Marketing campaign to showcase the Manistee Marina

With marina occupancy around 50% in 2022, Manistee Harbor Master Jeff Mikula said he hopes the marketing campaign will attract more passing boaters from outside the area, instead more local seasonal tenants.

“I feel like we have some of the best facilities and the best community on the coast and I love sharing that with people,” Mikula said in July. “Our story is great. It’s just a matter of how do we get it to them? How to make them come to see it?

Mikula explained at a Harbor Commission meeting in April that Michigan regulations limit the number of vacation rentals allowed at the marina.

“We are capped on seasonals by the state,” he said. “The transient (market) is what rings our bell.”

The commission agreed to move forward with MS Creative’s marina marketing plan proposal during a special meeting in July.

In the short term, that means collecting photo and video assets for the campaign, according to MS Creative owner Mark Sandstedt.

“The only deliverable for the Municipal Marina of Manistee, at this point, is aerial drone imagery and photography/videography for future use in marina marketing and promotion,” Sandstedt told the News Advocate.

Decisions will be made during Marina’s offseason that will determine how the two sides move forward, according to Mikula.

“Then we assess (in) the playoffs to see where we are financially and how much we can do in the rest of the budget year, and then we can plan future things in fiscal year 2024,” said Mikula at the July conference. Meet.

The process should unfold over the next few years, according to Sandstedt.

“I would like to look at at least a two-, three-, or four-year plan, because I think the first part of that plan has to be collecting some assets. I don’t want to show a photo of the marina from five years ago because it’s not the same facility,” Sandstedt said at a harbor commission meeting in April.

The full marketing campaign would cost between $10,000 and $15,000, according to the minutes of the meeting. Some items that were discussed by the commission include social media marketing, boater surveys and other promotions that will take place after the images are acquired.

“There is still information on some of these other websites that the marina is still suffering from seiche, that repairs were underway, but none of them say we are 100% back,” said Commission Chairman Tom Swedenborg in July. “A press release regarding the marina being 100% back could now be drafted.”

On April 13, 2018, the channel of the Manistee River experienced a seiche which damaged docks in and around the marina.

Now that the dock repairs are complete, Sandstedt said the time is right to start marketing the marina.

“The last few years have been tough because of the damage done during the seiche – all the rebuilding,” he told the harbor commission in April. “Now with the new docks you are ready to introduce yourself to the world.”