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5 Marketing Tips for Boat Dealers

Boat Dealers – 5 Online Marketing Tips to Increase Leads

Yacht brokers, boat dealers, and lifestyle marketers – lend us your eyes and ears! Marine SEO is offering unique marketing tips for boat dealers to maximize sales, get more leads, and sell more boats to change how they connect with customers online.

Why trust us? Because Marine SEO is a digital marketing agency for the marine industry. It’s just what we do!

The sales world has changed, and your online presence is so important. Though the fundamentals of a good sales mindset have not changed in decades, the way we connect has. More people shop online, research online, and visit websites more than they ever have before.

Before we dive into our marketing tips for boat dealers, it’s important to remember that all marketing campaigns share these three common traits.

Where to Begin

If you choose to work with a marketing agency for boat dealers, all these things will be taken care of for you. If you decide to market yourself, then you should keep these three things in mind when you plan any online marketing campaigns.

  • Set Measurable Goals
  • Define Your Ideal Customer
  • Be Consistent

All good digital marketing campaigns have these three things in common. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling small boats or mega yachts, these rules are universal. Be sure you keep these three things in mind as you create your marketing plan.

Now with that out of the way, here are our top five marketing tips for boat dealers or yacht brokers.

1 – Networking

Before we hear a collective sigh and a resounding “well of course!”, hear us out. Networking has changed in the digital world. Though it’s still important to join a Yacht Club and to partner with local yacht management companies, it’s even more important to take your networking online.

You’re no longer bound by the constraints of your physical location. You should be networking through social media.

Social Media for Boat Dealers

Network through YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. Start working with noncompetitive companies in your niche that might be a few states away. Here are some examples of noncompetitive niche companies that boat dealers should be working with:

  • Yacht Clubs
  • Yacht Management Companies
  • Yacht Towing Companies
  • Marine Lifestyle Companies (Marine AirBnB, Charters)
  • Marine Apparel Companies

Network, share their posts on your social media, ask for shares in return, etc. Boost each other up because you all have similar audiences.

2 – Start Blogging

Writing an information-rich niche blog is a great way to naturally find customers online. The truth is, your experience as a boat dealer or yacht broker is very unique, and most people couldn’t learn what you know from a book.

Your experience sets you apart, and it’s very, VERY valuable. So, take advantage of it!

Content for a yacht broker blog or boat dealer blog should focus on your strengths. Here are a few topic ideas that might help:

  • Beginners Guide to Buying a Boat
  • 3 Signs That Your Boat is a Lemon
  • How to Tell Your Boat Dealer is Hiding Something
  • The Difference Between Good and Bad Boat Dealers
  • Why I Become a Boat Dealer

Use these blog topics as opportunities to sell yourself, to display your knowledge, and to be found by potential customers who are searching for these topics online.

When it comes to writing them, just pretend you are talking to a good friend who doesn’t know about the yacht broker industry. Anticipate his or her follow up questions and write for them.

3 – Run Ads Online

PPC services for yacht brokers and boat dealers are a little more complex. Though most of our marketing tips for boat dealers can be handled by yourself, we caution all boat dealer with no PPC knowledge to tread lightly.

One wrong click or one wrong decimal point can be costly. However, if done right, PPC campaigns can drastically increase your qualified leads and overall sales; so, you sell more boats.

For the best possible results, find an affordable marine marketing firm that handles PPC services for boat dealers.

4 – Be Seen More

Everything we’ve mentioned before, social media, blogging, and PPC advertising all aid in your overall presence online, these marketing tips for boat dealers are meant to get eyes on you.

However, there are some even more interesting marketing tips for boat dealers that go beyond those more traditional methods.

HARO

HARO, which stands for Help A Reporter Out, is a quote aggregation service that connects reporters with industry professionals. After signing up, you will receive emails everyday with questions and pitches from reporters and bloggers. Answer a question that is within your experience and you could be published on that blog, increasing your exposure online.

Reddit

Reddit is a next generation forum that offers insights into any and every possible industry niche imaginable. There are subreddits for boat dealers where you can offer your personal knowledge and expertise and begin marketing and generating leads from Reddit*. Here’s a list of some of those subreddits.

Boating

LiveAboard

BoatBuilding

Yachts

*WARNING: Always be honest on Reddit and avoid “pitching” users. The Reddit community will eat you alive!

Yacht World

When in doubt, go with Yacht World. There are lots of boat dealers marketing their services on this forum, so you might find it difficult to get leads. However, it doesn’t hurt to be a part of the community there.

5 – Optimize Your Website

The final marketing tip for boat dealers is to optimize your site for user experience. As we mentioned at the beginning of this blog, everyone shops online these days. So, you have to appeal to those people online.

Your yacht broker site or boat dealer site should be:

  • Fast
  • Easy to Use
  • Easy to Navigate
  • Geared Towards Generating Leads
  • Good Looking

Tick off all five things on this list and you’re in good shape. There are more in-depth ways to optimize your site for search, but we recommend enlisting SEO services from a trained marine digital marketer before you go poking around below deck.

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Make a splash with Marine SEO, a digital marketing agency for marine businesses. 

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