Articles

If there is one thing many Dealers and OEM’s consistently get wrong with their advertising, it’s that your marketing can’t be all about selling things to people. Instead your marketing should be part of a much larger formula designed to create a connection, an experience that separates you from your competitors. 

The products you carry are commodities, and IF your advertising is all about, “Hey you, wanna buy my product?” then you are weakening that connection as opposed to strengthening it, and the experience is similar to shopping for groceries. 

There is no real difference between your metal and your competitor’s, or your helmets versus your competitor’s.  Just as there is no difference in the Mayfield milk from Publix or Kroger. This leads to the slippery slope of discounting. Inevitably, when improperly executed, advertising often becomes about the thing, the product. Then, since my Mayfield milk is the same as your Mayfield milk, the only way I can attract you to buy from me versus my competitor is, “Cheapest Price.” 

Fortunately, you’re not selling milk, washing machines, or grave sites, you’re selling FUN, EXCITEMENT, and ADVENTURE! That’s a huge marketing advantage for us in this industry. 

It’s actually depressing when the most exciting thing you have to say about your dealership is, “Wanna buy something today?”, or worse, “We’re the cheapest in town.” This approach is not only bad for you, it’s bad for the brands you sell, it’s bad for your entire market, and hell, by extension it’s bad for the entire Powersports Industry. Teaching enough consumers that all dealers should sell with a deep discount and all buyers should shop and buy based solely on price is a detriment to us all, even the small percentage of dummies who shop solely based on price.  

I get it, you’re a dealer and you have no control over the products and the commoditization of what you sell. That’s exactly why you should advertise and sell what you do have control over, what separates you from your competitors, your value proposition, what puts you into a category of ONE rather than a category of many - the worst of which is participating in the discounting war on the Inter-Webs, classified sites, etc. 

Here’s what Dan Kennedy has to say about the discounting strategy: “It is fundamentally the selling of confessed inferiority, rather than the selling of asserted superiority. This is a choice you make.”

I was a dealer for many years in both Powersports and Automotive, and I’m a practical person. I certainly understand there are circumstances in which you absolutely must discount to earn the customer’s business. You follow the sales process, you write each customer up at full price, you fight for every dollar and close every single deal humanly possible. I’m not disputing that, what I am disputing is that there are better ways of attracting and retaining the right kinds of customers than lazy low APR finance offers, $1,000 off, $500 over book value for your trade, etc. 

Ever hear the saying, “Good, Fast, Cheap, pick two?”  It’s a real thing. Google it.  It’s true.

My son likes McDonalds after a long day of motos, so against my better judgment I’ve recently been frequenting the establishment more than I care to admit. I’m absolutely astounded at how consistently HORRIBLE the service is. And, at least the food is terrible as well. But, it’s fast and it’s cheap. 

Which position do you want to stand for: “We Suck, But We’re Cheap” Or “Premium products with Premium service by Powersports Professionals”?

Famous ad man, David Ogilvy, said: “Have something interesting to say before you spend money saying things.” Price isn’t interesting, but people are. Look at the boom of social media, it’s so addictive because it’s so interesting, and it’s so interesting because it’s about people.

Here at PSM we’ve developed a mobile app that takes a picture of your customer after they’ve made a purchase. Through marketing automation, we send them a congratulations and thanks for their business email with that picture of them and their new ride. Then we send a text or email request to write a review online. We can automatically publish that review and that picture to social media. 

We all know that reviews are huge, but so is going the extra mile and creating a connection and an exciting experience by congratulating customers on one of the most exciting purchases they have or will ever make. 

Our Sharp Shooter program is one-to-one marketing, from a person to a person, inviting them to an event to have fun first, and creating a whole bunch of leads as a happy by product. Not begging them to buy or peddling a discount. 

When these two products are combined they grow new customers, increase retention and referrals (online and offline).  They are carefully designed to create a better connection and an improved customer experience. We’d love to share our secret recipe with you, for more information contact us today at 877-242-4472 or visit us online to learn more: www.powersportsmarketing.com.

Dealership: 

Kent Motorsports is a Honda Dealership located in New Braunfels, TX. If you have a love for all things powersports, then you know there’s nothing like being surround by others who share your passion. Judging by their Facebook Video, ‘On Rainy Days Sometimes We Have to Entertain Ourselves’ (definitely worth a watch), I think you’ll be in good hands if you get a chance to swing by for a visit. 

Solution: 

Two of the biggest challenges in marketing for a Powersports Dealership is finding the right target audience and then actually getting a message delivered to them. Many dealerships rely strictly on Social Media and Email Marketing only to accomplish this. Here’s why this is a challenge:

Facebook: Without boosting your post, only about 5% of your followers will see it. So if your page has 5,000 followers, you’re talking about only reaching 250 people.

Email: The average dealership collects 25% emails at the point of purchase. An excellent email open rate is 15%. So for example, a dealership with 10,000 customers in their database will roughly have 2,500 emails. If they are able to achieve a 15% open rate, that means they’ll reach 375 people.

This is the biggest reason the average dealership has roughly 70% of their database not actively spending money with them; they simply aren’t hearing from them. When customers stop hearing from you (regardless of your effort), they develop a sense of apathy and stop coming around.

To combat this, the Sharp Shooter Program focuses on a three-part data strategy. 1st, we focus on your Active Customers, people who’ve spent money with you in the past 12 months. Our job is to keep them active and increase the number of times they visit your dealership this year so they spend more money. The 2nd group we target are your Inactive Customers. This is the single biggest opportunity dealers have to grow their business. As I mentioned above, the average dealership has less than 30% of their customer base actively spending money with them. We know the average customer in the powersports industry spends $750 per year in Parts, Accessories & Service…which means, if they didn’t spend it with you, there’s probably a good chance they spent it with someone else. Our job is to reactivate them so they begin spending money with you again. Lastly, we go after Conquest prospects. These are people who ride what you sell, live in your backyard, but have never bought from you.  Essentially, these are your competitor’s customers and other orphan owners in your market area. Stop and think about this... between these three groups of people, they should really make up the majority of the proven riders in your backyard and ultimately the majority of your sales over the next 12 months.

Once we identify the right target audience, we put a 12-month marketing plan to touch your buying base 52-104 times per year. We know at that frequency, we increase the number of visits to your dealership they’ll make each year, therefor increasing their Annual Customer Value. We’ll also reactivate those customers who haven’t spent money with you in the last 12 months and drive new blood through the door. We use up to 12 different, direct marketing strategies to guarantee your message isn’t getting delivered once, but multiple times per campaign. By simply giving customers more opportunities to respond, we drastically increase response. Each media channel incentivizes folks to complete a survey to tell us who they are and what they want to buy from you…generating leads for every department in the dealership. As long as your message focuses on what’s in it for the customer and you commit to the process, you will absolutely own this group of customers and make them immune to other offers from other dealers.

Results:

Mitch, their GM said, “I’ve been here for 7 years and been involved in every single event that we have had and this was the bomb! We have a huge turnout. Tons of new faces!” They kept it simple with food, raffles and a GROM stunt show. It’s a common misconception that in order to have an event, you have to have a KISS Concert, Hog Roast & Ferris Wheel for the kids. You don’t.

They’re working 5 deals from customers at the event, in addition to all the sales leads the campaign generated. They were so busy, his service guys had to come up front and help out for a while.

There were 87 surveys completed, which created a total of 68 in P&A, Service, and riding gear, PLUS 23 responses for a new or used bike. Mitch is getting a new line and working that into their 10th Anniversary in just a few weeks.

What’s Next:

Next step is to call us so we can pull your numbers and show you the opportunity that exists in your database to grow your business predictably. We can kick off your Annual Predictable Growth System in July with a Soak Up Summer campaign, Back to School Event or Dog Days of Summer Party. There are many more options where those came from and with just six short months to go in the year, it’s more important now than ever to drive as much traffic through the doors and generate as many leads as possible this summer! 

Check out the website (www.powersportsmarketing.com/sample-campaigns) for killer campaign options for July/August and for more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help you achieve your marketing goals in 2018, call me on my direct line 877-242-4472 ext: 112. Happy selling.

OBJECTIVE

Power World is Colorado’s Mountain Powersports Headquarters.  They pride themselves on being a dealership where everyone is welcome and everyone, from beginners to those with years of experience, can find a helping hand.  The team at Power World have fun in their blood.  They are passionate enthusiasts and are eager to share their passion with their customers.  

They sell and service high quality brands such as Ski-Doo, Can-Am, Kawasaki, Husqvarna, Mercury and Evinrude/Johnson. But, General Manager, Joe Kelly wanted to ensure that his customers had a way to connect with their dealership and their incredible products through frequent, consistent communication.

So, Joe wanted to use email as an ongoing means to communicate about the ever-changing inventory they have on the Power World showroom to keep his customers engaged with his products and ultimately to increase website traffic, store visits and unit sales.

SOLUTION

As a Firestorm Email and Firestorm Website client, Joe is able to quickly and easily create emails that showcase his vast selection of powersports toys.  When creating an email, Joe can select from the images on his website directly through the email portal, and when he finds the perfect image of the perfect unit, it is automatically linked to that specific inventory page for him.

That seamless integration between his website and email platform helps Joe build and send an average of 2 emails per week to his customers with incredible results for each email.

RESULTS

Joe’s emails to his customer list consistently see a 10-14% open rate. And even better, those emails are getting an average 14% click through rate.  That means, Joe is sending 14% of those folks who opened his emails to his website, TWICE A WEEK!  That click through rate and open rate remain consistently that high because customers know that each email is going to have a new variety of vehicles and options to explore.

We’re in a passion-based industry and Joe’s customers are as passionate about powersports as the Power World team is.  They like hearing from Joe on a regular basis and seeing the huge variety of incoming new and used powersports products that Power World has in stock each week.  

Those emails invite enthusiasts to dream; to browse; to create an emotional connection with a specific new toy.  And even better, they are invited to shop!  Every email Joe sends has a variety of clear, concise call-to-actions with pictures of real in-stock inventory that is linked to the exact Vehicle Display page….automatically.

Does your website work seamlessly with your email newsletter platform?  Are you able to send out 2 emails per week with unique inventory images/links in just minutes (instead of hours)?  If not, give us a call, we’d love to show you how this works for Joe at Power World Sports and how it could work for your dealership too.

Give us a call at 877-242-4472 to schedule a FREE DEMO to see how Firestorm Websites could start generating more leads for your dealership.

The technology business is exciting. When plans come together, it’s spectacular. When they don’t, you usually have a fireworks show followed by a burning crater.

The takeaway is that you’ve always got to be careful. It’s something that developers have driven into their heads from the time they start learning how to program. Be careful, always test. Then go back and test some more. You can never take for granted that what you developed today is going to work flawlessly with what you created last week, or year. So you test it. You get the idea.

One area of technology that is very underserved in the area of public information is email. 

Email is amazing. It’s one of the least expensive, yet most effective, ways of reaching potential buyers available, and has the highest ROI I’ve seen when executed properly.

We often talk about what happens “on stage” with email, but the tactical as far as content and deployment strategies is only part of the puzzle. There’s a whole lot more involved.

We’ve talked about reputation management for years now, and most folks know that harvesting positive reviews greatly impacts your bank account. Makes sense.

Email is much the same. Sort of. 

In the world of email, you as a sender have an online reputation. Not with end users, with ISPs (Internet Service Providers). ISPs are the entities that make the internet work, and as you might guess, it’s pretty important to stay on their good side.

Years ago, people referred to the internet as “the information super-highway,” and that’s actually a pretty accurate mental image to have. Think of the internet as a highway, and emails are traffic on it. Think of ISPs as the traffic cops of the highway, making sure things move along smoothly, and folks who shouldn’t be driving… aren’t. 

Keeping with our picture, imagine that half of the cars on the highway don’t belong there. That’s email spam. According to a spamlaws.com study, 45% of all emails are spam. It’s insane. The Radicati Research Group did a study that shows email spam cost businesses $20.5 BILLION in 2012 due to lost productivity and technical expenses. It’s actually more than the estimated earnings of spammers. Radicati also suggests that based on growth rates, the cost could be $257 Billion annually in a few years.

So as you might guess, ISPs are closely watching email.

While ISPs don’t monitor the actual content of emails, they have a lot of other ways to determine if an email and/or email sender is legit.

First, there’s hidden code in every email that contains all of the information about message that is used to direct the mail through the internet to it’s intended recipient. That code tells ISPs a lot about the sender. 

For example:

•  The senders IP address can be tied to their domain (good) – or not (bad).

•  They can include an SPF (Sender Policy Framework) record in their Domains DNS that identifies which IP addresses are able to send on behalf of the domain.

• Senders can use DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) signatures that insure that the content of an email isn’t altered in transit.

•  Senders can (and should, as it’s required for Gmail) have a

  published DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication & Conformance) record to tell ISPs what to do with emails that fail the other policies above.

These are basic protocols that should be employed by every email provider for every email and email client to insure maximum deliverability. If any or all of the above measures aren’t in place for your emails I can confidently assure you that your communications are ending up either in junk mail boxes or never delivered at all.

Your execution of the measures above are what let ISPs know that you’re a legitimate emailer and not a spammer. For spam tactics to work, they often have to imitate domains, or actually take control of them on some level by passing messages THROUGH your domain without your knowledge. The items listed above prove to ISPs that not only is your message from who it says it is from, your domain hasn’t been compromised.

This is the foundation of a good reputation with the ISPs. If you’re not employing all of these measures, your emails will immediately be suspect – and run the risk of ruining your domains reputation. 

Everyone knows where the “bad part of town” is in their city. It’s the place you don’t go because it’s risky, and probably dangerous. Well, it’s unavoidable that the information super-highway runs through a few of those

 neighborhoods as well. 

The address where your domain lives is called your IP address. And IP addresses are arranged in blocks – just like houses. IP blocks are arranged in sequence, just like house numbers on a street. If your IP address is on a street in a bad neighborhood (like you share an IP address with known spammers – or an IP address CLOSE to one of known spammers) it can be a big mark against your reputation. You have to live in a nice, older neighborhood that is well established to have a good reputation.

Spam reports, and emails delivered to ISP spam traps (we’ll talk about those some other time) also play into your email reputation and can cause you problems if you don’t maintain a quality email list.

The cumulative effect of having a bad email reputation is that your emails get caught up in spam filters and get dumped straight to junk mail, or worse, don’t get delivered at all. 20% of all emails don’t get delivered because they’ve crossed the threshold with ISPs by having neglected enough best practices that they have a high likelihood of being spam and the ISPs just kill them. They don’t get reported back, or make it to junk mail, because the ISPs don’t want spammers to know why they got rejected because they don’t want them to try and game the system further.

Long story short, there’s a whole world of email online reputation management that goes on. The scary part is that you don’t get to see a star rating, you just find out that your mail is going to junk folders or not being delivered at all. Maybe.

Recently, I worked with a client who had an email provider that handled many of the appropriate measures for proper email reputation management – but not all. He was struggling to get mail delivered to Gmail addresses. In examining his setup, it was clear pretty quickly what the problem was, and we are helping to correct that. 

It’s the job of your email provider to manage that reputation for you, and to keep you in the good graces of the ISPs of the world so that you have the highest level of deliverability possible. If you’re concerned about deliverability, give us a call and we can show you how it’s done. Even better, we can do it all for you when you bolt on one of our really cool websites.

Talk soon.

Brad

I’ve studied hundreds, maybe even thousands of dealership ads, and the majority consistently share one of two fatal flaws. And by majority, I mean the masses. Probably over 99% are contaminated. Both are an issue of message, which is simply what is said in an ad (including the copy (words) and the graphics). 

Fatal Flaw #1 – The ad is designed to build a dealer’s brand, enhance their image or get their name out there. There is no call-to-action that tells the prospect what to do or why they should do it.  If you don’t tell prospects what you want them to do, they won’t do it. And a branding-style of advertising isn’t quantifiable.  

We consistently hear from dealers that one of their biggest concerns is they can’t quantify their marketing and aren’t sure if they’re wasting their money. It’s a viable concern… their message makes their marketing unmeasurable! Take note… if your goal is to get your name out there you ARE, in fact, wasting your money. 

At the same time, most dealers have a fear of stopping this style of advertising, which is most often mass media (radio, TV, billboards, newspaper, etc.), because they think it may be working. 

I’m not a fan of mass media… especially in the motorcycle industry. The main reason is that 5% to 6% of people in America are powersports enthusiasts.  With basic math you can quickly conclude that most of the folks a dealer is paying their limited budget to try and reach via mass media do not ride. You’re wasting over 90% of your budget.  

You may be saying to yourself, “well, it includes my address & phone number, some people have to be noticing it.” On more than one occasion we’ve added tracking phone number to mass media. All of them get similar results, including a group of Harley dealers in the south who added a call tracking number to their radio commercial. After 60-days the tracking number had 3 calls: 1 where we tested it, 1 where the dealer tested it, and 1 where the dealer tested it again because no one had called it.

Fatal Flaw #2 – The ad is based on discounting. This has become an epidemic for many dealers. Here are few examples:

• Radio = save thousands with big rebates and low APR’s. 

• Direct mail = several units with the cheapest they can sell them, often dipping into hold back.

• Website = quote request, which means a discount.

• Email = focused on discounts.

• Industry inventory sites = the lowest price wins.

What is your U.S.P. (Unique Selling Proposition)?  In other words, why should someone buy from you?  If the best answer you can come up with is you’re the cheapest, you’ve got a lot of soul searching to do. 

When your marketing is basically saying, “I’m only interested in you if you’ll buy something from me” you alienate most of your list and it becomes unresponsive. No more than 2% of your list is interested in the products you could feature in any ad, so you end up alienating 98%. 

The most successful dealers market to powersports enthusiasts. They utilize direct mail, email, SEM, phone calls, web banners, social media, event signage, fliers/bag stuffers, and more. There is a consistent message across all of the media. Instead of promoting products & discounts they have an event/party/open house and answer the question, “Why should I, your customer, come to your event?”

By inviting customers to the dealership for a party, more of them respond. This in turn increases P&A counter sales, books out more service appointments, and gives salespeople even more opportunity to sell major units.

To strategize how to get your marketing budget to get more traffic in the store, and more leads for each department, give us a call… 1-877-242-4472.

- Tory

 Back in the late 90’s ATV’s were selling like hot cakes. Two of our family-owned Honda stores were located on the outskirts of Atlanta, just a couple hour drive across the state line to two of the biggest discounters in the nation. And with no sales tax being collected, stacked on top of the low ball price, matching their prices were only do-able if we liked to dip into hold back, or lose money all together. My sales people and sales managers had me convinced that every single customer who came through the doors had a Cycle Trader magazine and price shopped us against the discounters. 

Like so many dealers, I took the bait. Hook, line and sinker. We had to become a discounter to be competitive, because of our location and our products. “Our dealership was different.”

And I’m ashamed to say, we starting advertising low-ball prices.  And even though we weren’t holding any gross profit, we were going to make it up in volume. We wouldn’t ever turn down a deal, and we’d match any price.

Sure, we rolled some units that year, but cash flow was tighter than Dick’s hat band. I hated to see the floor checker show up, and yearned for the hold back check each quarter. It was no way to live. 

I was young, dumb, and inexperienced, and didn’t understand that business is a game of margin, not volume.  I know, this isn’t what the ‘Everyday Joe’ believes, nor is it what your college professor taught you in Econ 101. But, they are wrong! Which is why they aren’t running successful businesses. 

Many people don’t realize that there are roughly 800,000 new businesses started each year in the United States. Half of those will fail in the first year. And of the balance, another half of those will fail in year two.  

But the failures aren’t just small Ma-and-Pa businesses. There are plenty of big, corporate, fancy CEO’s that sincerely believe, albeit ignorantly, that growing market share and increasing volume are the secrets to their success. 

In 2001 there were a record number of big dumb company bankruptcies with over 250 major organizations that filed for bankruptcy alone that year. Between 2000 and 2004, 23 of the 40 biggest bankruptcies of all time occurred. Many, if not most, of these companies like K-Mart and The Flemings company (who owned Piggly Wiggly and IGA grocery stores and were doing 15.6 billion in revenue) focused on being the low price leader. 

Consider this: When was the last time you saw a business having a “Going out of Business” price increase?

The reality is, when most businesses get in trouble, the first thing they do is resort to discounting with the mind set of, “We’ll make it up in volume.” 

An industry that is a great case study in discounting is the Airlines. Back in 78 when President Carter deregulated the industry, which meant the airlines were free to charge whatever they wanted, not one raised its prices. Instead they began a fierce discounting race to the bottom which resulted in dozens of Airline bankruptcy filings. And not just the small airliners, but the big boys like Eastern, Continental (twice), US Airways, Piedmont, Pan Am and even Delta, who’s pilot concessions allowed them to narrowly avoid demise. 

Ever hear the story of the two illustrious entrepreneurs from Texas who sold watermelons? They owned a pick up truck and heard they could drive down to Mexico and buy the melons for a buck a piece. So to sell in volume they decided they would bundle them at wholesale for $10.00 a dozen. They sold out before they even made it all the way back to San Antonio. Sitting on the side of the road and counting their money they realized the were a little short on cash. The one entrepreneurs looks to the other and says, “You thinking what I’m thinking?” “Yep. We’re gonna need a bigger truck!”

Owen Young of GE once said, “It’s not the crook we fear in modern business; rather the honest guy who doesn’t know what he’s doing.” 

Here’s something to consider. If everyone buys soley on price why would anyone buy a Cadillac Escalade for an extra 20 grand over a Chevrolet Tahoe?

Why buy a Ruth’s Chris steak for $50 bucks over a $10 dollar special from Outback. 

The truth is, only about 10% of consumers make their buying decisions soley based on price. I know what your sales manager has convinced you of, “But my dealership is different.”  DON’T BELIEVE IT!

Here’s another stat you’ve likely never heard. No less than 5%, to as high as 20%, of consumers are suspicious of the lowest price and prefer a better or premium option. This is especially true with the more affluent buyer. 

The following year, with the help of a 20 group, reading books, and the negative cash flow experiences of discounting, we totally changed our marketing and sales process. 

We no longer advertised about price, we promoted events at our dealerships, and we put a deal desking system in place where we presented full price every time regardless of circumstance, and trained our staff to build value in more than just the product, but our staff and service, before, during and after the sale. Our volume dropped from 1,000 units to about 850 and our bottom line quadrupled. And those 150 hardcore shoppers that we didn’t do deals with weren’t missed, they got to be someone else’s headache. 

And this is why to this day we do not recommend or promote discount advertising. There is a much better way. Our Sharp Shooter Predictable Growth System is a pro-active and calculated system designed to grow new customers and increase the value of your existing customers without ever mentioning price or a discount. And it works! 

For more information contact us today at 877-242-4472 or shoot us a message at marketing@powersportsmarketing.com.

Dealership: 

Hawkeye Motor Works is a family owned Honda Powerhouse Dealership in Davenport, IA. Situated in a massive 30,000 square foot facility and headed by Joel Reno who has over 31 years’ experience in the industry, they want to invite you to stop in today and feel the power. Honda Powerhouse. All Honda. All the time!

Solution: 

For this first Sharp Shooter Event, they decided to market to 1,200 past customers and 1,250 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 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:

The guys at Hawkeye said their campaign already felt like a huge success! They had over 300 door swings, rolled 5 units and took another credit app. “We had lots of test rides, including people who came by to claim the t-shirt and ended up throwing a leg over the new Goldwing. One guy had no intention of taking a test ride, did, and said, ‘Man, I’m in love with this thing! I need to go home and convince my wife now!’” 

Executing on all four pillars of the Sharp Shooter Program - Right Audience, Right Media, Right Message & Right Timing, really paid off. The program generated 113 completed surveys including 65 sales opportunities in Clothing, P&A and Service, PLUS 26 responses for a new or used unit!

What’s Next:

July means Independence Parties, Sizzling Summer Campaigns and your last chance to move those remaining watercraft off your showroom floor. For multi-line Metric dealers, there are some amazing coop opportunities available including 80/20 for Kawi, 100% for Honda Goldwing, 70/30 for BRP and more! Check out the website (www.powersportsmarketing.com/sample-campaigns) 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.

 OBJECTIVE

There are few things in life that create passionate enthusiasts like the powersports industry does. That is one of the main reasons that, Major League Baseball All-Star, Jeff Kent launched Kent Powersports. He recognized that there is no better place to create a living than surrounded by fellow enthusiasts who shared his passion. The great part about Kent Powersports is that it’s not just the customers that share the passion, it’s the team as well. It’s evident in how they treat their customers, how they run their business, and the quality brands that they stock in their multi-location showrooms. However, General Manager, Brad Zeeff knows that today’s customers are more educated than ever before and they do their research online well before stepping foot into the dealership’s showroom. Which is why he ensures that his website reflects the incredible selection of powersports and the unique flare of the dealership’s personality. 

SOLUTION

Brad took the opportunity to have a custom designed website built for him on the new Firestorm Website platform. While the previous Kent Powersports of Austin website did a pretty good job, Brad was looking for something that would stand out more and ultimately generate more leads. 

Firestorm Websites are focused on generating more, better-quality leads with laser-sharp clarity.  They don’t get distracted by buttons, bells, whistles, or gizmos.  They drive units leads, which drives profit. 

Kent Powersports is passionate about their business and the industry, but they know not to invest in something unless it generates a quantifiably positive ROI, no matter how cool it may seem.  So, signing up for a Firestorm Website (effectively, the new kids on the block in the website space for powersports dealers) was a small leap of faith.  But, that leap was padded by the proven increase in leads that other early-adopter Firestorm Website dealers are seeing.

The sales team doesn’t have to remember to post to Facebook or ask for a review. The Reviews & Rankings app does it all, automatically, for them.

RESULTS

Since launching their new Firestorm Website in April this year, not only does the site exude the unique All-Star personality of the dealership, but it has also seen an average 30% increase in leads each month over their previous website.

The leads rolling in this time of year are usually on the upward swing due to the seasonality of the industry.  For Kent Powersports of Austin, they generated 32% more leads in April 2018 than they did in April 2017.  The success continued in May with a 29% increase in leads over May 2017. At the time this article was written, June is shaping up to have well over a 32% increase in leads.  According to many dealers, the industry is ‘down’ right now.  But, the team at Kent’s Powersports of Austin are defying those rumors with the leads rolling in from their new Firestorm Websites.  They took a leap of faith and joined the ranks of early-adopters seeing BIG return on their investment.

Does your website cut through the clutter and focus on generating leads? Does it represent your dealership and make it easy for customers to convert?  If not, we’d love to show you what makes Firestorm Websites so different from any other website option in the industry. 

Give us a call at 877-242-4472 to schedule a FREE DEMO to see how Firestorm Websites could start generating more leads for your dealership.