Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

It depends on your goal. Are you looking for a PR opportunity in your community or region? Are you looking for an internal celebration? Are you looking to thank your 50 years of customers or looking to attract new ones?

If you're looking for a prize to raffle off, how about gold-plating a trailer? Or, for a PR opportunity, have a show of 50 years of boats (grouped by decade). Offer boat rides on these boats (where all money goes to support a local charity). Create a story contest about your customer's boating experiences (somehow featuring your trailer) - and then publish the stories (either online, ebook, or as a printed gift to all customers).

It all depends on your resources and goals.

How about a raffle for a one-of-a-kind "annviversary edition" trailer? Or make more than one, but a limited edition (different color and/or special features with "special 50th anniversary edition" stamped on it) and have a contest for one of them. However you typically communicate with your customers would be how you announce it. (I'm guessing this is for customers) OR If you want new customers as well, you can get your local paper/news station and let them know what you're doing. Fifty years of business is quite an accomplishment.

Congratulations on 50 years! That's very impressive.

I love the float ideas - particularly the one with the trailers from previous years. Is there an existing parade that you could participate in?

You could also make use of the Australian Gold Coast for your Golden Anniversary - win a special 50th Anniversary Edition trailer and a boat (perhaps - if you don't sell boats then you need to target existing boat owners, so you might have to think through a way to make that more targeted) and an all expenses trip around the Gold Coast, towing your boat.

You could also run a 'tow your boat better' contest - people send you pictures/video of how they now tow their boats and how they are concerned that one day they're going to get to their destination and find nothing but an empty hitch - and you choose the most needy one. That would give you pretty good public relations value as you could post the videos/photos on your website for the public to come and look at. You can use it to reinforce how important it is to have a proper method of towing your boat.

In a similar idea - you could run a contest for the worst boat towing disaster picture - pictures of boats in ditches, turned over, etc., because they weren't properly being towed. The winner with the best picture/video wins any of the prizes above.

You could also run towing safety classes, or how to attach a hitch classes, how to float your boat safely, etc.

To target existing boat owners, you could do fishing contests, or a redneck yacht club event where loads of boats are all tied together in a floating yacht club out on a lake/ocean and you provide the party. Things that boat owners already do but you would provide the beer as a sponsor of the event. This would work to reward existing customers.

You could also do a 'get me back on the water' event, where people whose boats have been drydocked for a long time (grass growing under them in the backyard, etc.) get a free ride on one of your trailers to get them back onto the water.

Depending on your relationship with your audience and what kind of company you are, you can be really irreverent with it and have a 'will it still float' contest for these old boats!

You could have a make your own boat contest on a local lake/beach. Contestants have a limited range of equipment that they can make boats out of and the one that stays afloat best/wins the race gets a prize.

Another contest could be that you have teams in leaky canoes and the last one afloat wins a prize.

If you have lots of cash, sponsoring a good race at a fancy yacht club would be fun.

You could also start a scholarship for young people interested in getting sailing qualifications.

Good luck. If you want help promoting any of this, we'd love to help.

Claire

https://www.sterling-advertising.com