Boat Builder Marketing Guide: Get Consistent Enquiries

James Dooley: If you are a boat builder looking for a consistent flow of enquiries, this video is for you. Myself and James, we've worked with a load of different boat builders throughout the UK, so we know exactly what works and what doesn't when it comes to a marketing strategy. In this video, we're breaking down all the different marketing strategies you can use for your boat-building company. So James, take it away. Step number one for growth is a Google Business Profile. If you already have one, make certain you're reaching out to existing clients to get as many five-star reviews as possible. It's a great way for generating more leads. Adding citations, posting regularly, and uploading photos all help. That's definitely step one for driving more local leads. Kasra Dash: Step number two builds on your Google Business Profile. I would create dedicated service pages for each of your individual services as SEO-optimised pages on your website. When you do that, it helps not only to rank the SEO page itself, but also increases the likelihood of your Google Business Profile showing up for those keywords as well, which indirectly gets you more phone calls. James Dooley: If you're looking for more local leads, another option is PPC lead generation. That's pay-per-click in Google or Bing where you target bottom-of-funnel keywords to generate enquiries. You need to make sure you team up with a good PPC agency because of things like click fraud and building negative keyword lists. PPC can work well, but in the wrong hands you can waste a lot of money. Still, it's another way of generating local leads. Kasra Dash: After that, you've got Meta ads such as Facebook and Instagram. When someone goes on Facebook and is scrolling, they might see your ad. You can set these up in different ways. Option A is lead forms, which keep users on the platform. The issue is that lead quality might not be great, though you can improve it with more qualifying questions. Then you've got conversion ads, which send people to your website where they fill out your contact form. So you've got a couple of different options there. James Dooley: Another way to grow local leads is organic social media. Posting regularly on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram—there are lots of platforms where you can get attention. Reddit and Quora are also big now. If people have questions and you can answer them, organic social is another great way to generate more local leads. Kasra Dash: With organic social media, it's more of a volume game. You want to make certain you're constantly uploading—whether daily or weekly. You might say, “I want to upload five videos a week,” and stick to that, especially with algorithms like YouTube and Twitter. James Dooley: What are your thoughts on using AI agents to automate posts on social media using tools like n8n? Would you team up with an AI consultant to set that up? Kasra Dash: You can definitely set up AI agents that crop videos and autopublish to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and so on. But another thing I'd focus on is AI search. People are slowly shifting from Google to engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Groq. If your brand isn’t showing up on those engines, you'll struggle to generate leads from them. That's something I'd focus on as a company. James Dooley: If you're looking for more business leads in the local area, another thing to do is team up with tradespeople websites like Checkatrade, Bark, BuilderBuilder, TrustATrader, Rated People. These platforms can generate more leads. Track your KPIs to see what return on investment you're getting. Don't just track cost per lead, track cost per acquisition and how profitable that is. These platforms can work very well. Check out the links in the description—we do a lot of videos comparing Checkatrade with FatRank, Bark with FatRank, Rated People with FatRank, BuilderBuilder with FatRank. Now I've mentioned FatRank—Kasra, what's your take on lead generation companies versus tradespeople platforms? Kasra Dash: With lead generation companies, you want to do your due diligence. Make certain that if you're in a specific niche, the company has generated leads in that industry before. Have a strategy call with them. Share your budget and how many leads you want to check whether your KPIs align. Also ask what type of leads they supply—are they exclusive or shared? Shared leads, like on Bark and Checkatrade, often lead to a race to the bottom on price, which many business owners dislike. Those are things to ask before partnering with a lead generation company. James Dooley: If anyone wants more local leads, head over to FatRank.com where we offer a commission-based lead generation service. You only pay a finder’s fee on converted jobs—nothing per lead, nothing upfront. You only pay once you've completed and been paid for the job. Head over to FatRank.com to see whether you qualify. But I want to go further. What are your thoughts on inbound lead generation versus outbound? Kasra Dash: I always prefer inbound. The conversion rate of the lead becoming a paying customer is much higher. The last stat I saw showed inbound converting around 16.1%, while outbound was around 1.4%. James Dooley: That's crazy—10 to 12 times higher conversion. With outbound like cold calling, cold email, or LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you need much more volume and more staff. People think they're generating free leads, but there’s still the cost of email sending and the sales team trying to convert them. So yes, inbound is far better. But what about real-time leads? Is it important the lead reaches the business instantly? Kasra Dash: Yes, it's very important. Internally, we saw that real-time leads convert around 63% higher. We thought five minutes was quick, but responding in under a minute made a massive difference. When the enquiry comes in, can you call or email straight away? Not every business can reply in under a minute, but when we're partnering with companies, we look at things like whether they have someone available when they're away. There are lots of nuances we consider. The best recommendation for businesses wanting consistent high-quality leads is to fill out the form at FatRank. The team will tell you if you're the right fit and explain why if you're not.