MDS Brand Blog

When presenting your business it’s easy to simply think, “We’ll set up at the largest conference,” or “Let’s make sure we are in the next boat show in town.” However, there are a number of different types of events that take place all over this country, and this world for that matter, where you can expand your presentation to consumers and amongst the industry as a whole.

Boating is a luxury which makes boat shows quite the big deal, and marketing it can be a costly endeavor. A recovering economy means that boat manufacturers are working extra hard to capture the attention of their customers and prospects. As long as there are lakes, oceans, and seas, boats will be here to stay. This article is aimed at highlighting several boat show promotional ideas.

Taking great boat photographs is essential for any boat dealership. Here’s why: Pictures are the closest thing to the actual boat a customer can see without going to a dealership, and since most buyers shop online before entering a shop it is absolutely necessary to accurately portray your inventory. Additionally, photos can tell a story and give life to your brand; an exciting dealership takes exciting and action packed photos, a laid-back dealership takes photos that are laid back and relaxing to look at, and so on. Subsequently though, boring, cheap, and lifeless photos can reflect poorly on a dealership.

There are many forms of marketing that a Marine Dealer can utilize. Of all the marketing tools, there is not one that compares to the hands on experience that a Boat Show can provide. Holding a boat show allows the dealership to delight customers by offering discounted or free tickets, showcasing the newest models, creating a medium for potential sales, enticing add-ons, and building long lasting relationships with potential or current customers.

There is no doubt that social media platforms have amplified the freedom of interactions. From the primary need to offer personalized communication, it is the best technique for marketing purposes. The appealing aspects of social media marketing are that it is both inexpensive and one can get a greater viewership than other marketing channels like TV, Radio or Newspaper. In fact, if you are keen at every news segment, every advertisement follows a brief note where the marine dealers get to entice their prospective consumers to extend their conversation on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Its influence is enormous, and the rewards are worthwhile.

Boat dealer marketing still remains an expensive endeavor. It is necessary to ensure the ideas implemented to generate sales leads in the boating industry are the best. Competition between boat dealerships is very high, and only the best can maneuver through and make great returns.

When the right strategies are implemented, it becomes easier to get the best boat leads. The idea here is to ensure that the link between you and potential buyers is strong enough.

Successful business owners agree that staying in touch with customers is extremely important. However, finding a reason to call them without seeming bothersome can be challenging. The most important rule is NOT to call with a sales pitch every time. 

Hosting an event is not only a great way to engage with your clients but also one of the best ways to drive traffic to your store and generate leads. Let’s say you’ve decided to throw a Demo Day at your local lake or dealership for your customers so they can come down and test drive their favorite boat. What better way to find out what the newest models have in store for them than to see it first-hand. Everyone loves a hands-on experience, especially boaters! Your first thought should be “When should I start sending out invites, and how?” There is no easy answer here as there are many variables that come into play. An abundance of research has been done to find out when the best time to send event invites is. We’ll go over the most important factors so that you can make the highest impact on your event and drive quality leads to your show or dealership.

Hosting a boat show and wish to increase your attendance rate? Are you following up with your customers after the show?

HOW IT WORKS We take your entire customer base and input it into our dialing software. Then we create a call script which will be sent to you for approval and that will successfully achieve our three primary goals for the calling campaign - Driving traffic to your event, generating hot leads, and purify your customer list by capturing updated contact and boating information (call status's) so our agents can categorize the result of each call. When we call a customer we use your event as the reason for the call which immediately causes the customer to put down their guard and start conversing with us about their boating experience. After the customer has put their guard down then we set the hook and look for buying signs.