Boating Industry

January 2016

Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/619827

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 24 of 43

www.BoatingIndustry.com January 2016 | Boating Industry | 25 A fter a strong 2015, the boating industry should feel confi dent about its businesses in the coming year. That confi dence will hopefully inspire dealers and manufac- turers alike to take calculated risks to attract more customers and grow sales. We've gathered 16 different marketing trends for marine businesses to be aware of in 2016 that will help maximize profi ts. MOBILE IS KING 16 MARKETING TRENDS BY BRIANNA LIESTMAN for 2016 MOBILE IS KING If there is one thing you do in 2016, it should be to step up your mobile game. Customers will use it to fi nd local businesses, look up websites when they see billboard ads, research boat brands and more. At Marine Connection, almost 50 percent of customers were coming to the website from tablets alone, and the company website needed to refl ect this traffi c. "We really had to work on designs and optimize everything from the links people click or the way they view images to satisfy our customers [and] not give them a reason to leave the site and go some- where else," said Jani Gyllenberg, founder at Distinct Marketing and former marketing director at Marine Connection. "[Having a] mobile website is no question. If you don't have one, you are losing business." Similarly, Evan Davis, head of marketing at OneWater Marine Holdings, said its dealerships are seeing nearly 60 percent of web traffi c coming from mobile. The company is working on rebuilding its entire web platform to create consistent, mobile-responsive sites for all of its dealerships. The importance of a mobile website isn't just convenience: In April, Google announced they would begin to knock websites in search rankings that did not have a mobile-friendly platform. So having a mobile website is an important SEO strategy. TARGET MOBILE USERS Because such a signifi cant portion of consumers are using mobile devices for their research, it's im- portant to make sure any targeted advertising is consumable for the mobile user. OneWater Marine

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of Boating Industry - January 2016