Articles

Dealership: 

Robert Zylstra started selling used bikes out of a machine shed on the farm in Iowa almost 30 years ago. Today they are blessed with two dealerships that have each been awarded multiple Harley-Davidson® Circle of Excellence Awards for great customer service and top performance. That down-to-earth beginning still runs deep in their company. Whether you visit their Ames, Iowa location or stop in at the store in Elk River, Minnesota, you’ll find a staff that loves to make new friends, and that will work hard for you to make sure that your bike ownership experience is everything that it should be. After all these years, Robert still won’t have it any other way.

Solution:

Zylstra H-D’s Ames, IA location invited 4,000 of their past customers to their Brunch Party.  Using a nice mix of active and inactive customers, they knew they could reactivate customers who hadn’t spent money with them in the previous year, 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 2018. The Sharp Shooter Program targets customers with up to 12 different, direct marketing strategies ensuring they receive the message multiple times. By increasing the number of times they get the message, we increase response to the survey site and traffic through the doors on event day. Big picture, this multi-touch approach makes it easy to touch their buying base 52-104 times over the course of the year which puts a fence around their herd and makes them immune to other offers from other dealers. Over time, it helps increase the number of customers spending money with the dealership and on average, how much they spend annually leading to predictable growth for the store. Focusing the message on the party elements of their event (food, drinks, door prizes, etc.) not only attracted the small number of folks who were ready to buy but hundreds of more customers who didn’t plan on buying anything that Saturday, resulting in tons of impulse purchases and pipeline for future sales.

Results:

Jon Garrett, Zylstra H-D’s General Manager said, “The parking lot was full, with no spaces left. Staff absolutely loved it.” They did a combined total of $10k in parts, accessories, and Motorclothes. They also sold two bikes that day. In January, in IA. He said, “It was the best event he ever had.”   The Sharp Shooter Program generated 573 completed surveys, which created a total of 400 leads in P&A, Service, and MotorClothes, PLUS 99 responses for a new or used bike, turning this weekend event into a month-long sales event for each department following up on the leads generated from the event and increasing their Return On Investment.   Jon’s looking forward to his next event February 10th. 

What’s next?

February means Mardi Gras, Valentine’s Day and the unofficial kickoff to Spring! After a harsh winter, your customers have so much cabin fever, they’re dying for an excuse to get out of the house. It’s your job to get them through your doors before your competition. Don’t wait for the weather to break, cause it will already be too late. For more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help you have your best year yet, call me on my direct line 877-242-4472 ext: 112. Happy selling.

OBJECTIVE

Sloan’s is one of the oldest and largest motorcycle & ATV dealers in the nation and have been serving the powersports riding community in the Nashville, Tennessee area for over 50 years!  Most folks (including dealers in the powersports industry) know and are extremely fond of Curtis Sloan and his team at Sloan’s Motorcycle and ATV.  They have built a reputation over the decades of being a dealership with heart, soul, and character.  

One of Curtis Sloan’s primary objectives is to always be growing the business by increasing their customer-base.  Additionally, he’s on a personal quest to continuously improve on processes to help his dealership serve their customers in the best ways possible.

SOLUTION

Because of this desire to grow and provide the best experiences for his customers, Curtis decided to switch his website from DealerSpike to the newly launched Firestorm Website platform.  

Although Curtis was happy with his current website and the service he received from his rep. at DealerSpike, there were a few key technologies available only on a Firestorm Website that he felt would make a big difference in his ability to serve his customers better and gain more market-share through increased leads.

RESULTS

The new Firestorm Website platform was built for two purposes:

1. To Identify Anonymous Customers (a feature that no other website provider is able to offer).

2. Generate Leads (which Firestorm Websites do better because of their clean, simple designs, Automatic Inventory Integration, a Mobile App that allows inventory pictures to be added instantly, and VIN decoding).

In the first two months of the new Firestorm website, Sloan’s Motorcycle & ATV benefitted from a 30% increase in leads, each month!  And, those leads were generated in the ‘off season’ for the industry.

Is your website built to tell you ‘who’ was on your site, not just the number of visitors?  Is your website built to generate leads by creating an emotional response in your website visitors?  Do the leads you get from your website currently want your lowest out the door price?  If so, you owe it to your dealership to check out Firestorm Websites.  They are different for a reason and you’ll see the kind of success that Curtis and his team have seen from this unique website platform.  Call us today at 877-242-4472 or request a Free Demo at www.powersportsmarketing.com/firestorm-websites, so we can walk you through the Firestorm Website difference.

I once had a dealer come to me at one of our boot camps and ask me to take a look at his new site. It had been up and running for almost a month, and he was really concerned that the number of leads he was receiving had literally shut off like a faucet since changing to his new site.

I took a few minutes to look at his site, and to be honest, the site looked amazing. Some really cool (at the time) functionality, navigation, and look and feel. But it didn’t take too long to figure out his problem. In getting all caught up with the cool factor of the site, they had removed all opportunity to convert from the VDP pages. They had literally turned his conversion machine into a brochure. It wasn’t that the site wouldn’t convert – it couldn’t. This dealer had spent literally thousands of dollars to cripple his site. But, it looked amazing. 

For years, we’ve offered best practices and talked about the purpose of your website, and now that we’re in the business, well… we’re only going to talk about it more.

So as you look at your current site, maybe planning for a refresh with your current provider, or planning to switch to a new one, it’s important to keep in mind the purpose of your website. 

The purpose of your website is to identify visitors and generate leads. That’s it.

It sounds simple, but it’s amazing how many ways we can get innocently sidetracked with the unimportant. Like looks, for example.

It’s extremely important that your website reflect WHO you are as a dealership and WHERE you are geographically, that’s a non-negotiable. When we design sites for dealers, our graphics team is told to create the site using a splash of info from the dealership Facebook page for personality, and a splash of local info for geography.  We don’t ever want to create ‘cookie cutter’ types of sites, where you could cut out one dealer logo and drop in another and nobody would know the difference.  Designing sites this way provides dealers with sites that are as unique as a fingerprint.

 While it’s important that your site look good, first and foremost it’s supposed to be a conversion machine, every page must have some type of call to action and conversion opportunity or it is a distraction. I know that sounds a little harsh, and maybe rigid, but if you want to maximize the potential of your site, that’s how it is.  Every page should have an opportunity for visitors to engage in some way to identify themselves and/or provide their information to cause them to become a lead of some type or department. This is especially important on VDPs (Vehicle Display Pages), for a particular unit. These pages typically represent 80% or more of page visits, and that makes total sense. Visitors WILL be on these pages, so there MUST be some way to harvest them as a lead available.

It’s frighteningly easy to get caught up in the look and feel of your site and lose focus on what really matters. You want to have an overall sort of theme to your site, but it has to be just that – an overall theme. The reason for this is because with all of the different devices, operating systems, browser versions, screen resolutions, and user preferences, no matter what you do your site is going to render differently in many different ways. That’s why having a responsive site is critical nowadays. Get the theme right, and don’t go nuts trying to get it exactly perfect, because it’s going to be different on other devices. Get the theme right, and let the responsive design handle the specifics across platforms and devices. 

Top tip: if you’re breaking out a color wheel and ruler for your redesign, you’re focusing on the wrong thing. Focus on conversion opportunities and follow up, because cash in the bank is the truest measure of success.

Talk soon, 

Brad

The short answer to how frequently you should be sending emails is once per week, or at least once every other week.  If you think that sounds like too much, or would take too much work – you’re doing it wrong.  This article is dedicated to the best practices of sending email, and making it easier for dealers to do it the right way. 

Harley released a study about a year ago that concluded a customer must be ‘touched’ 29 times before they buy a motorcycle. A touch is outbound marketing including email, direct mail, text, voicemail blasts, salesperson phone calls, etc. Here at PSM, our goal is to help clients touch their Buying Base (active customers, inactive customers, and conquest prospects) 52 to 104 times per year. 

While email can’t reach everyone, it is a big part of touching active and inactive customers. Therefore, most dealers think the main purpose of email is to stay in front of their customers, increase loyalty, build their brand, and enhance their image with ‘pretty’ emails.  While email can certainly fulfill each of these, they’re simply happy byproducts of sending out good emails consistently. The main purpose of email is to generate website traffic. Everything else is secondary. 

So, here are some tips on how to get more folks clicking in your emails and visiting your website:

1. Add more links. Every picture in your email should link to your website, and don’t forget text! The most consistent high Click Through Rates come from emails that have “Click Here” in several places (or some variation). Yes, some customers will figure out that a picture is clickable by hovering their mouse over it, but in marketing, people want to be told what to do. Plus, blue text that’s underlined (hyperlink) draws more clicks.

2. Don’t segment your list. “But… but… but… everyone says to segment your list!”  I know, and here’s why you shouldn’t do it.  Basic logic tells you that segmenting a list means dividing it, so you’re reducing the number of people you’re sending to. The outcome is less clicks. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is a time and a place for list segmentation for select emails (i.e. VIP customers, etc.). It should just be limited, and your weekly emails should go to everyone. Tip #3 makes this possible...

3. Include something for everyone. New & used inventory, service, and PG&A. You can also include event information and/or custom offers in some emails.  The default email we recommend (see image) has a section for New Inventory and Pre-Owned Inventory with 3 in-stock units listed. Dealers add make and model above the photo, and the words “Click Here” below it that links directly to that unit’s page on your website. If you have on and off-road motorcycles, ATVs and side-by-sides, include a diverse representation in your email. You can have 6 units under the new and/or pre-owned sections if you need to.

For the service and P&A sections, we recommend “Click here to visit our <department name> request page!” If you add other custom images, be sure they include a Click Here button and link it to your website. Call 1-877-242-4472 to see a full email and results.

4. Avoid having a back-to-back-to-back stack of custom images. This is the most common way to build an email today, and it reduces opens and clicks. Our Firestorm Email system has almost 200 different themes to choose from. Once a theme is chosen, you can choose a done-for-you template, or drag-and-drop different sections of text/images combinations enabling you to easily build a custom email in minutes.  Our themes are designed by dealers for dealers… no more sending emails that look like they’re for Nancy’s Bakery or ABC Accounting Company.  

For a quick demo of our Firestorm Email system call 1-877-242-4472, or visit www.powersportsmarketing.com/firestorm-email

-Tory 

 There’s been a lot of buzz in the industry about attracting millenials and also new riders. As Tory pointed out last month in his back page article, we’ve seen modest declines in unit sales over the last two years, but what is more concerning is the average age of riders continuing to rise; from 32 in 1990 to 47 in 2016. 

Attracting new riders is a tricky topic, and one that many folks in the industry are weighing in on, but lack the expertise and wisdom to fully understand the complexity of the matter. For starters, many haven’t heard the story often shared in this newsletter about the Two Shoe Salesmen. 

To recap, two shoe salesmen from two different companies are traveling abroad exploring new potential markets to break into. They wind up in a third-world country with a population of three million people. They walk off the plane and discover nobody, not one single person in this country is wearing shoes. Neither salesperson can believe their eyes.

The first salesman, who’s so excited he can barely breathe, scrambles to call his boss at the home office. 

 “Boss! You’re never going to believe this! I just stepped off the plane in this country of three million people and discovered no one, and I mean not a single soul is wearing shoes! People are just walking around barefoot, we’ve struck the lottery. How quickly can you send me 50,000 pairs of shoes? We’re gonna be rich!”

The second salesperson is equally as shocked. He fumbles for his cell phone and he too quickly dials his boss. 

“Boss! You gotta get me out of here. There’s three million people here and not one of them, I mean no one is wearing any shoes! How soon can I get home?”

So, which sales person is right? 

If you guessed the 2nd, you’re absolutely correct. Those 3 million people don’t want shoes and don’t see the need for them.  And, they couldn’t afford them even if you did convince them. 

While New York City may be a very competitive market to sell shoes, it’s far more viable of an option than selling to a third-world country.

There may be over 300 million people in the US, but the statistical** reality is less than 5% have any interest in motorcycles and trying to convince someone who’s not interested, to be interested, is about as productive as trying to sell shoes in a third-world country. 

With that said, I’m not saying we can’t grow, we absolutely can. I’m saying it isn’t going to happen targeting non-riders and trying to convert them into riders. If you have no interest in golf, no amount of advertising is going to turn you into a golfer. Same with motorcycles.

Another consistent statistic from the MIC is that the influence of friends and family is the number one driver of new blood into our industry. Rather than ‘spray-and-pray’ marketing, our industry needs to focus on creating better experiences for existing riders, so they will in turn, be excited to share those experiences through social media and invite friends and family. The fancy term for this is called “Experiential Marketing.”

And, guess who loves “Experiences” more than any previous generation? Millennials. Eventbrite produced a report on Millennials which stated 82% of Millennials participated in a variety of live events ranging from festivals and parties to concerts and sporting events, etc. in the last year. And, they can’t get enough, with 72% saying they’d like to increase their “Experiences” in the next year. 

I must admit, I’d never heard of “FOMO” before reading this report, but apparently 69% of Millennials admit to having FEAR OF MISSING OUT. Nothing new, just a new acronym. Desire for gain and fear of loss have always been the two basic human emotions, and we can all relate to the disappointment of missing a fun event our peers experienced. But social media is taking this to a new level.

Here’s some pie in the sky, but interesting math. If we could sell just 3% of the population a bike that would be 9 million unit sales.  As a point of reference, we did about 500,000 in 2015 and have been sliding since. We have to target riders and their friends and family who have an interest, kinda like going to New York to sell shoes. 

To achieve these kinds of numbers we must retain our best customers (the boomers and Gen X’ers) and give them a compelling reason to keep coming to the dealership, while also getting millennials involved. What’s the answer? Experiential Marketing. 

Inviting all of your existing customers into the dealership for a party, and encouraging them to invite their friends and family by offering them a free gift for coming, is a grass roots approach which could truly impact this industry if all dealers got on board. A rising tide raises all ships.

In 2013, Nielsen ran a poll asking what forms of advertising people trusted. The majority (84 percent) said they trusted a recommendation from a friend. 

So, get on board, call us today at 877.242.4472 to plan an Experiential Marketing campaign like a Spring Has Sprung Event. Let’s share our enthusiasm for this great industry with all generations of customers and make our industry healthy for decades to come!

**motorcycle industry council data

OBJECTIVE

The team at Cycle Works Motorsports are all powersports enthusiasts, meaning they love the toys they sell as much as the customers who purchase them. And their customers know that the team is committed to creating lasting, long-term relationships, which is evident the exceptional support customers get when they shop at Cycle Works Motorsports. 

In Edmonton, Alberta the Cycle Works team has plenty of opportunity to love the snowmobile season and excitement in full swing all winter long. Plus, the Polari=s OEM offers a “Snowcheck” program each year that allows customers to pre-order their new sleds (with enhanced customization options) for incredible prices at the end of the sledding season, to be picked up at the beginning of the next sled season. 

General Manager, Alicia Dubvosky’s goal for the 2017 Snowcheck program was to take as many pre-orders for 2018 sleds as she could. She wanted to bring customers to market sooner and allow them to get a value on the customized sled of their dreams.  Additionally, she wanted to extend their snowmobile selling season and bring in a burst of profits during the seasonal transition period.

SOLUTION

Through her Local Web Dominator program, Alicia partnered with Digital Marketing Specialist, Allison Brown, to create a four-part plan of attack. Alicia and Allison devised a digital strategy that launched precisely targeted advertising on Google Search, Google Display, Google Remarketing, and Facebook advertising. They set up an exclusive and very competitive $5,000 budget for a 6-week window (March 2 – April 12). And they ensured that the ads were directed specifically to the Alberta market and to website visitors that were identified as “Winter Sport Enthusiasts and Powersports Enthusiasts.”

RESULTS

By using an expert in Digital Marketing, targeting only the specific niche that is most likely to respond to her message, having a compelling call-to-action in all her ads with a deadline to respond (creating a sense of urgency), Alecia’s campaign was an undeniable success!

• Google Search campaign generated 81 conversions (14 Calls, 37 Finance Form Fills, 28 Map and Hours, 2 Lead Form Submits)

• Google Display campaign generated 41 conversions (39 Finance Form Fills, 2 Map and Hours)

• Google Remarketing campaign generated 4 conversions (4 Finance Form Fills)

• Facebook Advertising campaign generated 34 conversions (12 Finance Forms, 2 Lead Submit, 20 Map And Hours)

So, for $5,000 in only 6 weeks, Alicia’s campaign was able to generate a total 92 Finance Applications and 160 total conversions.  If her team was able to close a conservative 10% of the Finance Applicants alone, she would have sold 9 additional snowmobiles at the end of the sledding season when sales are typically tapering off.  WOW!  What an incredible burst of business at the end of a season to set up the rest of the year on a good note.

Does your digital marketing campaign generate those kinds of quantifiable ROI and lead generation…at the end of a season? If not, give us a call today to see how the Local Web Dominator can make a huge impact in your online leads: 877-242-4472.

Dealership: 

Hankster’s Motorsports started with very humble beginnings out of a one-car garage in Beloit, WI back in 2003. At the time, Hankster’s relied on all of its business from word of mouth and referrals from satisfied customers. Hankster’s is what it is today due to an extremely dedicated and hard-working staff, and they strive hard every day to satisfy each and every customer that steps through their front door.

Solution: 

or their “Snow Days & Giveaways Party!” they decided to invite 2,500 of their past customers in for a party and the chance to win a brand new snowmobile. Using a nice mix of active and inactive customers, they knew they could reactivate customers who hadn’t spent money with them in the previous year and increase frequency of visits from their existing customers, to increase the number of folks spending money with them and the amount they spend this year.

To ensure everyone received the message, we targeted them with up to 12 direct marketing strategies. By giving customers more opportunities to respond to the marketing, we increased the amount of traffic on event day and the number of leads generated. Bigger picture, we’ve learned that 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 utilized was focused on inviting customers to a party. By focusing on what the customer wanted (things like food, drinks, door prizes and demo rides), the dealership got more of what they wanted (more P&A, service and gear sales and a few more units out the door). 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 was important to have it hit customers at just the right time to really maximize the response from each media. Our marketing began hitting customers roughly 10 days before the event and gave 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:

Hank said they had a couple hundred people attend the event and ended up giving away 80 hot dogs, 80 burgers and 12 large pizzas! Over the two weeks during and after the event, he said, “We sold a ton of stuff!” They purchased insurance to give customers a chance to win a brand new snowmobile and a lady who had never ridden before won; then she bought $500 worth of gear and her husband came in later and bought a sled and gear as well! There’s a video of her winning the sled on their Facebook page! 

In addition to the traffic and sales, the Sharp Shooter Program also generated 90 completed surveys, which created a total of 50 sales opportunities in P&A, Service, and riding gear, PLUS 40 responses for a new or used unit turning this weekend event into a month-long sales event for each department following up on the leads, increasing their Return On Investment.

What’s next?

If you haven’t planned your marketing for 2018 yet, please ask yourself the following questions: How are my sales year over year? What does my marketing mix look like? Can I quantify my results? And, am I satisfied with those results? If sales are stagnant and the answer to the last two questions are, ‘No,’ then it’s time to ask: “What changes am I going to make with my 2018 Marketing Plan?” 

We’ll help you start planning your 2018 Marketing Calendar with a FREE Market Analysis. It’s a two-step process 1) We pull a 4-year history of past sales, service & parts customers and show you how many customers you have that are active & inactive 2) compare them to a list of conquest customers (people who ride what you sell and live in your backyard but have never bought from you). From here, we implement a 12-month plan to predictably grow your business. 

For more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help 2018 your best year yet, give me a ring on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or chat us up at www.PowersportsMarketing.com. 

Happy selling.

 As a dealer, it’s a legitimate question.

Why bother spending any time or energy on Facebook? For years, I wrote the social media site off as a total waste of time – and for years I was right to do so.

Then, not too long ago, Facebook went public. Things changed. Once you have investors, and a board of directors, you have to engage in the difficult task of making money and showing a profit. That makes you better at what you do in a big picture kind of way, but let’s look at some specifics.

The first ‘why’ is that the biggest demographic group that ride what you sell lives there; it’s where you find them. If you want to catch fish, you have to go where fish are.

The second ‘why’ is because Facebook has done an outstanding job of creating an excellent advertising platform. 

In the spirit of total candor, I used to hate how you advertised within Facebook. Now that money matters, they’ve really stepped up the game. They have a distinct advantage over Google, in the sense that Facebook is what I consider to be a relatively closed-loop universe. 

Once you log into Facebook, they have a wealth of information about you as an individual. Based on your interactions with their platform, they know your gender, age, interests, your friends’ interests, and a lot of other information that allows them to target marketing extremely effectively to you as an individual. It can be a little spooky sometimes.

Google attempted to do this unsuccessfully with G+ partly by pushing you to create a Google account and log in when you got on the internet, and by pushing businesses to create Places pages. They failed spectacularly, and frankly have left a lot of debris in the wake of it with confusion about Google+, Google Places, Google Maps, and Google My Business.  

Conversely, Facebook has seen a pretty smooth evolution that has become more consistently and accurately targeted, with results that have continued to improve over time. At this point, it’s possible to target your market in ways that are many times better than Google. We’ve seen increased (and impressive) success with Facebook when it comes to generating leads that we haven’t seen before. Facebook advertising is truly beginning to come into it’s own.

Third on my ‘why’ list is something I have been preaching for a pretty long time now. Many dealers try to use their websites to convey their dealership’s personality and build the ‘know, like, and trust’ factor with potential customers. This requires constant supervision of content on the site to ensure it is completely current, or you can really look bad. Because of online reviews, and sites like Facebook, people know about you before ever visiting your site in the first place. The job of your website is to identify visitors and generate leads. It’s painfully simple, so don’t overthink it. Keep it clean.

The job of Facebook is to tell the story of your dealership. Create a timeline that shows the personality of your dealership over time, by including pictures of events you host or attend, showing happy customers on new rides, showcasing pictures of your employees, etc. Your timeline will create a story that shows why your dealership is the place to shop in your area.

If handled properly, having a Facebook presence where your client base spends time, with a timeline that is populated with a variety of posts that show why you are the go-to place for fun in your area, and a Facebook marketing plan in place, you’ll see that Facebook can be a place that can generate leads that turns browsers into buyers. 

Talk soon, 

Brad