Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/619827
January 2016 | Boating Industry | 29 [ 16 Marketing Trends for 2016 ] www.BoatingIndustry.com every year where customer are invited to par- ticipate in a boat parade, check out the changing leaves and go back to the dealership for a catered meal. Prospects are able to ride in customers' boats or ride with sales reps in a demo boat. "It's really a chance for us to extend those relationships and those relationships beget rela- tionships, and so the more that we can get those relationships extended out into the community, and the deeper we can forge those relationships, we'll continue the cycle of repurchases," said Davis. TRACKING YOUR MARKETING Whatever you do for your marketing strategy in 2016, make sure you are tracking it. Using unique phone numbers remains a strong tool for tracking a lead's source if you are a retailer. Distinct's DMS allows dealers to use different phone numbers on eBay, Craigslist, spe- cific landing pages on websites and more to help better track where leads are coming from, the average call duration from each phone number location and more, which is technology being used in the automotive industry today. Google Analytics is vital for any business running a digital marketing campaign. However, marketers need to look beyond the high-level visitors and click rates. A successful business in 2016 will look at where those consumers are coming from, when they visited a site and will be able to answer the question "how many cus- tomers achieved an outcome we wanted?" "The likely higher professionals make sure all of the tracking is set up accordingly, set up things like goals and event tracking and different pieces so you can understand specific moments or specific actions that happen on your website," said Weiche. HIRE THE RIGHT PEOPLE With any task, you want to hire the best person for the job. If it's possible to hire additional staff, be sure anyone you hire to do marketing for the business knows what they're talking about. "Marketing, in general, is every which way you communicate with a customer," Gyllenberg said. "All it comes down to is the quality of em- ployees that you have doing [marketing]. They are 100 percent representing your company and if you have someone that's doing a poor job, it just portrays your company poorly." This is especially important when it comes to content marketing. According to Davis, con- tent marketing is valuable only if a business has the resources to do it, and the biggest resource is personnel. "You can write stuff to write stuff, and if it's not the right stuff, it's not going to mean any- thing. Just having content isn't effective – you've got to have the right content and it's got to be good, quality content," said Davis. "I'm not say- ing it can't work – you just have to have the right people who can focus on certain niche areas and develop good, quality content for those areas that are relevant to the audience to attract the right people."