How Whilton Marina markets its narrow boats before and after the Crick Boat show

If you are considering using a broker to sell your narrow boat it’s important to know about the company you are going to be dealing with and how they operate.

At Whilton marina you can be sure you will be dealing with an established and professional organisation. The marina was set up in 1971 by the Steele family and they still currently own and run the business. With around 200 moorings and stocking the largest choice of narrow boats on the canal system Whilton marina is the envy of other UK narrow boat brokers.


At Whilton marina we lead the way with our brokerage services.

We have had a trade stand at the Crick boat show for the past 14 years and with every year we bring something new and different to the show. At this year’s show we have some amazing show deals and we will also launch our vendors area. We market our boats for sale online on our website and offline we advertise in specialist publications. With the new vendor’s area function on our website; sellers are able to track exactly how their boat is being marketed. No other broker is able to offer this unique service.

For our offline marketing we use the Towpath Talk paper and Waterways World magazine to advertise all our narrow boats for sale. Your narrow boat will be seen by many readers each month who are looking to buy a narrow boat.

When we market your boat we create a 4 page colour brochure and the boat has a dedicated page on our website We will also add the boat to Facebook and Twitter giving it more exposure. Our website generates around 25,000 visitors a month and ranks in Google on page one for many popular search terms so it is easily found and visited by an average of 800 people every day.

We have a database of over 4000 subscribers who are all looking to find a new narrow boat. We use a match making service that allows the subscriber to request boat information for certain requirements such as; boat type, boat length and price. Each time a narrowboat arrives in our marina for sale the boat is added onto our website and automatically emailed out to all subscribers on the database who match the specifications of that boat.

Our website is constantly updated with new boats for sale so it’s worth subscribing to our mailing list as new boats are arriving all the time, this is the quickest and easiest way to keep up to date with what boats we have on the marina.

Through our website buyers are able to search for boats that meet their requirements this makes searching for a new boat fast and easy, with only the boats matching your requirements being listed.

We are currently running an offer of 5% brokerage fees; plus VAT Minimum Charge £1,250 (usually 6% plus VAT, minimum £1,500 plus VAT) until 31st October 2013.

We are open 7 days a week all year round just closing for one week over the Christmas and New Year holiday. You never need to book an appointment to view a narrowboat at our marina as we are open every day of the week between 9am and 6pm Monday – Sunday. (Winter opening times: 9am to 5pm Monday – Sunday).

I think you will agree that we stand out from the other brokers and offer a first class service for anyone who wants to buy or sell. We hope you will either visit us at our Crick show stand or at Whilton Marina. We have some amazing promotions going on at the end of May and hope you will make the most of these offers.