Articles

 Last year we begin sharing our proven formula for Predictable Growth. It’s simple to understand, but not necessarily easy-peasy to execute. Here it is:

1. Grow your active customers. We define active customers as those who’ve given you money in the past 12 months. To accomplish this, we have two groups of folks we target. First are your inactive customers, those who’ve given you money in the past and are in your database, but not in the last year. And second are brand spanking new customers, who’ve never done business with you before. New blood. 

2. Increase annual customer value. This is accomplished by increasing the frequency of visits on an annual basis. It can also be impacted by boosting the average amount per transaction of each active customer.

So that’s the formula, and here are the principles we use to execute the formula:

Right Message, Right Market, Right Media, Right Time. Seems simple enough, right? It’s surprisingly easy to fumble. 

We often have dealers tell us, “my market is different” or “my dealership is different.” This is just not so. In fact, these four fundamentals are principle based and hold up for any business, not just powersports dealerships. For any businesses to thrive and prosper it must have a compelling marketing message, a specific target market to receive that message and respond to it, and it must be delivered at a relevant time.  While it seems simple, just like diet and exercise, most dealers don’t have the attention to detail and discipline to follow through, and therefore they waste tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars per year with marketing that was set up to fail before it ever even deployed. 

Here’s how easy it is to undermine these principles and render them useless: We call this the single.

1. Right Message – Right Market – Right Media – Wrong Time

2. Right Message – Right Market – Wrong Media – Right Time

3. Right Message – Wrong Market – Right Media – Right Time

4. Wrong Message - Right Market – Right Media – Right Time

Believe it or not, it can get worse as we often see: Here’s the double.

1. Right Message – Wrong Market – Right Media – Wrong Time

2. Wrong Message – Right Market – Wrong Media – Right Time

3. Right Message – Wrong Market – Right Media – Wrong Time

4. Wrong Message - Wrong Market – Right Media – Right Time

And, here’s the triple:

1. Right Message – Wrong Market – Wrong Media – Wrong Time

2. Wrong Message – Right Market – Wrong Media – Wrong Time

3. Wrong Message – Wrong Market – Right Media – Wrong Time

4. Wrong Message - Wrong Market – Wrong Media – Right Time

And the grand slam:

1. Wrong Message - Wrong Market – Wrong Media – Wrong Time

At our Marketing Boot Camps, we refer to these four fundamentals as the four-legged stool. If you remove any one leg, regardless of which one the stool will falter. This is exactly how your marketing works.

There is only one way to get it correct: Right Message - Right Market- Right Media - Right Time. 

All too often these four fundamentals are broken due to dealers waiting to the last minute and reactively choosing how they’ll spend their marketing budget, and/ or taking the easy way out and delegating to a Marketing Manager who hasn’t been properly educated. 

With the New Year upon us, you have plenty of time to create a proactive marketing plan that will create Predictable Growth by utilizing these four fundamentals. You can have a record year in 2018, regardless of what the stock market or fake news is saying about our industry. 

Here at PSM our entire religion is committed to executing based on our Predictable Growth Formula. If we can’t measure its success through quantifiable metrics, we don’t believe in it. 

Our new Firestorm Website platform was built from the ground up with a focus on conversions. And Firestorm Email, is the only email marketing platform designed exclusively for the Powersports industry, so you can send kick ass emails to your customers without knowing photoshop or having it take hours to build.  Our Local Web Dominator program is a complete A-to-Z digital marketing system that you can bolt on to your existing web presence that will make you the obvious choice to do business with in your local market. And our Sharp Shooter multi-channel direct marketing solution is a lead generation machine, and the backbone of our Predictable Growth system.

So, don’t be a procrastinator, resolve to grow in the New Year and contact us today at 877-242-4472 or via 

www.powersportsmarketing.com, so we can partner with you just as we have with over 800 other dealers in every corner of the country. 

Happy New Year!

Let’s take a little trip down memory lane, shall we?  

In the late 1990’s, new motorcycle sales started booming and peaked in 2006 at close to 1.2 million units retailed! To put that into perspective, in 1996 there were 330,000 units sold.  Wow… that’s an increase of over 360%. 

Sales began to skid in 2007 & 2008, and by 2010 the recession had taken its toll. The Powersports industry lost over half its sales (439,000 units in 2010).  By 2015, we’d bounced back to over 500,000 new registrations, but 2016 & 2017 have seen moderate declines. 

Most motorcycle sales since the 90’s have been derived from the Baby Boomer generation. In fact, the median age of the typical motorcycle owner in 2016 was 47. It was 32 in 1990 (300,000 new units sold) and 40 in 2008 (when over 800,000 new units were sold). 

The data supports what you and I have heard… Baby Boomers are getting older and they’re not buying bikes like they used to, and Generation X isn’t buying bikes like the Boomers did. This has many of the OEM’s freaking out. As Baby Boomers phase out, where will their sales come from? Time to panic!

The OEMs, Motorcycle Industry Council, and others have all drank the Kool-Aid that the only way to save the industry is to get new riders from the low-performing demographics/segments. If the vast majority of riders & sales come from middle-aged white males, they believe we need to center in on cultivating new riders from Young Adults (Millennial Generation), Women, African Americans and Hispanics. 

Consequently, they have focused their marketing efforts on attracting these new riders. They’ve also pushed their dealers to follow suit. 

History lesson over. Now what? I’ll start by debunking the idea that focusing on demographics/segments to get new riders is a good one. 

From a financial stand point, middle-aged folks will always have more money and credit. They can afford to buy, and they have more time to ride. And, have you noticed that these new units aren’t cheap?

Furthermore, people don’t begin riding because they’re a man or woman, young or old, or because of their race. This is a passion-based industry that is full of enthusiasts/hobbyists of all shapes and sizes. No dealership cares if their next sale if going to be to a hispanic male or a white female… they want to make any customer happy. 

But, here is the biggest nail in the coffin: the number one reason a new rider starts riding is the influence of their friends and family. It’s not marketing! Marketing can shape an enthusiast’s buying habits (i.e. get them to buy PG&A more frequently, shorten their trade cycle, or get them to try a new dealership), but it will never be a good way to generate new riders. 

This isn’t a new concept. Think of any hobby. Golf enthusiasts, for instance, share many of the same demographics as the Powersports enthusiasts, and anyone who plays golf will tell you it all started with an invitation from a friend, family member or co-worker. 

I’ll go as far to say that it would be just plain silly for the golf industry to focus their marketing efforts on getting Young Adults, Women, African Americans and Hispanics to give golfing a try. It doesn’t work that way. PEOPLE get other people to play, and it’s the same in our industry. 

So, what should you do? Start by NOT focusing your marketing efforts on attracting new riders. Instead, hold monthly or bi-weekly events with a never-ending emphasis on having your customers inviting their friends and family to join in on the fun of the event. This kills two birds with one stone… increases sales right now across all departments, while fulfilling the best way to get new riders. Better ownership experiences will ultimately attract new riders through the influence or friends and family. 

Also, be sure not to alienate or ignore the Baby Boomers – they’re still buying. Or the Gen Xers – they’re becoming the wealthy generation with time, money and credit. They’re most influenced by other people who ride.

Our Sharp Shooter program is a Predictable Growth System designed to do both of those things. For more info call 1-877-242-4472, or visit www.PowersportsMarketing.com.

- Tory

Dealership: 

Brothers Mark and John Brenny are the owners of the largest new and used motorcycle, scooter and off-road vehicle dealership in the Quad Cities area. Located in Bettendorf, IA, they offer a huge selection of Indian, Victory, Polaris, Slingshot, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Kymco and CFMoto brands. The team really values the opportunity to create a long-term relationship with their customers by focusing on providing exceptional customer service.

Solution: 

For their first Sharp Shooter Event, they decided to target their direct mail piece for 2,000 past customers and 2,000 conquest prospects who ride what they sell, live in their backyard but hadn’t bought from them and they called 4,000 past customers and emailed everyone they had an email address for in their database. Using a 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:

Brady Allison, Marketing Manager for Brenny’s sent a text to Marisa Tils, their Account Executive on Saturday during the event saying, “They had about 350 people through the doors so far with 4 units sold and more pending and that they expected to get 12-14 units out the door with this campaign!” After the campaign, she had a chance to speak with Brady more and he said, “They rolled more metal this week as a direct result of the campaign (a total of 6 so far), did over $11,000 in Parts, around $5,000 in Apparel (they had to go back to 2003 to find a date in November that was over $5,000), and are looking forward to their next campaign in December!” Executing on all four pillars of the Sharp Shooter Program - Right Audience, Right Media, Right Message & Right Timing, really paid off. The program generated 133 responses to the campaign, which generated 90 sales opportunities, including 42 riders interested in a new or used bike!

Check out the Review Brady left for us after the campaign:

Name: Brady Allison

Comments:”Sabrina did a fantastic job in making sure things went smoothly for our recent Veterans Day Sharp Shooter Campaign. She made sure that any thing I asked for revision wise was done quickly and accurately, which admittedly wasn’t much (Insert Extra Kudos Here!). I will say from start to finish I was very impressed with everyone that worked on our campaign. We will be scheduling more sharp shooters in the near future! I can’t thank you all enough for the hard work and dedication to your clients! My hats off to you all! - Brady “

Rating: 5.0

Employee Name: Sabrina Deyoe

Department: Client Success - Sharp Shooter Campaigns

Date Submitted: 11/16/2017 12:57:56 PM.

What’s next?

December means Christmas, What Santa Forgot & New Year’s Eve parties! This is a non-negotiable for your retail business. Check out our website (www.Powersportsmarketing.com) for some killer campaign options for December and moving into the New Year. For more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help you predictably grow your business in 2018, call me on my direct line 877-242-4472 ext: 112. Happy selling.

 OBJECTIVE

Richmond Harley-Davidson is a premier destination dealership in the mid-Atlantic. Their award-winning staff and service department take pride in being a community-focused business offering unparalleled customer service.  General Manager, Kevin Horton, knows that his existing customers are well cared for by the Richmond H-D team. To continue to help his team members and their local community thrive, he is focused on growing the business through repeat and referral customers. He knows that the fastest (and best) way to grow is to take great care of his customers and continue to communicate with them after the sale, and throughout the buying cycle of prospective new customers.

SOLUTION

Kevin uses many avenues to maintain those open lines of communication with his customers. One of those methods is through the Marketing Automation component of the Firestorm Email platform.  

Each month, emails are sent to Kevin’s customer automatically the day after those folks visited his new or used inventory pages at RichmondHarley.com. Those auto-triggered emails invite customers to come by the dealership, effectively creating the industry’s first-ever pro-active appointment setting system for Richmond Harley-Davidson.

RESULTS

By sending out weekly emails through the Firestorm email system, Kevin connected the Firestorm Onboarding system to his email marketing program.  Those onboarded customers who visited Richmond Harley’s inventory pages of their website will get an automated nurture campaign email the very next day, inviting them down to the dealership.

From the appointments set through those automated emails, Kevin’s team was able to sell THREE additional units in the last two weeks. And, the emails were done automatically.  That is some impressive email marketing that WORKS!

Does your email marketing campaign generate those kinds of quantifiable leads for your sales department? If not, give us a call today to see how Firestorm email can make a huge impact in your website traffic and online leads: 877-242-4472

It’s well known that the Powersports industry is a good 10 years behind the automotive industry in many areas, including technology. For several years now, automotive dealers have been taking 15 to 20 actual pictures of every unit, new and pre-owned, that is in their inventory and showcasing them on their website. I say “actual” to denote they’re real picture of each vehicle. They’re not using the same pictures over and over again when the same type of vehicle is back in inventory.

This has become an expectation on the consumer side, and it’s not just the automotive industry. Whether it’s Cragislist, eBay, Amazon or any other website, consumers want real pictures of what they’re shopping for. 

In this Social Media world, shoppers are craving authenticity. And the craving for ‘genuineness’ on the internet is increasing. So, the answer is… You absolutely need to be adding bona fide pictures of every in-stock unit in your inventory. 

I know what you’re thinking. “Tory, I have 50 or more units on the floor. Do you realize how difficult it is to take 10 pictures of each unit, import them to my computer, rename the files, organize, then find each unit on my website and upload those 10 images 50+ times? It will take forever! And I have to stay on top of inventory that’s coming in every day/week?” You’re right… it’s a huge hassle, but I’ve got good news. There’s a much easier way with Firestorm Websites. 

Firestorm Websites feature a Back Office Mobile App that’s loaded with features, including the ability to add/edit inventory, and add photos of your inventory to your website in real time. Simply open the app and click on ‘Inventory Missing Images’, then select the unit and take photos on the fly! No more importing, renaming, organizing and uploading, which save you hours every week. 

Websites containing multiple pictures of inventory have higher page views, increased visit duration, and more web leads. 

On a side note, all Firestorm Websites also include DMS inventory integration (units are added and removed automatically as they are received/sold), VIN Decoding (specs are automatically added for each unit), a Responsive Design & SSL Certificate (leads to higher Google rankings & conversions), and an all-new conversion point for units that takes the focus off price and discounting.

Want a quick and easy low-pressure demo, or to see some sites we’ve built?  Go to www.powersportsmarketing.com/firestorm-websites, or call 1-877-242-4472. You’re gonna like what you see. 

- Tory

 As I write this it’s Cyber Monday and I’m getting emails from Troy Lee Designs about a 50% OFF sale going on right now for a helmet I recently purchased. Right before my son broke his arm I ordered one of those trick Lit Pro lap time gadgets for us and I haven’t even taken it out of the box. They just emailed me an offer for $100 off <sigh>. 

This ecommerce thing is a dicey subject, particularly for brick and mortar retailers. There is no doubt that the Amazon effect is real. According to Forbes magazine 64% of all households are Amazon Prime members. $4 out of every $10 spent online are through Amazon and 80% of online growth is coming from Amazon sales. 

I was a slow adopter to Amazon. But, over the last 2 or 3 years, I’ve become addicted (and so has my wife). They’ve just made it too darn convenient. Two nights ago, I was icing my knee with a zip lock freezer bag making a water dripping mess on the couch when I thought about the trick icepacks and straps used by my Physical Therapist. Within about 2 minutes, I’d searched on Amazon and had them on the way. It was so easy to buy, I’d even forgotten I’d ordered them until I get home last night and they’re on the kitchen table. Bam, just like that. That’s why I’ve trained myself to just order it when I need it, because it will arrive before I think about it again and it saves me precious time. But, I’ve trained myself to be a Prime snob because I want free shipping, and most importantly I want it FAST. I’ve noticed that the quick turnaround time usually isn’t there from 3rd party sellers.

And, this is where things get tricky for retailers trying to participate and compete in the online sales game. Amazon has trained the market to expect a seamless, well informed, speedy shopping experience. But, that’s just the beginning of the challenges dealers face when trying to launch an ecommerce division. 

Not to poke a hornet’s nest, but many of the brands dealers carry have their own ecommerce sites and sell direct to the consumer. Then there are the 800-pound gorilla ecommerce specialists, like Rocky Mountain ATV/MC, Motosport.com, Motorcycle Superstore, Dennis Kirk, and others which are very difficult to compete with for the typical brick and mortar dealer. These operations usually have everything you see on their site in stock and run more like a logistics company rather than a retailer. In fact, the rumor has always been that Dennis Kirk is owned by distributor Parts Unlimited and of course Motorcycle Superstore is powered by J&P Cycles and owned by the MAG group* which merged with Tucker Rocky back in 2014. 

These outfits all have the facilities, budgets, infrastructure, software, etc. to create that well informed speedy shopping experience. On the surface, adding on an ecommerce division to the brick and mortar dealer seems simple enough. Bolt on a shopping cart and offer everything that your OEMs and aftermarket suppliers carry. When the order comes in, if you have it in stock, you pull it and ship it, if you don’t have it in stock you simply order it, then when it arrives ship it to the customer. Easy peasy, right? 

Let’s slow down a minute and put on our Parts Manager hat. What percentage of the overall orders that are placed do you think you’d have in stock?

Why would a potential online shopper choose you over the above listed 800-pound gorillas for their mail order needs?

What are the staffing levels, shipping knowledge and supplies needed to handle not only outbound shipping, but also inbound customer returns and exchanges?

How will your DMS integrate with your shopping cart to insure you are showing accurate inventory levels on your web store?

Is your physical inventory dead nuts accurate so you aren’t misleading online shoppers and potential setting yourself up for that awkward, “Sorry, our inventory wasn’t correct” conversation?

These questions and more are some of the pesky details that must be thoroughly thought through before going Ready, Fire, Aim. 

In most cases it’s just not realistic on cash flow or inventory turns for a traditional dealer to stock everything for everyone. And unfortunately, many (if not most) online shoppers are looking for selection first and discount second. Driving traffic to a webstore can be expensive as well. I spoke with a dealer at Aim Expo who told me he was spending about $10,000 per month in Google AdWords for his ecommerce site and was doing about $10,000 in sales so he was breaking even. Huh? Heck even if he was making 30% gross profit he still lost seven grand. 

But, it can get even worse, because a simple back-ordered or cross-shipped part that causes unexpected delays can upset the customer and they’ll never be back.

I’m not saying ecommerce is a bad choice for all dealers. I know that some dealers have niched themselves by product, category, or geography and had some success. I can see where going narrow and deep may be beneficial for the right dealer with the right skills and knowledge, but going wide and shallow is certainly setting yourself up for failure.

Don’t take your eye of the ball of moving metal, selling F&I, adding P&A, and generating good service work for a bright shiny object or you may find yourself stepping over quarters to pick up nickels. 

These are just a few key features of Firestorm.  But, unfortunately, I’m out of room and can’t tell you about Firestorm websites, which are an amazing bolt on to all our marketing automation tools. So, call us today at 877-242-4472 to schedule a free demo so we can walk you through how all of these pieces of the puzzle come together. 

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to another 100 issues in the future!

 It’s the end of the year, and this tends to be the time that most people reflect back on this past year and begin to make resolutions to do new things this upcoming year – or fix what they were doing.

My suggestion is to evaluate and tighten up your digital presence. 

When you boil it all down, your digital presence is made up of three major elements: your web site, social media presence, and online reputation. All three are important and play a huge part in your dealership’s success.

Your web site: This is your digital dealership. You want your brick and mortar dealership to be friendly, engaging, and easy to do business with – and your digital dealership should be the same. It should be responsive, so that it offers a pleasant experience regardless of the device it’s viewed on. It should have a clear, short, easy to follow path for visitors to let you know what they are interested in – becoming leads you can follow up on to convert to sales. It should basically be all business, with a few banner ads and meet the team page. 

Remember – the purpose of your web site is to identify visitors and generate leads. I suggest you head home after work one night this week, kick back on the couch with your favorite beverage of choice, and a device other than a computer. Go through every page and menu option on your site. Take note of how it looks and feels to visit. A site that is too ‘busy,’ confusing, or has no calls to action is nothing more than a digital brochure and might as well not exist. In many of our marketing boot camps, we assign dealers to browse their own web sites as homework and report their findings the next day. Many show back up pretty pissed.

Would a visitor/shopper be drawn in the direction of providing contact information in some way, turning them into a lead?

Your social media presence: And by social media, I pretty much mean Facebook. Why? 

A couple of reasons. 

First, the demographic for our industry primarily uses Facebook for social media. If you want to catch fish, you go to a lake, not a desert. Second, Facebook is a sort of ‘closed loop’ universe, where you log in and they know all about you and your interests – which we have found to make for some amazing marketing results. That said, Facebook is THE place for you to put all of those social events like bike washes, customer photos, Sharp Shooter Events, rides, or whatever else you do at the dealership to draw folks in, have fun, and make sales. Social media is the place prospects can go to see more about you so they begin to know, like, and trust you – and people buy from people they know, like, and trust.

Over time, an interesting timeline of all the fun stuff you do at your dealership grows sort of organically, and people get interested in your dealership. It’s how Vengeance Racing here in Atlanta has managed to ruin my retirement. It works.

After you’ve visited your web site, pop open another beverage and visit your Facebook page. Scroll down your timeline. Is it interesting? Are there a lot of fun pictures, maybe a cartoon or meme or two? If so, that’s a win. If it’s just ‘salesy’ post after post – fix it. Starting now, take an 80/20 non-sales post to sales post ratio -your engagement will improve, and your “know, like, and trust” factor will go way up.

The last big piece of the puzzle is online reputation. This means reviews. And more reviews. And more reviews.

After you’ve visited your Facebook page it’s time for what can arguably be the most terrifying and upsetting part of your digital presence audit.  Might want to grab at least one more of those beverages….

Go to Google and type your dealership’s name and the word ‘reviews.’ This can be super encouraging or really upset you. Start looking at your star ratings. Read all of the reviews you find there. If they’re great – that’s awesome news. If they aren’t, it’s time to take an honest look at what’s being said, and see if there’s truth that needs to be addressed. 

There’s nothing worse than spending money and energy to create a web site, and maybe spend money on a digital marketing campaign like Google AdWords, only to have people find you and find out that everyone thinks you’re a jerk. Not good.

Google says that 80+% of people research a business online before doing business with them. They also say that of those people, almost 90% of them give as much credibility to reviews as they do word of mouth reviews from people they know.

This makes reviews critical. Another Google study has shown that increasing your star rating by one star can impact a companies sales by as much as 10%. That’s big.

The caveat though, is that the AGE of a review is also a major deciding factor in how much it influences shoppers. Over 70% of people say that they don’t consider reviews over 90 days old in their decision making process. This means you have to have an effective way to continually harvest new legitimate reviews.

Now, once you’ve taken an honest, objective audit of your digital presence you may feel that it’s a good idea to make improving it a resolution this year. If that’s how you feel, we’d love to help. Take a minute to give us a call (877-242-4472) and let one of our folks walk you through the specific solutions we have for each of these components. We make it easy on you, and can make a significant impact on your bottom line this year.

Talk soon, 

Brad

Dealership: 

Entrepreneurship was a lifelong aspiration for co-owners Pete & Lori, so when they met at a Sturgis Rally, they began to dream of owning a Harley-Davidson dealership together. They founded Open Road Harley-Davidson in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin in 2007 and have been living life wide open for the past decade! Together, they share their passion for riding with the community and have created a place where riders of all ages can come together. That passion shines through in their customer service and has earned them three Bar & Shield Circle of Excellence Awards and has consistently ranked them in the top 10% among all dealers nationally for customer experience satisfaction.

Solution: 

Open Road invited 1,000 of their past customers and 1,500 conquest prospects who ride Harley, live in their backyard but haven’t bought from them to their Iron, Tailgates & Ink Event.  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.

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, demo rides, etc.) not only attracted the small number of folks who were ready to buy, but hundreds more customers who didn’t plan on buying anything that Saturday, resulting in tons of impulse purchases and pipeline for future sales.

Results:

Mary, Marketing Director for Open Road H-D said they, “had a crowd for sure and were really excited about the turnout for the event. The parking lot was packed; showroom too! We ended up doing over $11,000 in MotorClothes, $2,600 in P&A and had lots of new faces show up. Raised $550 for the local food pantry too!” 

The Sharp Shooter Program generated 322 completed surveys, which created a total of 235 sales opportunities in P&A, Service, and riding gear, PLUS 84 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.

In addition to the traffic, sales and leads generated from the event, Open Road Harley-Davidson was able to ‘Onboard’ the 322 customers and prospects who completed the survey.

So what is Onboarding? Think of it this way…every day your website has customers looking at new and used inventory. The problem is that very few website visitors take the time to fill out a quote request or other form which identifies who they are. In fact, only 1-2% of website traffic actually converts into a lead, which means 98% or more are completely anonymous. You have no idea who they are.

Onboarding is the process of connecting customer contact information with their device ID’s so moving forward, Open Road H-D will be able to see every time those onboarded customers are on their website looking at inventory without filling out a quote request or other form. For our clients, this typically generates 3-5 times more leads per month for the dealership.

Imagine if you could know this information on your customers! What if you knew that customer Joe Smith had been on your website 7 different times over the past 3 weeks and that he’s looking at a specific 2017 Streetglide CVO and yesterday he viewed 3 of those models that are in your inventory right now. If you had that data, it’d make a huge difference in your sales. 

The best way to maximize these opportunities is to have Open Road H-D give them the ol 1-2 punch with an email and a follow up call from a sales person to personally invite them to their next event or to schedule a ‘Personal Demo Experience’ as soon as possible. Our Firestorm Email System will automatically email customers who were looking at inventory yesterday, so all the dealership has to do is call and follow up. 

We recently had another H-D Client turn on the automated email and after one week, 280 emails were sent to customers visiting inventory pages with 6 customers replying to the email and 2 purchasing a bike!

What’s next? 

November means Black Friday! The average U.S. family will spend over 70% of their entire annual discretionary budget between Black Friday and Christmas. Your job is to keep your customers out of the malls and the big box stores and give them a reason to spend that money with you. Remember, every customer who completes a Sharp Shooter survey will be onboarded, so you’ll be able see every unit they look at on your website in the future, helping you increase their lifetime value and sell more units! Check out the inserts for some killer campaign options for November and for more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program and Onboarding can help you finish the year with a bang, call me on my direct line 877-242-4472 ext: 112. Happy selling.