Good Tidings

The holiday season has always been a good time to sit back with family and friends to reminisce about the year past and look forward to the year to come. For customers of Oak Hill Marina — located in Arnolds Park, Iowa — those thoughts are bound to include the good times they’ve had, or can look forward to having, on their boats or at one of the dealership’s frequent customer events.

Oak Hill (Ranked 98) has seen to that with the creation of a “Year in Review” DVD that it mails out to customers every December, containing video footage of all the events held that year and a schedule of all its events for the upcoming year as well.

The half-hour DVD is professionally produced and hosted by the dealership’s finance/sales consultant Jake Jostand, and marketing coordinator Becky Peters. It begins by listing Oak Hill’s accomplishments during 2006, including Marine Industry Certification, what that signifies and what it means for the consumer. It then outlines the achievements of its individual employees in 2006, complete with video of each person working and an explanation of what they do and how they’re trained.

Next comes the footage from each of the dealership’s events held in 2006, with narration and also an explanation of what went on and why each was held.

The video also highlights some of the improvements the dealership made in the prior year, explains other facets of its operations and then runs down the events for 2007, detailing when each is to be held and what will happen, as well as a rundown of the boat shows Oak Hill will be displaying at.
There is also a photo shown of each of the employees with their name and title and then a video clip of the whole group wishing customers “Happy Holidays.”

The DVD finishes with a slideshow of all of Oak Hill’s new customers enjoying their boats. While the photos of people out on the water during much warmer days are being shown, popular Christmas songs provide the soundtrack. The slideshow is done the same way documentary movies sometimes present still photographs. The pictures are panned in on, or back on, or from one side to the other. This adds motion to the stills and makes the presentation much more interesting to look at than the average slide show.

Besides being a nice token of thanks to send out during the holidays, the DVD helps build anticipation for the season to come and makes sure customers know what’s coming up at Oak Hill Marina.