Be Like Iron Man: The Importance of a Marina Blog

So, here’s the analogy: 

Before he was Iron Man, Tony Stark was already a formidable dude. Super-rich billionaire prodigy – basically the Mozart of Marvel technology. And before Tony Stark, Robert Downey Jr. was already an established actor, but Iron Man is what took him to a new level of ubiquitous superstardom. 

Your marina may already be a formidable marketing presence. You’ve got a newsletter – that’s great. You’ve got a clean, crisp website. Establishing a consistent blog presence on that website? Now you are Iron Man wearing the gloves that look like they’re filled with moonbeams. 

Today, we discuss how you can enhance your brand and achieve increased customer conversions with a website blog presence.

Bodybuild your SEO presence

The tactical advantage to implementing a consistent blog is that you’ve just put your SEO in the gym. Your SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, in its simplest description, is the language you use within your marina’s online presence to rank highly in search results. As a marina that is likely surrounded by competing marinas within just a couple miles, achieving those top Google rankings is paramount for converting nearby boaters.

A marina’s blog can greatly enhance its SEO by approaching blog content from a niche angle, such as:

• Writing a community event calendar. Cover the major upcoming events in your marina’s community, and your reach expands beyond those simply searching for a slip. You’re now on the radar of your entire community.
• Writing a weekly fishing report. You’re already an authority on your waterfront. Let people know this, and they’ll gravitate to you for information, and perhaps you’ll soon see them buying bait and gear in your ship store.
• Writing operational marina updates. Search engines like Google take notice when a website maintains an active presence. That marina site that has not been touched since 2016 is not showing up like yours when you write a blog post telling tenants that you’ve renovated your dock pilings or added a new restaurant menu item.

Build your community relationships

Here’s an example:

A lighted boat parade is upcoming along your shoreline before Christmas. The path of the parade will bypass three marinas. Food trucks are set up on your street, and independent artists are out with booths selling their art. Your marina is the only marina that gives the event publicity. 

You write a 200-word blog post about it, letting people know the what, when, and where, telling folks there’s free parking right in front of your marina. You take a snippet of this blog post and cross-post it to all your social media platforms. You tag and shout out each of the local vendors who will set up for the event, showing your appreciation for surrounding local businesses. You then take pictures of the event, and write a follow-up post for your blog or your newsletter, positioning your marina as the center of the action. 

The marina across the bay from you–it may be a completely competent business. But they’ve laid dormant while you’ve utilized the free publicity from a community-wide event and strengthened or started relationships with members of your community. Some of these folks may not yet be boaters, but when it’s a sunny summer day and they want to try paddleboarding or a Sea-doo rental, they may think of you.

Marina marketing with blogs builds authority

You know the deepest intricacies of running a marina, of the boats by your docks, of the curves and depths of your shoreline. Your staff knows this. But that retired fella who just bought his dream bass boat and hasn’t yet decided where to keep it? 

They may be browsing marina websites. They see your fishing report blog posts, and decide you’re the type of friendly authority with whom they want to forge a long-term relationship. Your marina has all the amenities any boater could ask for – your blog gives those amenities muscle.

How to host a marina blog

There’s a good chance your website platform offers a tab where you can log into your dashboard, write a blog post, and publish it directly to a blog page. If your site is custom and doesn’t currently have a blog page, you can ask your web builder to help you set it up.

Platforms like Squarespace or WordPress are designed with integrated blog posting. Once you get started, here are some best practices:

• Whether it’s weekly, monthly, or quarterly, be consistent.
• Run your post through a free editing tool like Grammarly. Potential customers notice and make judgments based on grammar.
• Make your posts pop with original photos.

Most of all, have fun with it. You can write about literally anything. Do you have a flourishing service department? Write a whole post about how good you are at tune-ups. A marina blog is another outlet for your voice.

Exercise it.

Article by Hammer and Nail Marketing

WHAT IS HAMMER & NAIL?

Hammer and Nail Marketing is a boutique marketing firm that helps small to mid-sized marinas get noticed by boaters. If you’d like to focus on operating your marina without the additional responsibility of marketing, get in touch with us.

We’re boaters ourselves from a background of operating a family-run marina. From a group of experts who know the water, let Hammer and Nail Marketing help you be the waterfront your local boaters see every time they cast off.