Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/792771
www.BoatingIndustry.com 28 | Boating Industry | March 2017 BY JONATHAN SWEET Ask many small business owners in the marine industry how they study trends in their market and you'll hear a similar answer. Whether it be dealers, manufacturers, marinas or others that touch the water, all too often the answer is some variation on "We talk to our customers" or "We're on the lake every weekend." While certainly important, anecdotal evidence provides only a limited picture of what's going on in the marketplace – sort of the business equivalent of forecasting the weather by looking out the window. It's helpful, but not exactly scientific. Numbers that matter Whether it's market share, psychographic and demographic profiles or sales trends, data can help any company – large or small – be smarter about its business. "A lot of the smaller dealers feel it's only for the big guys that have the big budgets," said Evan Davis, head of marketing for OneWater Marine Holdings, the 2016 Top 100 Dealer of the Year. "Businesses of all sizes need to be lever- aging data. When you don't have big budgets … mistakes are more costly. Data really helps drive your decision-making and your strategies to be more effective and to get a better return on the investments that you do make." That data can come from a number of sources. Some of it needs to be tracked and created internally, such as customer profiles, while other information can be purchased from outside sources. Those sources include industry-specific companies like Statistical Surveys Inc. or Info- Link, or consumer data companies like Experian. Info-Link tracks stats on the entire U.S. registered fleet to data mine for a number of uses from market share to behavior trends. "We deal in fact. It's not supposition. It's things that we can prove," said Peter House- worth, director of client services. "You're not just flying by the seat of your pants. There are a lot of small companies in the industry that do that because they've been around it their whole lives. It's how decisions have been made historically." The good news is that more companies are getting smart about seeking out data to improve their sales and marketing efforts. "That's starting to change," Houseworth said. "We're getting much more requests for more in- depth information than we have historically." As more investors and venture firms enter the industry, they're not willing to simply ac- cept conventional wisdom, looking for proof in the numbers. "We can look across the entire country and know my top 10 markets are [here] because we know these facts about them." House- worth said. "They are this big, they are grow- ing at this rate." By tracking activity at the household level, it's possible to determine long-term behavior as well. "We can say, here is a 34-foot Sea Ray owner, this is their third Sea Ray, before this they owned this, so on and so forth," Houseworth said. While they may use it differently, data can serve dealers, manufacturers or anyone that touches the ma- rine industry. SSI has developed a number of tools to make that information easily acces- sible, said Ryan Kloppe, director of sales. For example, the company's online dealer tool allows users to "quickly discover insights for better decision making," he said. "You can "WE DEAL IN FACT. IT'S NOT SUPPOSITION. IT'S THINGS THAT WE CAN PROVE." — Peter Houseworth, Info-Link 32% » Increase in BoatTrader leads for OneWater after instituting customer profiling SMART STATS Using data to improve your sales and marketing