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MARKETING
INSIGH T
Wanda Kenton Smith
Low-cost, high-impact tips
for marketing on a budget
Mmarine company has slashed its marketing budget to the bare bones. We
uch to my dismay, just about every
seem to be in pure survival mode, hoping each
day the latest stimulus package will come along
and save us.
So what’s a boat-related business to do when
sales are few and far between and marketing
funds are all but depleted?
Regal Marine handed me that challenge when
it asked me to speak to some of its dealers at a
multi-day strategy summit in early December.
Smart move, I thought, bringing its key players
together at a traditionally
slow time of year to
charge their batteries and
do some much-needed
brainstorming.
I was assigned the topic,
“Low-Budget, High-Impact
Marketing Strategies.”
To develop my content,
I reflected on my own marine marketing experience (pushing 30 years
now), coupled with some
terrific insight drawn
from a panel presentation
I moderated at the MRAA
national convention in
November. Panelists — all
of them leading retail marketers and Web experts — included Top 100 dealers Fred Pace
of Legendary Marine and Larry Russo Sr. of
Russo Marine; Wayne Sorensen of MasterCraft
Dealer Services; and Web experts Bob McCann of Channel Blade and Courtney
Chalmers of Boat Trader.com.
All the dealers endorsed the same marketing
priority: customer contact and retention. They
practice the old-fashioned guerrilla marketing
philosophy I’ve been preaching for years — get
on the phone regularly with your customers.
One-on-one contact is paramount. You should
also have a tracking system in place and top-down management buy-in.
I’ve never understood what makes dealers reluctant to work the phones this way.
Chris Poole of Canada’s Buckeye Marine
suggested it might be fear of rejection. I suspect it has to do with not knowing how to
steer the conversation, other than going right
for the jugular and jumping into the sales
pitch. A much smoother approach is to invite
the customer to a new-boat preview or other
VIP event, or to share dealership news about
shop promotions or other incentives. Every
company should have at least five things to
talk to its customers about.
Randy Kelly of Kelly’s Port says he commits
himself to writing a minimum of two personal
note cards a week to customers. That’s more
than 100 a year. He believes that even if customers aren’t in the market right now, this rela-tionship-building strategy fosters loyalty and has
a long-term payout. It’s a super idea, and the
price is right — a few minutes a week and a few
postage stamps.
Other low-cost connection strategies include
regular e-mail blasts and direct mail, along
with printed or (more efficient) e-newsletters.
If you don’t yet do this, assign someone to get the
job done.
All the dealers agreed it’s
crucial to remain highly
visible in their markets.
Russo has taken this concept to a new level by accepting an RV in trade and
wrapping it with billboard-style branding. Salespeople
take turns driving it for a
week at a time to and from
work. In a year, this drive-time exposure in the
Boston metro market has
been phenomenal — 5,000
miles tracked to date.
We need to carefully analyze our own media
and markets to determine the best return on investment. Gone are the days when you can be
anywhere and everywhere. Pace says he analyzes his results weekly through 1-800 tracking
numbers and detailed Web monitoring reports.
Smart thinking.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that all
the dealer marketers fully endorse investing in
boat shows. While I’m a firm advocate of show
participation, the cost-versus-return issue has
been debated for years in the industry. However, these dealers say the shows work for them,
particularly when there is well-executed pre-event and on-site promotion designed to generate traffic.
I was blown away by the promotions MasterCraft’s Sorensen uses to attract kids — tech-
See Kenton Smith, Page 51
Get on the phone
regularly with
your customers.
One-on-one contact
is paramount.
Wanda Kenton Smith has 28 years marine
industry marketing experience. She is president of Kenton Smith Advertising & Public Relations and president of Marine Marketers of
America. For comments on this column, e-mail
wanda@kentonsmithadv.com.
