Pacific Boating leads a new era in customer-centric marketing

Email marketing might sound dull, but we’d all agree that luxury yachts are far from tiresome.

Combine the two and you’ve got a ragingly successful business model. Pacific Boating’s managing director, Phillip Pitt and marketing director, Robyn Pitt united with CRM provider Act! to take a customer-centric view of their marketing strategy.

We caught up with them and Swiftpage CEO/President, John Oechsle to find out more.

Tell us about Pacific Boating and how you’ve seen the business grow?

Phil: The business is now over 12 years old and we were in fact founded just before the GFC however we achieved growth during this time as many people who owned boats sold them but still wanted to experience Sydney’s waterways.

Since then we’ve seen the rise and rise of the sharing economy and we’re very much a part of that. We were just onboard very, very early!

Our concept is different to the more traditional boat share… think more gym or golf club… a flexible concept allowing our members to use our fleet of luxury sports cruisers from 3 great Sydney locations without the cost or hassle associated with ownership.

How does Pacific Boating use Act! and Swiftpage to grow market share?

Robyn: Act! really allows us to look at customer trends and communicate effectively with our client base.

We use the system for email and direct marketing, to look at customer retention and acquisition and inform our marketing practices.

The platform allows us to look at how we are engaging with our customers and where they are in the cycle.

John: Act! is very much a product that is targetted to and used by, small to medium businesses and this is why it’s the perfect fit for a company such as Pacific Boating who have a small, but highly engaged set of customers.

John, tell us more about Act! and how SME marketers and business owners are using it to help drive business development and customer retention?

John: Customer relationship management and marketing should be at the heart of all client communication and Act! helps businesses achieve this by providing data and insights that others simply can’t. The interface is very attractive and easy to use enabling SMB’s to build lasting relationships, manage leads and grow their market-share sustainably.

I believe in the four ‘Cs’ of marketing;

Numbers one and two are Currency and Correctness – these two absolutely go hand in hand. Consistency is the third C. Your currency and correctness must be consistent and finally, Completeness. You must capture every interaction and be able to analyse it in a meaningful way. ACT! lets you do all these things.

Robyn, tell us more about Pacific Boating’s marketing strategy and how you deploy this?

Robyn: We’ve invested in outdoor advertising in recent years however in 2018 we’re looking at implementing some influencer strategies and social media campaigns in partnership with some of Sydney’s other great brands like Nick’s seafood.

I’ll be launching a blog on our website (Pacificboating.com.au) showcasing some of Sydney’s greatest spots to enjoy by boat and we’ll have some exciting guest bloggers contributing too. We’ll continue with our newsletters however we’ll look to put more rigour around when and who this goes out to using our CRM.

And what does success look like in terms of how Act! and Pacific Boating will work together in five year’s time?

John: The beauty of Act! is that the software can be used by businesses both small and medium in size and its capability simply grows as they do. It is designed to fuel business growth and is likely the single most powerful tool Pacific Boating has to help grow market share. We see Phil, Robyn and their team really concentrating on growing, developing and nurturing these leads in the years to come.

Phil: Success for us will mean possible expansion into new markets, growing our customer base through marketing and referrals, organic growth within the Sydney market, purchasing new boats and generally making sure we’re keeping our customers happy and coming back to Pacific Boating.

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Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

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