A struggling economy prompts a lot of belts to tighten — which means those luxuries like pools, spas, and outdoor living spaces may not be given much space in people’s budgets. This can make maintaining and growing your pool and spa business more stressful. There are ways to thrive in a pressed-down economy, even when your focus is on those luxurious extras.
At the end of the day, people love their luxurious extras, especially during times when the economy isn’t looking so bright and shiny. You just need to take different approaches, such as showing pools and spas in a more practical light.
These tips for maintaining and growing sales in the pool and spa industry will help you rise to the top of a sinking economy. We’ll explore the practical, like showcasing maintenance products, offering pickup or loyalty programs, and dipping your toes into online retail/ecommerce.
1. Market to Current Pool Owners
Pool owners have ongoing needs such as maintenance, supplies, and accessories. The key is knowing how to connect with local swimming pool owners so you can tap into it. Find them on social media by ramping up your company profile and incorporating local SEO into your blog posts and websites. Then you simply get to know these prospective customers and show them how you can solve their problems.
2. Optimize Your Marketing
While you may have different marketing campaigns throughout the year, you likely have a base marketing plan that runs behind the scenes all year round. And if you don’t — now is a great time to start!
Your marketing engine is critical for more than just filling your funnel. Marketing is a way to generate new business, sure, but it’s also a way to keep your current customers engaged with your business. It’s a way to build brand awareness, even and especially for people who aren’t currently “in market” for your offerings. When they are ready, the right marketing campaigns will help them recall your business’s name.
When you work in the pool and spa industry, marketing is also critical for your relationships with manufacturers and other industry businesses. They also need to know who you are and trust that you have the strategy and skills to market with them!
If you’re looking for ways to spruce up your marketing, check out these pool and spa marketing tips.
3. Build a Powerful Buyer’s Journey for Your Customers
The path a person takes from being a prospective buyer to an actual customer is called the buyer’s journey. How you market your products and business can shape much of that. It begins when they are just “seekers,” looking for information on something they are considering purchasing. That is where you get their attention and gently guide them to buying and becoming a customer. This is an effective tool because it speaks to the person directly and offers solutions for their problems. It is outstanding for both the local customers you are trying to reach and ecommerce customers.
Learn how to leverage the buyer’s journey in the pool and spa industry.
4. Cross-Sell Pool & Spa Products
Cross-selling is a long-time sales technique highly effective across most industries — especially pool and spa. You’ll have to become acquainted with your inventory and offers, but it is well worth it. At each sale, you can cross-sell products complementary to those purchased. This means you must know what products work well together and how they complement each other, so there’s a little homework involved.
Cross-selling is also a good customer retention strategy because it improves the customer experience, so it’s a win there too. When you make a cross-sell that helps out the customer, you’re building trust, increasing the likelihood they’ll come back for their next pool and spa need!
5. Offer an Incentive Program
One popular sales strategy businesses use to sell everything from coffee to tires for your car is the much-loved incentive program. This can take many forms, depending on the nature of your business and your customers.
You can either offer ways to save money or give rewards for loyalty. It helps you get new customers and keep existing ones. You can even tailor it to specific programs such as pool maintenance or frequent buyer rewards for pool supplies. Customers love it, and you can reap the benefits by staying afloat despite the economic slump. A good incentive program is sure to help you close more sales.
6. Dip Your Toes in the Ecommerce Waters
Consumers are increasingly favoring online shopping over visiting brick-and-mortar stores, so if you haven’t cashed in on this trend — it’s time to get started. It isn’t likely to slow down anytime soon — or ever as long as people have the internet and smart devices. Tapping into ecommerce may require some adjustments, but once you have perfected your techniques for selling pool supplies online, you’ll see it was well worth the effort.
Even if the economy isn’t exactly where you would like it to be right now, it doesn’t mean you can’t see a profit. These pool and spa sales tips and marketing ideas can help keep your business operating or even take it to a new level. Just step out of the box, look around, and make it happen.
