Articles

Dealership: 

Hawkeye Motorworks is a Honda Powerhouse Dealer located in Davenport, IA. Honda Powerhouse Dealers provide the most complete inventory of Honda Motorcycles, ATV’s & SxS’s available. Hawkeye invites customers in to ‘Feel the power. Honda Powerhouse. All Honda. All the Time.’

Solution: 

For their first Sharp Shooter Event, they decided to market to 1,250 past customers and 1,250 conquest prospects who ride what they sell, live in their backyard but hadn’t bought from them, yet. Using a nice mix of active, inactive and prospect customers, they knew they could reactivate customers who hadn’t spent money with them in the previous year, drive some new blood through the door and increase frequency of visits of their existing customers to increase the number of customers spending money with them and the amount they spend in 2017.

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 increase 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 customers 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:

You might think, ‘Eric that’s too good to be true’, but it’s not. We’ve used this. Kayla Pitchford, Marketing and F&I Manager, said their first campaign was great! They ended up rolling 6 or 7 units on the day of the event, counter sales in all departments were up, traffic was awesome and it was one of the busiest Saturday’s they’ve had in months! Most importantly, she said they saw a lot of customers that they hadn’t seen in a long time and that was super cool!

Executing on all four pillars of the Sharp Shooter Program - Right Audience, Right Media, Right Message & Right Timing, really paid off. The program generated 147 completed surveys including 56 sales opportunities in Clothing, P&A and Service, PLUS 27 responses for a new or used unit! 

What's next?

September is better than Christmas for powersports enthusiasts because it is officially New Model Season! Arguably the most important event you’re going to hold all year long. If you don’t have a New Model Open House planned in September, call us today to make sure you’re showing off all the new good stuff from your OEM(s). Check out the inserts for some killer campaign options for September and for more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help you achieve your marketing goals in 20017, call me on my direct line 877-242-4472 ext: 112. Happy selling.