Outperform in Marketing
Your dealership operates in an omnichannel world, competing for the attention and discretionary income of consumers alongside millions of other businesses and brands. That’s why it’s imperative for you to use updated marketing strategies, technology and systems that produce quality leads your sales team can convert to customers. Offering both fresh tactics and proven practices, this Spotlight and the Dealer Week 2024 Marketing Pathway Sessions will transform your marketing. You’ll improve your mastery of digital metrics, lasering in on strategies that will boost your ROI and dealership profits.
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6 Tips to Elevate Your Online Marketing Strategy: The Power of Exposure
Imagine connecting with serious buyers right when they’re ready, showing up exactly where they’re looking, and building trust before they even step foot on your lot. With boat sales cycles stretching over months, it’s vital for you to stay top of mind throughout the entire buyer journey. By elevating your visibility and engaging customers across multiple digital touchpoints, you speed up the sales process and position your business as the one they remember and trust.
Following these tips from Courtney Chalmers, Vice President of Marketing Boats Group, can make your dealership the first and last stop in a buyer’s decision, helping you close more sales and strengthen relationships in a competitive market.
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Unlocking the Power of Texting
Communicating effectively with your customers can set your dealership up for success. When you and your team are busy juggling tasks during you busy season, it’s hard to promptly respond to customer inquiries. Rather than burden your team with more calls or have them play phone tag, you need a system that can help you elevate your communication and marketing while also generate leads. That’s where texting comes in.
This MRAA partner blog by Bryan Tierney, Lightspeed Sales Engineer shares with you the benefits texting can provide for your entire dealership team, from sales to service! Once you’ve gained permission to send texts to your customers, you can respond to inquiries about boats and promotions more quickly. You can communicate about service jobs, add a layer of transparency into your follow-up conversations and gain trust.
EDUCATION & TRAINING
Dealer Week 2024 – Outperform in Marketing
You want to attract more, high quality leads that turn into sales. In today’s digital world, that requires new marketing strategies, technologies and techniques. You need expert guidance on how to stand out from the competition and turn that attention into real results for your dealership.
You must master the metrics to ensure your marketing time and money pays off despite the unique challenges presented by a changing customer and market.
Dealer Week 2024 Marketing Pathway Sessions will deliver the tactics and training you need to transform your marketing results.
Check out this year’s courses:
- “Craft a Killer Marketing Budget to Turbocharge Your Sales” – Sara Hey (Pathway Host)
- “The AI Advantage: 7 Practical Ways to Explode Marketing, Increase Sales & Win Trust” – Marcus Sheridan
- “Transform Your Marketing Message from Boring to Truly Remarkable” – Eric Keiles
- “Create & Capitalize on Raving Fan Advocates with Community-Based Marketing” – Jonathan Dawson
- “Fix the Leaky Bucket: 3 Systems to Stop Missing Marketing Opportunities” – Danny Decker
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5 Ways AI Can Revolutionize Your Dealership
You have an opportunity to keep your dealership ahead of the pack by taking advantage of artificial intelligence and tools. You may still be wondering if AI is helpful or harmful. One thing is certain, AI is here to stay. So, leveraging the potential of machine learning technology can greatly benefit your dealership. Here are five game-changing tips from MRAA Education Champion, Boatmart.com on how you can start using AI today.
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5 Reasons to Use Social Media at Your Dealership
Imagine if you could enhance your reputation, boost profits and contribute to your dealership’s growth with a few simple steps. When done correctly and consistently, social media will help you get where you need to be. Social media outlets provide an invaluable avenue for you to reach consumers right where they are (here’s a hint: they’re on their phones). Connecting with your customers in such a direct way has some major benefits your dealership. Read this blog from Boatmart.com, an MRAA Education Champion listing five reasons to use social media. You can also download the handy one-pager offering 10 simple-to-create social posts and get started today!
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7 Simple SEO Tips for Marine Dealers
By Keona Frasier, Boatmart.com
Di you know that more than 8.5 billion searches happen daily on Google in 2024? That’s why it’s vital for any digital marketing strategy to include Search Engine Optimization (SEO), even if it might seem overwhelming to you. To help you navigate this evolving landscape, here are seven essential SEO tips from Keona Frasier from Boatmart.com, an MRAA Education Champion. By integrating these simple SEO practices, you can take control of your digital marketing strategy in 2025, and increase visibility for your dealership across search engines.
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Influencer Marketing & Engagement
You’ve seen other companies and businesses partner with digital and social content experts to help share their brand, deliver key messages and engage customers. However, finding the right influencers and producing the best return on investment can make you pause instead of taking action for your dealership. But the time to explore influencer marketing to improve customer engagement is now. Here’s what Influencer Marketing Hub has to say about it, “The Influencer Marketing Industry is set to grow to approximately $24 Billion by the end of 2024.”
Using influencer marketing will allow your team to do their jobs and let the content creators grab the attention and levels of engagement you need. They can also serve as trustworthy brand ambassadors for your business and the products you carry. Whether they are new creators within the marine industry or someone on your own staff, it’s time to include a influencer marketing strategy for 2025.
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Event Management
Dealership events present you with marketing opportunities to engage your customers, strengthen relationships and build your brand. Events with authentic experiences help you connect and keep your customers boating. Successful marine retailers who can master event management, become community pillars and beacons of trust for their customers.
From in-house or pop-up boat shows to boat-in movies to a rendevouz to a secluded island, you have an opportunity to keep your customers boating, engaged with your products, brand and team and surrounded by other boaters. We caught up with the Boat House to learn how they run their events to foster connection with customers and help them choose boating over other options.
Not sure where to get started when it comes to creating and hosting a boating event? Check out this list of 50 ideas to spur your own concept for a customer gathering or event.
MRAA Members ONLY:
Not an MRAA Member? Sign Up Here.
RESOURCE
RBFF’s ‘Psychology of Churn’ Research
The Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation, a 2024 Dealer Week Marketing Pathway Sponsor, initiated a comprehensive, multi-phase research project to better understand why anglers and boaters lose interest. The research identified the drivers of attrition among lapsed participants, leveraging behavioral science frameworks to dissect attitudes, motivations, barriers and beliefs.
The MRAA was one of the sponsors of this study, so we want you to use the RBFF Churn Hub and Resource Center to your full advantage. You need to understand your customers, and those who are leaving boating and fishing, so. you can improve your messaging and your marketing. Follow the link below to find the research report and other resources that can be used to help retain anglers and boaters.
RESOURCE
Discover Boating Boat Show Promo Toolkits
Boat shows are not going away. That’s why marketing and promoting your dealership’s attendance at boat shows is crucial. Along with generating visibility and awareness, you’re marketing your dealership’s presence to generate leads for future sales and follow-up opportunities. Also, since you invest a lot of your advertising budget on boat shows, it’s makes sense to market your team’s presence and drive as much traffic to your booth as possible – ROI! You want to connect with customers where they are and create excitement around boating, your brand and the boating lifestyle.
Discover Boating, powered by NMMA and MRAA, provides your team with excellent boat show promo tools to help you share your attendance socially and within your newsletter and other customer touchpoints.
EDUCATION:
Customer Acquisition Package
3 Courses & 1 Guide to Put You on A Pathway to Success
Your customers have changed. In order to meet them where they are and also meet their expectations, you must transform the approach you take when trying to acquire them. We understand it can feel hard to address the needs of your current customers let alone the needs of your prospects. To help you do that, we’ve created this mini course package that includes 3 MRAATraining.com courses and one MRAA guide to help you better understand customer acquisition in the modern world.
Topics included in this course bundle:
- Includes: Selling Value and Experience in the New Economy
- Use Facebook & Instagram to Generate Leads that Turn into Buyers
- Overcome Objections with Next Level Deal Desking and Financing
- Guide to Navigating 2024 (Use these tactics for your approach to the year ahead!)
Silver & Gold Members ONLY:
MRAA Bronze members can upgrade to gain access to courses? Email Director of Membership Sherri Cuvala.
Not an MRAA Member? Sign Up Here.
EDUCATION:
5 Marketing Mistakes Your Dealership Can No Longer Afford
with Danny Decker
Marketing is critical to every dealership because new leads and customers are the lifeblood of the business! And yet, many dealers aren’t getting the results that they should be getting from their marketing. Marketing expert Danny Decker shares strategies your dealership can use to make up ground you’ve lost, get back on track with executing a disciplined marketing process and get up to speed with all that is changing with dealership and digital.
Silver & Gold Members ONLY:
Not a Silver Member? Learn more about Silver Membership!
EDUCATION:
Selling Value and Experience in the New Economy
with Ryan Estis
Customer expectations and behavior are evolving faster than most marine sales organizations. This reality is requiring a fundamental shift in the go-to-market strategy of dealerships and radical evolution in your salespeople’s skill and competency. Customers are coming into sales conversations with more knowledge and objections than ever before, which mandates a new, value-based and deeply customized approach to the sales (and marketing) experience. This course, with Ryan Estis, will help your entire team be more aware of how to humanize the sales process to build high trust/high value relationships that create partnerships for life.
Silver & Gold Members ONLY:
Not a Silver Member? Learn more about Silver Membership!
EDUCATION:
Marketing the Boating Lifestyle
with Samantha Scott
You’re familiar with the idea of “selling the lifestyle,” but do you really know how to bring the boating experience to life in your marketing? Expert Samantha Scott, in this classic course, shares guidelines for integrating visual elements into all your channels — social media, website, collateral, in-store marketing and more — to better sell the on-water experience. She’ll review best practices for filming your own videos, taking your own photos, making them stand out and getting your customers to share them.
Silver & Gold Members ONLY:
Not a Silver Member? Learn more about Silver Membership!
