In late 2021 YATCO, the Official MLS and Ultimate SaaS Platform of YachtingTM, signed a strategic partnership with Relevance Yacht. The digital yacht marketing partnership provides Relevance Yacht with unlimited access to YATCO’s pioneering cloud network technology for yachting professionals, enabling Relevance to further assist clients wishing to have a multiple boat and yacht listing service, fleet management, CRM sales and lead management software, email marketing management software, Facebook search plugin, WordPress plugin, 2-way API, or many industry services and products integrated into their website and overall online presence, while YATCO benefits from Relevance’s digital yacht marketing intelligence and industry insights.
YATCO’s Founder and CEO, Steven Myers, and Relevance Yacht’s Founder, Rumble Romagnoli, explore the relationship between YATCO and Relevance Yacht and how this new digital yacht marketing partnership can boost yacht broker’s online presence.
What is YATCO, and how does its Software-as-a-Service solutions offering differ from Relevance Yacht?
Steven Myers, Founder and CEO of YATCO: Unlike many online platforms or SaaS companies that look to serve the consumer markets directly and bypass professionals, YATCO’s mission is to serve the best interests of professionals in yachting. We aim to elevate yachting brands by improving digital yacht marketing. However, while Relevance Yacht focuses on the bespoke needs of individual companies in our industry. YATCO provides a uniform platform of SaaS solutions to enable the entire yachting industry to use data in real-time to increase their business ROI.
Our comprehensive suite of Software-as-a-Service offers a complete business solution for almost all yacht sales, yacht charter and maritime-related businesses online. Here is a presentation of some of our main products:
Fleet Manager
Yachting professionals can easily and quickly manage all their fleet, boat and yacht information for motor yacht listings, sailboat listings, or power boat listings. The YATCO BOSS Fleet Manager allows brokers to update information from anywhere, so it’s always up to date for clients. Each listing includes yacht and boat specifications, photos, videos, virtual tours, documents, and much more.
CRM Sales and Lead Manager
Our YATCO BOSS’s lead-generating CRM software helps yachting professionals to create leads and to sell with ease, quickly using their company’s website visitors and client database to build data-driven business-to-customer marketing, sales funnels and strategies.
Email Marketer
This email marketing software is built for lead-driven yachting professionals and any company that wants to improve business ROI. By using customer insights in YATCO BOSS, you can create personalized and targeted email marketing campaigns to ensure compelling client experiences.
WordPress Search Plugin
This YATCO BOSS WordPress plugin helps yachting professionals to display and showcase their vessel fleet on their website to generate quality leads. No matter if a company has sailboat listings, power boat listings, inflatable boat listings, or motor yacht listings, the yachting professional can strategically select any boat or yacht of their choice in YATCO BOSS to display on their website, using high-quality media and real-time data. The WordPress plugin automatically integrates. Yachting professionals will receive lead alerts for any client or vessel submissions right onto their YATCO BOSS dashboard in real-time.
Further, through our digital partnership with Relevance Yacht, we can provide our members with innovative, strategic integrated digital marketing solutions.
What are Relevance Yacht’s key services, and why is Relevance Yacht a leading digital yacht marketing agency?
Rumble Romagnoli, Founder of Relevance Yacht: Relevance Yacht is a specialist digital agency in search marketing for the yachting industry and is strong in SEO support for new websites. We have more than 12 years of knowledge and are internationally known for our creative yacht marketing solutions that create lead generation. We work with some of the world’s most established superyacht brokerages, shipbuilders, crew recruiters, and other yacht service providers, elevating their online presence through carefully curated online strategies spanning branding, audience profiling, design, SEO, PPC, social media, UHNWI programmatic/direct advertising, PR and digital PR.
Our partnership with YATCO, coupled with our handpicked team of leading industry professionals, sets us apart from other yacht marketing agencies. Additionally, our membership of respected yacht industry governing bodies gives our clients complete peace of mind that they will benefit from industry-leading marketing expertise at the highest levels of professionalism.
Why did you decide to establish YATCO?
Steven Myers: While working as a yacht broker, I saw that the yachting industry was fragmented, dramatically behind digital marketing, and needed a SaaS platform to connect international dealers and brokers. I was approached by the newly formed International Yacht Council, comprised of the presidents of the various yacht brokerage associations, including MYBA, FYBA, ABYA, and 10 others to create a worldwide boat and yacht listings MLS for the industry. Since then, I have dedicated myself and our SaaS company to providing leading-edge digital yacht marketing tools that help elevate yachting professionals and further reduce the inefficiencies in our industry.
How has YATCO grown and pivoted with the changing demands of the yachting industry?
Steven Myers: YATCO originally started as a Multiple Listing System for yachts. In the two decades since, we have expanded into not only a yacht for sale MLS but also a newly launched charter MLS and builder MLS. Our clients now enjoy a full suite of Software-as-a-Service solutions, including CRM software, email marketing management software, file management, a closing manager with e-signatures contracts, WordPress plugins, and API website integration, analytics and data intelligence, and more. By integrating and merging these SaaS solutions into a single platform, we can now offer yacht sales and charter companies access to what was completely unaffordable and unattainable before.
How has Relevance Yacht grown and adapted to the changing landscape of yachting?
Rumble Romagnoli: Relevance Yacht started as an SEO-focused yacht marketing agency more than a decade ago when it was still very rare to find luxury yacht brokerages bet on SEO. As the digital and yachting worlds have evolved, so has Relevance Yacht, bolting on new service offerings like social, influencer marketing, content creation, and paid advertising. We are now a full-service yacht marketing agency, with some of our most recent new service offerings including branding and design, photography, and videography with the acquisition of a London-based creative agency under the Relevance flag. Our new digital partnership with YATCO is just one further step on our journey to enhancing the best service we offer to our clients.
How can YATCO help yacht brokerage firms and other yacht service providers?
Steven Myers, YATCO: Imagine having an online platform that can automatically connect the global yachting marketplace with your website, social media presence, CRM software, email marketing management software, contracts, Outlook/ Gmail, calendar, task management, analytics, and data intelligence. A SaaS platform that sends you automatic email market alerts whenever a vessel comes to market or has a yacht price reduction. It informs you every time your client visits your website and tells you exactly what boat buyers are searching for. It automatically updates and synchronizes your contact database (CRM), and Outlook/Gmail accounts and populates your contracts with all vessel and client details. You can also customize your brochures for any boat or yacht worldwide and update your website and any third-party site of your choice in real-time with plugins and APIs. YATCO BOSS does all that and more.
Further, cross-selling is also a significant advantage of YATCO as Saas provider for traditional luxury yacht brokerage firms. Through our SaaS platform, sales and charter teams can share leads and generate awareness among their professional peers. Brokers can also learn insights about the new build market on our online platform and streamline the process of receiving information for new build inquiries.
How can Relevance Yacht assist yacht service providers?
Rumble Romagnoli, Relevance Yacht: Relevance Yacht helps grow businesses in the yachting sector by generating revenue through cutting-edge online marketing services. We offer custom yacht marketing strategies designed with individual clients’ needs in mind to deliver a solid return on investment.
We are a team of creative strategists offering the best of both worlds. You need to create a powerful strategy, and you need to also succeed in this fast-moving and demanding industry. Digital is now more important than ever, with increasing sales being made across multiple digital touchpoints, including on popular platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. A robust and cohesive online presence is a must.
Relevance Yacht boasts a team of industry yacht marketing specialists across branding, SEO, paid advertising, social media, PR, content and CRM, with many holding specialist qualifications in their respective fields. As well as being an effective service provider, we want to become part of the team, making sure to add value where we can. We want to speak to brokers, be in meetings, and receive and offer advice. We also want to be introduced to wider teams to help the greater cause and to add value through our feedback.”
Why is Relevance Yacht and YATCO the best yacht marketing combination?
Rumble Romagnoli, Relevance Yacht: If you are looking to build a powerful website including flawless design, SEO strategy, impactful content and innovative functionalities, Relevance Yacht can do it all. Our website not only engages with audiences on an emotional level but also adheres to the latest digital marketing best practice. At Relevance Yacht, we ensure your website ranks across search engines, placing your business above the competition.
Relevance Yacht has successfully built over 40 yachting websites, transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary. Our latest websites include Kitson Yachts, E&V Yachting and TJB Super Yachts. Relevance’s digital partnership with YATCO allows our clients to feature multiple yachts, which is a huge competitive advantage.
Steven Myers, YATCO: With YATCO, clients can strategically select yachts for sale of their choice and showcase them on their website or in their Facebook business account, using high-quality media and real-time data. YATCO’s WordPress Plugins and APIs are automatically integrated, so clients receive client and vessel lead alerts and data insights from their website on their YATCO BOSS dashboard. All of the online marketing efforts, reach, and engagement are found in one central location.
What do you see for the future of yacht marketing?
Steven Myers, YATCO: The yachting business is becoming much more of a digital marketing industry, with sales, charter, new construction, brokerage, yacht management, and yachting services all becoming integrated. By providing the latest SaaS solutions with seamless integrations, YATCO plans to lead the way for our industry into the next generation of yacht sales, charter, and services.
Rumble Romagnoli, Relevance Yacht: The digital landscape is continually evolving, and luxury yacht brokerages must keep pace to remain relevant in a competitive marketplace. “In the past couple of years alone, the social media landscape has seen a dramatic shift, leaning towards videos and reels over more traditional long form copy. Changes in digital technology are continually creating new and exciting ways to connect with the world’s wealthiest audiences.”
One of the most exciting areas, which will likely see considerable growth in the next few years, is metaverse yacht marketing. The metaverse links the physical and online world, providing increased customer engagement. It is more engaging, reliable, and targeted than more traditional yacht marketing strategies but can be a complex space to navigate and get right. Yachting brands are already embracing the metaverse, dabbling in virtual reality, blockchain, and Non-Fungible Tokens, offering an exciting new way to engage with their target audience.
