Marketing In The Marine Industry...Where To Start

The final target of any company is to sell its product or service.

Starting there, let’s do some reverse engineering to discover how to use the power of marketing to achieve this ultimate goal.

Why does the customer buy? There are many theories out there that attempt to answer this question. Let’s err on the practical side and assume that the customer buys because the product or service satisfies his need.

As the customers debate within themself on whether or not to buy from you, they already have played out the end scene in their head and felt the satisfaction from using the product or service you offer.

Now we have to understand how to install this satisfied feeling into the customers’ minds.

The most practical method is giving many examples using video, audio, or the written word that show in detail how to use a given product. The media used should exhibit the benefit of the product because the benefits are what stick in the client’s head most strongly.

Next, we have to execute. We have to create content, mostly instructional in the video, audio, and written word form.

Here, your company assets come into play.

It might seem complicated to make a video to accompany your product or service, but all it takes is a camera—even just the one on your phone—and a great audio or voice recording.

Go around your company speaking with your staff, filming what they are doing and what they are saying. Record sound bites by managers, technical staff members, and anyone else who may spark the imaginations of the clients.

Ask your staff to write short descriptions of any particular product or operation within the company. Even a small effort by any individual inside your company may be useful material to use for promotion.

Now we have all this material in the form of video, audio, and written descriptions, what do we do with them? Well, we have to choose the most suitable platform to display it.

The most popular platforms are your company website and your social media accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and any others where your potential customers spend time.

The main mistake that most companies make is to publish content without testing. They simply assume that the market has certain preferences.

Better to be cautious; the market will reveal its preferences clearly if you test and get feedback. So be sure to conserve your time by listening to that feedback.

Take the content you have available and start to publish it, first on your website and then on each platform in turn.

With each video, audio, or written word you post, check and measure how well the market responds to it. If you see that a particular format is working better compared to another, change your content type for that certain platform accordingly. This optimization process will give you a clear understanding of where and what you should display.

The last step of this reverse-engineering journey is how you can get people to notice your content.

You might use direct emails to make them curious to learn more about you. You might also use Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and LinkedIn ads.

All of these give you great exposure to the precise subset of clients you want to reach: the power of these tools is in their capability to identify with laser precision the type of people you want to contact.

Also in this case, testing is key.

It’s worth it to spend a small percentage of your budget on this stage. While testing, change one aspect of the ad at a time in order to glean more precise information on what is working and is not. And when you see one specific ad or platform yielding you a good number of visitors, devote more money to that ad.

All the reversing engineering described above is marketing in action, the base elements to grow your company.

Thank you for reading, I would appreciate hearing your thought on this.

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Davide Scalia is the CEO & Founder of Namaka Consulting, with over 15 years of experience in the Marine Industry and over 10 years’ experience in Strategic Business Development, helping over 500 businesses to clarify what to do next to build the Brand, how to increase sales, giving new ideas to obtain exponential Business Growth.

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