If it floats, sail or power, boaters want to know about it. Boating for the boat buyer is a lifestyle, a passion. In fact, I’m convinced that the concept of a “chat group” was first born by user groups of various boat brands. When employed strategically, these communication forums, including blog platforms, are an optimal way for boat sellers to connect with boat buyers. In Part 1 of this series, we talked about nurturing leads through email marketing with relevant content. Now, we'll talk about what exactly this relevant content entails and how the boating industry can benefit from blogging. 

A recent survey by boatingindustry.com reveals that over half the boating industry sellers plan on increasing the use of websites (potential blog platforms) in their marketing mix.

Blogging to Sell Boats

Blogging for boat manufactures delivers two primary marketing benefits. The obvious first is that boat buyers will be attracted to read stories about the boat brand they are interested in and the more engagement they have in the brand the better for the brand. The second is the fact that when employed strategically, a blog platform that is integrated within a website will dramatically increase the amount of organic traffic (traffic that is generated freely from search engines) to the website from which it is published.

An example of a blogging strategy for a boat manufacturer or seller:

1) Boat seller determines what their boat buyers are most interested and documents keywords and phrases used by these buyers (i.e. “42 foot blue water cruiser”) – this can be done both intuitively and also analytically using tools to review the strength of these keywords and keyword phrases

2) Boat seller writes or has written (i.e. pulling content from owner community) short articles integrating the keywords and phrases being searched for by their buyers

3) Boat seller publishes/posts these articles regularly on their website increasing the number of indexed pages on their site and creating multiple entry points into their website from the search engines and other sources

Once the relevant traffic of interested boaters starts coming to a boat brand’s website, inbound marketing strategies can then be employed to capture and qualify these leads, engage with them, and ultimately turn them into loyal fans and owners of the boat of their dreams. Snyder Group is happy to discuss these and other digital marketing strategies. Please contact us here.

Stay tuned for Part 3 of our series: Social Integration