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?

6 - What struggles are dealers telling you they’re having right now?

Dave Carleton
 https://SpaPoolMarketingSuccess.com

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 

Dave Carleton
 https://SpaPoolMarketingSuccess.com

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. 

Dave Carleton
 https://SpaPoolMarketingSuccess.com

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.

Dave Carleton
 https://SpaPoolMarketingSuccess.com

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.  

Dave Carleton
 https://SpaPoolMarketingSuccess.com

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. 

Dave Carleton
 https://SpaPoolMarketingSuccess.com

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.  

Dave Carleton
 https://SpaPoolMarketingSuccess.com

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.   

Best practices for creating winning CTAs that get the click.

Dave Carleton
 https://SpaPoolMarketingSuccess.com