Selling a yacht in today's market
I'm always keen to look at a different way to market a yacht to get sales for clients. There's many ways an owner can consider marketing, each of them with a different price point.
Boat Shows
At the top of the tree, there's the touring boat shows around the world. Cost of mooring, fuel to get there, entry into the show, cost of entertaining guests and additional marketing requirements around the event, all add up. If the yacht doesn't sell, it's off to the next one. I've seen yachts taking years to sell, and presented to the boat shows every year and still not selling. Expect to budget over £50k each boat show for a larger yacht.
Magazine Advertising
Next to consider is taking out an advert in Boat International, SuperYacht World or Yacht Investor. These magazines can also do a feature on your yacht to compliment the advert. Their online site can also feature your yacht as a banner ad. Working with a broker, these costs can be considerably less as often we have a relationship with editorial teams. Somewhere around £20k-£30k will be needed for full page adverts in prime position.
360 Graphic Fly Through
One of the latest ways to help potential owners to get a better feel of the yacht is by having a 360 view. One of the best I've seen is where the camera scans each room and the image is stitched together at a 4K resolution. This allows a walkthrough to take place and zooming in on any feature for more detail. Using low cost Google cardboard 3D glasses also brings it life even more. Pricing is likely to be around £10k-£15k for a quality job.
TV Channels
Producing content for your yacht for showcasing on luxury channels can help build awareness and bring attention to the yacht in a different setting. Often watching on a big screen at home, brings the experience to life in a way that magazine and other advertising are unable to do. Short profiles can be done at a reasonable price and certainly under £10k.
Websites
Creating a website specifically for your yacht is a great idea. You're able to publish everything about the yacht including crew details, and then add plenty of your favourite images taking on your iPhone. Add a little footage from a drone, and you'll be giving your visitors some treats on the eye. The cost of creating websites has reduced significantly and can generally be pulled together for under £5k.
Social Media
By far the cheapest and sometimes more effective is social media. Whether it's a blog like this on LinkedIn, sharing a picture on instagram or providing updates on Twitter, costs next to nothing. There's tools you can use to automate and schedule the posts to target potential owners in different time zones too. Tracking progress, changing messages, trying different posts and generally spending focussed time and effort on selling can provide rewards. These type of packages can often be a few thousand over a year.
Selling a yacht takes time. Choosing how to market her takes careful selection too. Working with a broker to choose the most cost effective approach relative to the time required to sell is your best option. At Lomond Yachts we are well placed to provide all of these services and keen to work with you to help you sell your yacht using the best channels.