Substance Versus Looks

The title of my monthly blogger is not about a recent boat show visit, but more about the web sites of some of the major boat and yacht builders. Having made the previous 1998 till 2008 in growth, the website of some boat builders do in fact look impressive, and extraordinary with some of them even out classing those of much bigger industries as is the car or fashion related brands industry.

So what's wrong with this one might tell me, being a luxury industry a yacht brand web showroom has to look and impress. The problem is that in recent times these websites do not see a lot of updates, and the more flashy they look the less it happens. Sometimes a new model photos, or project rendering do really take a lot to come by. We can say you are even lucky if they ever do. The reason here is cost cutting, as a flashy high profile website is also very expensive to run and maintain. Surely not informing of what's happening about your company and brand in this time and moment is not good, as being not active can mean to some buyers that things are not running well at the moment, or that you are in big trouble. Today having a well updated website does mean as much as attending to a major boat show.

A lesson to learn here is given by some US boat builders who actually have a blog to keep its customers, and brand followers on the loop of whats happening in the company. One such blog is that of Back Cove which is always updated and really follows whats happening inside the yard. You have posts from a weekly or monthly basis which shows the yard and new model renderings, and updates shown and discussed online. Without having a Back Cove by visiting there Blog you feel part of there family, which is always a good feeling if you are interested to purchase in a brand.

So if you are a boat builder I actually suggest to reduce the costly flashy stuff at the moment, and show to customers how a boat is build from project renderings to actual building stages and improvements. I think communicating that building a boat is totally different then producing a car would be important in the future to move forward for the yachting industry, showing the more natural man work process of construction that a yacht has, being it a ten or thirty meter plus super yacht.