Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/288177
20 | Boating Industry | April 2014 [ 18 Solutions to Boost Sales ] www.BoatingIndustry.com MARKETING Finding creative ways to get the word out about your products, whether through events, digital or traditional methods, is crucial. Traverse Bay Marine jumpstarted its social media marketing by partner- ing with the local NBC station in giving away a Sea-Doo personal watercraft in 2012 and following that up with a second giveaway of a PWC and Lund fi shing boat in 2013. To win, entrants had to register and like the company on Facebook. If they share this with someone else on Facebook, they get another entry and so on. Traverse Bay received more than 2,000 likes in 15 days with the Sea-Doo and more than 1,000 likes for the same timeframe with the Lund. The TV station sent out four email blasts of 54,000 each about Traverse Bay Marine and the Sea- Doo and Lund contest, for a total of 216,000 im- pressions in 15 days. The program also included 70 TV commercials as well as live mentions fi ve times daily about Traverse Bay Marine and the contest by the NBC TV news anchor. Ontario's Port Sandfi eld Marina puts its money where its mouth is with its "Dare to Compare" program comparing its Sea Ray boats against the competition. The company brings in the competitive boat, docks it next to the Sea Ray in the in-water showroom and points out the differences. Port Sandfi eld spent $100,000 to set up the fi rst display buying a Cobalt A25 to compare with the its Sea Ray 250 SLX. The company uses indicator arrows to label almost 50 points of difference between the boats along with creating a website and bro- chures to highlight them. "It was one of those things that I said I'd put my money where my mouth was, so I went and spent $100,000 and bought the competitor's product to put there, and it's been the talk of the town around the region here," said owner Jona- than Blair. "It got people talking about us, and then the people came into see it because they couldn't believe it." Making sure its customers know it's a destination for parts and accessories has been a big boon for South Austin Marine. The Austin, Texas, dealer has a boating accessory catalog that is given to every customer that pur- chases a boat from it. The catalog is also mailed out to boat owners in certain targeted ZIP codes. "This catalog has discounts on both items we stock and can order," said Wayne Black, South Austin's president. "This helps us compete with some of the discount chains such as WalMart and Academy and drives the customers into our store." The dealership also gets the word out with a big sale every fall on close out items such as wake- boards, skis, vests, and clothing, and by setting up a booth at Waketober Fest every year to sell mer- chandise and have drawings for free goods. Town & Country Marine focuses its efforts on getting non-boaters on the water with its weekly "Family Fun on the Water" activities with a local resort. These programs, offered over an eight-week period, covers every weekend during the prime boat- ing season in the Lakefi eld, Ontario, area and include other family boating partners to make a complete full day event: boating safety seminars from the local Power Squadron, fun water toys for the families provided by a cottage toys re- tailer and boat operator licensing seminars and testing. Town & Country brings a minimum of four boats and qualifi ed operators to each event so that the entire family can experience the real lifestyle of boating. Austin, Texas-based The Sail & Ski Center was looking to capitalize on the hot wake surf segment and wanted to demonstrate its new Nautique Surf System. At the same time, the dealership didn't want to attract unqualifi ed participants just looking for a free ride. "We decided to disguise our surf demo event by creating a Surf Day," said company president Rod Malone. "The idea is to run an event where our customers sign up for a specifi c time slot to wake surf behind a new boat for $40. Then we gave our salespeople the leeway to offer the time slots to their prospects at no charge." The event was marketed using a combination of social media, email and direct mail. The com- pany fi lled all the time slots for the three boats at the event, with 60 percent of participants paying and 40 percent being invited by the sales team. "We sold three boats directly from the event," Malone said. "Harder to measure, but equally im- portant is the residual value of the awareness of Nautique's products we created during the pro- motion of the event." 15. 18. 16. 17. 14. P16x20-BI14APR-18Solutions.indd 20 3/13/14 4:19 PM