Top 5 Signals That Your Social Marketing Plan Has Gone Astray

By Gary Druckenmiller, Jr., co-founder, TheOpenSea.com – We’ve all been there.  You spend hours putting together your marine plan for, well, something.  Could be communications, operations, marketing, etc., and you come to realize that all those hours have returned very little.  Now that you’re knee deep in execution, you sense something isn’t right.  Not that you didn’t try your best, your plan just is not working — either in comparison to what’s out there across the marine landscape or what you expected going in. Read more >>

Ideas are Currency

By Peter Granata, president, Granata Design and the Marine Design Resource Alliance — Does success follow a company that decides to replicate or assimilate someone else’s products? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but will it be competitive?  Every time a company elects to take the easy way out and copy a someone else’s idea, aren’t they forced to compete on price alone? Read more >>

Summer 2010: How’s it going?

An estimated 65,000 to 70,000 people, and 7,000 boats, attended the AquaPalooza 2010 Signature Event near Austin, Texas a couple of weekends ago. Held on Lake Travis, and hosted by Sea Ray Boats and its dealer Sail & Ski Center, this year’s Signature Event was the most well attended ever, proving that despite the down economy, people will still show up if you offer them a good time. Read more >>

PR case study: Apple’s iPhone response

By Mike Davin, online editor, Boating Industry — On Friday, Apple held a press conference to respond to accusations that its wildly popular iPhone 4 features a defective antenna that drops calls when users hold it the wrong way. Read more >>

Analysts weigh in on the recovery

The year 2010 will represent the low point in new unit sales as a percent of total unit sales for the industry and a recovery in new powerboat unit sales, estimated at 10 percent, should begin in 2011. Read more >>

Remember Your First Time?

By Jeff Scherer, Associate Partner, Callbutton LLC — Everybody likes white teeth, right? I have yet to meet a person, however, who enjoys going to the dentist. Boaters like to be out on the water enjoying their time with friends, family, and fish, but similarly, I have yet to meet the person that enjoys bringing his boat in for service. Read more >>

Online presence: How do boat dealers compare?

Fill in the blanks to this statement: “The boating industry lags behind the _______ industry by ___ months/years.”

We’ve all heard people talk about how far behind our industry is compared to others when it comes to sales this or manufacturing that: You can pretty much fill in the blank there too. So, as I was looking through a list of powersports dealers yesterday that one of our sister magazine’s had compiled for a directory it is putting together, I was interested to see how favorably the boating industry compares when it comes to dealership websites. Read more »

Manufacturers get creative with inventory

By Mike Davin, online editor, Boating Industry — The top headline in today’s Boating Industry e-newsletter is about Southport Marine’s “Floor Plan Free” buying program, which eliminates stocking requirements for dealerships and encourages dealers to carry a single demonstration model. Read more >>

’09 unit sales: Just how bad was it?

We’re wrapping up our annual Market Data Book this week, getting all the pages ready to send off to our printer so the issue can be mailed out at the end of July. As always, there are a lot of pertinent facts and figures. But having worked to help assemble this issue for the last six years, never before have some of the numbers stopped me cold when I first saw them like they did this year. Read more >>