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SPRING HAS SPRUNG!

The first day of spring is March 20th. That's only 3.5 weeks away.  Hallelujah! Don't miss an opportunity to ring in the start of the riding season and kickstart your 2nd quarter sales.

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Sharp Shooter Case Study: Harley-Davidson® of Macon

Objective:

Increase market share from competitors and generate more quantifiable leads from the dollars being spent in marketing.

Challenge:

Traditional marketing had always been a challenge for H-D of Macon. In the past, the dealership had depended on radio, billboards and some print advertising to reach new riders. Like many dealers, Brett Sassaman, Marketing Manager and son of owners Greg & Lisa Sassaman, struggled with quantifying the effectiveness of this style of advertising and wasn’t convinced it was working. 

Solution:

To help Brett begin carving off new market share, we identified all the Harley owners who lived within 30 miles of his dealership, but haven’t bought from him. We combined that list with past customers from their Talon who spent money with the dealership in the past four years and also lived within 30 miles of their store. 

Once we identified their ‘Right Audience’, we went after them with the ‘Right Media’. We utilized 12 direct-marketing strategies including direct mail, a recorded call blast, email blasts, social media updates, in-store fliers, in-store signage, a web banner, lead magnet and even more to guarantee the target audience was reached multiple times leading up to the event. We’ve proven through executing thousands of campaigns with over 700 dealerships that this drastically increases response rates. To generate leads, each piece of communication incentivized folks to go online and complete a survey to tell the dealership two pieces of information: 1) First and Last Name, email address and phone number & 2) What they want to buy from the dealership. This typically generates hundreds of leads for not only unit sales, but also parts & accessories, MotorClothes and service as well. Combine this formula with consistency and we are systematically carving off new market share and generating more leads for Brett and the team at H-D of Macon. 

Results:

H-D of Macon has executed three events in three straight months; Black Friday & Chrome Saturday in November, a Naughty List Party in December and a Resolve to Ride More in January. The results have been immediate. Their Black Friday Event was one of the best days at the counter in memory and a record for the dealership! During their Naughty List Party they broke another record with 7 bike deals in one day. As this article goes to print, the Resolve to Ride Campaign has already generated 122 sales opportunities for their individual departments. Below are their last two Campaign Wrap Ups which generated over 450 combined leads including 74 new & used unit leads, 133 parts & accessories leads, 47 service leads and 109 MotorClothes leads. Out of just 2,500 records, their Sharp Shooter Campaigns are averaging close to a 10% response rate, or 10 times the national average for direct mail marketing. 

It's easy to think that closing skills is the most important ingredient in sales, but it's actually the time spent up front with the customer interviewing & investigating, establishing rapport, and building value that inevitably separates the professionals from the amateurs.  Anyone can be an order-taker for the laydown customer, but sales professionals create a sale with customers that weren't really planning to buy today.

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