Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/306360
May 2014 | Boating Industry | 13 www.BoatingIndustry.com strategy are simply going to get lost in the ocean of websites out there that are offering products and services to consumers. Helping dealers un- derstand how to create a local, digital dialogue with customers and prospective customers, how do they manage their online reputation, how do they manage the various social media channels and drive traffi c into the dealerships, that's going to be more and more important. Boating Industry: As you said, there have been a lot of acquisitions for ARI. What does ARI look at when making an acquisition? OLIVIER: We have a pretty aggressive fi ve-year growth plan. When we look forward over the next fi ve years, I believe that half of our growth will come organically by growing our base busi- ness today. The other half of our growth will come through acquisitions. Those acquisitions are going to fall into a few broad buckets. We do like to do acquisitions where we can roll-up competitors in a market we're already in. We've purchased other e-catalog companies that have been direct competitors, we've pur- chased website companies that have been direct competitors, simply to strengthen our position in that market. Secondarily, we've done acquisition to bring on a new technology or a new vertical market where we want to have additional growth, either by taking a new product and selling it into the existing vertical markets that we're in or we've acquired new vertical markets. For example, in 2008 we acquired ChannelBlade, which was a leader in marine. ARI was a much smaller player in marine, so that acquisitions allowed us to sig- nifi cantly grow our presence. Boating Industry: What are some of the big- gest mistakes you're seeing companies make when it comes to their digital marketing? OLIVIER: There's a couple that we see over and over again. One is just not executing in general. That's the dealers that either don't have a strategy or haven't taken the time to sit down and execute on the strategy they have selected. The second one is not effectively measuring what's working and what's not. It's easy to invest money in a lot of different areas, but I think the most successful dealers are very diligent about measuring what's working and what's not and investing heavily in those areas. I was looking at some survey data and it's interesting to see dealers' perception of what works and doesn't work and how they evalu- ate that. Some evaluate it not by leads, not by sales, but simply by, as an example, the num- ber of people that have decided to follow them on a social media outlet. Effectively deciding where I'm going to invest and what metrics I'm going to use to decide if that investment makes sense is an area that's evolving. P12x13-BI14MAY-Q&A.indd 13 4/17/14 10:24 AM