Spa Pool Marketing Success

No matter how good or bad you were at marketing and promoting your pool and spa business in 2020, most of the dealers and manufacturers listening to this podcast probably had a significant increase in sales in 2020 and are forecasting a pretty good 2021.  

So even though in today’s podcast we’re going to talk about the pandemic, it’s going to be more in the context of why some dealers were more prepared and faster to adapt to the changing retail landscape and do so more efficiently and with less stress.   

In addition, we’re going to discuss what manufacturers did to help their dealers adapt and succeed and what they should be doing now to build their brand and increase market share. 

Then we’ll talk about what dealers and manufactures should be doing now to prepare when the hot tub buying “feeding frenzy” eventually settles down. 

Questions for Dave

1 - Why were some dealers more successful during the pandemic?

2 - How critical a role did systems and automation play for successful dealers in 2020?

3 - You mentioned more and better communication options for consumers – what do you mean by that?

4 - What do you think pool and spa buyers expect now from dealers?

5 - How and where should dealers be marketing and advertising their business now?

Questions for Megan

1 - What did Spa Retailer do in 2020 to help their subscribers adapt and grow?

2 - What were dealers asking for most from you?

3 - Since manufacturers aren’t looking for new dealers, what messages is it important for them to put out right now?

4 - What manufacturer(s) do a good job of communicating with the industry? 

5 - What are some ways manufacturers can use this time to gain market share, even if they can’t ramp up capacity right now?

Most dealers know they should do more to get more referrals; they just don’t have time to do it. In other words, it’s common knowledge, not common practice. By creating a referral marketing system, valuable, money making referrals will happen in a more systematic, reliable and predictable way.  

In this podcast, I discuss the huge difference between Word-of-mouth vs. a referral marketing system 

Want to improve customer service and get more referrals?  Here are a few lists I’ve put together that might help:

· The 12-point customer complaint checklist

· 11 things you can do to really make a difference

· 9 great customer service ideas 

Most dealers make the mistake of thinking that once they build a new website, deploy a new AdWords campaign, start sending out a newsletter or start posting to Facebook, that they’re done with that part of their business. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Consumer preferences change, competitors get smarter and search engines like Google get “smarter” in terms of the results they provide their users.

There are many different things you can change, update or modify to generate more traffic, clicks and leads. Some are related and cross over into other areas like website copy, headlines and keyword placement.  Others like Facebook ads and AdWords are similar but require different strategies.  

You’ll learn test you can run on your website, on-site SEO & content, e-mail marketing, AdWords, social media and much more. 

You’ve spent a lot of time, money and resources to generate a lead, so you want to be sure that your follow up is quick and effective.  How and when to follow up with a prospect, what makes a good response good, the role of automation and email marketing hacks, tricks and tips.

Google Analytics is a free service provided by Google that provides detailed statistics about your website traffic. 

Reviewing specific sections once a month will give you a good overview of how your website is performing in terms of traffic and user experience. 

Google Analytics provides information on traffic channels, breaking stats down between organic, direct, paid, referral, social, and display and tells you the most visited pages.  

Push notification marketing is an advertising, communication and re-engagement strategy that will let dealers send messages to customers and through clickable browser notifications even when they are not on your website anymore.

 Marketers can use these notifications to send promotional, informational or educational messages. Push notifications are a great vehicle to inform users about new products, current sales or even recently published blog posts.  

In addition, many companies use them as reminders that specific promotions are starting or almost ending giving the readers the motivation to take advantage of the limited savings available to them. 

This relatively new marketing strategy allows you to reach out to your previous website visitors even when even when you don’t have traditional contact information like name, email and phone number. Please note however that these notifications can be sent only to people who have specifically subscribed to get these web push notifications directly from your website. 

In a “perfect world” you would offer live chat 24/7 with customer service agents always available to answer customer and prospect questions.  Unfortunately, that’s not a real option for most dealers.  

Messenger marketing is an effective way to communicate with prospects and customers either in real time (via live chat) or through an automated chat system 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

The rise in popularity of messenger, the pros and cons of live chat versus chatbots, strategic ways to use chatbots to engage customers and generate highly qualified leads.  

There is only one main purpose for your website and that is to convert website visitors into leads.  The only way to verifiably do this is to capture their contact information.  As mentioned in podcast 2, website “surfers” behave rather impulsively on the Internet, so much so that many times they easily forget where they were even a few website pages/clicks ago. 

 That’s why it is so critical to convert as many first-time visitors as possible…and quickly!  And the best way to convert a visitor to a lead is by offering some useful information or something of value that will help a prospective buyer make an informed buying decision.   

As a result of geo-fencing, the right customers see the right ad at the right time. Geo-fencing works by drawing a virtual line around an area (like your competitors’ showroom).  

When a potential customer with a smartphone or tablet enters a geo-fenced location, GPS technology captures their mobile device ID. 

You can then show them ads while they’re in the store and for 30 days after they leave.  This is very cool technology and an under-utilized strategy.

 Dave Carleton

Now that you’ve created an amazing blog post, press release, video, etc., you want to amplify your message, extending it beyond just your website.  I’ll show you 9 different types of on-site organic content you can use and 10 different paid and organic SEO strategies to promote it.

 Dave Carleton

Content marketing not only helps educate and attract customers it also improves your chances of showing up on page one of Google and other search engines.  Plus, it helps you engage readers and drive more traffic to your site.  I’ll discuss different types of Education Based Marketing, User-Generated Content (UGC), Video Content Marketing

 Dave Carleton

For Facebook ads to work, they must be relevant to the user and really stand out.  An effective Facebook ad is one that drives traffic to your website and generates leads containing detailed contact information.  This episode will focus on the best Facebook settings to use and the various types of Facebook advertising I've used effectively.

 Dave Carleton

I’m going review one of the main sources of paid traffic sometimes referred to a PPC or pay per click – Google AdWords (now called Google Ads). You’ll also learn: 3 critical things you need to do before getting started, what to include on an AdWords landing Page, structure and targeting options and developing a keyword strategy that gets results

One of the newest and most under-utilized SEO tools is website Schema markup. This podcast is a crash course on what it is and how you can benefit from it.

 The Schema markup code essentially tells the search engines more specifically what a specific website page is about, beyond just what your meta tags and content says. By leveraging schema markup on your website, you can increase your chances of ranking well with search engines so that more potential customers find your business.

I’m going to continue the discussion “How to Use SEO to Get Your Website Lead Generation Ready” and talk about some SEO fundamentals providing tips and tricks to help you rank higher, optimize better and get more out of your search engine optimization strategy.

Episode Notes:

H1 header tag code example:

On-site search engine optimization (SEO) are the things that you do on your site or to your site to make it easier for the search engines to find your business. 

 On-site SEO involves implementing a lot of little things that over time add up to something much bigger. It can involve optimizing your site for specific keywords and updating titles and descriptions to be sure that you are telling Google what every page on your website is about. 

Step Two in the 9 Steps to Internet Marketing Success for Pool and Spa Dealers

Creating an effective on-site SEO strategy is critical to the success of your business. 

 But, before you get started, you need to know what specific keywords your prospects and customers are typing into the search engines to find your products and services.  The information I share will help you understand the different types of keywords and how and where to find them.

Want to improve the user experience of every visitor to your site?  Concerned about losing control of your website to an employee or marketing agency?  Then you better listen to these tips!

Based on years of experience reviewing Google Analytics for hundreds of industry websites, I have compiled a list of pages that every pool and spa dealer should have.  

Today I’m going to discuss a variety of different ways to improve your website design.

In this podcast, I’ll be talking about Step #1 in the 9 Steps to Internet Marketing Success for Pool and Spa Dealers – Creating or Improving Your Website.

 I’ll be sharing some great information on how to stand out from your competition and generate more leads by optimizing and maximizing your website effectiveness.

Don't skip this podcast - it's the roadmap/overview for all future podcasts. In this podcast, I’m going to give you a quick introduction and overview of my 9 Steps to Internet Marketing Success for Pool and Spa Dealers. It’s what I discuss with all prospective clients because it follows a successful formula that I developed over the last 35 years and has been used successfully by hundreds of dealers across the world to drive more traffic, generate more leads and ultimately increase sales.  

Each of the 9 steps I discuss will have its own podcast and go into much more detail about the specific strategies I recommend that you implement. 

Hi and welcome to the Spa Pool Marketing Success podcast.  My name is David Carleton and I’ll be hosting each episode with one goal in mind - to help guide you through the ever-changing world of Internet Marketing for hot tub dealers, pool builders and sauna retailers.  

What I will to do on each podcast, is give you some information to either help you better understand how Internet marketing works or provide specific strategies that you can apply right away to help you drive more traffic, generate more leads or increase sales.   

Because I cover a lot of material in each podcast, before you push the “play” button, I suggest that you have a pen and paper nearby and be ready to take some notes.