“. . . dealer websites should
be designed to encourage
a conversation with the
prospective customers. Make
it easy and welcoming for
them to contact the sales
people by email, telephone or
in person, whichever is
Dealer
Websi tes
How to make a splash
in cyberspace
most convenient for
the customer.”
BY NANCY GRIFFIN
website can be a beautiful thing—attractively designed, packed with information
and a variety of bells and whistles—and at the same time be nearly useless.
It’s not enough to just have a website, say savvy dealers, manufacturers and
website designers. The website you have must work for you to attract the right
customers and showcase the strengths of your business.
“Without a good website, a good business won’t necessarily attract customers,”
said Bruce Angus of Johnson Outdoors, Alpharetta, GA, and an NMEA manufacturer director. “It’s a resource, the dealers’ opportunity to reflect their skills and personality to customers.” Angus also is a member of NMEA’s Marketing Committee, which oversees the association’s website.
Brian Willson agrees. A designer and host of websites as well as a typeface designer, Willson
is president of Three Islands Press in Rockland, ME. He describes the simplest form of website as
“brochureware,” like a brochure online, providing primarily contact info. “The web has replaced
the telephone directory.”
“There’s a sense of being illegitimate if you don’t have one and legitimate if you do,” added
Willson. “People have heard customers ask, where is your website? Or why don’t you have one?”
“If a dealer has a website, it had better be a good one, or don’t have one at all,” said Steve Bur-
dett, an NMEA regional director, Marketing Committee member and managing director of Coast
Marine Marketing, LLC, a manufacturers’ representative firm in Dana Point, CA. “It needs to put
forth the image they want to portray.”
While there might be some slight variations of opinion on whether or not to have a website,
everyone interviewed agreed completely on one aspect: If the website doesn’t reach members of
the right target audience and grab them immediately, it’s not working
A
To sell or not to sell
Scott LaRosh is vice president and general manager of the family business, Honor Marine
Electronics, in San Diego, CA, started by his father 33 years ago. “We’re on our second or third
website. We changed it in the last couple of months and added quite a bit,” said LaRosh. “We’re
34 Marine Electronics Journal
