Congratulations on setting up your boat equipment shop. Opening a shop is one thing and a completely different animal to keep the business running. To keep the business alive, you need customers and for them to find you, you need to do one vital thing—market the business. Thankfully, you can use plenty of tricks to draw in your target customers. Which are these tricks? Here they are:
Network with people in your industry
You need to put yourself and your boat equipment shop business out there to be known. Unlike before, where you had to attend a physical networking event, you no longer have to do this—you can network through various social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and even forums.
All you need to do is to create a company or even a personal account on these platforms and be a helpful contributor.
Some of the excellent partners you should aim to network with include:
- Boat clubs
- Boat towing companies
- Boat management companies
- Marine lifestyle companies
- And even other boat accessory companies.
Networking on social media is all about adding value to other people. For example, share posts and articles or mention people you deem as authorities in the industry.
On YouTube, don’t just publish a post bearing a review of the product that you are selling. Also, go to the comment section and respond to the queries that the people have left.
It also doesn’t hurt to regularly visit the comment sections of the various authority figures in the industry and leave constructive feedback there.
Forums are also a splendid place to network. The boating industry has a large community, and people ask all manner of questions.
As a boat shop owner, join as many boating forums as possible. You can consider some excellent ones such as: The Hull Truth, iBoats, Band of Boaters, and many others.
When you are on these forums, don’t go there to promote your products. Instead, aim to answer questions a distressed member might have.
If you consistently do this, it’s only time before people notice you and they come to you for advice and recommendations on the different boat accessories they should buy.
As you can tell, this is the time to sell the products you stock. Click here to know more boat accessories you can stock in your shop and how to expertly sell them.
Optimize your website
Everyone knows that the future of the world is online. Unfortunately, most people only have a page listing the products they sell, but this site isn’t visible to search engines.
To attract customers, your boat equipment shop website must be visible to people searching for the products you sell.
One of the things you should do is invest in quality content. Don’t just list the product you are selling—also talk more about the product.
To compete in the search results, you should have a blog section discussing the various products. You also should include information such as “How to guides,” “Boating tips,” and so on in your blog.
Besides having top-notch content on your site, also ensure that your site is easy to navigate. People visiting the website should have an easy time accessing the various pages, and they should know where to find the information they want.
The website also needs to have an inviting appeal and be geared toward generating leads.
Run Ads online
If you have a budget, you can start driving leads to your business right away with Ads. And the good thing is that there are plenty of places you can run the Ads to your boat equipment shop. You can run them on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and various websites and apps.
Remember that you may have to try out the various platforms to find the one that converts best for your boat shop.
Regardless of the type of Ads you are running, ensure that you have a well-done funnel. Here is an example you can use:
First touch:
This is the first place the cold audience comes into contact with your business, and it introduces the consumers to your boat shop and pixels them. The content here should be inviting and easy to read. It also should raise curiosity.
Second touch:
This is meant to collect emails. You need to offer an incentive or special offer your customers can’t stay no to. It’s the offer that takes the customers to your landing page, where you collect their email addresses.
Email follow-up:
After collecting their email address, you should direct the customers to the product they are interested in so they can buy it or add it to the cart.
You also should add them to your email sequence that sends emails letting them know about the product (if they didn’t buy it) or other related products they can buy at discounted prices.
You can get away with specific Ads when running Google Ads, but you should be more generic when running Facebook or Instagram ads.
You should note that no one goes to social media to buy products—they are there to relax and catch up with friends. So the Ads you run there should not be too salesy.
An excellent way to go about it is to break the Ads into two categories: General reach and remarketing ads.
General reach ads should introduce your boat equipment shop, then invite people to your website, where they learn more about the products you sell.
You will need to try out several creative formats, images, and even different texts until you find the one that works the best for your business.
The ads should have a link that takes the user to a landing page that talks more about a product and gives them an option to opt-in.
With remarketing ads, you show these only to those that have visited your website and shown interest in the products you sell.
These ads follow the users throughout the site and often have higher lead conversions, as the user is already aware of your brand and business.
Parting shot
These are some of the ways you can market your boat equipment shop business. You can do most of the marketing work yourself, but if you are finding it hard or aren’t getting the results you are looking for, don’t hesitate to contact a marketing professional to help you out.