Tag Archives: www.dockmaster.com

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: What Is In It for You?

We are barraged with news on a daily basis about the US government’s various bailout plans and other financial stimulus packages geared to get the economy moving again. I have spoken to a number of DockMaster customers that were applying for various state sponsored grants and loans. I was curious about what was being offered, so the first thing I looked at is the much talked about ARRA.

Through the Small Shipyard Grant, the ARRA provides $100 million in supplemental grants for small shipyards. A “small” shipyard is defined as a yard in one geographic location that does not have more than 1,200 employees. These funds are available until September 20, 2010. This program is administered by the Maritime Administration (MARAD). The rub is that this fund is currently closed for 2009. Over 500 applications were received, requesting over $1.25 billion in aid. MARAD will contact successful applicants by August 17, 2009.

Boating Infrastructure Grant Program

The next program I ran across was the Boating Infrastructure Grant Program (BIG). This program provides grant funds to construct, renovate, and maintain tie-up facilities with features for transient boaters in vessels 26 feet or more in length, and to produce and distribute information and educational materials about the program.
The BIG Program includes two funding tiers, Tier One (non-competitive) and Tier Two (nationally competitive). Under Tier One each state, the District of Columbia and insular areas may receive funding for eligible projects up to $100,000 annually. Tier Two funds are made available through a nationally competitive process.

Since the states effectively administer the Tier One funds, the best place to look for these programs is on your state’s official website (e.g. http://www.dbw.ca.gov/Funding/BIG.aspx). The governmental agency designated by each respective governor is eligible to participate in the BIG Program. The agency may partner with local governments, private marinas and others to fund eligible projects.

Tier Two proposals received are reviewed, evaluated and ranked by a national panel with the final decision for funding made by the Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The ranking criteria, eligible projects and regulations are listed in 50 CFR 86. For more information go to: http://wsfrprograms.fws.gov/Subpages/GrantPrograms/BIG/BIG.htm

Small Business Administration: CDC/504

The Small Business Administration has a loan classification called the CDC/504 loan. This program is a long-term financing tool for economic development within a community. The 504 Program provides growing businesses with long-term, fixed-rate financing for major fixed assets, such as land and buildings. A Certified Development Company (CDC) is a nonprofit corporation set up to contribute to the economic development of its community. CDCs work with the SBA and private-sector lenders to provide financing to small businesses.  There are about 270 CDCs nationwide, with each covering a specific geographic area.

Typically, a 504 project includes a loan secured with a senior lien from a private-sector lender covering up to 50 percent of the project cost, a loan secured with a junior lien from the CDC (backed by a 100 percent SBA-guaranteed debenture) covering up to 40 percent of the cost, and a contribution of at least 10 percent equity from the small business being helped. For more information check out: http://www.sba.gov/services/financialassistance/sbaloantopics/cdc504/index.html

 

Promote A Cause You Believe In and Everyone Wins

Last week I received an e-mail from Paul Nickel, the President of Pride Marine Group in Ontario entitled “Boating for the Cure“. Most of the e-mail I receive from Pride pertains to DockMaster, so I must admit that I was intrigued. In the e-mail, Paul describes a fund raiser they are having on June 27th, 2009 to help fight breast cancer and prostate cancer. What I found refreshing was that Paul’s message did not come off as a promotional gimmick that masked a sales event inside of a fund raiser. Sure Pride Marine will benefit from the promotion they will receive by sponsoring this event. But the delivery was heartfelt and Paul openly described this in his e-mail by saying that he wants “to give back to those that are less fortunate or suffering”.

So here is my take on how promoting a cause and one that truly his meaning for you can be a win-win for everyone.

Find a cause you truly believe in and tell the story

Picking a cause to get behind simply because you think it will help sell boats or whatever it is you are marketing is a recipe for disaster. You’ve got to get behind something you are passionate about. Promote a cause that has affected you personally or someone you know. Your passion and drive will show through in not only how you promote your event or fundraiser, but your sincerity will come through during the process, stimulating creative ideas that will make the event meaningful.

Connect with people

Once you decide the cause you want to support, you’ve got to connect with your customers, friends, and the community at large; especially those effected by the affliction that you are trying to raise awareness for. In the case of Pride Marine Group, they partnered with Edgewater Boats and the Town of Gravenhurst.

Lead the Movement

To get the word out and generate excitement you’ve got to do what Paul did and make a personal commitment to the cause and the event. This goes beyond “marketing” whether you use traditional or web-based techniques, but it means that the business owner truly puts some skin in the game. In the case of Pride Marine Group, Boating for the Cure will be a one day event held on June 27th, 2009 in the format of a family boating rally around Lake Muskoka. Participants will be collecting treasure maps to guide their journey and tokens which will be turned in at the end of the day at an awards ceremony and reception. All monies raised by pledges from supporters will be donated to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation and Prostate Cancer Research Foundation in support of cancer research. The event is being paid for by Pride Marine, with sponsorship from Edgewater and the Town of Gravenhurst.

Make a compelling offer that truly adds value to your customers, the charity and the community

On top of the fund raiser being held on June 27th, Edgewater Boats will be running two special editions of their 145cc boat – one pink, one blue, to represent the fight against cancer. For every special edition “Boating for the Cure” 145cc sold, $1000 will be donated to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation (pink boats) or the Canadian Prostate Research Foundation (blue boats). I am a prostate cancer survivor. If I were in the market for a 15′ boat, you’d better believe Edgewater would be at the top of my list. This is an enduring statement on the part of Edgewater in that once June 27th, 2009 has come and gone, these themed boats will live on as a symbol of one’s desire to stamp out a tragic illness.

If you are having a fund raiser that is tied to your business and would like us to promote it on www.marinemanagementtoday.com, please e-mail camsblog@dockmaster.com with more details.

Risk, Ambiguity and the Small Business Owner

Readers of this blog typically fall into two categories:

1). You are an owner/operator of a small business
2). You work for an owner/operator of a small business.

Most of these businesses happen to be in the recreational marine industry, an industry that has been hit especially hard by the current recession. What causes stress and anxiety in our professional lives? Typically, it’s “fear”. We fear what we don’t know or don’t understand. In a volatile economy, these fears are heightened because we can’t predict with any level of accuracy what’s around the corner. One’s ability to “predict the future” is never very accurate. However it’s not the risks inherent in our businesses that cause our blood pressure to rise, but it’s the inherent ambiguity in any entrepreneurial endeavor. One’s ability to contend with and manage ambiguity is the true test of the small business owner or entrepreneur.

The “risk” of running your own business

What keeps people from starting their own company or taking the entrepreneurial plunge? “I don’t think I can handle that much risk,” is what most people say. They are afraid to leave their “stable, comfortable” job, unaware of what awaits them when they step out of their office one last time.

In his interview with Inc., Good to Great and Built to Last author Jim Collins was asked by Bo Burlingham if entrepreneurs must inherently understand how to manage “risk”. Collins responded as follows:

“Not risk. Ambiguity. People confuse the two…. As an entrepreneur, you know what the risks are. You see them. You understand them. You manage them. If you join somebody else’s company, you may not know those risks, and not because they don’t exist.”

At a time when even giants from insurance and automotive industries are tethering on the brink of collapse, Collins couldn’t have made his point any clearer. Job security is a scarce commodity these days regardless of your industry. Ambiguity breeds opportunity.

Let’s say you were presented with two fists full of marbles. The right fist contains five red marbles and five blue marbles. The left fist also contains a total of 10 marbles, all of which are red or blue, but the number of red and the number of blue marbles is unknown. For instance there could be nine red and one blue, etc. Invariably, when given a choice of which fist to pick either a red or a blue marble out of, people chose the right fist. On the surface, making the choice that offers 50/50 odds seems obvious. In reality, one is just as likely to pick the correct-colored marble from the left fist, with an unknown mix of marbles.

 

This is known as the Ellsberg paradox. The right fist has a “risk” of 50/50. The left fist is “ambiguous” since you don’t know the odds. The preference to the “known” 50-50 risk is characterized as ambiguity aversion. In other words, people tend to “stick with the monster they know and avoid the monster they don’t”. The outcome is ambiguous.

What suits your personality and goals? You can choose to be your own boss or choose to support your boss. The choice is yours, but sitting on the sideline and complaining about the economy or management’s decision to make necessary (and often difficult) business changes is not an option.

Choosing to be your own boss

Taking the path of the self-employed takes guts. No doubt it’s a financial gamble. You might have to endure years earning income below what you’re used to, forcing yourself to live frugally and having to sacrifice your vacations. You would have to learn how to handle all aspects of your business, from convincing your investors to selling to your customers. But the trade off is gaining control over your company’s direction. You steer it where you want it to go. There will be problems, naturally, but you can learn to anticipate them and work out feasible solutions. You would no longer be at the mercy of superiors who call the shots. Best of all, you stand to reap the maximum reward for your efforts.

Choosing to support your boss

However, the fear of “sailing on your own” is not unwarranted. Approximately half of all new businesses are expected to close shop within five years from their establishment. And among those remaining, only a minority will turn out to be truly successful, creating a brand that caters to the needs of their target market.

Preferring to be pragmatic because you cannot afford (either financially or mentally) to be ambiguous, especially with regards to you and your family’s future, is a viable option. The best course of action at this point is to “be a light, not a critic”. Shine in the workplace. Put your heart and soul behind your endeavors. When financial times become more positive you will likely reap the benefits.

For boating enthusiasts; marinas, boatyards and boat dealerships can be thought of as a respite from the gloomy financial news or an unfulfilling career. Boaters “boat” to get away from the rat race. Your attitude and demeanor can make or break that experience for your customer. Regardless if you choose to pick your ball from the “risky” fist or the “ambiguous” fist, resilience is the virtue needed to thrive in this economy.

Marine Industry Blogs

Are you running into “information overload”? Yeah me too… When I first set-up Google Reader (using www.igoogle.com), I decided to sign-up for every blog that seemed interesting. This lasted for about a week as I found my reader overloaded with blogs that had some initial appeal but didn’t remain relevant enough for me to continue.

I try to limit the number of blogs I receive as much as possible. For what it’s worth, these are the ones that appeal to me. When you go to these sites, look for a link called “Subscribe” or the RSS icon . This indicates that blog posts will be sent to your favorite reader automatically:

Business and Web Trends

Marine Industry

E-mail Newsletters

Web 2.0: Social-Networking and Your Business

Web 2.0 technologies are a disruptive force that’s changing the way that messages about products and brands are delivered and received. So what is social media and why do you need it?

Wikipedia defines social media as “the online tools and platforms people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other.” Studies by Forrester, Intelliseek, and Compete indicate that over more than 50 percent of consumers are turning to their peers and the information that they’re creating online to form their opinions. Without a doubt, the rise of social media, powered by Web 2.0, has become a dramatic change for marketing and a change you need to embrace.

Until now, we viewed Internet marketing as just another marketing channel, where, like traditional methods (print, radio, and TV), we controlled one-way messages directed at the consumer. Web 2.0, better viewed as a marketing “engine” rather than a marketing “channel,” is profoundly different because you don’t control the message — everyone can create and shape the message. Viral (word-of-mouth) in nature, Web 2.0 allows you to energize and add power to your message and pass it on to hundreds of contacts around the world in a fraction of a second!

If you’re in charge of marketing for your company or simply trying to improve communications between your company and your customers, the concept of allowing online discussions about your company’s products and services probably keeps you up at night as you ponder how to implement social media and still protect your company’s brand. The good news is the benefits outweigh your reservations. While you can’t control the message, you can improve the conversation about your brand and by actively listening you can learn what your customers care about and get smarter about designing and delivering services that your audience wants!

So where do you start? First and foremost, it is critical that your staff participate in and understand social media by learning about it first hand. Fundamentally, marketing in a Web 2.0 world requires us to think in both new and old ways at the same time. YouTube, del.icio.us, Flickr, digg, MySpace, and Technorati are examples of new engines you need to understand in order to effectively use them to reach your markets. Once you understand the vehicle you can use these easy and inexpensive strategies to kick-start your thinking about marketing in a Web 2.0 world:

1. Create a Web 2.0 marketing plan. Tap into the creativity of your staff and users to create a strategic social media marketing plan. Look at your marketing, customer service, and website for opportunities and think strategically about where and how you’re going to commit your marketing resources online. Try a photo captioner service where they (or you) can submit local photos, add captions, and then share links or send the new photo as a postcard to their friends. Flickr (mentioned above) or Photobucket are great sites for this. Invite your passionate customers users to create promotional videos about your company then post them online everywhere. We’ve seen some of our boat dealers do this quite effectively when they host “Customer Rendezvous” and other boat outings.

2. Participate! Join the conversation. Social media applications are two-way. Create a MySpace or Facebook profile and offer content and services that attract links, contacts, and friends. We created a DockMaster Facebook page with links back to www.dockmaster.com. Enable comments on blogs and allow users to contribute or add social tools and services such as Weblogs, wikis, tagging, video blogs, etc., to your web site. When you have social media in place, instead of waiting for your audience to come to you discover where your target audiences hang out online and join them, initiating conversations about your company’s products and services and brand.

3. Be remarkable. Have something interesting to offer your viewers that they can use, bookmark, and share on – or offline. Social media is a form of viral marketing. Interesting ideas and content get passed along rapidly. Make sure that adding fresh content is a priority whether it’s new products, blog articles, or a background piece on an upcoming city or organization event.

4. Help your company content travel. Encourage visitors to bookmark and tag your content with a click of a button by posting bookmark buttons on your site. Post your content on sites like Flickr and YouTube where it’s easy for users to find and share it. We posted six short DockMaster demonstrations on YouTube with links back to www.dockmaster.com. Syndicate everything you can that your audience will find useful. Slice and dice your content for dozens of specialized audiences. Spread the word about what your company has. Make newsfeeds for new materials and post them to your website. Be sure to set up newsfeeds for releases of audio and video content so your audience can opt in and be notified of new releases.

5. Monitor engagement and learn as you go. Evaluating social media marketing is different than just counting Web site usage or circulation numbers. You want to measure how well you’re doing at engaging the public and measure both the amount and the intensity of the engagement. Here are some examples of what you need to monitor: How many blog readers do you have? How many comments are posted by how many different visitors? How many people mention your company on their blogs, and how often? Are search engine results predominantly positive or negative? Is your content bookmarked in social bookmarking sites? How many friends and contacts do you have on your profile in social networking sites? How many comments are you receiving? How many visitors contribute content to your site (videos, photos, documents,)?

Marketing this way is fun and creative, and when it really works it can create a big bang. Social media marketing offers you the opportunity to engage your community in new ways and to turn strangers into fans. Fans are your online salespeople who promote your company and its services. If your customers and fans love you and your products and services, they’ll spread the word.

Build More Loyal Customers with Email Marketing

Experts agree and evidence shows that profitability is all about creating loyal customers and driving repeat business. And because it’s approximately ten times less expensive to sell to an existing customer than to acquire a new one, the value of customer loyalty and repeat business is just too compelling to ignore.

Communication is Paramount
The best way to get repeat business and earn customer loyalty is to grasp the dynamics and importance of building customer relationships through communication by nurturing customers over time by learning and remembering their individual preferences and interests. To do this you’ll need to acquire customer information directly from customers through personal interaction and keep in touch with customers on a regular basis ensuring your business remains “top of mind.”

Since statistics show it takes multiple contacts before you can turn a prospect into a customer, traditional marketing efforts can be expensive and time consuming. That’s where email marketing becomes a critical part of your marketing efforts.

Email Turns Prospects and Visitors into Loyal Customers
Today, email is the most widely used facet of the Internet and is part of many people’s daily routine. Email is also the primary communication medium for business around the globe since it provides a much more efficient means of communication – allowing businesses to communicate quickly (which means time-sensitive information is disseminated in minutes, not days or weeks).  In a nut shell, e-mail provides a “one to one” conversational marketing tool!

Proactively Communicate with Email Marketing
Email “marketing” is one of the most powerful marketing tools available today – it’s easy, affordable, direct, actionable and highly effective and it enables you to proactively communicate with existing customers and prospects instead of passively waiting for them to return to your website, visit your location(s) or call you on the phone. Studies show repeat customers spend, on average, 67 percent more than new customers. Through email marketing you can initiate new business and solidify existing relationships by converting prospects and one-time customers into repeat business and long-term customers.

With a response rate five times greater than direct mail and 25 times the response rate of banner ads adding email to your marketing mix means you will spend less time, money and resources than with traditional marketing vehicles while generating higher response rates, driving traffic, increasing sales, tracking behaviors, developing loyalty and providing better ROI on reduced marketing budgets.

Many companies are looking for ways to stretch their marketing budgets in an unsure and turbulent economy, the good news is the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) reported that in 2007 email marketing returned about $48 for every dollar invested, the highest of all the marketing channels out there!

Getting Permission – The First Step to Effective Email Marketing
Evidence verifies permission-based email lists deliver better results and generate fewer unsubscribes, spam complaints and blocks. Let’s review some facts: seventy-six percent of consumers will delete an unsolicited email without even reading it, compared to 2% for a permission email. Conversely, only 5% of consumers are eager or curious to read an unsolicited email as opposed to 61% with permission email. A recent study shows the majority of email recipients that open emails do so because they recognized the sender as a company they signed up with (40%) and because they recognized the sender’s name (52%).

The 2003 U.S. law regulating commercial email, popularly called CAN-SPAM, permits opt-out marketing (sending to unsolicited recipients) accompanied by the conditions that all commercial emails must have a working unsubscribe function and must include language that the message is “a promotional email” within the message. Failing to abide by CAN-SPAM rules can beget numerous complaints which in turn can lead to being blacklisted (the process by which all emails from your IP address will not be sent to any user on the ISP – Internet Service Providers such as AOL, Bellsouth, Comcast, etc.). Being blacklisted means day-to-day emails to anyone sharing the same ISP as those on your email marketing list will also never receive your communications – a process which can be time consuming to undo.

Abiding by CAN-SPAM laws alone does not equate to successful email marketing. CAN-SPAM just establishes legal criteria for email marketing, it doesn’t promote best practices.  A recent study found 79% of Americans were “somewhat annoyed” to “very annoyed” by unsolicited email, even if it included an opt-out. That annoyance transfers to your product or brand, meaning there is no better way to “turn off” your customers than to send unsolicited e-mails that are either irrelevant or still considered “spam” by the receiver. Most e-mail programs allow the recipient to mark your e-mail as spam (even if it isn’t) which means future emails from your company will never reach them.

At DockMaster, we recommend the best practices that are already serving as fundamental requirements at ISPs and corporate servers everywhere. The good news is that by holding yourself and your clients to a strict permission policy, you’ll also get better results for your email marketing efforts. After all, the people who truly want to receive your emails are the people most likely to respond to them. We call this permission marketing, thus our two-word permission policy: Get permission. In practice, this means:

DO send emails to people who:

  • are members of your organization
  • have a relationship with your business
  • bought something from you in the past 18 months
  • signed up to receive your emails
  • gave you an email address knowing you would use it

And DON’T:

  • buy or rent lists
  • grab email addresses off websites without people’s knowledge
  • email anyone who has ever asked you not to
  • share or rent your list to anyone

Rather than renting lists, we like to collect e-mail addresses from prospects and customers by simply asking them. For instance we give our customers the opportunity to sign-up for our newsletter from the home page of our website on www.dockmaster.com. If you click on the SUBSCRIBE button you will see a page like this:

Photobucket

Our subscribe form gives prospects and customers alike the ability to tell us about them via a short series of questions. Knowing a few key facts about our customers on signup allows us to retain that subscriber by delivering the news most relevant to them. For instance, by a customer telling us they are a “Marina” we can send them an email about new products for Marinas and not include them in an email announcement about a new product for Boat Builders.

Communicate More Information, More Often
Using email marketing affords you the ability to get your message to your audience affordably with relevant messages, brand appeal and the ability to measure it all. Create more communications that are valued by your customer and  make those communications support and enhance your brand in a way that substantially differentiates your company from the competition. Your communications can include newsletters, preferred customer promotions, sale notifications, new service announcements, event invitations, greetings and more.

Educate Your Customers
Information and education make your customers and prospects much more valuable because they are more likely to buy when they can make an informed decision. Why force prospects to look elsewhere for the important information? Your email communications can help lead a prospect through the sales process, provide important data and drive the prospect to your website for more details and/or a purchase. For example, an email newsletter is uniquely suited to accomplish the long-term goals of customer retention and loyalty, while it can still contain a call-to-action that provides a short-term benefit.

Foster Long-lasting Relationships
The benefits of establishing early and long lasting relationships with your prospects and customers are far reaching. When you inform and educate prospects and customers, they begin to perceive you as capable of addressing their needs. Good email marketing wins over consumers! Consider the following facts:

  • Well-executed permission email marketing campaigns can have a positive impact on consumers’ attitudes toward companies.
  • 67% of US consumers said they liked companies that, in their opinion, did a good job with permission email marketing.
  • 58% of consumers said they opened those companies’ emails, while 53% said that such emails affected their personal buying decisions.

Even better, they may look to you as an expert and gain trust which opens the door to two-way communication and allows them to share their views with you. Using the information you gain from your prospects and customers, you will be able to better serve their ongoing needs, hone your unique selling proposition and slowly close the door on your competitors. In the process, you may discover hidden sales opportunities that you may not currently be addressing.

Easily Measure and Improve Your Results

The benefits derived from most types of marketing and advertising are very difficult to measure. With email marketing, however, you can easily measure the number of emails sent, emails opened, bounce backs, unsubscribes and click-through rates. You can also tell who opened your email, which links in your email motivated the most clicks and, even more specifically, who clicked on each link. All of this useful information can help you send highly targeted campaigns to the individuals most likely to respond to your offer, thus improving results going forward.

In the next Marine Management Today article “Building a Successful Email Campaign” we’ll take you through the steps of implementing an effective email marketing communication platform including building a permission-based list of recipients, managing the list, defining relevant content in the right format, delivering the message and evaluating the results.