Articles

Dealership: 

Harding’s Park Cycle owners and brothers, Dan and Dennis Harding, were introduced to motorcycles early in life when their father brought home an enduro for Dan. Weekends were spent at local dirt tracks and that passion turned into a career at Parkway Kawasaki in Dover, PA. Soon thereafter, younger brother, Dennis, joined Dan working on Saturday’s for his older brother. In 1984, Dan bought the store and in 1988, moved the dealership to Canton where they now sell Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Can-Am, CFMoto, Yamaha & DRR.

Solution: 

For their first Sharp Shooter Event, they decided to market to 2,000 past customers and 2,000 conquest prospects who ride what they sell, live in their backyard but hadn’t bought from them. Using a nice mix of active, inactive and conquest prospects, they knew they could reactivate customers who hadn’t spent money with them in the previous year and drive some new blood through the door. The ultimate goal is to increase the number of customers spending money with them over the next year and increase how much the spend, by getting them all to walk through the door more often. 

Since the loneliest number in marketing is one, we used up to 12 direct marketing touches. By giving customers more opportunities to respond to the marketing, we increased the amount of traffic on event day and the number of leads being generated. Bigger picture, we’ve learned Powersports Dealers need to touch their Buying Base a minimum of 52-104 times per year to increase retention and grow market share. The more you touch your customer base, the more responsive they become and over the course of the year, more of them walk through the dealership’s doors more often and the business grows.

The message we utilize is focused on inviting customers to a party. By focusing on what the customer wants (things like food, drinks, door prizes and demo rides), the dealership gets more of what they want (more P&A, service and gear sales and a few more units out the door). The reverse is also true; focus on the sale and you will alienate the 99.99% of customers who don’t have ‘buy a motorcycle’ on their list of things to do this weekend. Long-term, customers never get tired of being invited to a party so they end up walking through the doors more often and when they’re there, they can’t help themselves but to spend more money. 

With so much marketing going out the doors, it’s important to have it hit customers at just the right time to really maximize the response from each media. Our marketing begins hitting cu

stomers roughly 10 days before the event and gives them a different opportunity to respond to the survey site (to generate leads for every department) almost every day leading up to event day.

Results:

Jason Roher, Sales Manager of Harding’s, said their first campaign was, “Great! We had a lot of people here, rolled five units the day of the event and sold a ton of parts!” 

Executing on all four pillars of the Sharp Shooter Program - Right Audience, Right Media, Right Message & Right Timing, really paid off. The program generated 262 completed surveys including 150 sales opportunities in Clothing, P&A and Service, PLUS 73 responses for a new or used unit!

What’s Next:

May is one of the best months to market to your buying base all year! Spring will have finally arrived in every corner of the country, plus you have Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day and Memorial Day. What more could you ask for? Visit us online at www.PowersportsMarketing.com for some killer campaign options and for more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help you achieve your growth goals in 2018, call me on my direct line 877-242-4472 ext: 112. Happy selling.