Sea Ray Survey for Website Redesign

fwebster

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Oct 6, 2006
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Middle Tennessee ; Panama City Beach, FL
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1996 450DA
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3116 Caterpillars
I have been asked to make CSR members aware of survey Sea Ray Marketing is conducting to help them with a new searay.com website design



From Sea Ray Marketing:

Sea Ray needs your feedback! We are always looking to improve our products and services to make your shopping and ownership experience exceptional. Club Sea Ray members are invited to participate in a brief 15-minute survey to gain feedback for the Sea Ray team. To participate and share your insight, please click the link below. The survey will be open until Friday, June 7.



https://gegh7404.optimalworkshop.com/chalkmark/searaytest
 
Thanks for passing this along, Frank. Unfortunately, I removed searay.com from my favorites and unsubscribed from their email list about a year ago when they quit making boats in my desired size range.

Quite frankly (sorry - no pun intended), I have no current or future interest in their new products or success - so count me out on reviewing or providing input on their marketing materials.

Sort of in the category that they left me so I’m leaving them. I’ll enjoy my DB another year or two then migrate to manufacturers that actually want to cater and commit to the large yacht market.
 
Thanks for passing this along, Frank. Unfortunately, I removed searay.com from my favorites and unsubscribed from their email list about a year ago when they quit making boats in my desired size range.

Quite frankly (sorry - no pun intended), I have no current or future interest in their new products or success - so count me out on reviewing or providing input on their marketing materials.

Sort of in the category that they left me so I’m leaving them. I’ll enjoy my DB another year or two then migrate to manufacturers that actually want to cater and commit to the large yacht market.

Hi Jeff - Just sent you an IM. Sara (Sea Ray Marketing)
 
Done. Thanks for letting us know Frank.
 
To clear up the question Jeff (tc410) raised, the survey Sea Ray is asking for help with is not about marketing boats, or selling you anything. They recognize that CSR members have a wealth of experience at all levels of boating and. They want input on how their website can be more useful to owners. I'm sure they'd love to sell you a boat, but that isn't what this is about.
 
Done.
While they stopped making anything I’m interested in at this point, there is always a possibility my needs or their designs may change.
 
Done
 
Done
 
Done. I hope they make improvements to the website. it used to be so much better. It's much more difficult now to locate older manuals, prop charts, etc
 
Done. I hope they make improvements to the website. it used to be so much better. It's much more difficult now to locate older manuals, prop charts, etc

I find accessing manuals, part lists, spec sheets etc. to be much easier if you use the Technical Resources tab on SROC than if you try to use the portal on searay.com. It is the same knowledge base, just a different access. Also, there are now a lot of errors in the file names....for example if you look up the parts list for the 390EC, you get a 390SportFish. They made about a million EC's and maybe 6 SF's........I just figure they assigned the file maintenance to a summer intern or a computer geek who knows nothing about Sea Ray's products and can't tell a boat from a boot.
 
Done:
Having designed a few websites myself, I think many website designers try to go for more flash and eye-catching images than in providing an easy to navigate site. Having a good, easy to navigate menu on the home page is far more useful than a lot of flashy images or constantly running videos. If you are designing a site to attract first time boat buyers, do not use a lot of jargon they do not yet understand. For example, on the survey you listed a menu item that said "owners". What does that mean? Is it a list of owners or a link to information for owners? "Owners resources" says a lot more about what its for. "Information For Owners" is even better but may be too long to fit on a horizontal menu where space is at a premium. In old time computer use, make it user friendly. Remember, the user may know nothing about your subject, in fact most likely doesn't. If you make it confusing they will just go somewhere else.
 
I have been asked to make CSR members aware of survey Sea Ray Marketing is conducting to help them with a new searay.com website design



From Sea Ray Marketing:

Sea Ray needs your feedback! We are always looking to improve our products and services to make your shopping and ownership experience exceptional. Club Sea Ray members are invited to participate in a brief 15-minute survey to gain feedback for the Sea Ray team. To participate and share your insight, please click the link below. The survey will be open until Friday, June 7.



https://gegh7404.optimalworkshop.com/chalkmark/searaytest
Thanks for passing this along, Frank. Unfortunately, I removed searay.com from my favorites and unsubscribed from their email list about a year ago when they quit making boats in my desired size range.

Quite frankly (sorry - no pun intended), I have no current or future interest in their new products or success - so count me out on reviewing or providing input on their marketing materials.

Sort of in the category that they left me so I’m leaving them. I’ll enjoy my DB another year or two then migrate to manufacturers that actually want to cater and commit to the large yacht market.

In the same boat here as well. The new Sea Rays on display at the 2019 Boston Boat Show were a huge disappointment to us. What possible dood is a 38’ Sun Deck? In the end we decided not to move up to an orphaned Sea Ray 4x series, but to move on to a Sabre Express Hardtop. My sense is Sea Ray is moving to a customers who are primarily day boat users and that hardly seems to fit the demographic of CSR.
 
Well, just finished the survey and i am not impressed. This type of survey is what i expect from a corporate marketing person with exactly zero idea about website design. In my tech business we have been involved with consulting on many web design projects and if this is truely the info searay is going off I expect this to he a big expense as well as a flop... Sorry but sometimes the truth hurts.

As mentioned before this is were the graphics designers put in their influence and we wind up with looping videos on the home page slowing pageloads for mobile users and not providing the visitor a clear path. Their typically more interested in building their "cool portfolio" over making the site a success.

But that type of stuff wows c-levels who are even more clueless but what to show off a cool site. We forget that the person coming to a site is not looking for your video ad (they already found you) but are looking for information.

-Kevin
 

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