Re: New to the Forum and iboats
Yes, I'm an avid boater. I grew up on a slalom water ski, getting up my first time on a single ski when I was 8 years old. I love to slice and dice. However, now in my late 50's, it hurts to get up and it hurts when I fall. So my logged skiing time get less and less each year. I also ski barefoot. I have a 93 2050 Capri Bayliner (Still looks brand new, as I have garaged it the whole time, and I spend my leisure time polishing it), a couple of waverunners and I'm a partner in a houseboat at Lake Powell. My houseboat is a 75 foot Sumerset.
hmmm.....avid boater........grew up on a water ski but now finding the joints are a little stiff to do it as much as you want........bilge liner 20 footer.......pwc's.....and a 75 house boat......
a sucker for punishment eh?.....
you will fit right in here !
As marketing goes, I am responsible for most forms of online marketing for iboats, particularly SEO (Search Engine Optimization), SEM (Search Engine Marketing), PPC (Paid-per-click), Sponsored advertising through Google and Bing, and in general all areas of marketing that drives traffic to the hundreds of iboats websites.
it was really hard to find iboats when i first started searching.....i actually found it via another boating forum. however...this was a few years ago, and now that my puter has figgured out that i like boats....every add that comes up is a boating add.....iboats included.
To start of with, we are in the process of doing a new redesign of our main iboats website.
e-gads, not again ! you guys just about killed us with the last change....lol
I'd love to receive your input. What I'm most interested in are things like: What was the first thing that caught your eye when landing on the iboats.com main page? How was the ease of navigation? Did you easily find what you were looking for? Were you motivated by any "call to action" to purchase something. (After all, that is why we are in business.)
IMHO.....the fourms are a real draw to iboats store. i would increase the size of link to the forums and add a few more words.....like " want to fix your boat your self" or another hook to draw the person to the forum. here....we use positioning statements like....."boat university".....or "everything boating" (iboats main positioning statement)
as far as call to action on a purchase.....of course price counts.....some of the deals on dead stock are fantastic....but i dont need infant lifejackets....lol
however having the stock i needed or was looking for was paramount. you guys in the states, seem to love ordering off the puter......in canada....we still pick up the phone.....(iboats has FANTASTIC SERVICE......did i say fantastic?...i ment TOTALLY OUTSTANDING).
because the forum has given so much to me, i order some items here (even tho i can order right thru seirra or western) but i am an exception to the rule. The attention to canadian purchasers over the past two years has really been great....
however....may i say.....the actual written discription of some of the items is very lacking....these are important details that MUST BE INCLUDED.
the thing that caught me to the forums....was the "friendlyness" and every day joe type of people here. other forums had pros that were so far over my head that i was afraid to ask.
i attribute this success to JB and the mod squad.
the reason i stayed glued to the forum as an epic thread called sold a boat and it busted. from then on in.....after seemingly getting to know some of the posters....i started my own thread here, in the restoration section.
if i had one suggestion for attracting the masses.....it would be to pay more attention to the iboats facebook page. it seems that the i love boating page has taken over. keep up the two of them. with constant posting of new topics every couple of hours.....iboats will remain on peoples feeds......and with the online games like farmville.....these status up dates will be seen by thousands more people if we become friends to iboats........so, in short.....much more attention to the social networking areas to keep the repetition in new client advertising.
any how.......hope this helps a little
cheers
oops
