Boat show lead follow-up: a 90-day sequence with free text and email templates for the 2027 show season

The 90-day boat show follow-up sequence at a glance

A show lead needs eight planned touches over 90 days, front-loaded into the first 48 hours. The first three steps catch the buyer while the boat is still fresh in their mind and the show deal is still live; the last five carry the conversation through the weeks when show buyers compare dealers, talk to their spouse and wait for the water to warm up.

The reason to keep going past the first week is the length of the boat buying cycle. A 2018 Boats Group and Info-Link study found 42% of buyers purchased within 90 days of submitting a lead (Boating Industry), and Rollick told MRAA in April 2024 that the marine purchase cycle averages four months or more (MRAA). Most dealers stop far earlier: in a 2015 mystery shop of 10 boat dealers, none made a second contact within 30 days (Boating Industry). More response-time benchmarks are collected on our lead response statistics page, and the year-round version of this cadence is in the 90-day follow-up guide.

Capturing consent and the right details at the booth

The follow-up is only as good as what the booth captures, so build the scan or card around the sequence. A badge scan gives you a name and an email. It rarely tells you which boat the buyer stood in, whether they have a trade, or whether they agreed to texts. Add those fields to whatever your team uses at the show, whether that is a lead-capture app, a tablet form or a paper card typed in that night.

• Mobile number and email, typed by the buyer where possible so the spelling is theirs.
• The boat: model, length and stock number of the boat they looked at, or the floor model if it is a factory order.
• Timeline: this season, next season, or just looking.
• Trade-in and financing: yes or no only; the numbers come later from a person.
• Home water and use: lake, bay or offshore; fishing, watersports or cruising.
• Salesperson met, so the first text and email arrive in that person's name.
• A texting consent line the buyer ticks themselves, saved with the show name, date and time.

Get the scans into one system the same day. A stack of cards in a salesperson's jacket is the most common reason the one-hour text never happens. If your show app exports a file, set someone the job of uploading it every two hours while the show is open; if it connects to your CRM, test that connection the week before the show, not on opening morning.

The first 48 hours: the text, the email and the call

The first 48 hours decide whether the buyer remembers your dealership or the one two aisles over. MRAA's January 2026 Pulse Report found most dealers rate their boat show follow-up at least “somewhat effective”, and that some dealers text customers within an hour of them leaving the booth (MRAA). That one-hour text is the standard to beat in 2027. Boating Industry's 2011 advice still holds for the email: send it from the salesperson the buyer met, keep it short, brand it, and name the boat (Boating Industry).

The call stays with a person. Keelson does not make voice calls; it sends the text and email steps, hands the conversation to the named salesperson with the thread so far, and leaves the 48-hour call on that salesperson's list. If the buyer replies to the first text with a question about financing terms or a trade value, that goes to the salesperson as well, because neither should be answered by an automated message.

Days 7 to 90: keeping show leads warm until the season opens

After week one, each touch should give the buyer a new reason to reply, not “just checking in”. Boating Industry's 2014 show coverage recommended a second, tailored email after the show rather than a generic newsletter (Boating Industry). The five templates below each carry one new thing: the boat back at the store, a video, a sea trial date, alternatives in stock, and a clean exit.

Every one of these texts goes out inside your quiet-hours window, and any reply that asks a real question gets a real answer before the next scheduled step. For texts outside the show context, such as a first reply to a website lead or a price-drop alert, use the general boat sales text message templates; for sea trial confirmations and reminders, see sea trial scheduling.

The 2027 show calendar and when each wave of leads lands

Show season runs from early January to mid-March, so day 90 for most show leads falls between April and June. The table uses the 2026 dates, the most recent season our sources confirm; organisers had not published every 2027 date in the sources we used, so check Discover Boating before you build the calendar. The Miami International Boat Show stays in February, and Boating Industry has said its 2027 Top 100 dealer gala moves to the Miami show (Boating Industry).

Trade coverage has long described February through May as the core selling season, with March near its midpoint (Trade Only). That puts the day-30 sea trial offer and the day-60 spring email exactly where buyers are ready to act, and it is why this guide is published before the January shows: the sequence has to be loaded before the first scan, not written after it (West Marine; MRAA).

What MRAA and the trade press already offer for show follow-up

Good show follow-up material exists, but most of it is short, old or behind a membership. MRAA's “Boat Show Follow-Up That Converts” page is about 200 words with no timing or cadence; it links to a Dealer Rapid Response Guide from Rollick with text and email scripts (28 March 2025), an IDS Marine sales manager checklist (5 February 2026) and 24 salesperson email templates for members (MRAA; MRAA templates).

If your dealership is an MRAA member, use their templates alongside these; the two sets are written for different moments. Trade Only's column on the subject is worth reading for the manager's view of why follow-up slips after a long show weekend (Trade Only).

Running the sequence when your sales team is at the show

The hardest step is the first one, because the people who met the buyer are still on the show floor. A salesperson working a five-day show is with buyers from opening to close and will not text each one within an hour by hand. The usual fixes are a runner at the booth who enters scans and sends texts, a BDC at the store working from uploaded files, or software that sends steps one, two and four to eight automatically.

1. Before the show: load the sequence, the show price list and each salesperson's name and signature.
2. At the booth: capture the seven fields above and the consent line on every scan.
3. During the show: get scans into the system every few hours; check that one-hour texts are going out.
4. After each show day: salespeople review replies and take over any buyer who asked for a call or a price.
5. At 48 hours: each salesperson works their call list; log the outcome before the next step fires.
6. Weekly: the sales manager reviews contact rate, appointments booked and opt-outs by show.

Keelson takes boat-show scans as a lead source, sends the text and email steps in the dealership's name from its own number and email domain, and re-engages show leads on the 90-day cadence, stopping on an opt-out or when a salesperson takes over from their phone. Its manager view reports response time, contact, appointment and show rate by source, so a Boston lead and a website lead can be compared. It starts from $795 a month with no per-lead fees (pricing), and setup takes two to three weeks, so a dealer who wants it running for a January show should start in early December.

Frequently asked questions