Three options. Only one actually works for your business.
Pre-summer is half your year. Most workshops never run an ad against it.
Every trailer-boat and tinny owner in Australia has the same panic in late October. They've ignored the boat since Easter, the dry season's started, the fishing reports are good, and they go to start it on the trailer in the driveway, and it won't crank. The annual service that should have been done in September gets booked the second weekend of November, by which point every marine workshop in the city is six weeks deep in queue, and the marina is quoting $1,400 for a Yamaha F70 minor that should be $700 at an indie shop. This is the rush. October to December is when half a marine workshop's year happens, and the workshops that win it are the ones that ran ads in mid-September on 'outboard service [city]' and the trailer-pickup service. The workshops that don't get to the rush watch the customer pay the marina price because the marina at least answers the phone. The bigger structural issue underneath is that almost no indie marine workshop properly markets the brand they actually specialise in. You might be the only workshop in the city with a Suzuki specialist diagnostic tool, or the only one who'll rebuild a Tohatsu 90, or the one who knows MerCruiser sterndrives the way the marina techs don't. Your website says 'all makes and models'. Suzuki owners Googling 'Suzuki outboard service [suburb]' never find you.
Good boat mechanic marketing is three things, in this order: an outboard-and-sterndrive brand-specialty page library covering every powerplant you actually specialise in (a Yamaha outboard service page, a Mercury page, a Honda BF page, a Suzuki page, a Tohatsu page, a MerCruiser sterndrive page, a Volvo Penta page, an inboard-diesel page if you do them) with the specific service intervals, the special-service tools you own, the OE parts you stock, BIA-and-Marine-Mechanics-Association badges and 'trailer boat pickup available' on every page; a pre-summer-rush Google Ads campaign that ramps spend hard from mid-September and runs through to Christmas, on the queries owners actually type ('outboard service [city]', 'boat annual service [city]', '[brand] outboard service [suburb]', 'impeller replacement [city]'); and a workshop-photo Instagram and Facebook feed showing the actual work (a Yamaha F70 powerhead off the lower unit, a Mercury impeller in the parts bag, a Suzuki spark plug change, a Tohatsu fuel filter swap, a Volvo Penta trim ram rebuild) that converts the trailer-boat owner comparing four workshops on Google. Get this right and you stop losing the pre-summer rush to the marina queue and start booking the bench solid from October to December.
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 the brands you actually specialise in and the seasonal cycle that drives your year, not a generic 'we service all makes' positioning. If the Yamaha and Mercury work pays the rent, sterndrive work is half your bench through winter, and jetskis are a December scramble, the plan reflects that. Briefs the other agents so the brand-specialty pages, the pre-summer ad ramp, the workshop social cadence and the Google Business Profile all push the same target customer.
Imports your existing site so you stop paying for hosting plus a CMS subscription, and makes spinning up a Yamaha / Mercury / Honda / Suzuki / Tohatsu / MerCruiser / Volvo Penta specialty page a five-minute job. Ships MarineService schema, the diagnostic tools you own (YDIS, Mercury CDS, Suzuki SDS), the OE parts you stock, the trailer-pickup offer and the BIA / Marine Mechanics Association badges on every brand page.
Goes through your live site for the things that actually move marine-service rankings: '[brand] outboard service [suburb]' optimisation on every specialty page, MarineService schema (not generic auto-repair), and a Google Business Profile reconfigured from 'Auto Repair Shop' to 'Boat Repair Shop' with every service category ticked, the trailer-pickup attribute on, and the workshop photos uploaded. Auto-applies the low-risk fixes.
Launches Google Ads on the queries that actually convert ('outboard service [city]', 'boat annual service [city]', '[brand] outboard service [suburb]', 'impeller replacement [city]', 'jetski service [suburb]') and ramps the bid hard from mid-September through to Christmas to ride the pre-summer rush. One ad group per outboard brand, one per service type. Pauses when the bench is full and resumes when there's space.
Turns every job you finish into a workshop-photo post in your real accounts: a Yamaha F150 100-hour service, a Mercury Verado spark plug change, a Honda BF lower unit rebuild, a Suzuki DF impeller, a Tohatsu carburettor strip, a Volvo Penta trim ram, a jetski PWC annual. Builds the credibility signal that converts the trailer-boat owner comparing four workshops. You upload one photo per job, the agent drafts the caption in your voice, you approve.
Drafts the long-form pieces owners Google before they book: 'how much should a Yamaha F70 annual service cost', 'is the marina cheaper than an indie boat mechanic', 'when should I do an impeller replacement', 'MerCruiser Alpha One vs Bravo Three service costs', 'jetski annual service checklist'. Two drafts a month, in your voice, that pull in the careful owner weeks before the pre-summer rush hits.
Your first 30 days.
- Site imported, hosting bill killed
- Annual plan around your priority outboard brands and the seasonal cycle delivered by Sam
- Google Business Profile flipped to 'Boat Repair Shop' with workshop photos uploaded
- Three brand-specialty pages indexed and ranking on the long tail
- Pre-summer Google Ads live with seasonal bid ramp scheduled for September
- First fortnight of workshop-bench captions queued in your voice
- MarineService schema and BIA membership trust signals shipped
- 'Is the marina cheaper than an indie boat mechanic' guide drafted for approval
Indie boat mechanics lose the pre-summer rush to marina queues not because they're slower or worse, but because the trailer-boat owner doesn't know they exist when the panic hits in late October. The Yamaha F70 won't crank, the owner Googles, the marina ranks first, the owner pays $1,400 and waits six weeks. The fight is whether your '[brand] outboard service [city]' page is on the first result with 'two-week turnaround, trailer pickup available' above the fold.
Agencies are too dear to actually run the brand-specialty page library and the pre-summer ad ramp for $3.5k a month. Tools are cheap but you tune the bids on the workshop bench after a 10-hour day and the Yamaha service page never gets written. In-House is the third option: for $299 a month the agents ship the pages, ramp the September-to-December ad campaign, post the bench photos, and keep your Google Business profile beating the marina on the long tail. You stay in the driver's seat, two taps to approve, minutes a day. Stop watching the rush pass you by.