Three options. Only one actually works for your business.
The $400 wash is a Saturday job. The cut-and-polish, ceramic and anti-fouling pay the lease.
Boat detailing is two businesses dressed up as one. The first is the weekend-warrior wash: $400 to $1,200 for the runabout-and-cabin-cruiser fleet, customer rings every six months when guests are coming, you spend a Saturday at the marina pier with a hose. The second is the premium tier: cut-and-polish on gel-coat that hasn't been compounded in three years, ceramic coating (Gtechniq Marine, Cquartz, Aurora Marine) on a $300k flybridge, annual anti-fouling with Hempel or International Paint on the slipway, interior restoration (canvas, isinglass, headliner, teak), and full-detail on a luxury yacht before a Sydney Boat Show or a Sanctuary Cove charter season. That tier prices in the four-and-five figures, locks in repeat work, and is where every detailer who actually owns a rotary polisher and a moisture meter wants the diary to move. The structural problem is the website. Most boat-detailer sites read like a Gumtree ad: a price list, a phone number, a couple of hull-shot photos. Nothing on Hempel vs International vs Jotun anti-fouling, nothing on the cut-and-polish stages, nothing on the gel-coat compound process. So the luxury-yacht owner who would happily spend $8,000 on the spring full-detail-and-anti-foul books a $1,000 wash from the cheapest bloke on Google, and the detailer stays stuck at the pier with the hose.
Good boat-detailer marketing is three things, in this order: a service-tier page library that walks the owner up the ladder, basic wash, full clean-and-wash, cut-and-polish (1-stage, 2-stage, 3-stage paint correction equivalent on gel-coat), ceramic coating (with the Gtechniq Marine, Cquartz, Aurora Marine distinction), anti-fouling (Hempel, International Paint, Jotun, Altex), interior and canvas restoration, each with its own price band, its own finished-hull gallery, and its own 'when this is right for you' write-up; a Google Ads calendar that lifts hard around the boat-show weeks (Sydney early August, Sanctuary Cove late May, Melbourne late October) and the pre-Christmas peak (early November); and a relentless finished-gelcoat social feed that demonstrates the cut, the polish, the ceramic cure and the slipway anti-fouling workflow. The pier-and-hose crowd can't fake the process, the studio that shows it wins the premium tier.
Six agents, working in your accounts.
Account Lead, Web, SEO, Advertising, Social Media, and Content. One platform, one bill, you approve the work.
Builds your annual plan around moving the diary upmarket: more cut-and-polish and ceramic coatings on the cruiser-and-game fleet, more annual anti-fouling contracts on the marina-resident fleet, more pre-show full-details before Sydney and Sanctuary Cove, fewer one-off $400 washes that take a Saturday and never come back. Briefs the other agents so the tier pages, the boat-show ads, the finished-hull cadence and the Google Business Profile all pull customers toward the higher-margin work.
Imports your existing site so you stop paying for hosting plus a CMS subscription nobody updates, and ships a dedicated service-tier page for every package: basic wash, full clean-and-wash, cut-and-polish (1, 2, 3 stage), ceramic coating (Gtechniq Marine, Cquartz, Aurora Marine), anti-fouling (Hempel, International Paint, Jotun, Altex), interior, teak and canvas restoration. Each with its own price band, finished-hull gallery and 'when this is right for you' write-up.
Goes through your live site for the things that actually move rankings on premium-tier queries: 'gelcoat polish [suburb]' and 'boat ceramic coating [suburb]' optimisation, BoatDetailingService schema (not generic car wash), and a Google Business Profile reconfigured from 'Car Wash' to 'Boat Detailing Service' with every premium service category ticked and the at-mooring / slipway / mobile service attributes added. Auto-applies the low-risk fixes.
Launches Google Ads on the premium-tier queries that actually convert ('gelcoat polish [suburb]', 'boat ceramic coating [suburb]', 'anti-fouling [suburb]', 'pre-show boat detail [suburb]') and excludes the price-shopper terms ('cheap boat wash', '$50 boat clean') that waste budget. Lifts bids 80% in the 8-week window before Sydney Boat Show (early August), Sanctuary Cove (late May), Melbourne Boat Show (late October) and the pre-Christmas peak. Pauses spend when the slipway is full.
Turns every finished job into a reel or carousel post in your real accounts: the 3-stage cut on the Riviera, the Gtechniq Marine cure on the flybridge, the Hempel anti-fouling sprayed on the slipway, the teak deck restoration on a classic Halvorsen, the pre-show detail on a luxury yacht. Builds the credibility signal that converts the owner comparing four detailers. You upload one finished-hull photo or three phone clips, the agent drafts the caption in your voice, you approve.
Drafts the long-form pieces premium-tier owners Google before they book: 'how much does a 3-stage cut-and-polish cost on a 40ft cruiser', 'Gtechniq Marine vs Cquartz vs Aurora Marine ceramic coatings', 'Hempel vs International Paint anti-fouling for Sydney Harbour', 'how often should I anti-foul my boat in Australia'. Two drafts a month, in your voice, that pull in the careful researcher weeks before they commit.
Your first 30 days.
- Annual plan tilted upmarket toward cut-and-polish, ceramic coating, anti-fouling contracts and pre-boat-show full-details
- Google Business Profile flipped to Boat Detailing Service with finished-hull photos, IDA accreditation and at-mooring / slipway / mobile service attributes
- Gtechniq Marine, Cquartz Marine and Aurora Marine ceramic coating brand pages indexed with the accredited-applicator badge
- Anti-fouling page live with Hempel, International Paint, Jotun and Altex brand sections and annual-cycle pricing
- Cut-and-polish 1, 2 and 3-stage gel-coat explainer published with product-system named
- Pre-boat-show bid-lift calendar live with 80% lifts in the 8 weeks before Sydney, Sanctuary Cove and Melbourne
- Interior, teak and canvas restoration page live with isinglass, headliner and Sunbrella treatments priced
- Premium ad targeting live with cheap, $50 and weekend-wash terms excluded
- BoatDetailingService schema deployed with marina-and-mooring service attributes
- First fortnight of finished-hull reels queued from the cut-and-polish, ceramic and anti-fouling jobs
A boat detailer who runs $400 washes all year is competing with every weekend-warrior on Gumtree with a bucket and a marina parking pass. A boat detailer who sells the cut-and-polish, the ceramic coating, the annual anti-fouling, and the pre-boat-show full-detail is running a real business with margins that justify a rotary polisher, a moisture meter, and a slipway booking. The only thing standing between you and the premium tier is whether the cruiser-and-game owner can find the cut-and-polish page when they Google it eight weeks before the Sydney Boat Show.
Agencies are too dear to actually run the tier library and the boat-show ad calendar for $3.5k a month. Tools are cheap but you edit the reels at 11pm and the Hempel anti-fouling page never gets written. In-House is the third option: for $299 a month the agents ship the pages, launch the show-week ads, post the finished-hull reels, and keep your Google Business profile beating the pier-and-hose crowd. You stay in the driver's seat, two taps to approve, minutes a day. Stop selling $400 washes to owners who would spend $8,000.