines Google, Bing, and many other one, but we’re gonna stick with Google for now. And Google is in the business to get people to the destination they want to go to. Meaning that if someone search on Google for best Fishing boat or spot boat for Gulf of Mexico, for example. If you are ranking for that specific keyword And Google send that user to that specific keyword to that specific landing page of yours, and that user bounce back out because the website is too slow or the content is not relevant.

[00:08:18.30] – Harry
Or for whatever reason, Google will slowly start tagging you out. This is why it’s so important to optimize your website, not just it, for the content, for the information. So can you speak to Val in terms of when it comes to some of the key things like that. Search engines look for when you optimize your website in the down layer that most end user don’t understand and and really for all of us, we don’t really care. We just need it to work. How does that affect your ranking in Google and a long term standing and search engine result page as well. Can you expand on that a little bit?

[00:09:01.39] – Valerie
Yeah. Optimizing your website is, as you said, extremely important. So speed is one factor that needs to be considered, but also, like you said, Content and having a clear direction of where users supposed to go when they land on your website. It’s important. So if they want to contact you, is your contact information easily accessible? Is your phone number in the header? Is there a big contact us button? And as well as adding content to your website regularly. So adding blogs or if you do any kind of events, adding those on your website also helps Google realize, hey, this website’s not just stagnant. It’s actively being worked and people are updating it. It’s a relevant business.

[00:09:46.79] – Harry
That’s awesome. Now, that’s very interesting you say that in terms of it. Regularly updating your website is part of the optimization. It’s very interesting, shifting gear here a little bit, but in the same line of getting a clear plan and managing your online presence to stay relevant and competitive, looking at social media from that aspect, there’s lots of possibilities and lots of opportunities for almost any marine businesses that take social media serious, they can see a very big uptick both in engagement and possibly even customer loyalty. It. Can you speak to how the marine business in general can navigate through the water of social media and eventually create a meaningful connection, a truly engaged connection with the audience, with the target market.

[00:10:45.10] – Valerie
Yeah. So there’s multiple approaches that you can do with social media, but the first and foremost is posting. A lot of businesses don’t do it. Start posting because they’re afraid or they’re just like, oh, social media is not that important, that kind of stuff. But starting to post, get your name out there, start gaining a little bit of traction, and then actually respond to people when they comment on your post is a great way to start building that community. Instagram and Facebook are great places to have little mini conversations with people in comment sections, and sometimes that evolves into, a direct message or a DM, and then you can continue the conversation there, and then, eventually, it could turn into a paying customer. Someone that actively visits your business or comes in, becomes, a club member, for example, something like that. That’s happened to us on multiple occasions with some of our clients. So you can create different buckets of things that you yourself are inspired to create. So whether it be a video of you out on the water or it could be you taking a photo of yourself at an event, something like that. And then post that stuff on social media for one month, three months, whatever, and see what resonates with your audience the most. It. You don’t want to just create the content that you think your audience wants. You want to create the content that your audience needs.

[00:12:21.79] – Harry
Exactly. And one of the things if I could add a couple of things that I would highly recommend that you do as a business owner, director of marketing manager, or coordinator, whatever position that you have, if it’s related to. When it come to social media marketing, you cannot really go wrong. Don’t be afraid. There are three things that you need to do maybe plan it out a little bit. So have a plan on when you’re gonna post and where you’re gonna post. So decide which platform you’re gonna concentrate on. Right? So whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, focus on those that you can maximize. Again, depending on the audience that you are in because the audience that you are targeting for a boat dealer, it might be a little bit different than the audience you are targeting for a boat rental place. So those are two different business model, different segment of market. So you want to understand the consumer behavior for your specific credit goal. Once you do that then you determine, okay. I will try to post every Monday, Wednesday, maybe Friday. And these are content that, as Valerie said, those content are not necessarily have to be, like, super fancy content. It. just take your phone out, take pictures underwater, take pictures of your team members fixing, an engine, walking on the yard. So there’s a lot of different piece of content you can provide. And, actually, if anything, we highly recommend that you don’t try to sell your audience Right on your social media itself. Nobody wake up in the morning and said, let me log in to Facebook, go buy something. They log in to watch how many cat videos in there, and then maybe end up lacking your video enough and eventually come to you. An Although Google and Automata, Facebook and Instagram, they really push for professional profile and business profile, But you get more bangs for your bucks if you are using your personal profile, which is very interesting and weird. So you want to actually capitalize on content, like, You can post both on your social media, personal social media, and on the business so you can bring those people on. So to recap, When it comes to social media, one, determine what channels you’re gonna you will submit those information. Two, an Stick to a schedule. Consistency and frequency is extremely important in social media. And three, and possibly even most importantly, If you do not have the bandwidth, the desire, and the capacity slash resources to do this yourself, it. Find someone to help you. For us here at both marketing boards, we help many of our clients where we manage All of the social media aspects, which means that, basically, the picture you take you don’t want to post, you send it to us. We write the caption. We write the content for you. Sometime we even Depending where you are, we put some of your team members to to send us those content. And there are plenty of content we can actually generate ourselves on your behalf Because, again, we understand this industry. So I wanted to share that on social media as well. Thank you, Raul. If you want to add anything To that point, just go ahead.

[00:15:53.20] – Valerie
Yeah. Not really much else else to add. Just make the content that you want to make and not necessarily what you think everyone wants to see from you.

[00:16:03.00] – Harry
That’s awesome. It. And one last thing I will add, content that you post on social media today as we speak, Google as a search engine not going to Find your post on Facebook and present it to the world. That’s not going to happen, at least not right now. However, And although this is not something they admit, but I suspect that’s something that they looked at as a signal that states to Google or Google looked at How if you post social media posts on those social media platforms and you’re regularly keeping your website fresh, you’re regularly providing educational Content, whether it’s blog posts or, even a podcast, maybe videos. All of those are different signals that it. Tell Google and search engines that you are active and you mean business, and that give you authority, and authority will become More and more important. Now with the advance of AI, which we’re gonna touch base on very quick, I I think social media will continue to Your original content, very unique content will continue to dominate and become a bigger piece of your overall marketing strategy. It. Now I know we talk about digital planning and managing web presence. We talk about an How to optimize your website to ensure it’s performed to the max. And we briefly talk about social media, How it play big role within your overall marketing strategy when it comes to online. But the bigger piece here, if you think about it, whether you have a website, social media content, whether it’s pictures, text, Creating video, creating PR piece, all of that come to one thing is basically creating content. Content is extremely important for almost everything that you do. So, Valerie, can you break it down for us And tell us what content you find that’s most relevant to specific especially, boating Industry, and I know we’re talking very bored here. The marine industry has a lot of different verticals, whether it’s boat dealers or boat manufacturers, boat rental and clubs, And so forth. So, obviously, the different audience will have to pick. But can you tell us, like, some of the content that you see that’s most resonating With some of the target audience, for example, wood dealers and the boat clubs and boat manufacturers.

[00:18:41.70] – Valerie
Yeah. So content is really how you speak to your audience. So having a unified voice it. In having a unified message is really important. So taking that from your brand values or any of the other, Like, high level things and breaking it down into the content that you’re putting out every day, whether it be on social media, in blog posts, anything like that. It. But having a clearly defined voice is going to help users know you as a business and also recognize you from the crowd. So if you’re saying the same things that Billy Bob down the road is saying, then there’s not really a much of a differentiator there. But if you’re clear and focused in your message, that content’s gonna shine through all of the other noise.

[00:19:33.29] – Harry
Well said. I mean, I agree. It is very different from just content out there versus having a well thought out resonating message that your target audience an We’ll resonate with for those of you guys that Exactly. That listen to some of my videos and podcasts before, There are five comp key component in when it comes to business. It’s almost like the intro and the outro, and then there’s the middle piece, which I call the three m’s. Once you figured out what is it that you want to sell, the next big thing is the three m’s, which is the first m is the market, which is target audience, an Who are they? What demographic? What’s the makeup of that avatar? Some people call it avatar, target audience, ideal customers, but You name it. At the end of the days, what is the target market that I have? That’s the first m. The second m is the message. Right? An How do you create a message or how you develop a message that resonate with your target market or your ideal customers? It. Because the way you speak with a doctor or a lawyer might be a little bit different in how you speak with Someone that’s doing something completely different. So you have to understand your customers. And sometimes it’s not even that, the way you speak with a A customer may be a doctor in New York who might be different how you address a doctor in in Miami because of, it. Again, sometimes it’s it’s understanding your market is super crucial. That has nothing to do with sometime with risk. It has nothing to do with that. It doesn’t have to do with risk or even demographic, but understanding where that customer come from is what’s so critical. Yep. And the last piece, which is the last m, is the media medium, which means where do I find my target audience and deliver that message to them. So all of that, when you kinda break it down to content, It’s super critical for you to understand how you’re gonna craft those content to tell your brand story. Go ahead, Val.

[00:21:42.00] – Valerie
Yep. And that’s how that ties right back into digital strategy, so that’s part of everything that we do.

[00:21:49.20] – Harry
That’s awesome. Thank you. So I guess let’s dive even further in terms of how critical is it? We are shifting gear right now and talking about more and in terms of Reputation and reviews because this is becoming and more and more relevant, especially for brick and mortar businesses. It. Most of the search engines the company that’s in the map business, like, it’s Google, Apple, and you name it. It’s becoming so important that you have to be there. So can you Yeah. Break down and tell us a little bit about how do you go about making sure you have a good reputation slash review online, and how do you maintain that?

[00:22:33.90] – Valerie
Yeah. So Maintaining your reputation online is mostly reputation management. So you want to make sure that people are leaving reviews. One, that’s all always the first hurdle that we face with a lot of our clients is getting that very first review. It. And then once someone does review, it’s responding quickly, thanking them for leaving that review. If it’s less than a four star or even, like, three and a half star. We reach out to the customer, that left a review directly and see how we can make that right. Sometimes you’re never going to please everyone, but sometimes a simple, it. Hey. Sorry, Jan. We know that you didn’t have a very good experience. Is there anything that we can do to help you? It. And then sometimes that could turn that around. People have updated their reviews after the fact for a higher score. It. And then sometimes there’s nothing you can do, but you can, as a business, respond to those reviews publicly, and people can see that, hey. Just been a bad egg, but the business handled it professionally.

[00:23:43.59] – Harry
And how does one go about Managing those reviews, do you have someone in the team that manage this an In house or a company. Oh, that how does that work?

[00:23:58.79] – Valerie
Yeah. Or to compose takes care of a responding to reviews for a lot of our clients. That’s one of the services that we offer within the local SEO package that we have. But if you don’t have an agency like us to take care of that for you, claiming your Google My Business profile is, a big step to actually being able to review or respond to those reviews. And then designate someone it. To go in once a month, once a week, depending on how frequently you get reviews to respond. If reviews are sitting there left Unresponded for months on end, sometimes years. That doesn’t give a very good credible look to someone that may be searching your business on the map.

[00:24:45.09] – Harry
That’s awesome. And if I could add to that, one of the thing that I have seen over and over is the review process, and it’s it it. Seem like most businesses are not baking in and really account for those reviews how critical they are. And I know Google Yep. Really pushing this, and it’s becoming super critical for a local business. So what I would highly recommend, If you have not done any reviews as Val said, the first step I would highly recommend you do is make sure you claim your business a profile. It’s free. You don’t have to pay for it. Just do that. Claim it. If you search for your business right now on Google, there is a good chance it is there, And it may not be cleansed yet. So grab it, and you might have to go to verification process. And, I believe there’s plenty of videos that you can find on how to get that going, but make sure you get that done. Claim your business profile. Second thing you want to do, make sure it’s been updated. It’s because your business profile claiming it alone is not enough. You actually have to maintain it, update it. It. So there is something called NAB, which is name, address, and phone number. Those are the basic fundamental things that you want to make sure You have on your business information, and make sure that information is consistent across the board. But within Google itself, it asks you what category of business you belong to. So make sure the business that you are well known for or very relevant for is that business that’s the number one categories. You can provide multiple services, but make sure the categories that you select first is the one you want to get ranking or get a client for or you are well known for. That’s very critical. And then once you have that, it’s making sure, as Valerie mentioned, have a consistent plan in place Or someone to ensure that they check your reviews, make sure none of them will fall to the crack. Because if you don’t check that, it. Then, again, you just don’t maintain it. If you don’t maintain it, Google doesn’t really pay attention to you as well. So it’s very critical to To ensure you maintain your Google Business Profile to get your reviews going. One last thing I would mention It’s automated the process. There are softwares out there, not to mention specific one because there are too many of them. But there’s plenty of software that you can actually a Fairly automate that process so that after someone gets service from your company, one of the service managers or sales it. People can simply go on your CRM, say, this person is happy with the service, and that there’s an automatic email that an Drip down. Let’s send an e an email to that person, say, hey, Bob. Thank you so much for stopping by. Can you please review us? And The system will know whether Bob clicked on that link or not. And until Bob is clicking or we’ve or submit a review, an That system can automatically send reminder for Bob to come back and give you a review. Actually, they can be email, an Phone call, sign in phone call, voice mail, or text messages. So there’s lots of way to get reviews, and those are very easy hanging fruits, it. If you may, for you to get ranking on your local maps, local search engine results. So I thought I would share that tip. Anything else you want

[00:28:17.20] – Valerie
Yep. Oh, I think you covered it all.

[00:28:20.90] – Harry
That’s perfect. So I cannot believe we’re almost in the top of half of the hour here. But can you tell us little bit about both marketing pros, what your role, and how do you assist client in general to With the digital slash online voyage, how do you help them navigate All that online water that that’s just too much sometimes for some people.

[00:28:51.00] – Valerie
Yeah. It’s a vast, vast a world out there on in digital marketing world. But at Boat Marketing Pros, I am the account manager and project manager. It. So I’m on both ends. So I’m front facing with a lot of clients as well as our other account coordinators, helping them come up with strategies it. For our other clients that I may not directly manage, but it’s a full team effort here. Everyone has, their hand in all of the projects As well as making sure that everyone on the production team is doing what they need to. We’re strategizing frequently, making sure that it. The little pieces that you may not know need to happen as a client are getting done. So to help your business online it. Navigate that water as Harry said, and make sure that we’re helping you get the leads that you need, it. Getting your message out there, getting all of the social media posts out there, everything that needs to get done for your business to really grow and shine an And the web is getting done.

[00:30:00.50] – Harry
Awesome. Thank you, Val. I cannot believe the time flew by, I guess, when you’re having fun, time flies. So as we set sail toward the conclusion of this episode, My friend, remember, planning and managing your online presence is extremely critical, and it is not Some additional work or a most do deal, it is the opportunity that’s you’ve been waiting for. It. I have never seen so many opportunities, although there are challenges obviously in business. And no matter where you are, there will always be challenges. But those challenges oftentimes have opportunity that’s come behind them. So if posting, updating your website is a challenge to you, it. Maybe that’s where the opportunity is as well. So maybe it’s time for you to find someone or a marketing agency like us That can help you navigate and go to the next level. So with that, with great insight from Valerie, it. And thank you so much, Val, for sharing your expertise and share with us how we can plan and navigate this vast water of an Online marketing stuff. So is there any last parting word, anything else you want to share with the audience before we we conclude here?

[00:31:21.40] – Valerie
No. Just that the digital waters are easily navigable when you have someone by your side that knows what they’re doing. So thanks, Harry. Appreciate it.

[00:31:30.40] – Harry
Awesome. Thank you, Valerie, for sharing your expertise to this today with us. And to our listeners, thank you so much, guys, for Sticking around, listen to us, sharing some tips and post and how to navigate the the water world of digital. And as I always said, if you an Ever have questions, comments, and you have certain topics you would love for us to cover, feel free to email us it. At podcast at book marketing post dot com. And we have lots of resources as well on our own website, book marketing post dot com slash resources. We have unlimited information here. All of it is free. Just go ahead and feel free to help yourself. So before we go, don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast, and you can find us all the places that Podcasts are syndicating, whether it’s Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify and all other places. You can also find us on our website so to see all the past episode. So thank you so much again for sticking with us. Until next time. Your online presence shine brightly through the horizon. Thank you, my friend. Later.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Marine Marketing Podcast. If you have any questions, send them to media@boatmarketingpros.com. For additional resources, visit boatmarketingpros.com/resources/

Harry Casimir

Hello, and welcome to the Boat Marketing Podcast, your go to source for insight, strategies in the world of digital marketing for the boating industry. I’m Harry Casimir, Founder of Boat Marketing Pros, and I will be your host.

For this episode, whether you’re a Boat Manufacturer or Boat Dealer, we are here to help you navigate the world of digital marketing landscape and drive success to your boarding business. So let’s dive into this episode where we will explore the off season digital marketing strategies specifically tailored for both manufacturer and some of the things that you can do to make sure whether you are off season or right in the season, you are taking advantage of that. Let’s dive right in.

As the off season approaching and many of you guys already in season, depending on where you are, especially in the United States, obviously, the country divided possibly in, like, three different season to some degree. So it depends where you are. Most people in the Southeast Coast of the United States, specifically Florida, they usually have all season unless there is hurricane or bad weather. But for the most part, They usually don’t have off season, but most of the rest of the country do have winter and all the different weather changes that make in off season truly off season where you guys don’t do it a lot when it come to boarding unless it has to do with Ensign.

As the off season are approaching, how do boat manufacturers handle this? Boat manufacturers face a very unique challenge in maintaining momentum and making sure their brand, their new model, all the order elements that come with getting their visibility out there, building trust. It’s very challenging because there is possibly less boat show, less footage where do you usually stay at? In this episode, we will discuss effective digital marketing strategy that can help Boat manufacturers make the most out of the off season and keep their branding, their visibility right in of the potential customers. So off season provide a unique opportunity for boat manufacturer to to audit, optimize, and relaunch their marketing efforts, that can also help strengthening your branding to online presence in different channels. So we’re gonna explore some of the key strategies that you as a boat manufacturer, some of the efforts you can take to ensure you can achieve some of the achievement and leverage some of the tools in digital marketing strategy that’s available to you to ensure your brand continue to flourish even during the off season.

So the first thing is leveraging Social Media Platforms. I start with social media because it’s become so relevant and so important in a day to day, operations from a business perspective and branding and marketing, you can’t ignore it. You may not subscribe to it. You may not love it, but it is one of those necessary evil in business. That’s where consumers are. Most of boat owners are the in the age of thirty to, you know, sixty, or seventies. And if you looked at the average Facebook user, they are above fifty. So the what that tells you is that you may not be in social media or actively in social media, but your potential customers are there. So, surely, the platforms, we look at it as if it’s truly powerful tools that manufacturer can use to Do a lot of different things, including showcasing the latest models. And that’s probably one of the easiest and fastest way to launch and get a brand new model tested by the consumer, get opinion on it. That’s the easiest way to engage with your potential customers and give them a taste slash behind the scene of what this looks like. And through all that, start building brand loyalty. Now brand loyalty can be built in lots of different ways, but I think social media can play a big component of your overall brand loyalty building strategy. So Let’s dive into, like, how do you effectively use those different platforms to making sure that you Stay engaged, creating compelling content, establishing the brand. So the first thing we looked at when we take into account and work with other manufacturers is to ensure that if you already have an online presence To those different social media platforms, whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and, obviously, TikTok could be another one. You need to look at all those different platforms. If you already have the account, what you want to do first is do an audit of your existing social media presence. That’s very, very critical to do. So Based on that audit, there are a lot of different tools that you can use to do this audit. Once you create that audit, You can easily see some of the gaps where you are missing content or content that performed very, very well. Now from there, you can start creating contents that people like the most. Most of the social media at the moment do have complete analytic tools in the back, So you can actually go in, look at the different data points in terms of what type of content people engage with the most, What time does content wear consume the most, and what’s the engagement level looks like? What are the comments looks like? How How many people that like this? So you can actually build based on just using what the social media platforms already give you from a reporting perspective. So there’s a lot you can do. So if you have not claimed your social media platform profile for your business, This is the time to do so right now. It’s very straightforward. Most of those platforms do require you to associate that account With a personal account, so Meta, which is Facebook and Instagram, you do have to have someone logged in. And this is I would highly, highly recommend as a boat manufacturer that you own this account, not the marketing agency that you work with. If the marketing agency create this account for you. Make sure you have ownership access to it. Once you create that account, there are many, many tools that you can use Such as SocialPilot, Hootsuite, a ton of many more that you can use to clean your company’s social media for you. And the reason you want to do that is you’re probably very, very busy. You don’t have the time to handle this on a day in, day out. Maybe you take a Sunday or maybe you have a dedicated team member that actually handle social media. Even that, You might want to use one of those tools to schedule the content creation. Leverage social media platforms to get engagement, build your loyalty, get more visibility for your manufacturer brand out there so that people can See, hear, feel you all the time, and social media is one of them.

The second one is crafting engaging content both external use, internal use, and the social media, and you will see how all of that tie in. So creating engaging content is so crucial, and we all know the story that is well told is the story that is well stood and oftentimes remembered. So the better your content is crafted, the easier the reader can understand it, the better you are able to get that message across. And, oftentimes, this content we’re talking about here couldn’t be how you create the message around your brand. If you look at some of my other podcasts and videos, I talk a lot about the three fundamental m’s in most businesses. You have the first M, which is the Market. Who is your target audience? Once you determine that, then you move to the Message. What kind of message that resonate with your current target market, and the third one is the Media, which is the third M. So How do we go about finding where to feed our target audience that message that will resonate with them? This is where the content comes to play in terms of the messaging. Different type of content such is the key. You want to Create a variety of content that really can help the user digest the type of content you want. Hey, you’re serving two different masters here when you create content. So one, obviously, the user, you have to keep it in mind that And when I say user, I’m looking at consumers. Someone that visit your website, that go to your social media platform, that want to understand more about your brand, The models that you’re pulling out, you have a lots of different type of content you can create, but some of the most effective one that we found and Is number one is video. Video will continue to be an effective tools from a marketing perspective, branding, and you name it, Put video next to it, and it it fit. So the other piece is blog post. Now you might say, well, everybody’s writing blog posts. No one have the time for it. Well, blogs blog post is is very, very important in that The tip and how it’s been written. I agree that as of late, it’s kind of everybody has a blog. But the key here, though, is to write effective content that tells a story that draw the reader to your content To stay longer. And what search engines draw from that is if people stay on your content, on your web page, on your website, Then there must be something that they really like. And if there is something they really like, then they want to push more people that search for that keywords to go to that content. And the better your content is, the better ranking you can get. Obviously, there is a lot of factors involved in that in terms of How well the web page is optimized, the website is optimized, the slowness of it. There’s a lot of little detail, but focus on create quality, good content when it come to blog posts. And, obviously, visually appealing imagery that captivate the audience, the your target market’s imagination. Make them feel like they are part of this or inside of that boat that you want to showcase. So really effectively showcasing the different models, the different methods to use those models that you have, All that are key importance of content. So when we talk about content, we’re not just talking about right pieces of content. We’re talking about video creation, imagery and so forth. And all of that can easily evoke the emotion associated with boating itself that makes people feel good. That make people feel they want to associate with this brand. Those content you create, not just content that in whole bringing someone to your website, but this content should evoke someone’s emotion To take action to make them feel they need to be part of this. Those captivating content, those engaging content Can captivate your audience and differentiate your brand from everyday competitors that you have in the marketplace.

The third piece is enhancing user experience on your website. Your website is basically, your showroom for your boat manufacturing business. If you have listened to any of my previous podcasts and videos, I say this often, your website is probably one of the best employee in your team, Even better than yourselves. I’m sorry to say that. Because it is available twenty four seven, doesn’t really complain much as long as you keep it up to date. What that means is often What you want to do in audit of your website, a full audit, there are tons and tons of tools out there, SEMrush, Ahrefs, Ubersuggest. There’s a lot of different tools out there you can use to create an audit for your website. Once you get this audit, it will tells you a lot of different things that are wrong with your website. So if you fix one of them, there could be many thing that get fixed. But many of those issues are things that can impact the user experience on your website, the potential customers, the person that’s actually love your brand. So you want to Make sure you update those type of content, type of information to make sure the website is always optimized. And part of that, when we talk about optimizing website, it’s not just about good content, but we’re looking at from the navigation of the website to how fast it loads, is the content easy to understand? Is it easy to click from one link to the next link to the next page to the footer to all the different logos imagery on that website? Are the images are too large? Are those videos are too large? Are this video hosted directly on the website? Are they hosted in third party such as YouTube or other places? All of that has to be accounted for when you build your website because those are very, very important things that can affect the user experience, hence, The user leave your website very quick. So focus on the user experience from how your website look like, Very clean, very nice navigation, no ambiguity. We move all things that can make it difficult for the end user to get to the information they need. Give them clear call to action on your website. Our take here is on the website we build, On the home page, there has to be at least the minimum is five call to actions. Those five call to actions varied from Call now, book now, reserve now, buy now, or schedule a call now. All of that or different call to actions to make the user take an action, and that’s part of optimizing your website to increase Your visitor engagement boost conversions and establish choice for your brand because a user can understand The content feel relatable to your content, and when they come to your website, it’s very easy to navigate. That, my friend, is a trust factor that you start from there, and the rest of it will be up to your production line.

So we’re gonna go over the fourth thing that you want to look at when it comes to off season is Search Engine Optimization, you might heard of it as SEO. SEO Is the result of being seen making sure you are seeing on all the search engine result so that when someone search for keywords or your company’s name, your services, or product that you are selling, they are able to find you so that you can attract organic traffic and reach more potential customer eventually. As a boat manufacturer, you want to include SEO as part of your marketing strategy overall. Now there are a lot of different marketing strategy you can apply, obviously, when you look at SEO, it’s one of those that doesn’t really come overnight. It takes time. It takes lots of knowledge. It require good content, good backlinking citations, good updates across all the different directories. It includes how you structure the content and whether you are a local company, national or global company. So all of that, they have to play big role In terms of how the content is presented, how you optimize your website. So that is why it’s so critical to ensure that The type of content you put on your website and how that content will lead to SEO will play a big effect on your website. For us, we break SEO into three key categories. The first one is technical SEO. Technical SEO is the methods of Making sure everything inside your website is aligned and meet the basic technical requirements, The basic standard for search engines to index your website, to make sure the website got proper speed, The hosting is not lacking. The templates that build your website is making sure it doesn’t have all those bloated software to slow you down. Those are key technical pieces on the SEO, including schema tags and different linkage within your website. The other component we look at into SEO is local maps SEO. And that’s basically include Citation, different directory submission that included. In addition to Google business profile, Microsoft, Bing, places for business, they changed their name every chance they have, so hard to keep up. And then now, which become very, very prevalent for businesses is Apple Business Directory Connect, I believe. That’s the name. So all of those different directories, all the information need to be accounted for when it come to local SEO, and we will see Well, as a manufacturer, you might say, well, I’m global, OEM. I don’t really need I can push this to the dealer channel. Well, when you build your brand, it’s very critical to build your brand, and the dealer that’s here today may not be They’re tomorrow. So you want to build your brand and feed the dealer when you can, if you can, and they will appreciate it. But it’s very critical as a manufacturer to build your own brand from an SEO perspective. And by implementing those different best practice can really help you. The third piece on the SEO we looked at is organic SEO. So this is the piece where We looked at a full content strategy in terms of the type of content we will create, how we’ll create it, where we’ll distribute it, and overall, How each of the different components play a bigger role on your overall web presence to ensure that you are seen by everyone. So by implementing SEO best practices and those looking at those different staging in SEO, You can easily improve your website visibility, your online visibility, increase organic traffic to your website, to your brand, and really bring more leads to your business slash the dealers that you serve and work with. Fifth thing we looked at is digital Marketing advertising campaign. When you are off season, again, one of the things that died off a little bit, maybe there’s no board shows And you don’t have a true channel to have to put up any events by yourself easily. But one of the advantage you have to stay In front of your potential customers is possibly pay per click, what we call PBC, and for the different channels In terms of display ads, we look at digital advertising as a very powerful tool that can help you as a boat manufacturer to reach Your target audience and generating more awareness and interest on your brand, the different models that you carry, Especially the newer model that you are bringing in. So digital marketing, pay per click specifically, is one of the key piece that can help you accomplish that. There are a lot of different channels that you can use to create those different Pay-per-click advertising. So whether it’s Google advertising, Bing advertising, obviously, Social media have their own version of paid advertising as well, and each one of them can be effectively Bring in more awareness to your brand and create more loyalty. And, eventually, when the season is off, Those people that have been seeing your ad, heard of you, when they visit those brochure, they already know who you are, And and that’s the type of customer that you want to bring in. It is crucial to understand that those digital marketing aspect, those ads, A really built for you to target your audience.

The other piece we looked at is Influencer Marketing for your brand. This one is a little bit trickier because, obviously, you want to associate your brand with the right person and people. And this is Something that I see that can work extremely well if the owner or director of marketing or someone within the company It’s extremely well known within the boarding industry, and they have a a voice. It’s very easy to amplify your brand through that. And what I mean by so is as a manufacturer, there’s a good chance you are building when you bought new models all the time. Who’s better to tell the story of that model, that brand, than someone that actually worked for you? So my suggestion is to use The power of influencer marketing to really get your team out there to explore how to identify and collaborate With that person in house, sometimes it’s not that easy, and you might have to go outside your company, work with someone within the bullying industry that already have a clout and that already have a very good audience, but making sure that partnership is truly authentic. Right? You have someone that represent your brand and that’s someone you are proud of to work with because there’s a fine line between Someone that can execute and someone that can become more work for you at the end. So by utilizing influencer marketing, Someone that represent your brand, talk about your brand, and push your brand, it really can tap into a new audience that you may have not been able to tap into who are hired to tap into an influencer. And, again, influencer can be come on all sizes ship, if you may. So it’s critical to understand what is it that you want to accomplish and whether that influencer is within your target Audience market, spear. Right? So you want that to work for you as well. And that’s where I brought Our discussion on off season digital marketing strategy for boat manufacturers. As you guys can see, There are lots of little moving pieces into creating a true marketing strategy for off season. But as we discussed, if you really looked at how you can leverage social media, creative content, optimize your website, implementing a proper SEO technique strategy, and take a look at ad pay advertising and influencer marketing, all of that combined and part of can make a significant impact On your brand’s visibility, generating more leads, more interest, more loyalty, And more awareness of your brand during the off season so that when the season comes, boom, people are really aware of you.

Alright. It’s a wrap for us here. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode. If you find this information valuable to you, please don’t forget to subscribe and share with, someone that you think that could use some of those information to help their boating business go to the next level. In addition to that, don’t forget to visit our website at boatmarketingpros.com/podcast. We have lots of information from white papers to books and other information that can help you propel and take your business to the next level. We would love to hear from you and if you have any questions, or suggestions for future episodes, feel free to reach out at podcast@boardmarketingboards.com. Until next time, happy boating and see you around, guys.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Marine Marketing Podcast. If you have any questions, send them to media@boatmarketingpros.com. For additional resources, visit boatmarketingpros.com/resources.

Harry Casimir

Hey guys. Welcome to the Boat Marketing Podcast. The go-to resource for boat dealers, boat clubs, and other marine businesses that are looking to use digital marketing as an avenue to take their business to the next level. I’m your host Harry Casimir and this podcast has been sponsored by Boat Marketing Pros. This agency specializes in helping marine businesses increase their online visibility, increase leads, and increase sales, and eventually increase the bottom line.

Today on this episode, we’re going to explore the off-season marketing for boat dealers. We’re going to do a deep dive on some of the key things that you should be doing as a boat dealer. You should be aware of as the season going off, and so that you can be ready for the next season that’s coming up. The off-season presents a unique challenge for boat dealers, but with the right approach and the right plan in place, I believe that any dealers actually, even when it is off-season time, you can continue to prepare yourself or even thrive within the off-season, so that you can keep your team engaged and fully working. So let’s set sail into this episode and discover how to leverage digital marketing to keep your boat dealers at the forefront. As the season approaches,

depending where you are, especially in the United States, or maybe Canada, depending on where you are season based on the region, it is very essential as a boat dealer to learn how to adapt and adjust your different marketing strategies so that you can continue to maintain not only the presence in your local community, but also your online visibility. Keeping your existing customer base engaged, but also making sure those potential customers that will be ready to do business with you, when they’re ready or when the off-season is ready, they can already familiarize themselves with your approach. So let’s talk about some of the most effective off-season marketing strategies that can help you. And some of them are really straightforward and these are the strategies that you can apply, one for you can do yourself if you’re inclined to, or hand that over to one of your team members in-house that can actually go in and implement those strategies.

But also, if you are working with a digital marketing company, a web development company, you can actually reach out in making sure they help you with those elements as well. First, leveraging social media platforms. So we’re looking at Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter primarily, but also we can add LinkedIn to this as well. This is not about social media, it’s not about you, I want to say that because I run into business owners all the time in the marine industry.

“I don’t like social media, I don’t like this, I don’t like that.” Get it? But it is one of those necessary evil that you may not like. Just like in your business you may not like to do bookkeeping, but that’s how the money comes.

So you have to understand at least the basics of it and sometimes we even do it although we don’t like it. So the same thing for social media, you can look at it that way. Social media platforms can really do some very amazing things, provide an opportunity to connect directly with your potential clients and customers, and even use it depending on what part it plays and your specific marketing strategy. You can even use this to display showcasing your current boat inventories. So platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, you can really engage with customers by simply being consistent and frequently making sure you get information.

So here are some of the things that you should do, you should be aware of to do on those channels. The first thing you want to do is use one centralized calendaring system, and calendaring system means that in other agency world, they call this the editorial calendar, the content calendar. And what that does is basically outlines for the next twelve months, from January to December, here’s how content will be distributed. But in this case we are talking about the off-season. So you should already have those mapped out for the next three, four, five months, however long your season is.

Map out your content calendar and what kind of content you will be pushing out during that time. More importantly is, where are those content being published and the frequency they are being published? The only thing really required of this is really be consistent. So one, you select the channels that you’re going to use- well the profile, the network you’re going to use. In this case let’s use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and possibly even LinkedIn.

Then you have a calendar event, a content calendar you have in place so that you will determine what content will be published in January and every Monday, every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and so forth. Now you do not have to post every day. It helps, but you don’t have to. But at least do so two to three times a week so that you can have this content. You may ask what type of content should I be posting on a dealership website?

There are a ton of different content that you can post. It’s really up to you what you’re comfortable with. So your team is always working on something, whether they are repairing your boat, rehauling, repowering, whether they winning specific things or they’re doing activities together, or you have a brand new boats coming in, you’re installing a specific thing in house. Those are just to give you ideas on specific social media posts that you can pull right from your companies. I can tell you this from experience that if I were to go to a dealer right now, I can walk to your dealer and without looking at any other content from outside, I can create at least five to six pieces of content every month just from your team members, from what you are doing already.

And all of them would be great, great quality. So use the already team that you have to create those content. Now if you’re working with a digital marketing agency like Boat Marketing Pros and other businesses, they’ll most likely create additional content outside the content you provide them with so that they can continue to post. Let’s start with the editorial calendar or content calendar, knowing exactly what will be posted, when those will be posted. The next thing you should do in the off-season is email marketing.

I personally believe email marketing is probably one of the most powerful,, underutilized tools in marketing that most small businesses do not use. During the off-season you could use your email marketing as a way to not only provide regular communication with your current customer base that you have, but also allowing this customer to even interact with you sometimes, especially in off-season. So there are tons of different ways that you can keep that email campaign, the different type of email campaign that you can set out to push, to keep this customer engaged. Now you might say that, how do you go about creating an email marketing campaign? Well, email marketing should be part of your overall marketing strategy.

Inside email marketing there’s always different type of campaigns you could run including newsletters. Newsletters could be part of your email marketing campaign, and the newsletter could be something such as, if there is a new model for one of the manufacturers that you are carrying, for one of the brands you carry at your dealer. That could be a newsletter that you provide but also give tips or information every month or every other month to your existing customer base. Email marketing also allows you to craft certain messages and very targeted campaigns to keep those potential customers excited about your business or service or product. So email marketing is the perfect strategy to stay in front of your existing customers from a branding visibility, but also for the potential customers that might buy from you a month, two, three months, four or five months from now.

Because that email marketing will remind them of you, your brand, your service, and product that you are selling. So how do you go about creating compelling email content that keep potential customer engaged and make sure it’s offering? It all depend on how you set your marketing strategy. So there are seven or eight different campaigns that usually we run for email marketing, and I’m going to go over those with you very quick. So here are some of the email marketing that you can use.

Email marketing strategy that is, you can use as a business, as a dealer, to get your customer encourage or potential customer on board. And I will not be going into very specific detail for each one of them but there are eight campaigns that I usually encourage that every dealer should have 1,2,3,4 of them running at any time. One is nurture.

Nurturing is the process of keeping your brand, your service, your name, in front of the potential customers and existing customers to make sure they’re aware of you. Kind of more of a branding perspective. The next campaign you can run is post proposal. Post quote. So customers will come to you. They like the boat, they show interest, they give all their information and they walk away.

Do you have a campaign to follow up with them? That’s where post proposal comes in. Reactivation campaigns. Reactivation campaign is what it really means. You have a list of customers that have worked with you, bought from you, worked through the dealer before, get service from the dealer before, but you haven’t seen them in a while, you haven’t heard from them.

This is a perfect time to reactivate that list, to let them know, hey, possibly even give them an offer they cannot refuse to let them come in. Cancellation. Now this is something that was very big, especially that should have been big or could be big during the COVID time, because many people get frustrated. I have nothing to do with you as a dealer. There was no inventory anywhere, has nothing to do with you.

But people were canceling their custom riggings or anything they were trying to get. If they don’t get it in a week or two, they want to cancel it. You could create a cancellation for that because those people, guess what? They go to your competitor down the street. When they get there, they go back in the long line as well.

It’s not like you are the only one that had a line. Those are the things that you can actually bring those customer back and you can say, hey, I’ll bring you back and I’ll keep you in the same spot you were already in. Because if you go down the street, you’re going to lose your spot anyways. Reviews. Reviews become so critical and so important. This is another campaign you can run for your email, referrals, depending on the brand that you carry.

But referral is very big because a friend of a friend that has a boat is usually going to refer another friend that will need a boat. So keep your customers close to you and ask them for referrals. Prospecting. Prospecting is another big thing that a lot of boat dealers don’t really do. But that’s something that could be very beneficial to boat dealers if it’s done right. The thing with prospecting is that it allows you to take the existing, if you could target enough, an existing potential customer base list to target, and go do the outreach to get there.

Now, the other one is specials. The brand or manufacturer you carry might offer specials, but also you can run your own special, so make sure you have that. One of the added one, in addition to the eight campaign I just mentioned here, is a special events campaign. There’s always going to be events, boat shows going around and everything. But what if off-season, you could have your own event in-house?

I know that can be challenging for some of you guys depending on where you are in the country and depending on when you would like to do this. Because when it’s off-season that’s when people take time off. But if you can figure out how to work that out I think it would be very beneficial to run an in-house event such as, maybe open house kind of deal. I believe you could use this. You could leverage email marketing to generate more leads, eventually more sales, and eventually get your bottom line to increase.

The third thing that you can do off-season is optimizing your website. This is a perfect time, I’ve seen it over and over. When season is on it’s very hard, actually almost impossible for you, for your team to focus on anything on the website. So off-season is a very good time to look at your website to make the necessary optimization to get your website off the ground. I always say your website is probably one of the best, if not the best employee you can have.

It doesn’t complain. Open twenty-four seven, provides the information. All you have to do is take care of that website, making sure it’s optimized, it’s clear, it’s upfront. Besides, your website is your digital storefront for your dealership. So optimize it and make sure you get a very impactful website that can not only be seen and appreciated by you and your team, and represents you guys, but also a website that search engines such as Google and Bing will be able to optimize, to index on the search, so they can bring when someone search for your product or services or your dealership name, they can show it so that your competitor don’t eat your lunch.

So how do you go about making sure you optimize your website? So the first thing you want to do is do an audit on your website. There are tons of tools, too many to name off the top of my head, but SEMRUSH and Ahrefs are very well-known audit software online right now that you could use to run an audit on your website. That would be the first step. From there it’s going to tell you how many errors, how many blocks, warnings on your website and where there are places that you can create or optimize for.

So therefore, you would use that information to not only update the website but create, update the content, and enhance the user experience as well. So this is why it’s so critical to do an audit on your website at least every three months on top of the other things that you have already been doing, you should be doing every month anyways. So that you ensure that the search engines are looking at your website the way they should, and also benefit you and your team, because that’s very critical. So by focusing and optimizing your website during the summer, it also benefits you because the changes that you make now will go on and will not take effect in the next week or two. They will take a month, two, three months to really start seeing the impact of those changes.

So you want to make them as soon as possible. That’s why as soon as the off-season starts, this is the time you should just sprint to getting your website optimized, because that’s very critical. The third thing is possibly during the off-season, depending on where you are in the country, as I mentioned earlier on, the newsletter. You could either create an in house event or a virtual boat event. The reason you want to do that, no matter where you are, during the off-season, there’s always going to be plenty of time where there are no boat shows around you. So you can create your own events and also create balls around town to get people to not only see your business, but also familiarize themselves with it, with your name, with what you do, and what you offer.

The other things that you can even do from that perspective, engaging customers with open house or virtual events, is bringing a speaker that talks about a specific thing. So if you have 100 plus clients, customers in-house that bought boat from you, they don’t live too far. If you can bring them in-house, tell them there’s an open house for existing customers, here’s all the things that we can do. A few things that you can do for this particular event. The purpose of it is to stay on top of mind for those existing customers that you have.

But also you can bring a speaker, a special speaker, someone that specializes in specific things, water safety, how to navigate the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic, or how to X, Y and Z. All of those things are things that boat owners care for. You can bring an expert to do a webinar about that specific thing that provides very valuable information for those existing customers. So guess what? Next time this customer needs a boat or needs to do service, there’s no way they’re going to forget you because they will remember what you did.

So that’s why you keep them engaged by using something like that. Now the open house, as I mentioned earlier, is more of if you have a lot of customers that are local and you’re able to do so. I know open house is not for everyone because, depending on your location geographically and whether you’re able to use the current location you have, if it’s snowy out or if it’s too hot out. So there’s a lot of reason you may not be able to do open house. But that’s another avenue.

Same method, same thing with virtual, except that this one you kind of have one-on-one and your team will be able to interact with those customers that come in. Throughout this episode, we talked about examples and some real practical tips on how you can implement those strategies to get in front of those potential customers so that you are ready to navigate the world of off-season with your digital marketing, to take your boat dealers to the next level. We talked about how to utilize social media and some of the things that you should be doing. We talked about newsletters, email marketing, how you could use email marketing during the off-season to engage and keep your customer engaged.

We talked about optimizing, auditing and optimizing your website and your overall online visibility. So to ensure that by the time the season kicks off, those adjustment updates you make start paying off. And we also talked about creating events that benefit the existing customer base and potential customers so that they can participate, your team can participate, and so that you can create that true live engagement for those customers. So with that, I hope you find this episode very useful. This is a wrap for us as we wrap this episode Boat Marketing Podcast brought to you by Boatmarketingpros.com.

I hope you gained some very valuable insight into the off-season marketing strategy, that you can apply for your boat dealers. Remember, the off-season is an opportunity to connect, obviously to rest, or your team to take a break, but also to think about, how can we do better or make adjustments to increase visibility, increase leads, increase sales, and eventually increase the bottom line for next season. So let’s go get it. I hope this episode has been very useful to you. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast if you haven’t done so yet.

Whatever platform you might be on, we’re most likely there. We syndicate to Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, and many, many other platforms that we syndicate our content with. You can subscribe from there. If you have any questions, or comments about this podcast, feel free to email us at podcast@boatmarketingpros.com. And if you want additional resources, feel free to look at boatmarketingpros.com/resources. Again, thank you so much for joining me.

I’m Harry Casimir on this episode of Boot Marketing Pros. Until next time, happy marketing and smooth sailing. Thanks.