• BoatUS.org provides responsible boating tips for the 53rd Annual Earth Day celebration Saturday, April 22
Get ready for Earth Day 2023! As boating season starts up, let’s make sure we’re being good waterway stewards. The BoatUS Foundation has broken down the 8 letters of E-A-R-T-H D-A-Y to help boat owners put a plan into action.
ANNAPOLIS, Md., April 19, 2023 – After a long winter lay-up, boaters are beginning to return to water. With the 53rd annual Earth Day celebration just around the corner on Saturday, April 22, it’s time for boaters to think how they can prime themselves to be good waterway stewards all season long. The non-profit BoatUS Foundation for Boating Safety and Clean Water breaks down the eight letters of E-A-R-T-H D-A-Y to help boat owners put a plan into action:
E — Empty your holding tank at a pumpout station or a designated place ashore. A — Always attend your gas nozzle when fueling your boat and resist topping off. R — Recycle fishing line and plastic baits when possible, dispose of properly. T — Take the time for clean, drain, dry to stop the spread of invasive species. H — Have a trash receptacle or a way to collect refuse aboard so nothing goes in the water.
D — Dispose of used oils, gas and chemicals properly; ask for help if needed. A — Adopt a beach or a special place on your waterway to clean up periodically. Y — You make all the difference when it comes to smart, safe and clean boating!
Want to learn more about clean boating? The BoatUS Foundation offers Clean Boating, a free online course, at BoatUS.org/Clean-Course.
About the BoatUS Foundation for Boating Safety and Clean Water:
The BoatUS Foundation for Boating Safety and Clean Water is a national leader promoting safe, clean and responsible boating. Funded primarily by donations from the more than 800,000 members of Boat Owners Association of The United States (BoatUS), the nonprofit provides innovative educational outreach directly to boaters and anglers with the aim of reducing accidents and fatalities, increasing stewardship of America’s waterways and keeping boating safe for all. A range of safe and clean boating courses – including the nation’s largest free online boating safety course – can be found at BoatUS.org/Courses.
Shake Off the Rust, Restore Your Shimmer and Help Your Sales Team’s Skills Shine Again
By Jerrod Kelley, MRAA Content Manager
There’s a scene from the animated cartoon movie “Cars” that features Fred, the severely rusted but operational superfan of up-and-coming racer Lightening McQueen. You see, Fred, which Disney.fandom.com describes as fictional Stodgey Suaver LT model, is passionate about racing and being a car, but has lost his new-car shimmer and has had to rely on Rust-eze, a “bumper ointment” that promises to eradicate the ugly decay that is rust. However, it hasn’t worked for him and the tent full of vehicles in the post-race celebration tent. You see, rust, whether it’s in your sales process or on a bumper, is hard to stop. That is, unless you focus on removing it and becoming more “polished.” No, the MRAA doesn’t have its own anti-rust ointment, but we can help your sales department prevent more rust from settling in and recalibrate your sales skills.
Many dealerships across the country have told us that their sales teams, while still talented and passionate about boating and serving customers, have lost their sales aptitude over the last couple years. It’s not intentional, it’s just that for many of them they were selling mostly whatever could float, because customers demanded it and just wanted to be on the water. Several dealers we’ve spoken with called it “order taking” rather than sales. Follow-up often fell to the wayside, especially for a lot of pre-sale leads.
It’s important to refocus on selling again in order to remove any rust that has set in and those robotic-like habits some salespeople learned the last few years. (Created with Dall•E)
But now, as inventory levels have recovered and demand has reduced since the COVID-19 stretch – with less disposable income and uncertainty lingering for the economy – sales departments across North America have had to brush off their rust and sharpen their selling skills. Another boat show season has ended and spring has arrived. Spring means the snow is melting and the grass is greening up because warmer weather is ahead. And with the seasonal change comes more consumers thinking about boating because it’s fun for friends and family and remains a healthy escape from societal pressures. It’s the perfect time to focus on improving your sales tactics and nurturing leads.
7 Tactics to Restore Your Sales Game and Improve Pre-sale Follow-up
Personalize Communications: Use the lead’s full name and tailor messaging to their specific interests and needs. (Watch a course on personalization)
Utilize Automated Email Campaigns: Set up a series of automated emails to send to leads at regular intervals, providing them with relevant content and updates about your dealership and its offerings. (Watch a course on email campaigns)
Use Retargeting Ads: Utilize retargeting ads to keep your dealership top-of-mind for leads who have shown interest in your offerings but have not yet made a purchase. (Watch a course on digital advertising)
Provide Valuable Content: Offer useful and informative content such as buyer’s guides, maintenance tips and boating-related news to engage your leads and keep them interested in your dealership. Discover Boating, powered by NMMA and MRAA, offers you tools and articles to do it. (Watch a course on creating a better user experience)
Leverage Social Media: Use social media channels to engage with leads and showcase your dealership’s offerings and customer service. Most importantly, answer their questions to show your team’s passion for boating and boaters in general. Build trust and it could very well pay off for you in building a devoted customer. (Watch a course on leveraging digital media)
Personalize Sales Calls: During sales calls, while pulling from your customer logs, reference the lead’s previous interactions and RELATIONSHIP with your dealership. Not just previous sales, but previous personal notes such as their kids going off to college or their alma mater’s most recent victory in the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament. You can then provide them with personalized product recommendations based on their interests and needs if that’s the direction the discussion goes. (Download the Guide to Phone Skills)
Need to watch a course or download a guide listed above but you’re NOT an MRAA Member?
I have no doubt that your sales team is every bit as passionate as it once was for boating and serving your customers. However, since the market has shifted “back to the norm,” it’s the perfect time to revisit your sales skills and reinvest in your sales department.
Beyond the seven quick tips above, MRAA Silver and Gold Members can also dig deeper and commit to the MRAAtraining.com course for sales professionals we call, Master the Sales Basics: A 5-Course Series. Learn from top industry experts the fundamentals of sales, keys to building value, follow-up tactics, questing & listening skills and how to get more people to the desk.
It’s important to enhance your sales proficiencies because you want to create an outstanding retail experience – both digital and in-person – for your customers. The Marine Industry Certified Dealership program provides you with a customizable blueprint to establish efficient and effective processes in order to standardize your customer relations management, facility and website upkeep and performance planning. The installation of tracking and trending customer experiences, sharing of best practice and employee satisfaction survey will also strengthen a Certified Dealer’s operations by addressing wins and areas of need in sales and elsewhere.
The new MRAA sales training course and Certification opportunities will give your sales department a much-needed refresher, helping your dealership continue to shine in the eyes of your customers. Refurbish your sales efforts correctly and you will build superfans, like Fred, for your own brand.
Let me know if you have started any sales training, do monthly role-playing sessions with your team or have implemented any other process to help your sales department restore its shine. Reach out: jerrod@mraa.com.
WASHINGTON, D.C, March 28 – The Marine Retailers Association of the Americas, The Outdoor Recreation Roundtable and other coalition members that are part of the $862 billion outdoor recreation economy celebrated the reintroduction of America’s Outdoor Recreation Act in the 118th Congress with strong bipartisan support.
“Time and time again, outdoor recreation can bridge party lines and unify members of Congress who understand the value these pastimes hold for communities and individuals nationwide,” said Matt Gruhn, President of the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas. “I hope that with the reintroduction of this historic outdoor recreation package we can continue to showcase that outdoor recreation continues to be a bipartisan policy priority in the 118th Congress, and that this package is just the first of many.”
This groundbreaking legislation boosts local and national economies and gives more Americans — especially those in underserved areas — greater access to green spaces, public lands and waters while not costing taxpayers money to implement.
Outdoor recreation is an $862 billion industry, providing 4.5 million American jobs and boosting economies in communities large and small. And studies have shown that enjoying time outside benefits a person’s mental and physical health.
“The recreational boating industry thanks Chairman Manchin and Ranking Member Barasso for their continued focus on improving outdoor recreation and prioritizing the continuous improvement of the outdoor recreation economy,” said Chad Tokowicz, MRAA Government Relations Manager. “Through increasing access, modernizing rural communities, streamlining permitting for guides and improving outdoor recreation infrastructure, we hope more Americans explore waterways and trails and that the many communities that support these pursuits will feel the benefit, too. Comprised of many small businesses, these communities serve as the backbone for our outdoor recreation economy.”
enable permit streamlining to ease burdens on outfitters and guides and improve access to outdoor experiences
improve access to recreation on public lands and waters
ensure access to green spaces in underserved communities
update outdoor recreation infrastructure
develop, improve, and complete long range trails
invest in rural economic development
“This is a commonsense, no-cost bill that will help equalize and improve access to green spaces and wild outdoor places in every state in the country,” said Chris Perkins, Senior Director of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable. “We are seeing unprecedented interest in outdoor recreation, but many of the policies supporting outdoor recreation are outdated. This package will make it easier for Americans to access the outdoors and provide agencies with new tools to address long-standing outdoor recreation needs. We need solutions that enhance outdoor recreation opportunities while protecting America’s public lands and waters, and AORA is an historic step to update these policies.”
“America’s Outdoor Recreation Act will bolster outdoor recreation access and opportunities for the millions of Americans who continue to discover the benefits of the great outdoors and time spent on our nation’s lands and waters,”said Frank Hugelmeyer, President and CEO of the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA).
“The America’s Outdoor Recreation Act is a comprehensive set of provisions to ensure our public lands are well managed and conserved to benefit the outdoor recreation economy and all those who love the outdoors,”said Glenn Hughes, president of the American Sportfishing Association (ASA).
About the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas
At the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas, we believe that for the marine industry to thrive, the retail organizations that interact with the boaters in their community must thrive. With that in mind, MRAA works to create a strong and healthy boating industry by uniting those retailers, providing them with opportunities for improvement and growth, and representing them with a powerful voice. For more information, visit MRAA.com or contact us at 763-315-8043.
Dealer Advocate Subscription
Subscribe for free to MRAA’s Dealer Advocacy Newsletter to receive updates on legislative policy, issues that impact your business, and marine news to stay in the know.
(Coeur d’Alene, ID) – Hagadone Marine Group, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, announced that Kodie Woodhead has been appointed as the new Director of Marketing.
Kodie has a wealth of experience in the marketing, advertising and public relations industries and will undoubtedly elevate Hagadone Marine Group’s brand to new heights. Kodie comes to Hagadone Marine fromWright Physical Therapy, where she was the Director of Marketing & Public Relations for more than eight years.
Kodie Woodhead
Kodie will be overseeing the marketing and events for Hagadone Marine Center, Lake Coeur d’Alene Cruises, Coeur Custom Wood Boats, Blackwell Pro Shop, The Boardwalk Marina, Blackwell Island Marina, Silver Beach Marina, Resort Boat Rentals, The Marina Cantina and Hagadone Vertical Quick Launch.
“I’m truly excited to join the Hagadone Group and be a part of such an exceptional team that values hard work with a balance of fun,” says Kodie. “I’m really looking forward to implementing my skill sets and navigating the marketing needs in an industry that I have such a personal passion for and being an integral part of the company’s growth as well as the individual growth of the team members.”
Born and raised in Twin Falls, Idaho, Kodie relocated to the Pacific Northwest four years ago with her daughter, Hailee, and 1.5-year-old French Bulldog, Pete. Kodie is an avid golfer, hiker, traveler and of course, boater, too.
On the heels of Discover Boating’s audience segmentation and behavior research, which was leveraged to create the recent launch of the Discover Boating brand identity and “See You Out Here” campaign, learn more about the latest data into the next generation segments to understand behavioral shifts post-pandemic in an all-industry webinar Thursday, March 30.
This research looks into the mindset of the next generation audience to better understand how to connect with and attract them to boating.
Speakers include:
Ilana Bryant, Head of Strategy, Cutwater Agency
Kevin Williams, VP of Marketing, NMMA
Ellen Bradley, Chief Brand Officer and SVP of Marketing and Communications, NMMA
Join Discover Boating, powered by NMMA and MRAA, for the live webinar at 1 p.m. ET, Thursday, March 30.
• Using AI as a Tool to Save Time, Reduce Costs and Generate Custom Marketing Without Losing Your Human Connectivity
[Editor’s Note: Updated April 1, 2026]
If you haven’t heard about Artificial Intelligence (AI), you’re either living on a remote island or simply not paying attention. In fact, if you’re using a chatbot on your website, you’ve already been using AI and so have your customers. But the AI I’m talking about goes beyond chatbots and their convenience, even if they don’t have the ability to show empathy like your sales team can.
Cyborg thinking and touching his head isolated on white background 3D rendering
As I was contemplating how to write this blog on AI, in my inbox arrived a promo email from one of our MRAA Partners talking about the upcoming Digital Marketing Strategies Conference this May in Austin, Texas. Of course digital marketing is important, as nearly every one of your customers is online and shopping digitally, reading digital content and doing most of their purchasing decisions digitally prior to actually consuming in/at a brick-and-mortar location.
The Opportunity Dealers Can’t Ignore
The thing that stuck out in the email was a bullet point highlighting some of the key topics to be discussed. The fourth bullet point read: “Using AI to reduce operational and marketing costs.” Day 2 of the conference will feature two one-hour sessions on AI, a new technology they’re calling an “era-changing evolution.” Attendees will learn about using AI for automating tasks and targeting customers. The second course digs deeper into the app ChatGPT (see sidebar), sharing its benefits and drawbacks.
That sentence is a big deal. We often joke within our marketing department about asking ChatGPT, which we use at times for interoffice fun, if it will take our marketing job. There’s validity within that question, but don’t hit the panic button yet. While your job is pretty safe for the time being, AI looks to be here for good and will only improve as more developers compete to produce products and meet the demands of AI consumers. And there should always be some sort of human involvement to AI to make it less, well, synthetic.
Marketing, Search and Your Content
For the time being, it makes some sense to explore it if you have a marketing team at your business or perhaps even more so if you don’t. ChatGPT, which has set a new app growth record, according to AIbusiness.com, at 123 million users in less than three months, is currently free to use and share, but it won’t always be that way. I’ve been seeing AI blogs and content in newsletters I subscribe to quite frequently. In fact, Marcus Sheridan, who has been a subject matter expert and sales & marketing session host at Dealer Week, our annual conference & expo, has shared two separate articles on AI.
The first piece of content I saw from Marcus was in his newsletter, titled “Why Google is Freaking Out About ChatGPT, You Should Be Too.” He followed that up with another newsletter article he called “10 Ways Your Marketing Team Could Be Using ChatGPT RIGHT NOW.” He also released a video sharing tips for making your AI content more human and “Google proof.” In fact, he said, “I’m going to proactively beat this drum until many of you out there are proactively learning about and utilizing AI in your digital sales and marketing.” Finally, his company IMPACT is now offering AI training for content marketing teams. If Marcus is THIS serious about AI, you should be, too. He’s proven he has a knack for marketing and has helped many marine dealers and businesses improve.
What Still Requires a Human in the Loop
HubSpot is all over the topic, too. One of its newsletter articles speaks on the very question we shared earlier about the technology replacing humans, but also brings up the fact that AI might replace search engines. It’s worth the read. HubSpot’s Erica Santiago wrote an article entitled “4 AI Controversies Marketers and Brands Should Avoid.” Within her blog is a link to Influencermarketinghub.com, which provides insights to its own The Ultimate Guide to AI Marketing in 2023 and says that “AI is going mainstream.” Their own summary shares that “more than 60 percent have used AI in their marketing operations” and “44 percent have adopted AI for marketing content production.”
FUTUREPEDIA, the largest AI tools directory, currently lets visitors search through 1,254 AI tools and 50 categories and segment a search with filters and types (verified, new and popular). Even the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) along with Sidecar hosted a Webinar on AI that I attended, and also announced that more AI content will be featured at its Marketing, Membership & Communications Conference this June in Washington, D.C.
AI is definitely here to stay and will only become more significant in our lives and within business, sales and marketing as the weeks, months and year rolls on. The question is how can you use AI to improve your customer communication or marketing without losing sight of your brand, your messaging and your ability to connect as only a human can?
Work in tandem with AI to improve your communications and marketing without losing sight of your human connectivity.
3 Tips for Using AI at Your Dealership
Assign someone on your team to learn all about AI. This will typically be your marketing team or marketing manager. You do this to avoid pitfalls and discover best practices for success. They can help to evaluate the various generative AI tools and mainstream apps available to your business that will help your team the most by saving you time and energy, and making tasks simpler.
Start small! Don’t jump in and use AI for everything, but perhaps add a chatbot to your site or try one marketing campaign using content and copy generated from ChatGPT, Jasperor another service. Don’t forget to put your team’s creative touch on it. This means you should edit the content you receive to match your voice and keep it on brand. Remember the old line, “I heard it on the Internet so it must be true”? That’s also why editing the content is important. Use your authority to enhance your message, remove any potential bias or error produced from the AI source.
Use AI to analyze your customer data to help you find trends and patterns to improve future marketing plan activations and personalization. Be sure your best analytics employee is on the job to make sure the data important to your organization is brought out and to decipher your results. And if they then work with the marketing team, you can creatively target varying audiences and their needs, depending on your messaging and objectives to create engagement.
Advancing Your Team’s Abilities
The goal with incorporating AI — whether it’s conversational or generative in design — into your marketing and customer touchpoints is not to replace humans. It’s to advance your team’s ability to connect and empathize with your customers. This blog simply alerts you to the rise in AI and the convenience it can provide your team, should you need it.
You shouldn’t ignore AI tools. In fact, one of the ASAE webinar speakers described the current AI popularity and transition as “going from hand tools to power tools.”
While it may be a bit too early and too costly to use every AI tool at your disposal in your dealership, it will change marketing in the near future and beyond. It also can help your team stay on task and hit your marketing deliverables with more streamlined communications. It’s up to your team to explore AI, add it to your strategic plans and use it as a supportive tool to improve your marketing both today and over the next year.
What is ChatGPT?
Did you know that ChatGPT just launched the latest version, ChatGPT-4, March 14? It’s advancing as much as it is sprouting. But what is it, exactly? I asked: “Can you tell me what ChatGPT is? It answered: “Certainly! ChatGPT is a language model developed by OpenAI. GPT stands for ‘Generative Pre-trained Transformer,’ which is a type of artificial neural network that has been trained on large amounts of text data using unsupervised learning techniques. The purpose of ChatGPT is to generate human-like responses to natural language input, making it a powerful tool for various applications such as chatbots, language translation and text summarization. ChatGPT has been trained on a diverse range of text data from the internet, including books, articles and web pages, giving it a broad knowledge base to draw from when generating responses.”
MINNEAPOLIS, — The Marine Retailers Association of the Americas (MRAA) announces the addition of Stabicraft USA to its growing list of MRAA Partner Members.
Marine manufacturers, suppliers and service providers, through Partner Membership, commit to aligning their brands with the programs and opportunities that MRAA offers in its efforts to fuel the success of the marine industry. Support from Partners allows the Association to expand its offerings and create a positive, long-term impact in MRAA members’ business.
Stabicraft USA, Port Angeles, Wash., manufactures aluminum chambered boats that focus on both form and function – they commit to their mission of supporting the marine industry by partnering with MRAA. Learn more about Stabicraft USA.
“Adding another boat manufacturer as a supporting Partner Member gives our dealer members more opportunities to expand their marine ensemble and provide variety for their customers,” said Allison Gruhn, MRAA Vice President of Business Development. “MRAA is better equipped to fulfill our mission of serving the entire marine industry with Stabicraft USA’s support.”
MRAA encourages its dealer members to explore the entire list of companies that actively support the MRAA across four partnership levels. View the full list.
About the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas
At the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas, we believe that for the marine industry to thrive, the retail organizations that interact with the boaters in their community must thrive. With that in mind, MRAA works to create a strong and healthy boating industry by uniting those retailers, providing them with opportunities for improvement and growth, and representing them with a powerful voice. For more information, visit MRAA.com or contact us at 763-315-8043.
MINNEAPOLIS, March 6, 2023 – The Marine Retailers Association of the Americas (MRAA) has released eight, special-edition The Boat Biz podcasts.
Recorded at MRAA’s Dealer Week Conference and Expo in Austin, Texas, the special-edition podcasts feature eight distinct guests — two MRAA Strategic Partners (Boats Group and Lightspeed) and six MRAA Education Champions (Boatline, Elite Recreational Finance, Global Marine Insurance, National Marine Distributors, Northpoint Commercial, Vantage Resource Group) — offering expert viewpoints about the business of boating.
Matt Gruhn, MRAA President
“The Dealer Week environment provides a great platform for the marine industry to capture reflections on the current year and a look forward to the year ahead of us,” says Matt Gruhn, MRAA President. “We wanted to capture that insight through the minds of some of our most significant industry partners – MRAA Strategic Partners and Education Champions — because they have the leadership, knowledge and industry awareness to help dealers find greater success in 2023 and beyond.”
For these Dealer Week-edition podcasts, MRAA enlisted professional podcaster JB Hager, host of the Get Ship Done podcast and co-host of both THE MOVE, and Austin Found podcasts (and a producer of the Garagecast podcast, which is hosted by Sam Dantzler and Tony Gonzalez of Garage Composites).
The Boat Biz Podcasts — Dealer Week Special-Edition Episodes
John Souch, Boats Group Sales Director, shares insights into what the recent model year listing activity and the overall healthy consumer activity mean for 2023.
Russell Baqir, Northpoint Commercial Finance, talks key elements dealers should be thinking about in 2023, adding RV industry perspectives that may translate into the marine market.
Jimmy Delegro, founder of Elite Recreational Finance, shares how he built the company from the ground up, how he’s carved out a niche as an industry leader and forming relationships.
The world of marine insurance has undergone some significant changes over the last few years. Global Marine Insurance’s Troy Buttleman discusses the changing state of insurance and how Global delivers for today’s dealers.
Ross Solwold of Vantage Resource Group shares his insights into how dealers can strengthen their alternative profit centers through Vantage’s unique products.
Drawing from her experience, Nancy Cueroni, National Marine Distributors Association President, explains the distributor side of the COVID-related supply chain issues.
Brad Lloyd, Lightspeed Dealer Management Systems, says automating processes help dealers become more effective in their customer communications and overall dealership systems.
Boatline’s Lori Stacy and Nicole Schantz share great insights about digital marketing and digital retail and how dealers can tap into the wealth of data and information from Statistical Surveys.
“We have built a solid foundation with The Boat Biz podcast, which was one of our essential goals derived from the 2023-2025 MRAA Strategic Roadmap planning meeting last year,” adds Gruhn. “These new episodes double our current output, giving us 16 compelling episodes. Each one provides a unique story and supplies the industry with beneficial market breakdowns, actionable content and highlight many different business aspects within our industry.”
About the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas At the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas, we believe that for the marine industry to thrive, the retail organizations that interact with the boaters in their community must thrive. With that in mind, MRAA works to create a strong and healthy boating industry by uniting those retailers, providing them with opportunities for improvement and growth, and representing them with a powerful voice. For more information, visit MRAA.com or contact us at 763-315-8043.
Because you’re involved in a dealership service department, you know what’s coming. It’s the chaos of spring launch season.
And while pulling it off is a heavy lift for even the best-of-the-best service departments, it’s a huge opportunity for your team as well. An opportunity to kick off your customers’ boating season on the right foot … or not. To increase their boat usage … or not. To build long-term customer loyalty (read: repeat business) … or not. And to add general referral business … or not.
Liz Walz
That’s why we picked this February Spotlight topic – Ease the Service Stress of Spring Deliveries– and it’s why we are partnering with MRAA Strategic Partner Lightspeed to share meaningful Repair Event Cycle Time (RECT) insights with you. We know your customers’ experience (CX) with your service department is critical to the quality and longevity of their relationship with your dealership – and RECT is a big part of that. Spring launch is a fresh chance at getting the season started in the correct way.
Here are a few RECT insights to get things rolling:
If you’re not tracking your dealership’s RECT, now is the time to start. Some Dealer Management Systems (DMS) make it easy for you to track. But any dealer can measure the time between opening a repair order and closing it. Learn more about measuring and improving RECT from MRAA’s Spotlight on the topic last February.
Different DMS companies and different dealerships track it in different ways. What matters most is that you’re tracking it … and you’re actively working to reduce your RECT numbers so your customers have a better service experience and enjoy more time using their boat on the water.
MRAA and VRZ Consulting worked together to identify proven tactics leading dealers use to overcome common challenges during each step of the service process that can lead to longer time in the shop and disappointed customers.You can find these solutions related to detailing and delivering– the final step of the service process – as part of this month’s Spotlight.
As the marine industry gains more experience tracking RECT as an important customer experience metric and service department key performance indicator, our understanding of the numbers improves. For example, when Lightspeed first started tracking RECT, they only included repair orders in which marine dealers had recorded parts and labor in their DMS, which was a small subsegment of the total repair orders submitted. Today, they include repair orders with no parts or labor entered, which allows for a much larger pool of total repair orders. In addition, they’ve removed statistical outliers created by circumstances like storage. As a result, they are reporting a lower average RECT: about 24 days. Dealers report this is more representative of what’s happening in their shops than earlier methods, according to Lightspeed. Read more about MRAA and Lightspeed RECT changes.
While our understanding of the numbers continues to change and improve, our commitment to helping you improve RECT through the sharing of best practices, education and resources remains steadfast.
Not only will Lightspeed and MRAA be regularly sharing metrics related to the factors that influence RECT, but our team will soon be releasing dealer case studies from Lightspeed’s RECT award winners, sharing strategies these businesses have applied to achieve industry-leading customer experience.
If you have ideas for RECT education and resources that would benefit you and your team, we’d love to hear them. You are always welcome to email me at liz@mraa.com.
“Our ‘See You Out Here’ campaign has helped maintain industry momentum and welcome a diverse audience of newcomers to recreational boating,” says Matt Gruhn, MRAA president. “This recognition and award reinforce the importance for Discover Boating to continue creating and distributing strong marketing efforts that engage future boaters and promote the benefits of boating.”
The entries spanned 22 different categories and were judged by a committee of creative professionals. The judges’ comments about Discover Boating’s See You Out Here Campaign included:
This campaign truly epitomizes what an integrated marketing campaign should be and propels the marine industry forward.
Very well designed, executed and reported. Well documented with ambitious goals, well-addressed and results documented.
Discover Boating, powered by NMMA and MRAA, received a Neptune Award for the 2022 “See You Out Here” marketing campaign.
“We are honored to receive a Neptune Award for Discover Boating’s 2022 ‘See You Out Here’ campaign,” said Kevin Williams, NMMA’s Vice President of Marketing. “It’s a testament to the effort that went into our marketing approach and the progress we are making in attracting the next generation while connecting with existing boaters since the campaign launch.”
For images and the full list of Neptune Awards winners, click here.
