MARKETING TO THE MARINE CUSTOMER

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 Do you Really Understand Your Target Customer?

Boat Manufacturers spend a lot to sell their products - ads, shows, events

  • Efforts are often based on long-held beliefs about who the customer is (“we sell mostly to older guys”) or what marketing tools to use (“our agency says we should do Instagram”)

  • Unfortunately, assumptions based on anecdotal ‘tribal knowledge’ can be obsolete or just plain inaccurate

  • This can lead to huge inefficiencies - targeting the wrong consumers, focusing on unimportant claims, utilizing the wrong media

  • A majority of boat advertising is not brand-specific, but generic to the industry (“smooth ride”, “high quality”, etc.).

  • Compare this to how automobile brands have, over time, carved out unique and lasting brand positionings: driver’s car, safety, luxury, reliability.


What does your brand uniquely stand for? Do your prospects know this?

It’s important to have claims that only your brand can make.

 

Is your Consumer Target potentially outdated or inaccurate?

  • When was it developed?

  • Who IS your target anyway?

  • Based on simply age or income?

  • What are their attitudes?

  • What are they looking for?

 
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Your Marketing approach might need fine-tuning

  • What media do YOUR customers use?

  • How do they shop?

  • What info do they need?

  • How do they think and talk?

  • To compete, you must offer what consumers are looking for

Here’s how Peregrine Advisors Can Help You Improve the Accuracy of Your Marketing Efforts

  • Tightly define your customers - 360-degree view including demographics, attitudes, likes, dislikes. It’s not uncommon to have more than one target (e.g. one for smaller boats, one for bigger - - or different targets for different boat layouts). Each target will have its own shopping habits.

  • Effectively reach your prospects - who is the true competition? Where does your brand have an advantage? (Quality? Value?) What must you improve? (Service? Innovation?)

  • Optimize your brand - what do you truly stand for? What advantages should you capitalize on? What benefits or offerings should you feature? What’s important to your target?

  • How best communicate - what media, what content, what tone, what language?

The result is greater effectiveness

  • A great positioning highlights your brand’s unique advantage - and lets you clearly stand for something important

  • Advertising approach that is unique, and that WORKS! The right blend of rational and emotional

  • Resources spent against the right communication channels

What we do (any or all of the following):

  • Collaborate - understand your goals, resources, data, history, information

  • Research - industry, customer - can be simple or more involved

  • Analyze, synthesize all learnings, create hypotheses - with client involvement

  • Recommend a strategy and plan

  • Execute efficiently - work with your staff and/or agency

  • Leave behind operating guidelines