Marine Marketing

Yes, we normally can – with a few caveats. Sometimes, dealer management tools have native plugins for popular content management systems (CMSs) like WordPress. We can simply install the plugin, connect it to your dealer management account, and configure it appropriately.

In many cases, though, there’s no plugin. That means we have 2 options:

1. Use a no-code automation tool like Zapier to pass data from the dealer management tool to your website.
2. If there’s no integrated automation tool, we may be able to build our own middleware. That depends on the developers of your tool being willing to give us access, though. Many smaller companies don’t like exposing their endpoints (‘doors’ that let us pull and push data from and into the tool).

The best way to assess your options is to get in touch with us – we’ll check whether there are plugins/automations available before investigating the viability of a bespoke solution. 

There are a few ways to tell whether your marketing is working.

1. Metrics like website clicks are known as leading indicators. They’re positive signals that things are moving in the right direction, but they don’t mean anything on their own. Think of them like the indicator on a car – if the indicator is blinking, the car is likely to turn in the future, but it hasn’t necessarily done so yet.
2. High-intent revenue opportunities (HIRO) are another type of leading indicator. For most marine businesses, HIRO pipeline looks like phone calls and form submissions from high-intent sources like their websites. Think of HIRO like the car starting to turn – it hasn’t finished yet, but the steering wheel is moving.
3. Finally, revenue is a lagging indicator. It shows how well your marketing has worked. You can see which marketing activities helped your business the most using revenue attribution. The ‘golden triangle’ of attribution uses 3 different types of reporting to help build a clear, accurate picture of your marketing – software-based, self-reported, and sales-reported.

If you work with us, we’ll do our best to report on all 3 levels. Too many agencies just focus on leading metrics like clicks, which don’t mean that much and can easily be gamed – just because the indicator is flashing doesn’t mean the car will turn.

Getting surfaced for location-based searches – where people add a location or ‘near me’ to a query – relies on strong local SEO. Google and other search engines use a mix of signals to work out whether your business is geographically relevant or not.

The highest-impact factor: the information on your website. Ideally, you should have a localised landing page (LLP) for each relevant city or region. If you wanted to show up for ‘boats for sale gold coast’, for example, your LLP might showcase boats available at your Gold Coast dealership, talk in depth about that dealership’s location, and contain reviews from Gold Coast-based boat owners.

Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is also critical. Make sure your service areas match the locations you’re targeting, then focus on collecting reviews. The more positive reviews you have, the more likely Google is to display your profile. (Your GBP directly impacts the organic performance of your website as well – don’t neglect it.)

Finally, try to get backlinks from relevant local websites, like newspapers, lifestyle magazines, even events sites like the Sanctuary Cove Boat Show. Each link acts as a sort of ‘vote of trust’ that Google then integrates into its ranking algorithms. 

Yes, we can. We’re not a public relations agency, but digital PR – getting referenced and cited by relevant, trustworthy websites – is a core part of modern SEO. Press releases are also a great way to communicate changes in your business (like new product releases or award wins) to both Google and LLMs like ChatGPT.