Articles

 Dealership: 

The MOMS group of dealerships has been a family owned and operated business for over 41 years. In fact, at one time or another all ten of Winnie Wheeler’s (the original MOM) kids have worked in the motorcycle industry and now the fourth generation is part of MOMS Manchester’s legacy! With four dealerships in the Boston area, they continue to pride themselves on a founding principle: to create the opportunity for long-term relationships with customers by providing the best customer service available.

Solution: 

One of the biggest challenges dealers are faced with is marketing. Most dealers lack a plan so they end up making reactive advertising decisions and randomly buy radio, tv and newspaper because they know they should be advertising. They react. If they have poor weather and traffic slows, they buy a big radio campaign hoping to drive traffic. If they have a couple busy weeks, they hold off on marketing hoping well-timed weather keeps the door swinging. If the economy takes a step backwards, they stop spending to conserve cash. These ‘Market Driven’ dealers wind up leaving themselves completely vulnerable to the whims of elections, the weather, market and economy.

‘Marketing Driven’ dealers have more control over their business because they have a pro-active, integrated, direct-marketing plan designed to touch their buying base 52-104 times per year that is quantifiable. So, barring a natural disaster, ‘Marketing Driven’ dealers experience predictable growth. 

MOMS made the conscious decision to put more control in their hands this year. We started by identifying their ‘Buying Base’ made up of two groups of customers: 1) Past Customers who’ve spent money with their store in the past four years in Sales, Service & Parts. The Sharp Shooter Program helps dealers grow by increasing the number of ‘Active Customers’, those who spend money with your dealership every 12 months. Most dealers have only a fraction of their database actively spending money with them, representing a huge opportunity for growth. 

Next, we found their 2) Conquest Customers, folks who live in their backyard and ride what they sell but haven’t bought from them. These two groups of customers are called a ‘Dealership’s Buying Base’ because this is where the majority of their sales are going to come from.

Once we identified their ‘Buying Base’, we put together a multi-touch, direct-marketing plan designed to touch them 52-104 times per year. This essentially puts a fence around their herd and guarantees they’re staying in front of every real opportunity they have to sell a unit, parts or service in their backyard.

Once we’ve identified the ‘Right Audience’ and the ‘Right Media’, we turn our attention to the ‘Right Message.’ The Sharp Shooter message focuses on the party which increases frequency of visits to our clients’ dealerships. Simply put, the more frequently customers walk through your doors, the more often they will purchase from your individual departments resulting in increased ‘Average Annual Customer Value.’ 

When you increase 1) The Number of Active Customers and 2) Their Annual Average Customer Value, your business grows predictably.

Results:

MOMS just finished their second event using the Sharp Shooter Program. Despite having an enormous amount of competition with local events, Heather Lockwood said they had a great turnout and their sales people are already working the leads. 

Speaking of leads, they had 328 surveys completed, which created a total of 216 sales opportunities in P&A, service, and riding gear, PLUS 85 responses for a new or used bike.

What’s Next:

What’s next? We are officially working on the 4th quarter and that means ‘Hallo-Thanks-Mas’. Between Halloween and Christmas Day, the average American consumer will spend 70% of their entire, annual discretionary budget. How much of that budget are you going to capture? Don’t make the mistake of pulling your advertising dollars back this year and leaving it to hope. Let us help you have a record 4th quarter. When you become a ‘Marketing Driven’ dealer, you can move the needle all year long. For more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help put more control over the growth of your dealership in your hands, give me a ring on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or visit us at 

www.PowersportsMarketing.com. Happy selling.

 Dealership: 

Ehlerding Motorsports began business in 1965 from a garage on the family dairy farm near Decatur and expanded into a new facility in 1971. Over the years, the business has grown tremendously, but the original foundation still exists – a love for motorsport vehicles and the desire to consistently offer high-quality products, competitive prices and superior customer service. Today, all operations have been centralized on one campus with two modern buildings totaling over 46,000 square feet in Fort Wayne, IN. 

Solution: 

For Don’s third Sharp Shooter Event, he decided to market to 3,000 past customers. Using a nice mix of active and inactive customers, he knew they could reactivate customers who hadn’t spent money with them in the previous year and continue to increase frequency of visits from their active customers. The ultimate goal was to increase the number of customers spending money with them over the next year and increase how much they spent, by getting them all to walk through the door more often. By utilizing 12 different media methods to touch customers, we increased the amount of traffic on event day and the number of leads generated. 

Big picture, we know 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:

Don was extremely pleased with the results and turnout on event day; he has done direct mail campaigns in the past for years and never gotten the level of response he has with our Sharp Shooter campaigns. 

His third Sharp Shooter campaign is currently in progress and he is amazed each time at the door swings and increased sales he sees. He agrees that our multi-touch approach, along with focusing on the right audience and using the right message is what does the trick. 

His Sharp Shooter campaign generated 134 completed surveys, which created a total of 105 in P&A, Service, and riding gear, PLUS 59 responses for a new or used bike!

Don has been in business for over 50 years and is relieved to have finally found something that works.

What’s Next:

September means Labor Day Parties and New Model Open Houses! New models are more exciting to your customers that Christmas morning is to 5-year olds. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to capture the excitement that the new model year brings! Check out the website (www.powersportsmarketing.com/sample-campaigns) for killer campaign options 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.

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.

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.

 Dealership: 

I normally don’t feature the same dealership twice in one year (February 2018), but I had to circle up with the guys in Ames, IA, just 30 minutes North of my office in Des Moines, to check-in on the progress they’ve been able to make so far this year with the Sharp Shooter Program.

Solution: 

Why? Because they’ve executed five Sharp Shooters so far this year. The biggest difference in our clients ‘getting a shot in the arm’ and absolutely blowing up their business, is marketing with the Sharp Shooter Program consistently. Consistency is king. Whether you’re talking about working out or marketing your dealership, consistency is the key to your success. 

According to a recent study in the Powersports Industry, it takes up to 28 touches to gain a new customer. A touch can be a mail piece, a phone call, visit to the dealership, email, social media update, etc. What this means is, if you’re serious about increasing customer retention or carving off new market share, you have to be consistent. You have to be dedicated. You can’t send one mail piece to a group of customers who’ve never done business with you before, one time, and expect they all come running into the dealership waiving the mail piece begging to buy something.

If you’ve ever worked with us or read this article before, you know the Sharp Shooter program starts by targeting people who ride what you sell and live in your backyard. This is made up to two groups of people: 1) Past Customers - active & inactive and 2) Conquest Prospects - folks who ride but haven’t bought from you. 

Once we identify the 3% of riders in any given market, we give them up to 12 direct opportunities to respond to the marketing. Every customer has a preferred method of contact and by utilizing as many as possible, we drastically increase response rates.

Our message focuses on, ‘what’s in it for the customer.’ I know for a lot of dealers, this is a difficult thing to wrap their heads around because as a dealer, you obviously want to sell units, service, parts & apparel. But ask yourself, “Do customer care about what you want?” The answer is, “No.” They care about themselves. We’ve proven through literally thousands of campaigns with over 1,000 dealerships nationwide, that focusing the message on what the customer wants (food, drinks, door prizes, demo rides, etc.), you’ll get much more of what you want (bike sales, service sales, parts sales, accessory sales, apparel sales, traffic and tons more leads)!

Plus, and this is a big plus, customers are so overwhelmed by marketing messages asking them to come buy something, they automatically tune them out. If you consistently ask them to buy something from you, they will tune you out! If you ask them into the dealership once per month for a party, not only will they never get tired of you asking, but they will increase the amount of times they visit the dealership and how much they spend with you.

Results:

Jon and his crew at Zylstra Harley-Davidson have totally bought into this strategy and it’s paying off, big time. They’ve done five Sharp Shooter events in 2018 so far (which took some serious faith with this year’s unbelievably bad weather), and the results they are getting continue to grow! Check this out:

January 20th Campaign – New Management, New Attitude Party: Over $10,000 in counter sales and 2 bike sales. 573 Leads.

February 10th Campaign – BRRRRRunch Party: Over $5,000 in counter sales in a snow storm. 262 Leads.

March 10th Campaign – Cabin Fever Reliever: $12,777 in counter sales (excluding service) with an estimated 400+ people in attendance! 339 Leads.

April 7th Campaign – 115 Years of Freedom: Over $15,000 in counter sales. 369 Leads.

April 28th Campaign – Hog Roast: $21,067 in counter sales! They also took 14 credit applications and have rolled at least 3 bikes from the event. 277 Leads.

When we asked him about his customers’ response to the events, Jon said, “Our customers are loving our events. I can really see this by the attendance, but also by the response to our call blasts. The first two parties (Sharp Shooter Events) our customers were surprised by the call blast. Not in a bad way. For the third party (Sharp Shooter Event) they were calling back letting us know if they were coming or not and asking what the games would be, etc. Great response for sure!”

The consistency of having monthly events not only has tremendous benefits for customers and the bottom line, but the staff too. “When I took over this store in January, our staff and customers were beat and tattered from the previous management. These events are huge wins for our staff. [It’s great]…to see marketing that is quantifiable. Success breeds success and these events definitely help that mid-month momentum slow down. I really have to give it up to them (the staff) more than anything. They are what makes these events successful.”

Jon’s looking forward to his ‘First Responders Appreciation Event’ coming up right around the corner! 

What’s Next:

June means Father’s Day, the unofficial biggest holiday in the Powersports Industry! This is one of the most popular events all year because of the ridiculous results our clients see. If you’re not feeling Father’s Day, anything Summer is a proven winner. After a harsh winter, don’t hope the weather provides you with what you need in June; drive sales through your doors with the Sharp Shooter Program. Then plan out the rest of the year so you can increase the number of customers spending money with you in 2018 and how much they spend! You have a narrow window of time to achieve your goals this year. Don’t wait! 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 have your best year yet, call me on my direct line 877-242-4472 ext: 112. Happy selling.

Dealership: 

Harding’s Park Cycle owners and brothers, Dan and Dennis Harding, were introduced to motorcycles early in life when their father brought home an enduro for Dan. Weekends were spent at local dirt tracks and that passion turned into a career at Parkway Kawasaki in Dover, PA. Soon thereafter, younger brother, Dennis, joined Dan working on Saturday’s for his older brother. In 1984, Dan bought the store and in 1988, moved the dealership to Canton where they now sell Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Can-Am, CFMoto, Yamaha & DRR.

Solution: 

For their first Sharp Shooter Event, they decided to market to 2,000 past customers and 2,000 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 cu

stomers 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:

Jason Roher, Sales Manager of Harding’s, said their first campaign was, “Great! We had a lot of people here, rolled five units the day of the event and sold a ton of parts!” 

Executing on all four pillars of the Sharp Shooter Program - Right Audience, Right Media, Right Message & Right Timing, really paid off. The program generated 262 completed surveys including 150 sales opportunities in Clothing, P&A and Service, PLUS 73 responses for a new or used unit!

What’s Next:

May is one of the best months to market to your buying base all year! Spring will have finally arrived in every corner of the country, plus you have Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day and Memorial Day. What more could you ask for? Visit us online at www.PowersportsMarketing.com 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.

Dealership: 

Northern Ohio Ducati Triumph was founded in January 2010. The driving force behind this dealership stems from the vision and passion of Carl N. Peshoff and Carl M. Peshoff. Their mission statement is not to be the biggest, but simply be the best dealership available for avid motorcyclists. They specialize in Ducati Motorcycles and pride themselves in absolute customer satisfaction. “A motorcycle dealership driven by motorcycle enthusiasts, trying to create the ultimate experience!”

Solution:

Northern Ohio Ducati Triumph invited 2,500 of their past customers to their 8th Anniversary 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. Overtime, 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:

JChris, Northern Ohio Ducati’s Sales Manager, said, “It was a rainy day but that didn’t stop people from coming in…we still had over 400 people through the door and sold six on the day of the event, with more deals working! We had a huge day in over the counter sales. It was a great day!”

We followed up with Chris a few days after the event and said they got another three deals out and at least one more credit app. 

Their Sharp Shooter Program generated 266 completed surveys, which created a total of 201 sales opportunities in P&A, Service, and Apparel, PLUS 88 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.

What’s next?

March means Spring has arrived! If you haven’t planned your Spring Open House yet, call us today to get one on the books. After the winter we’ve had this year, 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, because 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

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.

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.

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.

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.

 Dealership: 

Rossiter’s has been owned and operated by Rick Rossiter in Sarasota, FL for over 20 years. From unique art sculptures to the owner’s personal collection of early model motorcycles, they have attractions for everyone including, ‘by far, the friendliest staff in the country!’

Solution: 

For their first Sharp Shooter Event, they decided to target 3,500 conquest prospects who ride what they sell, live in their backyard but hadn’t bought from them. They also called 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 while increasing 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 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:

Lori Sinclair, General Manager, said the event went on, despite Hurricane Irma wreaking havoc on the state and many people evacuating. She had cancelled her live music and other outdoor vendors, but had BBQ sandwiches, beer, and margaritas for anyone who showed up and needed a break after all of the hurricane prep they had been doing. 

She was surprised that, all things considered, she did see good traffic through the doors that day!

Executing on all four pillars of the Sharp Shooter Program - Right Audience, Right Media, Right Message & Right Timing, really paid off. The program generated 151 responses to the campaign, which generated 124 sales opportunities, including 30 riders interested in a new or used bike! Even Hurricane Irma didn’t get in the way of her ability to track the results of her marketing. She is now able to follow up on over 100 leads to get folks back into the dealership and sell some more service, P&A and roll a couple more units out the door.

What’s next? 

October means Biketoberfest & Halloween! Check out the inserts for some killer campaign options for October and for more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help you achieve your marketing goals in 2017, call me on my direct line 877-242-4472 ext: 112. Happy selling.

Dealership: 

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

Solution: 

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

Since the loneliest number in marketing is one, we used up to 12 direct marketing touches. By giving customers more opportunities to respond to the marketing, we increase the amount of traffic on event day and the number of leads being generated. Bigger picture, we’ve learned Powersports dealers need to touch their Buying Base a minimum of 52-104 times per year to increase retention and grow market share. The more you touch your customer base, the more responsive they become and over the course of the year, more of them walk through the dealership’s doors more often and the business grows.

The message we utilize is focused on inviting customers to a party. By focusing on what the customer wants (things like food, drinks, door prizes and demo rides), the dealership gets more of what they want (more P&A, service and gear sales and a few more units out the door). The reverse is also true; focus on the sale and you will alienate the 99.99% of customers who don’t have ‘buy a motorcycle’ on their list of things to do this weekend. Long-term, customers never get tired of being invited to a party so they end up walking through the doors more often and when they’re there, they can’t help themselves but to spend more money. 

With so much marketing going out the doors, it’s important to have it hit customers at just the right time to really maximize the response from each media. Our marketing begins hitting customers roughly 10 days before the event and gives them a different opportunity to respond to the survey site (to generate leads for every department) almost every day leading up to event day.

 Results:

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

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

What's next?

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

Dealership: 

Insert your dealership here.

Solution:

After working with over 1,000 dealerships, the reason our clients continue to market with us each and every month is because we implement a System for Predictable Growth. There’s really two types of dealers out there…there are market driven dealers and then there are marketing driven dealers. 

A market driven dealer makes reactive advertising decisions and pays for image enhancing, branding, “get your name out there” billboard, radio, TV, and newspaper campaigns because they know they should be advertising. No one says you can’t grow the business with poor advertising, but a lot of the growth dealerships experience comes from well-timed weather, an improving market and economy, or a focus on sales process and training. Customers are solar powered, when the suns out they’re out. When the market is up, business is up; when it’s down, business is down. 

A marketing driven dealer has a pro-active, integrated, direct marketing plan designed to touch their buying base 52 to 104 times per year that is quantifiable. Barring natural disaster, a marketing driven dealer experiences predictable growth. Here’s how we put more control into our clients’ hands.

1) We Grow Your Active Customers, defined by folks who’ve spent money with your dealership in the last 12 months. We do this by reactivating lost customers (those who haven’t spent money with you in the last 12 months) and by driving new customers through the door (these are competitor’s customers and orphan owners that ride what you sell, live in your backyard but have never bought from you). If we can increase the number of customers who do business with you each year, your business will grow.

2) The second way we create a System for Predictable Growth is by increasing your Annual, Average Customer Value by increasing the frequency of visits to your dealership. Let’s face it, when your customers walk through your doors, they are kids in a candy store…they can’t help themselves but to purchase stuff. If we can simply increase the amount of times they visit your dealership each year, they will buy more parts, more accessories, more gear, they’ll service their unit more often and they’ll shorten their trade cycle. We know past customers who are loyal, like know and trust you so your closing ratios go through the roof along with your margin because they’re less likely to haggle over price.

Put another way, a marketing driven dealer understands this simple formula. Annual increase in active customers + annual increase in customer value (or the same) = Annual Growth. If we can get more riders to walk through your door, more often over the next 12 months, you will grow your business in a very predictable way.

The Math:

Curious what your numbers are? Take your 2016 revenue and divide it by the number of customers who spent money with you to find your Average (Annual) Customer Value. If you are an integrated client of ours, call your Account Executive and they can walk you through this math. If you are Talon dealer, run a customer report, export to Excel and sort ‘Previous Years Sales’ by ‘A to Z’, highlight the column for your total revenue last year and scroll to the bottom of that column to see how many active customers you had who spent money with you last year. Or, call us at 877-242-4472 and we’ll run these numbers for you! If you’re a Lightspeed Dealer, we can integrate with your DMS and pull these numbers for you as well.

The goal of the Sharp Shooter Program over time is to grow your Number of Active Customers & your dealership’s Average (Annual) Customer Value by a conservative 10%. Below are two examples of what that would mean:

As you can see, a 10% bump in both metrics for the $4 Million Store above equates to over $839,000 in growth. For the $14 Million Store, it bumps their revenue by almost $3,000,000! 

The Results:

You might think, ‘Eric that’s too good to be true’, but it’s not. We’ve used this exact system to help grow many of our clients’ businesses like Wolverine H-D. Over the years we’ve been working with them, they’ve grown from 600 units, $11 million to over 1,200 units and $32 million. When we first started working together, they had 3,400 active customers with an average customer value of $3235. Today, they’ve grown their active customers to 9,000 and their Average Customer Value (ACV) to $3555 resulting in $21 million in growth! I know that over time with consistency, the Sharp Shooter Program can do the exact same for your dealership.

What's next?

The 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. The average dealership has only 30% of their customer base actively spending money with them with an average customer value that can grow tremendously. We can kick off your Annual Predictable Growth System in August 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 five 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! For more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help you achieve your marketing goals in 2017, call me on my direct line 877-242-4472 ext: 112. Happy selling.

Dealership: 

Shawnee Cycle Plaza is Kansas City’s premier motorcycle, ATV and scooter dealership selling Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha and CFMoto. With 137 Google reviews and a 4.4 star rating, they live up to their tag line that, “You can’t buy from a nicer bunch of guys!”

Solution: 

Shawnee Cycle Plaza invited 3,000 of their past customers and 3,000 conquest prospects who ride what they sell, live in their backyard but haven’t bought from them. Using a nice mix of active, inactive and prospective 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.

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 increase the amount of traffic on event day and the number of leads being 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 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). 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:

We have an ‘Improvise, Adapt, & Overcome’ award here at Powersports Marketing and I think we’re going to have to give it to Paul McMinn and his staff at Shawnee Cycle Plaza this week! These guys didn’t get a great start to their Father’s Day Event June 17th. Pulling up to the dealership Saturday morning, he realized something was wrong after a heavy storm rolled through the night before. After unlocking the door, the alarm was making a funny noise and he soon discovered he was out of power (one of 98,000+ homes/businesses affected). Instead of canceling the event, these guys put their game faces on and in Paul’s words, “Took those lemons and made lemonade.”

Unfortunately, power wouldn’t return until half the day was over so they ended up pulling out the old manual credit card machine and hand-writing bill of sales for parts & accessories. They even hand wrote two unit sales with a total of five going out the door on Saturday and another two going out Monday after the event when this article went to print. Parts ended up doing $6-8,000 on just in-stock inventory, while navigating customers through the parts department with flashlights. They even fired up generators to get some work done back in service!

Paul said it was an amazing event and numbers were great in every department even without power. “It was crazy!”

Executing on all four pillars of the Sharp Shooter Program - Right Audience, Right Media, Right Message & Right Timing, really paid off. The program generated 201 completed surveys including 157 sales opportunities in Clothing, P&A and Service, PLUS 44 responses for a new or used unit! 

What’s next? 

July means the 4th of July, Summer Sizzler’s and Dog Days of Summer! With half the year come and gone 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 inserts for some killer campaign options for July and for more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help you achieve your marketing goals in 2017, call me on my direct line 877-242-4472 ext: 112. Happy selling.

Dealership: 

A family-oriented business centered around their community, Extreme Powersports is located in Columbus, GA offering Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Polaris, Can-Am and Victory. Focused on providing unparalleled service, they pledge their best efforts to make the customer experience both beneficial and enjoyable.

Solution: 

Paul McGowen, GM of Extreme Powersports, attended our Spring Marketing Boot Camp this March. The Boot Camp is focused on creating a road map for dealers to implement an online and offline marketing plan that leads to predictable growth for dealerships. After taking a hard look at his marketing plan, he decided to shift his focus from more traditional media to more direct response marketing. Through our two marque products, the Local Web Dominator Program & the Sharp Shooter Program, we help dealers implement a SYSTEM for Predictable Growth by increasing the number of customers spending money with the dealership annually and the average amount of money they spend.

Paul wanted to be laser-focused on 3,500 past customers so that he could reactivate customers who hadn’t spent money with him in the previous year and increase frequency of visits of his existing customers to increase the amount they spend in 2017.

To ensure the 3,500 customers receive the message, we target them with up to 12 direct marketing strategies. 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 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 utilize is focused on inviting customers to a party. These events don’t need to be a Kiss Concert, but as long as the dealership has a few things that are most important to the customer like food, drinks, door prizes and demo rides, they’ll never get tired of being invited and they’ll show up at your dealership more times throughout the course of the year. And since they’re basically kids in a candy store when they’re at your dealership, they literally won’t be able to stop themselves from buying more apparel, accessories, servicing their ride more (because they’re riding it more often) and ultimately shorten the time between their major unit purchases.

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:

Executing on all four pillars of the Sharp Shooter Program - Right Audience, Right Media, Right Message & Right Timing, really paid off. For their Rotten Easter Egg Hunt, the program generated 235 completed surveys including 133 sales opportunities in Clothing, P&A and Service, PLUS 114 responses for a new or used unit! The number of leads being generated is increasing significantly from the consistency in his marketing. After his third event of the year, he’s been able to more than double the amount of leads being generated per campaign from 102 – 235! 

After the event, Paul told his Account Executive, Josh Rapplean, that the traffic and event went great! He added that he was most excited to get to work on the bike leads and see how many more units he’ll be able to roll over the next couple months. Paul already has his Armed Forces Day Event planned for May 20th to keep the momentum going.

What's next?

June means the kickoff to Summer, Father’s Day and the ramp up to 4th of July. It’s time to make hay while the sun’s shining! Check out our website for some killer campaign options for June and for more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help you achieve your marketing goals in 2017, call me on my direct line 877-242-4472 ext: 112. Happy selling.

 Dealership: 

Lifestyles Honda is a Honda, Can-Am, Ski-Doo, Sea-Doo, Triumph and Honda Power Equipment dealership in Mount Vernon, Washington. If you asked them how they managed to stay small and sell big, they’d give you a simple answer: years of experience. Their mission is to offer their customers the latest in parts and products at the best prices, and with unparalleled service. They pledge to use their best efforts to make the customer experience both beneficial and enjoyable. Once customers give them a try, they’re sure they’ll be back for more!

Solution: 

Ron VanWaveren, owner of Lifestyles Honda, knew the Sharp Shooter Program would deliver a great turnout for his annual Spring Open House. The short term goal of the program is to drive a lot of traffic to an event at the dealership and deliver a pipeline of leads that turns that weekend event into a month-long sales process. Long-term with consistency, we can create a SYSTEM for Predictable Growth by increasing the number of customers spending money with the dealership annually and the average amount of money they spend.

Ron wanted to target a mix of both past customers and conquest prospects (people who ride what he sells, lives in his immediate backyard, but haven’t bought from him). We selected 1,300 past customers and 1,300 conquest customers for this event. 

Once we identified the target audience, we went after them with up to 12 direct marketing strategies. By giving customers and prospects more opportunities to respond to the marketing, we increase the number of leads being generated (customers who tell us who they are and what they want to buy from the dealership), and the number of customers who walk through the door on event day.

Ron wanted to put a spin on his Spring Open House this year by advertising the chance to win a 2014 Honda Motorcycle. Here’s how it works: The dealership purchases an insurance agreement covering the cost of the unit, giving customers the chance to win a bike for free. We then either print a number on the postcard or have customers come in and guess a random 6-digit number. The insurance company plays the odds that the customer with the winning number won’t show up or that no one will guess the correct number. This is an excellent way to add some traffic to your next event!

Other than the bike giveaway, the message focused on the party he was throwing at his dealership including food, drinks, door prizes and more! Focusing on what the customer wants (the party) and not the sale, ultimately leads to more leads, traffic and sales in each department. The specific timing sequence of when all the marketing hit homes, went off without a hitch.

Results:

Executing on all four pillars of the Sharp Shooter Program - Right Audience, Right Media, Right Message & Right Timing, really paid off. For their Spring Open House & Lucky Lock Party, the program generated 101 completed surveys including 68 sales opportunities in Clothing, P&A and Service, PLUS 21 responses for a new or used unit! 

After the event, Ron told his Account Executive, Bill Gallagher, that over 350 people showed up and the event was, ‘awesome!’ There was so much traffic the biggest problem was parking and the sales guys thought ‘there were going to be accidents.’ Check out the review Ron left us after his event:

What's next?

May means the perfect time to ride and the perfect time to do an event. Between Cinco de Mayo, Armed Forces Day and Memorial Day, your biggest question won’t be should I do an event, but what event should I go big for! Check out the sample campaign postcard for a killer campaign option for May and for more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help you achieve your marketing goals in 2017, call me on my direct line 877-242-4472 ext: 112. Happy selling.

Dealership: 

Boardtracker H-D is part of a two-store group located in Janesville, WI. Their mission statement reads: “Building lasting relationships with our partners and employees while serving the recreational and travel community. Our core values shall be based on Honesty and Integrity and Service to the Community.”

Brandon Wilson, General Manager, spent the last 12 months working on systems and processes. One big piece of that was getting his guys to embrace the phone and use it like the powerful sales tool that it is. The previous year saw a sizeable chunk of advertising dollars spent on branding the dealership’s name change. In 2017, Brandon knew he needed to drive more traffic through the doors and generate leads. He was confident that if we could execute in these two areas, his team could take care of the rest.

Solution: 

I was confident we could take care of driving traffic and generating leads. That is the trademark of the Sharp Shooter Program. We start by identifying a dealership’s ‘Buying Base’, a combination of past customers and conquest prospects (folks who ride H-D and live in their DAT but haven’t bought from them). Every dealer has a huge opportunity to increase the frequency of visits from their current, active customers (thereby increasing the amount of money they spend with the dealership per year) and reactivate folks who haven’t spent money with them in over a year. The average dealership has roughly 70% of their database not actively spending money with them. Outside of the customer database, no dealership has 100% market share in their DAT which provides additional opportunities to sell more bikes.

Once we identify these folks, we give them up to 12 direct opportunities to respond to the marketing. Each piece of communication incentivizes customers to go online and tell them who they are, how to contact them and what they interested in buying from them. The message is all about the customer and what’s in it for them, resulting in the type of traffic most dealers crave. Focusing on what customers want (being invited to a party) and not what the dealer wants (sell bikes, P&A, service) results in more traffic, leads and ultimately sales in each department.

Brandon has just completed his first two of 12 campaigns this year and so far, we are fulfilling our end of the bargain and his team is fulfilling theirs! 

Results:

For their Too Cold to Ride, Hottest Time to Buy Event on January 28th, they had 516 surveys completed, which created a total of 410 sales opportunities in P&A, Service, and riding gear, PLUS 95 responses for a new or used bike.

Here’s what Brandon had to say after their first event: “Wow! What a campaign! Thank you for getting this promotion off and running in short order. We sold 3 motorcycles on Saturday and have 3 more scheduled to go out by end of day tomorrow.”

The event included some seminars which previously never had more than 15 people attend. The staff setup 40 chairs and then started pulling them away so the space didn’t look empty. They ended up putting them all back and ran out of chairs so the seminars were standing-room only. Brandon said, “We had 70+ people attend each of our seminars which is unheard of. Our traffic grew by 156% with close to 400 people attending the event.”

For their Motorcyclist Appreciation Day on February 25th, they had 680 surveys completed, which created a total of 543 sales opportunities in P&A, Service, and riding gear, PLUS 86 responses for a new or used unit.

I got to catch up with Brandon after the event and he said it was a record February! “We sold more motorcycles in January than in any other January since 2010; February, more since 2011. Every department crushed their goal this month. We sold 4 motorcycles on Saturday. It feels like May! I’m sold…any dealer that doesn’t benefit from this program doesn’t have the right systems and processes in place. You guys bring the people in and generate leads and we do the rest.”

What’s next? 

April means the riding season has arrived! Check out the inserts for some killer campaign options for April and for more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help you achieve your marketing goals in 2017, call me on my direct line 877-242-4472 ext: 112. Happy selling.

All you need to know about Quaid H-D is said in their Mission Statement: To provide the ultimate H-D experience for the individuals who make their own rules and know when to break those rules, for the individuals who define what they ride and wear but are not defined by it, for individuals who step out of line, hit the road and keep moving, our dedication is for the self-seekers who look around and understand that. Conformity Bites! 

As you can tell by their mission statement, they wanted to differentiate themselves. One of the best ways to do that is through marketing. Brandon Quaid, partner at Quaid H-D, recognized the Sharp Shooter Program as an opportunity to do that.

Many traditional advertising reps (TV, Radio, Billboard, Print, etc.) tell you the goal of your marketing is to get your name out there and build your brand. Getting your name out there and building your brand shouldn’t be the core goal of your marketing. The one goal of your marketing should be to make the phone ring, door swing and cash register ding! Getting your name out there and building your brand are happy by-products of good direct response marketing which by definition, gets your exact target audience to take action on your marketing (A.K.A. call the store, walk through the door or generate a quantifiable sales opportunity for one of your departments) through an incentive combined with a deadline. 

Here’s how the Sharp Shooter Program accomplishes that; we start with the Right Target Audience, we hit them through the Right Media Channels, we use the Right Message and execute all of this with the Right Timing. When you hit on all four pillars, you drive a lot of qualified traffic through the doors and generate a pipeline of leads for each of your departments turning a weekend event into a month-long-sales-process. This allows you the opportunity to truly stretch your Return On Investment…which at the end of the day is why you spend money on marketing, right?

Right Audience:

We start with a combination of your past customers and conquest customers, or prospects who ride what you sell and live in the same area where the majority of your sales come from. The single best dealership in the country has a huge opportunity to reactivate customers who haven’t spent money with them in over a year and drive new blood through the doors. 

Right Media:

The loneliest number in marketing is 1. That’s why the Sharp Shooter Program utilizes up to 12 direct-marketing touches per campaign to guarantee the Right Audience has multiple opportunities to respond. And by simply giving them more opportunities to respond, we increase response drastically. Each piece of communication incentivizes customers (with a deadline) to tell us who they are, how to get a hold of them and what they want to buy from the dealership generating leads that will keep every department of a dealership busy for a month! 

Right Message:

Want to add to the white noise of all other marketing? Tell everyone you have great finance offers and huge rebates. Want to create affinity with you the group of customers where the majority of your sales are going to come from, maximize response, traffic and generate the most amount of leads? Throw a party and feature things your customers care about: Food, Drinks, Door Prizes, Music & Demo Rides. 

Right Timing:

This is putting a bow on the whole package. When you have 12 different marketing touches happening in 10 days, it takes surgical precision with planning when it hits customers. We’ve got this down to a science and it truly maximizes each piece of communication’s potential response.

Brandon at Quaid H-D has been implementing the Sharp Shooter Program consistently for some time now and the results speak for themselves. Check out what they were able to accomplish on their event this month, the “Quaid Raid”!

They had 209 surveys completed, which created a total of 160 sales opportunities in P&A, Service, and riding gear, PLUS 53 responses for a new or used bike.

After the event, Brandon left us the following review:

Check out the inserts for some killer campaign options for March & April and for more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help you achieve your marketing goals in 2017, call me on my direct line 877-242-4472 ext: 112. Happy selling.

We talk a lot about the four pillars of marketing: 1) Right Audience 2) Right Media 3) Right Message and 4) Right Timing. Over the years, dealers almost immediately buy-in to 3 out of the 4. They agree it makes sense to target riders in their backyard. They agree that they should give their customers multiple, direct opportunities to respond and finally, they take our advice on when the marketing should be hitting homes based on our experience with 1,000 dealers and thousands of campaigns. However, a lot of dealers challenge the 3rd pillar – Right Message. But, why? And, is the ‘message’ really that important?

I’ve been studying and implementing marketing for over 14 years now and turns out there is a lot of psychology and science in the message. But, most Dealers typically learn about marketing through the people who sell it to them...Radio, TV and Newspaper Reps who tell them they need to, “get their name out there,” and, “build their brand.” Or, they do what the OEM wants them to do and push a finance or rebate offer. Or they copy the car dealership down the street with ‘Never-Seen-Before Blowout Prices!’ 

The challenge is they all have it wrong. Getting your name out there or building your brand will never drive the traffic you want or grow your business the way you want it to grow. Typically that message is something along the lines of, “Providing exceptional service for 20 years at a competitive price.” Or, “Your #1 Harley-Davidson Dealership in the [insert city here] Metro Area since 1975.” What do these types of ads tell your customers to do? Answer: nothing. There is no ‘Call To Action.’ There is no ‘Reason to Respond.’ It will never provide you with the quantifiable results you desire. 

Campaign #1 - Super Sale (Finance Offer):

The finance & rebate offer or the ‘blow-out sale’ messages are worse yet. What they tell your customers is, “If you’re not in the market to buy right now, I don’t care about you.” This immediately alienates the 99% of customers who don’t have ‘buy a bike’ on their ‘top 5 things to do list’ this week. So the only people that respond are the folks who were buying any way and now all you’ve accomplished is slimmer margins. 

Take the dealership below. Same store, same program, two entirely different results. The difference? The first campaign hit 3 of the 4 Pillars of Marketing: 1) Right Audience 2) Right Media and 4) Right Timing, but they missed 3) Right Message. The first campaign focused exclusively on a Finance Offer, the second a Demo Event.  

As you can see, this dealership generated 10 total unit leads targeting 5,000 past customers with only 49 total responses and a .98% response rate.

Campaign #2 - Demo Event:

The second campaign targeted half the number of people, of which half were Conquest Customers (people who’ve never bought from them before) and had 14x’s the response rate. The only thing that changed was the message and that proved to be all the difference. They generated 85 new & used unit leads with 357 total responses and a final response rate of 14.28%. Not to mention the 86 P&A Leads, 72 Clothing Leads & 26 Service Opportunities:

Remember, we’re not selling a necessity like cars or washing machines. We’re selling fun! We’re a Passion-Based-Industry. People don’t need a $15,000 toy. They want it. They can’t live without it. It helps define them as a person. So what get’s these folks excited? A reason to ride. An opportunity to be around other folks to share their passion to ride. A party. Live music. Good food. Charity events. Organized rides. New models (also known as crack). FREE demo rides (crack with a side of BBQ Ribs). Giveaways. These are things your buying base craves! They don’t care how long you’ve been in business. They do value professionalism and good customer service. But, they also understand you have the same finance and rebate options as every other dealer in the market. These things do nothing for them. 

Show them a good time. Do it often and have fun with them when they show up. I guarantee it will increase frequency of visits from past and present customers, build loyalty, increase repeat and referral business, hold higher margin (because you’re not discounting), give your sales people more opportunities to sell units, create more excitement with your staff, and on and on and on. 

For more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program delivers just the Right Message or to get started today, call me on my direct line 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or chat us up at www.powersportsmarketing.com. Party on.

DEALERSHIP:

MotorCity Motorcycles is a brand new Indian & Victory dealership nestled in the Bloomfield Hills area. As a new store, they didn’t have a customer database to market to and, therefore, had to start from scratch. They knew a key way to grow their business was by having consistent events at the dealership. The biggest challenge for a dealership in their shoes is finding people who ride and getting them through the door. 

SOLUTION:

Consistency is king. Whether you’re talking about working out or marketing your dealership, consistency is the key to your success. 

According to a recent study in the Powersports Industry, it takes up to 28 touches to gain a new customer. A touch can be a mail piece, a phone call, visit to the dealership, email, social media update, etc. What this means is, if you’re serious about carving off new market share, you have to be consistent. You have to be dedicated. You can’t send one mail piece to a group of people who’ve never done business with you before, one time, and expect they all come running into the dealership waiving the mail piece begging to buy something.

The challenge is, many dealers lack a plan. When you lack a plan, you end up shooting from the hip and wind up just ‘doing something’ because you feel like you need to ‘do something’. This type of marketing never gets the results you want. The results MotorCity received started by identifying proven riders in their backyard. We found all the metric 600cc+ on-road cruisers and H-D customers living in their immediate backyard. We combined these folks with customers they’d logged in their CRM. Each month, we gathered all the new customers who purchased and the new logged customers and rinsed and repeated. 

Once we identified the customers where the majority of their sales should come from, we put a plan in place to hit them 52-104 times per year with a value-added message. By using up to 12 direct marketing touches per month, you’re guaranteed to achieve this target of 52-104 touches per year. The Sharp Shooter Program uses a combination of integrated direct mail, emails, call blasts, web banners, event signage, fliers, social media updates and even more on each campaign. Each piece of communication incentivizes customers to go online and compete a survey so they can tell you who they are and what they want to buy from you. Over time, this style of marketing drives a ton of quality traffic to the dealership and generates a pipeline of leads for every department. Most importantly, it puts a fence around your herd, making your customers immune to other offers from other dealers. MotorCity Motorcycles is experiencing the payoff from using the Sharp Shooter Program consistently to market their events.

RESULTS:

These guys are creating major affinity with their buying base by executing a consistent marketing plan by hitting the Right Target Audience, through the Right Media Channels, with the Right Message, at just the Right Time. Altogether, MotorCity will execute 13 Sharp Shooter Campaigns this year. 

As they’ve continued to market to their Buying Base, they have created a warm and responsive list and generated a consistent pipeline of leads for each of their departments. Over the past year, they have generated 1,714 sales opportunities for each of their departments, which include 441 New & Used Unit Leads, and hundreds of hand raisers for Parts, Accessories & Riding Gear from an almost 100% conquest list! The lead generation aspect of these campaigns, turns a weekend event into a month-long sales process allowing our clients the opportunity to grow their Return On their Investment exponentially over the weeks following their event.

LOOKING FORWARD:

A lot of dealers leave it up to Santa Claus to hopefully deliver a solid December. Don’t let the big box stores rob you this holiday season. Claim what’s rightfully yours and invite your customers in for a Christmas Event, What Santa Forgot Event or New Year’s Event. Give them an excuse to skip the mall and the traffic jams and come have fun with you. Your cash register will thank you. Check out the inserts for a few more proven winners. To have Powersports Marketing build your dealership’s Buying Base and put a plan in place to hit them consistently for FREE, call me on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112. Happy selling!

DEALERSHIP:

Arkport Cycles is one of the largest dealers in New York State for Harley, Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, Kymco & Arctic Cat. Located in Hornell, NY, they’ve been a family-owned business since 1972 and are still going strong. 

SOLUTION:

One of the biggest challenges dealers are faced with is marketing. Most dealers lack a plan so they end up making reactive advertising decisions and randomly buy radio, tv and newspaper because they know they should be advertising. They react. If they have poor weather and traffic slows, they buy a big radio campaign hoping to drive traffic. If they have a couple busy weeks, they hold off on marketing hoping well-timed weather keeps the door swinging. If the economy takes a step backwards, they stop spending to conserve cash. These ‘Market Driven’ dealers wind up leaving themselves completely vulnerable to the whims of elections, the weather, market and economy.

‘Marketing Driven’ dealers have more control over their business because they have a pro-active, integrated, direct-marketing plan designed to touch their buying base 52-104 times per year that is quantifiable. So, barring a natural disaster, ‘Marketing Driven’ dealers experience predictable growth. 

Arkport Cycles made the conscious decision to put more control in their hands this year. We started by identifying their ‘Buying Base’ made up of two groups of customers: 1) Past Customers who’ve spent money with their store in the past four years in Sales, Service & Parts. The Sharp Shooter Program helps dealers grow by increasing the number of ‘Active Customers’, those who spend money with your dealership every 12 months. Most dealers have only a fraction of their database actively spending money with them, representing a huge opportunity for growth. Arkport Cycles had 5,100 past customers within 30 miles of the dealership who’ve spent money with them in the past four years. 

Next, we found their 2) Conquest Customers, folks who live in their backyard and ride what they sell but haven’t bought from them. Arkport has 3,242 of these competitor’s customers and other orphan owners living within that same 30 miles of their dealership. These two groups of customers are called a ‘Dealership’s Buying Base’ because this is where the majority of their sales are going to come from.

Once we identified their ‘Buying Base’, we put together a multi-touch, direct-marketing plan designed to touch them 52-104 times per year. This essentially puts a fence around their herd and guarantees they’re staying in front of every real opportunity they have to sell a unit, parts or service in their backyard.

Once we’ve identified the ‘Right Audience’ and the ‘Right Media’, we turn our attention to the ‘Right Message.’ The Sharp Shooter message focuses on the party which increases frequency of visits to our clients’ dealerships. Simply put, the more frequently customers walk through your doors, the more often they will purchase from your individual departments resulting in increased ‘Average Annual Customer Value.’ 

When you increase 1) The Number of Active Customers and 2) Their Annual Average Customer Value, your business grows predictably.

RESULTS:

Arkport just finished their second event using the Sharp Shooter Program. Their first event was, “…extremely successful with a ton of traffic!” After her second event, Jenny said, “I had an idea of what the traffic was going to be after our first event, but it far exceeded my expectations.” 

The store was so busy, Jenny ended up calling some of her best customers to help out with demo rides and working the event. Customers drove from as far away as two hours to attend. They ended up taking 40 trade-ins on Saturday, but were unable to finish all the deals because they didn’t have the specific model or color in-stock. The regional H-D rep showed up for the event and was blown away by the traffic and the overall success of the event.

LOOKING FORWARD:

What’s next? We are officially into the 4th quarter and that means ‘Hallo-Thanks-Mas’. Between Halloween and Christmas Day, the average American consumer will spend 70% of their entire, annual discretionary budget. How much of that budget are you going to capture? Don’t make the mistake of pulling your advertising dollars back this year and leaving it to hope. Let us help you have a record 4th quarter. When you become a ‘Marketing Driven’ dealer, you can move the needle all year long. Check out the inserts for a sample of a proven winner. 

For more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help put more control over the growth of your dealership in your hands, give me a ring on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or visit us at www.PowersportsMarketing.com. Happy selling.

DEALERSHIP:

Harley-Davidson® of Louisville set down roots over 70 years ago in the ‘Gateway to the South’. On their website they ask you to, “Stop in anytime for a cup of coffee and some good old Southern hospitality.”

OBJECTIVE:

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

CHALLENGE:

Traditional marketing had always been a challenge for H-D® of Louisville. In the past, the dealership depended on radio, billboards and some print advertising to reach new riders. Like many dealers, they struggled with quantifying the effectiveness of this style of advertising and they weren’t convinced it was working.

SOLUTION:

The General Manager, Jay, began carving off new market share. Here’s how we identified all the Harley owners who lived within 30 miles of his dealership but haven’t bought from him. We combined that list with past customers from their Talon DMS, customers who spent money with the dealership in the past four years and customers that lived within 30 miles of their store. 

Once we identified their ‘Right Audience’, we went after them with the ‘Right Media’. We utilized 12 direct-marketing strategies including direct mail, a recorded call blast, email blasts, social media updates, in-store fliers, in-store signage, a web banner, a lead magnet and even more to ensure the target audience was reached multiple times leading up to the event. 

Using up to 12 touches per campaign guarantees they will touch their buying base 52-104 times per year. At first that number of touches may sound like overkill, but what we’ve proven is that frequency of touches produces a system of Predictable Growth and the dealership 1) Grows the number of Active Customers spending money with the dealership every 12 months and 2) They increase the Average Annual Customer Value. 

To generate leads, each piece of communication incentivized folks to go online and complete a survey to tell the dealership two pieces of information: 1) First and Last Name, Email Address and Phone Number & 2) What they want to buy from the dealership. This typically generates hundreds of leads for not only unit sales, but parts & accessories, Motorclothes and service as well. Combine this formula with consistency and we are systematically carving off new market share and generating more leads for Jay and the team at H-D of Louisville

RESULTS:

H-D of Louisville has executed five Sharp Shooter Programs in the last five months and have generated 1545 sales opportunities for their individual departments. Broken down, this means the Sharp Shooter Program has generated 293 new & used unit leads, 436 parts & accessories leads, 165 service leads and 464 apparel leads. By increasing frequency of visits to the dealership and generating a consistent stream of leads, these guys are increasing both the number of customers spending money with them and their average annual customer value. Jay said, “The Sharp Shooter Program is the best dollar you can spend in marketing.”

LOOKING FORWARD:

If you haven’t planned your marketing for 2017 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 2017 Marketing Plan?” 

We’ll help you start planning your 2017 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 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). 

For more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help 2017 be your best year yet, give me a ring on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or visit us online at www.PowersportsMarketing.com. Happy selling.

DEALERSHIP:

Calumet Harley-Davidson® was established in 1993 by Chuck & Cindy Kreisl in Munster, IN. Calumet is “Where Chicagoland goes to ride.”

SOLUTION:

Before working with us, many of our current clients were ‘Market Driven Dealers’. They made reactive advertising decisions and randomly bought billboards, radio ads, TV commercials, newspaper ads and other campaigns because they knew they should be advertising. This left them vulnerable to the weather, market and economy so when the market was up, business was up; but when it was down, business was down.

Calumet H-D® made the conscious decision to put more control in their hands this year. They are now a ‘Marketing Driven Dealer’ because they have a pro-active, integrated, direct-marketing plan designed to touch their buying base 52-104 times per year that is quantifiable. So, barring a natural disaster, they’ll experience predictable growth. 

We started by identifying the ‘Buying Base’ made up of two groups of customers: 1) Past Customers who’ve spent money with your store in the past four years in Sales, Service & Parts. The Sharp Shooter Program helps dealers grow by increasing the number of ‘Active Customers’, those who spend money with your dealership every 12 months. Most dealers have only a fraction of their database actively spending money with them, representing a huge opportunity for growth. 

Next, we focus on 2) Conquest Customers, those who live in your backyard and ride what you sell but haven’t bought from you. These are competitor’s customers and other orphan owners living in the geographical area where the majority of your sales come from. 

Once we identify your ‘Buying Base’, we put together a multi-touch, direct-marketing plan designed to touch them 52-104 times per year. This essentially puts a fence around your herd and guarantees you’re staying in front of every real opportunity you have to sell a unit, parts or service in your backyard.

The message focuses on the party, which increases frequency of visits to your dealership. When that happens, you increase your ‘Annual Average Customer Value’ because when they walk through your door, they are kids in a candy store.  They can’t help themselves but to buy more gear, parts, accessories, service their unit more often and overtime shorten their trade cycle because they’re constantly hanging out with all those beautiful new machines you have on your showroom floor. 

When you increase 1) The Number of Active Customers and 2) Their Annual Average Customer Value, your business grows predictably.

RESULTS:

This is exactly what is happening at Calumet H-D. They’ve executed a Sharp Shooter Event six out of eight months this year (in addition to being a Local Web Dominator client) and they are growing the business. This year alone, the Sharp Shooter Program has generated over 2,400 completed surveys including 191 Service Leads, 683 P&A Leads, 604 MotorClothes Leads and 491 Unit Sales Leads! 

LOOKING FORWARD:

What’s next? October means the arrival of two of my favorite things…New Models and the perfect riding weather! Throw in Halloween and you’ve got three incredible excuses to invite your customers into the dealership. Don’t make the mistake of pulling your advertising dollars back this year. Let us help you kick start a record 4th quarter. Check out our website for hundreds of campaign themes that are proven winners. 

For more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help put more control over the growth of your dealership in your hands, give me a ring on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or visit us at www.PowersportsMarketing.com. Happy selling.

DEALERSHIP:

Four Rivers Harley-Davidson’s is located in beautiful Paducah, KY just off the banks of the Ohio River. Four Rivers began many years ago as Watson’s Harley-Davidson® which was later purchased by the Sills Family becoming Sill’s Harley-Davidson.  In 2005 Jack Fares and Jerry Carter purchased the dealership and under their direction Four Rivers Harley-Davidson has become one of the largest Harley dealerships in the country. 

SOLUTION:

Big or small…if there’s one common challenge we hear from the thousands of dealers we talk to each year, its marketing. How much to spend, where to spend it, what to say, who to say it to, hire marketing staff or outsource; it’s overwhelming. Most dealers lack a marketing plan and end up shooting from the hip, leaving themselves vulnerable to the weather, market and economy. 

The Sharp Shooter Program puts more control into our clients’ hands by focusing on two areas:

1) We Grow Your Active Customers, by reactivating lost customers (those who haven’t spent money with you in the last 12 months) and by driving new customers through the door (competitor’s customers and orphan owners that ride what you sell, live in your backyard, but have never bought from you). 

2) We Increase Your Annual, Average Customer Value by increasing the frequency of visits to your dealership. If we can simply increase the amount of times they visit your dealership each year, they will buy more parts, more accessories, more gear, they’ll service their unit more often and they’ll shorten their trade cycle. Ultimately, loyal customers close at a higher rate and increased margin, because they’re 

less likely to haggle over price.

The single best dealership in the country has a huge opportunity to reactivate lost customers and increase the number of times their customers walk through their doors each year. Most dealerships have less than 30% of their customer base spending money with them every 12 months. Which means 70%+ of them are not. 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.

Second, 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.

Once we identify the right target audience, we 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, therefore 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.

RESULTS:

Four Rivers H-D® just finished up their first of many Sharp Shooters. Paducah, KY is not a huge city with a population of just 25,000 people. For their first campaign, we marketed to 5,000 people and had over 1,000 responses! A total of 1,012 surveys were completed, which created a total of 368 sales opportunities in P&A, Service, and riding gear, PLUS 163 responses for a new or used bike. They said, “Traffic was great. Sold some units and over the counter sales were great all day.” Along with their Account Executive at Powersports Marketing, Four Rivers is planning out their next 12 months of marketing.

LOOKING FORWARD:

What’s next? September and October means the New Models are arriving! New models to your customers is better than Christmas morning is for most five year olds. No matter what brand(s) you carry, this is the one event you don’t want to miss! If you’re a Harley Dealer, you’re required to host a New Model Open House between September 22nd & September 25th. Let us make this the best new model open house you’ve ever had and kick start the 4th quarter. 

For more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help put more control over the growth of your dealership in your hands, give me a ring on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or visit us at www.PowersportsMarketing.com. Happy selling.

DEALERSHIP:

In 1978, Chuck and Mary Cox made their dream a reality when they opened Hampton Roads H-D in Yorktown, VA. Today,

they’ve grown that single store into a five store dealership group that includes Southside H-D, Harley Haven, Revolutionary H-D and Virginia Beach H-D. Still family owned, they devote their success to their legendary customer service and the many long-standing relationships built over the years.

SOLUTION:

There’s really two types of dealers out there…there are market driven dealers and then there are marketing driven dealers. A market driven dealer makes reactive advertising decisions and randomly pays for one-and-done billboard, radio, TV, and newspaper campaigns because they know they should be advertising. No one says you can’t grow the business with poor advertising, but a lot of the growth dealerships experience comes from well-timed weather, an improving market and economy, or a focus on sales process and training. Customers are solar powered; when the suns out they’re out. When the market is up, business is up; when it’s down, business is down. A marketing driven dealer has a pro-active, integrated, direct marketing plan designed to touch their buying base 52 to 104 times per year that is quantifiable. Barring natural disaster, a marketing driven dealer experiences predictable growth. 

The Sharp Shooter Program puts more control in dealers’ hands by implementing a S.Y.S.T.E.M. for Predictable Growth. Here’s how:

1) We Grow Your Active Customers, defined by folks who’ve spent money with your dealership in the last 12 months. We do this by reactivating lost customers (those who haven’t spent money with you in the last 12 months) and by driving new customers through the door (these are competitor’s customers and orphan owners that ride what you sell, live in your backyard but have never bought from you). If we can increase the number of customers who do business with you each year, your business will grow.

2) We Increase Your Annual, Average Customer Value by increasing the frequency of visits to your dealership. Let’s face it, when your customers walk through your doors, they are kids in a candy store…they can’t help themselves but to spend money. If we can just increase the amount of times they visit your dealership each year, they will buy more parts, more accessories, more gear, they’ll service their unit more often and they’ll shorten their trade cycle. We know past customers who are loyal (they like, know and trust you, so your closing ratios go through the roof along with your margin) are less likely to haggle over price.

By focusing all your time, energy and marketing dollars on driving past customers and other riders in your backyard who haven’t bought from you as frequently as possible, you will grow your business predictably despite the weather, market or economy.

Once we identify your Buying Base, we give them up to 12 opportunities to respond to a survey site to capture contact information and generate leads for every department of the dealership, and walk through the dealership’s door on event day. Short-term, Sharp Shooter Events drive a ton of traffic and typically generate hundreds of leads from proven riders in our clients’ backyard. Some dealers make the mistake of doing a one-and-done campaign because that’s what they’re used to doing, only to do another one month’s later. The real secret to predictable growth lies in consistently marketing to your Dealership’s Buying Base. Your goal should be to touch your customers 52-104 times per year. At this frequency, you are guaranteed to create affinity with your buying base, increase frequency of visits to the dealership and ultimately grow sales in all departments. Give them more reasons to walk through your door, and they will buy more from you.

RESULTS:

Danny & Chad Cox attended our Spring Marketing Boot Camp and quickly tried their 1st Sharp Shooter in March. At the time of this article, they are planning their 5th Sharp Shooter event with us. One fundamental component of the program is focusing the message on the party and not the sale. This is exactly what Hampton Roads H-D did with their St. Patrick’s Day Party, Spring Open House and Memorial Day Event. Most dealers think if you don’t have a ‘sales focused-message’, they won’t sell anything. Hampton Roads generated a total of 287 new and pre-owned unit leads in their first three SS campaigns by focusing on the party!

So for the fourth campaign, they decided to throw a tent sale wrapped around a party and made sure to invite the 287 people who said they wanted to buy a bike. They sold 75 bikes in the first four days of June during their 4-Day Tent Event. This month they’re back to planning parties with their 4th of July Celebration on July 1st-3rd.

LOOKING FORWARD:

What’s next? Before marketing with us, some of our clients made the mistake of pulling back their marketing dollars in the summer hoping for good weather and a stable economy to keep their business going. Don’t make that mistake. Be a Marketing Driven Dealer by focusing on touching your buying base 52-104 times this year and make some more hay while the sun shines. 

For more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help make this the best summer you’ve ever had, give me a ring on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or visit us at www.PowersportsMarketing.com/sample-campaigns. Happy selling.

Arkport Cycles is a family-run business since 1972. They are a Top 100 Dealer and one of the largest dealers in New York State for H-D, Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, & Arctic Cat. 

The Sharp Shooter Program starts by finding every real opportunity you have to sell a unit in your backyard. This is exactly where we started with Arkport Cycles. We call these folks your ‘Dealership’s Buying Base’ and it’s made up of two types of customers 1) Past Customers who’ve spent money with the dealership in one of your departments in the last four years and live in close proximity to the dealership and 2) Conquest Customers, or people who ride what you sell, live in your backyard, but haven’t bought from you. These are competitor’s customers and other orphan owners in your local market area. If you focus all your time, energy and marketing dollars on driving these two groups of customers through the door as frequently as possible, you will grow your business.

Once we identify the Right Audience, we give them up to 12 opportunities to respond to a survey site to capture contact information and generate leads for every department of the dealership, and walk through the dealership’s door on event day. Short-term, Sharp Shooter events do an excellent job of giving dealers a shot in the arm. They generate hundreds of leads from proven riders in their backyard, and typically drive a ton of traffic on the day of the event. But the real secret lies in consistently marketing to your dealership’s Buying Base. Your goal should be to touch your customers 52-104 times per year. At this frequency, you are guaranteed to create affinity with your buying base, increase frequency of visits to the dealership and ultimately grow sales in all departments. How? At the end of the day, your customers are kids in a candy store and they can’t help themselves but to spend money when they’re standing on your showroom floor. Give them more reasons to walk through your door, and they will buy more from you.

This is exactly what happened with Arkport Cycles’ Armed Forces Day Event. They had food, drinks, door prizes and more. After executing thousands of events with over 700 dealerships, we’ve proven that focusing your message on the party is enough to drive a lot of high-quality traffic through the door and create hundreds of sales opportunities.

For this event, Arkport Cycles targeted customers through direct mail, integrated emails, an integrated call blast, event signage, fliers, a web banner and more. Each piece of communication incentivized customers to go online and complete a survey and the results were incredible. There were 586 surveys completed, which created a total of 465 sales opportunities in P&A, Service, and riding gear, PLUS 103 responses for a new or used bike. Anything over a 1% response rate is considered a HUGE success for direct mail, and Arkport Cycles’ campaign resulted in a 23.44% response rate! More than 20 x’s the national average. 

Jenny Swarts, GM of Arkport Cycles said, “It was a great event! Traffic was amazing the day of the event despite the weather looking like it was going to rain. Sold a few bikes the day of the event and are working a few more.”

What’s next? Summer has arrived! July and August mean Independence Day/Patriotic -Themes and Dog Days of Summer Events. These are some of the biggest reasons to market to your buying base. If you don’t already have events on the books for these two, get them planned today. Check out the insert for samples of some proven winners in July and August.

For more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help make this the best summer you’ve ever had, give me a ring on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or visit us at www.PowersportsMarketing.com/sample-campaigns. Happy selling.

Two different dealers, located in polar opposite marketing areas of the country, just finished their first Sharp Shooter Program the past couple weekends. 

Shenandoah, located in Virginia, is used to having perfect riding weather this time of year getting them ready for spring. Vandervest H-D®, located in Green Bay, Wisconsin, never knows what the weather will bring in late March. Unfortunately, for both dealerships, they both got a snowstorm!

Get a better result out of their marketing dollars

 The Sharp Shooter program, at least on some level, is weatherproof. We only market to proven riders in your backyard (past customers and competitor’s customers). So even if Mother Nature drops a foot of snow on top of your dealership three days before your event, the Governor declares a, ‘State of Emergency’, and not a single customer walks through the door, you can still sleep well at night knowing that every penny spent on a Sharp Shooter Program hit a proven rider. That is a HUGE victory over any and all other types of mass media advertising. In order to grow your business, you need to ‘touch’ your

buying base 52-104 times per year. The Sharp Shooter program helps our clients achieve this critical number much faster, by utilizing up to 12 touches per campaign including direct mail, emails, call blast, social media updates, event signage, fliers, web banner, lead magnet, survey site and even more. 

Having said that, there’s something even more powerful that helps make our clients events weather proof: The Survey Site. 

Every piece of communication is driving customers to a survey site, to capture First Name, Last Name, Email Address and Phone Number for future marketing. The more contact information you have on each individual customer or prospect, means the faster you’re going to be able to convert them into a sale. That means that the results on the day of the event are actually just a happy by product.

The Wednesday before the event is when we send over the Campaign Update, which includes a list of leads generated by the program so far. For both dealerships, Vandervest and Shenandoah, they had snow in the forecast. Erik Vandervest said, “The phones are ringing off the hook (because of the call blast), we’ve already set 5 sales appointments from the leads and everything’s working great…but we’re supposed to get a foot of snow tonight through 11 p.m. the following night (Thursday).” A foot of snow at the end of March is just plain bad luck. However, if Vandervest H-D had spent the money through any other type of marketing, they would have missed out on over 750 sales opportunities generated up to that point and over 150 new & used unit sales opportunities.

Below is the review they left for our team at www.PowersportsMarketingReviews.com:

Vandervest H-D: There were 987 surveys completed, which created a total of 803 sales opportunities in P&A, Service, and riding gear, PLUS 204 responses for a new or used bike.

The same was true for Shenandoah H-D. They too had snow in the forecast and it was supposed to be a balmy 30-something degrees on Saturday for their event.  Shenandoah ended up with 66 New & Used Bike Leads, 109 Parts & Accessories and 37 Service Leads and 92 MotorClothes Leads! On the day of the event, they rolled 3 units, $11,000 in P&A and $6,000 in MotorClothes with over an inch of snow on the ground. Since then, they’ve, rolled four more bikes! 

Erik said, “We had a really good turnout – got busy early and stayed busy all day. I think we sold 3 that day but did a lot of write-ups that day. Did $27,000 over the counter. It was a great day! Still working on following up on the leads.”

What’s next? May and June mean Summer Kickoff Parties. This is what you’ve been waiting for. If you don’t already have a Kickoff to Summer Open House on the books, plan one today. Check out the insert for an example of a proven winner for May or June.

For more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help kickoff your Summer Selling Season with a bang, give me a ring on my direct line at 

877-242-4472 ext: 112 or visit us at www.PowersportsMarketing.com and click ‘Sample Campaigns’. Happy selling.

Desert Wind H-D®, located in Mesa, AZ, is the sister store to Loess Hills H-D®.

Desert Wind H-D® recently bought Chester’s Harley-Davidson® and was looking for a solution for them to get better results with the 1-3 events they were having at the dealership per month. Historically, the dealership had advertised their events mainly through radio, TV and email blasts. After hearing about the success of the Sharp Shooter Program at Loess Hills H-D®, which includes more than 20 bikes sold and hundreds of additional new & used unit leads in just three events, they decided to give the program a try. 

Dealers typically get much better results using our Sharp Shooter Program than they do with traditional advertising for a number of reasons. The biggest one, is that only 3-6% of the people in any given market area ride what you sell. That’s it. That number hasn’t moved much since the 70’s and even if non-enthusiasts find

$20,000 stuffed under Grandma’s couch cushion, they’re not all of a sudden just gonna walk through your doors and buy a bike or side by side; they’re going to buy a new car or remodel their house. Why? Because they don’t ride. When dealers use Mass Media Advertising, $.94-.97 on the dollar are hitting those customers. The others? Many are missing their message because of satellite radio, Bluetooth streaming capabilities, DVR, thousands of channels and more.

The #1 reason a new customer joins the industry is through the influence of friends and family (not advertising). It boils down to the fact that you have thousands of dollars to spend to impact your business and the OEM’s have millions. It’s not your job to turn a non-enthusiast into a rider…that’s the job of the OEM. With your limited dollars, it’s your job to identify proven riders and increase the frequency of visits to your dealership. 

This is where the Sharp Shooter Program and Powersports Marketing shine. We find every real opportunity you have to sell a unit in your backyard. We call these folks your ‘Dealership’s Buying Base’ and it’s made up of two types of customers 1) Past Customers who’ve spent money with the dealership in one of your departments in the last four years and live in close proximity to the dealership and 2) Conquest Customers, or people who ride what you sell, live in your backyard, but haven’t bought from you. These are competitor’s customers and other orphan owners in your local market area. If you focus all your time, energy and marketing dollars on driving these two groups of customers through the door as frequently as possible, I guarantee you will grow your business.

This is exactly what happened with Desert Wind H-D’s ‘Riding for the Long Haul’ party at their dealership on March 12th. They had food, drinks, door prizes, live music a stunt show and more. After executing thousands of events with over 700 dealerships, we’ve proven that focusing your message on the party is enough to drive a lot of high-quality traffic through the door and create hundreds of sales opportunities.

For this event, Desert Wind H-D targeted 2,500 total customers through direct mail, and even more through integrated emails, an integrated call blast, event signage, fliers, a web banner and more. Each piece of communication incentivized customers to go online and complete a survey and the results were incredible. There were 319 surveys completed, which created a total of 264 sales opportunities in P&A, service, and riding gear, and 70 responses for a new or used bike. Anything over a 1% response rate is considered a HUGE success for direct mail, and Desert Wind’s campaign resulted in a 12.67% response rate! More than 12 x’s the national average. 

Deb Metcalfe, GM of Desert Wind said, “It was a great event! We were busy all day.” The parts counter sold $4,691 and the MotorClothes department did $6,132 in sales.  According to Deb, they had “great counter sales and sold at least one bike.” Deb’s already planned her next event for April 16th with a Heat the Streets Party. 

Sharp Shooter events do an excellent job of giving dealers a shot in the arm. They drive a ton of traffic and typically generate a hundred if not hundreds of leads from proven riders in their back yard. But the real secret lies in consistently marketing to your Dealership’s Buying Base. Your goal should be to touch your customers 52-104 times per year. At this frequency, you are guaranteed to create affinity with your buying base, increase frequency of visits to the dealership and ultimately grow sales in all departments…because at the end of the day, your customers are kids in a candy store and they can’t help themselves but to spend money when they’re standing on your showroom floor. Give them more reasons to walk through your door, and they will buy more from you.

What’s next? SPRING. IS. HERE. April and May mean Spring Kickoff Parties. This is what you’ve been waiting for. If you don’t already have a Spring Open House on the books, plan one today. Check out the insert for samples of some proven winners in April and May.

For more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help kickoff your Spring Season with a bang, give me a ring on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or visit us at www.PowersportsMarketing.com/Sample-Campaigns. Happy selling.

Loess Hills H-D® gets its name from the corrugated, sharp bluffs formed from the last ice age, they can see just east of the dealership located new the Nebraska/Iowa Borders and the Missouri River. Just a short drive from Omaha, Loess Hills H-D has a beautiful 30,000 square foot showroom, providing their customers with whatever they need to hit the road in style

 Loess Hills H-D® has a huge growth goal. In 2015, they finished the year at 400 new & used units and are trying to get to 375 new and 325 used (for a total of 700 units) in 2016. Increasing traffic and opportunities to sell bikes at their monthly events was a key objective.

In order to help them achieve their growth goal, we started by cleaning up their database to identify folks who were most likely to respond and buy. Many dealers feel like they ‘own’ their past customers because they’ve purchased from them in the past. Loess Hills H-D® understands that even the best dealership in the country can increase frequency of visits, reactivate lost customers and increase their annual customer value. We identified past sales, service and parts customers who’ve spent money with the dealership in the last four years and lived closest to the store.

Once we identified the ‘Right Audience’, we went after them with the ‘Right Media’. We utilized over a dozen direct-marketing strategies to guarantee the target audience is reached multiple times leading up to the event. This drastically increases traffic and response to the survey site where we gather two pieces of information: 1) Contact Information and 2) What they want to buy from the dealership. This typically generates hundreds of leads for not only unit sales, but parts & accessories, MotorClothes® and service as well.

Most marketers would tell Loess Hills H-D®, that in order to sell more units, they would have to have a sale. The challenge with focusing on the sale, is that you alienate the 99% of customers who didn’t have ‘Buy a new bike’ on their ‘Top 5-things to do list’ that week. By focusing on their ‘Ink And Iron’ Event, they got more folks to respond, and created many more sales opportunities for all departments and they got to hold more margin along the way.

?January Event:

Ink & Iron

There were 368 surveys completed, which created a total of 303 sales opportunities in P&A, service, and riding gear, PLUS 67 responses for a new or used bike. In addition to the leads, on January 30th, they had over 500 people at the event and the best day of the entire month!

?February Event:

Cabin Fever Party

There were 350 surveys completed, which created a total of 304 sales opportunities in P&A, service, and riding gear, PLUS 66 responses for a new or used bike. Check out the email Josh Rapplean, his Account Executive, received after the event:

?March Event:

After the results of their first two events, they’ve decided to bump up their total amount of customers to 4,000, of which 2,500 are past customers and 1,500 new H-D owners, who live in their backyard, but haven’t bought from them. Looking forward to hearing how their St. Patrick’s Day Party on March 12th goes. In executing thousands of campaigns for dealers in every corner of the country, we know this type of consistency will ultimately produce the results dealerships are looking for.

What’s next? Spring. March and April mean Spring Kickoff Parties, Tax Events, Bike Week and many more reasons to kick off the Spring Riding Season. If you’ve missed out on January and February, this is what you’ve been waiting for.  Check out the insert for samples of some proven winners in March and April.

For more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help kickoff your Spring Season with a bang, give me a ring on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or chat us up at www.PowersportsMarketing.com. Happy selling.

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

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

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

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

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

Black Friday Campaign:

Naughty List Party:

Out of just 2,500 records, their Sharp Shooter Campaigns are averaging close to a 10% response rate, or 10 times the national average for direct mail marketing. 
 

What’s next? By the time you read this, January is in the books and we’ve moved on to February. February is the unofficial kick off to spring. That may sound ridiculous depending on what part of the country you’re in, but it’s true. Come February, your customer base is so sick and tired of months of cold and snow and cabin fever, they want nothing more than to get invited to your dealership for a party. Come February, you’re just a few short weeks away from riding season. The events you did in December and January planted seeds that have been watered and fertilized and are about to explode into a flood of bike sales. Don’t miss out on February. Don’t wait until March, April and May because if you do, you will miss out on sales to your competition.

February brings Mardi Gras, one of the biggest parties of the year, Valentine’s Day, which our clients have proven isn’t just for women and the jewelry industry, Spring Kickoff Parties and so many more reasons to keep your buying base engaged with your dealership. Check out the in

sert for samples of some proven winners in February. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed in the results.

For more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help kickoff your spring season with a bang, give me a ring on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or request information at www.PowersportsMarketing.com. Happy selling.

At Powersports Marketing, we have a Book of the Month Club. The entire sales team reads one book per month focusing on sales, business or self-development. Our December book is called Fanatical Prospecting, by Jeb Blount. Jeb says, “Miss even a single day of prospecting and you will pay for it in the near future. Miss a week, and you will destroy a month of sales.” 

Many Powersports Dealers fail to catch Jeb’s point with regards to their marketing because they fail to plan. They end up shooting from the hip and getting sucked into lengthy Radio, TV, Billboard and/or Newspaper contracts that claim to start their business on fire. 

What ends up happening is they fail to prospect for months or even an entire year because 97% of their advertising funds are hitting people who don’t ride, probably never will ride, and even if they fall into $20,000 they’re not all of a sudden going to walk into their dealership and buy a motorcycle. The vast majority of the 3% of riders who exist in their backyard are missing their message due to technology like satellite radio, Bluetooth compatible vehicles that stream internet radio, DVR and the internet.

So they don’t prospect, because they aren’t talking to their buying base. They’re not calling, mailing and emailing consistently to drive qualified traffic and generate an on-going pipeline of leads for each of their departments. Without a solid marketing plan to depend on, they depend on the weather, market and economy. 

Your plan for 2016 must include a consistent, multi-touch marketing program that targets your dealership’s buying base. These are made up of two groups of customers 1) Past sales, service and parts customers and 2) Conquest Customers, those who ride what you sell, live in your backyard, but have never bought from you. 

This should be the first step in planning your 2016 Marketing Calendar and we will help you with a FREE Market Analysis. We’ll determine where the majority of your sales come from in a radius around your dealership, then identify every past customer and conquest customer that own what you sell in that area. If the majority of your sales comes from within 30 miles of your dealership, once we’ve done this, you’ll effectively be marketing to every real opportunity you have to sell a unit in your backyard. With hundreds of existing campaign options and the ability to create custom campaigns, 2016 could be your best year yet.

You’d be amazed by the number of dealers upset about flat or declining numbers for years, but who continue to use the same marketing mix they have every year since the Bears last won the Superbowl. Those same dealers often tell me some of their biggest marketing challenges are 1) Quantifying the effectiveness of their marketing & 2) Getting a better Return On Investment.

You know what the definition of insanity is? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If you haven’t put your marketing plan in place yet for 2016, 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 2016 Marketing Plan?” 

Make this year the year you’re finally going to make the change. Join the list of over 700 dealerships who have used the Sharp Shooter Program to reach their Right Target Audience through the Right Media Channels with the Right Message at just the Right Time to grow their business.

Wolverine’s one of those dealers who plan their marketing out well in advance with multiple dealership events each month. For those of you who don’t think you can sell bikes and drive traffic with snow on the ground, check out what George did at Wolverine H-D last January 19th:
“I fed over 780 people one Saturday and had well over 1,000 people through the door. Rolled 6 units and planted a lot of seeds. It was incredible!”

The Sharp Shooter Program drove 1227 people to their custom URL with 1037 completing the survey.  Below is a snapshot of those results, which included 123 responses interested in upgrading their bike.

Those are incredible results for a dealership in any part of the country. However, the results on the day of the event are a happy by-product of following a consistent marketing plan, touching your buying base 52-104 times per year so that you can increase customer retention and carve off market share to grow your business quantifiably.

Four years ago they canceled $250,000 of advertising and started doing one Sharp Shooter per month. 2 years ago, they started doing 2 per month. In 4 years, they’ve grown from 600 units $11 million to 1200+ units, $30 million+ because they’re systematically touching their buying base over 104 times per year, and saving a ton of money in advertising.

For more information on the Sharp Shooter Program or to get started with your FREE Market Analysis to begin planning 2016 call me on my direct line 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or chat us up at www.powersportsmarketing.com. Happy New Year!

Tytler’s Cycle is a relatively new dealer located in De Pere, WI. They are rapidly expanding their OEM’s and now carry BMW, Victory, Indian & Ducati. 

Increase sales during the holiday shopping season by keeping past customers out of the ‘Big Box Stores’ and driving new customers through the door.

The Fat Man (Santa Claus) is a tough opponent. Something about presents under a tree make us go crazy. It’s estimated that $13.13 billion was spent last Black Friday alone, $36.69 billion during Black Friday Weekend and over 140 million people shopping between Thursday and Sunday the week of Thanksgiving. That number represents about 60% of American adults. Between Black Friday and Christmas, it’s estimated that Americans will spend $616.9 billion this year. With that surge in consumer spending comes a tremendous wave of advertising. The top 11 retailers in 2013 poured more than a quarter billion dollars into television advertising alone for Black Friday, according to the Wall Street Journal. Overall, according to Nielson.com, advertisers spent more than $2.5 billion in 2013, up from $2 billion five years ago. Whoa.

Trying to compete with the big guys through traditional media is impossible. You just don’t have the funds. Not to mention, 3.6% of the population actually buy what you sell, so 96%+ of the money being spent there falls on deaf ears. So, how do you cut through the clutter and beat the jolly fat man with your limited budget? Through multi-channel, direct-response marketing. 

To help them achieve their marketing goal, our Sharp Shooter Program targeted 2,600 of Tytler’s past customers and 2,600 conquest customers (people who ride the brands they sell and live within a few miles of the dealership, but had never bought from them) through a number of direct marketing strategies. By giving the customers many opportunities to respond and going direct to them as possible, we were able to cut through the clutter of all the other advertisements and drastically increase response. 

Of 5,200 potential respondents, there were 386 surveys completed for over a 7.4% response rate! The direct mail industry averages about a 1% response rate, so Tytler’s results crushed the national average over 7-fold. This created a total of 386 sales opportunities, 185 in P&A, Service, and Apparel, PLUS 109 responses for a new or used bike (as the chart illustrates below).

In addition to regularly working with Powersports Marketing on the Sharp Shooter Program, Quinn Kiley, Marketing Manager of Tytler’s Cycle, recently attended our Fall Marketing Boot Camp in Atlanta and left the following review about his experience:

By Quinn K. on October 29, 2015
De Pere, WI | General Department
In the powersports industry you are regularly approached with solutions to get the word out about your business. Since day one of working with Powersports Marketing they have consistently built my confidence in the results of their solutions. Now, having attended their Fall Harvest Boot camp, I have accelerated the process for building a successful game plan. I felt like I was walking away with a masters in marketing in the powersports industry. They walk you through the why and the how to approach each channel. We now have the tools and resources to cut through the noise and build a better business for our clients. Powersports Marketing is a fantastic organization with great people that truly cares about helping you build the best business for your clients. Highly recommend their work and look forward to continuing to work with them in the future.

Quinn and his team are following up their Black Friday event with a Christmas event to ensure they are capturing as much of their customers wallet share this holiday season as possible.
 

What’s next? By the time this hits dealerships, January is just around the corner. January is a tough opponent for many dealerships out there. For many parts of the country, it’s cold and there’s snow on the ground. A lot of dealers let their past experiences tell them to ‘hold off until spring’ and ‘save their advertising budget for the riding season’. Don’t. 

Even in January, it’s almost impossible to not generate a positive return on investment…meaning, more gross profit is generated directly from the sales of the event than what was spent on the marketing. More importantly though, it keeps your buying base engaged with you, it gives them a reason to come down to the dealership and shake off some cabin fever, impulse purchases happen and it generates a list of leads for your staff to call and drum up business when otherwise there would be crickets. Check out the insert for some proven winners in January. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

For more information on how the Sharp Shooter Program can help kickoff your 2016 season with a bang, give me a ring on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or chat us up at www.PowersportsMarketing.com. Happy selling.
 

H-D of Indianapolis’ history begins back in 1976. Picture this: Gerald Ford was the president; “One Flew Over the Cockoo’s Nest” won Best Picture at the Academy Awards; “Send in the Clowns” by Stephen Sondheim was Song of the Year; and the Dellen Automotive Family took its first step into the world of motorcycle sales.

For thirty five years, Harley-Davidson of Indianapolis has been a family-owned business. One of the leading dealers in the Midwest, they take pride in ‘going the extra mile’ to provide the best possible experience for their customers and it shows. 

To keep customers loyal, H-D of Indianapolis knows the importance of giving their customers compelling reasons to come back time and time again. This is especially important for a Midwest dealership in the 4th quarter and H-D of Indianapolis has put a plan in place to stay in front of their buying base during this critical time with a Halloween, Black Friday and 12 Days of Christmas Campaign. Between Halloween and Christmas, the average American household will spend more than 70% of their entire annual discretionary budget in those few short weeks. Where is that money going? Retail. Good news: We’re in the retail business! Billions of dollars are going to be spent online, at the malls and the big box stores. It’s your job to capture as much of that wallet share as possible. 

These guys are executing a consistent marketing plan to hit their buying base 52-104 times per year and in the process, they are increasing frequency of visits from past and present customers to impact retention and carve off new market share. By utilizing up to 12 multiple direct marketing channels per campaign, they’re guaranteeing their message is delivered several times, staying ‘top of mind’ with every real opportunity they have to sell a bike in their market area. As they continue to ‘warm up’ their buying base, they’re increasing traffic, leads and ultimately their ROI. 

Their last event on September 26th resulted in 253 people completing the survey, which included a total of 125 sales opportunities in Service, P&A and riding gear and 64 responses interested in getting a bike!
 
Despite not having the perfect weather, David Dellen, owner of H-D of Indianapolis said traffic was great and sales were up in all departments with several additional motorcycle deals working. 

Their holiday kickoff starts with a Halloween event, then the store will be gearing up for a Black Friday/Blacker Saturday Event and a 12 Days of Christmas Event.

Think you can’t beat the big box stores at their own game? You’re right. Trying to compete with the millions being spent over the airwaves and in print is, to quote Kenny Wayne Shepard, “blue on black, tears on a river, a whisper on a scream.” But, if you cut through the clutter and go direct to your buying base with several, compelling reasons to tell you who they are and what they want to buy from you, you can beat them. Don’t miss this opportunity to make a huge impact in your 4th quarter numbers. Check out the inserts for a few proven winners. To have Powersports Marketing build your dealership’s Buying Base and put a plan in place to hit them consistently for FREE, call me on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or chat us up at powersportsmarketing.com. Happy selling.

OPE Kawasaki is central New York’s only exclusive Kawasaki dealership, and the #1 Kawasaki dealer in their district. These guys have a racing background and are enthusiasts themselves, which means they get that this is a passion-based industry and truly understand what makes their customers tick. OPE’s biggest focus is making great connections with their customers and providing that ‘wow’ customer service experience.

OPE is no stranger to direct marketing. In fact, they have historically done six direct mail campaigns per year with mixed results. One of the missing ingredients was focusing on the Right Message. Most dealers think that in order to drive sales, they have to have a sales event. The challenge with focusing your message on the sale, is that it alienates the 99% of folks who didn’t have, ‘buy a bike’ on their top 5 things to do this list week. Our message focuses on the party. By focusing on the event details at the party, you’ll still get those guys, you’ll just get everyone else too, plant seeds for future sales and hold higher margin since you won’t be discounting. We all know your customers are like kids in a candy store once they’re in your store, so get them there, show them a good time and impulse purchases will happen. This is exactly what OPE focused their message on for their last event. Jason Britton came and performed a stunt show at the end of the day, they had food, demos, and even more.

Steve, OPE Kawasaki’s General Manager said, “We’ve been in business for 11 years, and this was the best event we’ve ever had. We have to credit the Powersports Marketing team and the support that you guys provided…it helped make it a greater success!” How

great? Steve said, “We had over 500 people show up. It was packed from when we opened until we closed. There were motorcycles parked all up and down Route 5, the main drag that goes up and down in front of the dealership. The lawn in the back of the dealership, every inch of it was packed with cars. And it was the media that you produced, how it went out, the schedule it went out on.” He particularly loved the impact of the recorded call blast. When it went out they, “…developed a ton of fans and a few haters, but that’s ok. Our phones rang back for probably an hour and 45 minutes! The whole staff helped answer the phone.”

Steve continued, “We didn’t just end up having a large crowd show up for the free stuff, we did a mountain of business over the counter. I think we sold 4 machines and planted a ton of seeds.”

OPE Kawasaki ended up having 214 completed surveys, which generated a total of 181 sales opportunities in Parts & Accessories, Service, Apparel and included 65 new and pre-owned unit sales. 

Steve said the leads were awesome and helped contribute to the residual impact of the campaign. He said, “I don’t always expect to seal the deal the day of the event, but the two weeks after the event, we killed it in sales. Not only were our numbers up, but our margins were up! When does that happen?”

These guys are creating affinity with their buying base by executing a consistent marketing plan by hitting the Right Target Audience with the Right Message. The other key to their success, was not hitting them with just one media channel (direct mail), but strengthening that direct mail with two integrated emails, an integrated call blast, event signage, web banner, fliers, and survey site. All this combined media gave their customers many more opportunities to respond, which drastically increased their response rate. Sent out at just the Right Time before the event, and you’ve got a winning formula.

October means Halloween! Tie a themed party like Halloween to the secret sauce of the Sharp Shooter Program and its scary how well it works. Halloween kicks off the 4th quarter, a time where consumers spend more than 90% of their annual discretionary budget. It is your job to capture as much of that revenue as possible and keep these folks out of the big box stores. By starting early, you plant seeds for Black Friday & Christmas. Don’t miss this opportunity to make a huge impact in your 4th quarter numbers. Check out the inserts for a few more proven winners. To have Powersports Marketing build your dealership’s Buying Base and put a FREE plan in place to hit them consistently, call me on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or chat us up at powersportsmarketing.com. Happy selling!

Roseville Honda is Northern California’s #1 Honda Dealership. As a Honda Powerhouse Dealer, they pride themselves on superior customer service. A quick look at their testimonial page will show they’re living up to that standard. One way they keep their customers loyal, is by having consistent events at the dealership. The challenge for most dealerships is how to market these events.

Consistency is key. Whether you’re talking about working out or marketing your dealership, consistency is the key to your success. 

According to a recent study in the Powersports Industry, it takes up to 28 touches to gain a new customer. A touch can be a mail piece, phone call, visit to the dealership, email, social media update, etc. What this means is, if you’re serious about carving off new market share, you have to be consistent. You have to be dedicated. You can’t send one mail piece to a group of customers who’ve never done business with you before, one time, and expect they all come running into the dealership waiving the mail piece begging to buy something.

The challenge is, many dealers lack a plan. When you lack a plan, you end up shooting from the hip and wind up just ‘doing something’ cause you feel like you need to ‘do something’. This type of marketing never gets the results you want. The results you want out of your marketing comes from first identifying the proven riders in your backyard. As an example, if the majority of your sales comes from folks that live within a 30 mile radius, we identify the people that ride what you sell within those 30 miles. There are two ways to find these folks 1) Past Sales, Service & Parts Customers who’ve spent money with your dealership in the last four years and 2) Everyone else that rides what you sell and lives within 30 miles from the dealership but haven’t bought from you. 

Once we’ve identified where the majority of your sales should come from, we put a plan in place to hit them 52-104 times per year with a value-added message. By using up to 12 direct marketing touches per month, you’re guaranteed to achieve this target of 52-104 touches per year. The Sharp Shooter Program uses a combination of integrated direct mail, emails, call blasts, web banners, event signage, fliers, social media updates and even more on each campaign. Each piece of communication incentivizes customers to go online and compete a survey so they can tell us who they are and what they want to buy from you. Over time, this style of marketing drives a ton of quality traffic to the dealership and generates a pipeline of leads for every department. Most importantly, it puts a fence around your herd, making your customers immune to other offers from other dealers. Roseville Honda is beginning to experience the payoff from using the Sharp Shooter Program consistently to market their events.

Lucky Lock Open House: April 18th

According to Lisa Anderson, Roseville Honda’s Marketing Manager, their last event was, “…a great event, one of our best, with lots of traffic! We had an autograph session with the Honda race team and gave a bike away which was won by a ‘regular’ so that was cool.” What was more important than the individual results of the day of the event was that she said that she could, “…see the consistency paying off. We had a higher response, no complaints on the call blast and almost no returned mail,” which she attributed to the fact that they have done several Sharp Shooters and have been able to clean up their lists, and she knows that, “people are now starting to expect to hear from us.” Roseville Honda is creating affinity with their buying base by executing a consistent marketing plan by hitting the Right Target Audience, through the Right Media Channels, with the Right Message and just the Right Time.

Over their past four campaigns, they have generated

653 sales opportunities for each of their departments, which include over 200 New & Used Unit Leads, and hundreds of hand raisers for Parts, Accessories & Riding Gear! The lead generation aspect of these campaigns, turns a weekend event into a month-long sales process allowing our clients the opportunity to grow their Return On their Investment exponentially over the weeks following their event.

September means New Model Open Houses! The majority of OEM’s are rolling out new models right now which means your customers are basically kids on Christmas Morning. If you don’t have an event on the books yet showcasing your new models, call us today to make this happen.  September also means Extend the Riding Season parties, Hunting Season events, and even more. Check out the inserts for a few more proven winners. To have Powersports Marketing build your dealership’s Buying Base and put a plan in place to hit them consistently for FREE, call me on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or chat us up at powersportsmarketing.com. Happy selling!

Mungenast Indian; Indian Motorcycle of Green Bay; Indian Motorcycle of Libertyville; Indian Motorcycle of Kansas City; Indian Motorcycle of Lafayette

Powersports Marketing helped give a boost to six midwest Indian Motorcycle dealerships with the Sharp Shooter Program. A natural starting point was to first build their dealership’s buying base, to identify what each dealership was working with for past customers and conquest folks in their backyard. This is a two-part data strategy. First, we focused on a dealership’s past sales, service and parts customers who’ve bought from them in the past 4 years. Next, we identified people that rode 600cc+ on-road cruisers and H-D owners that lived closest to the dealership, but had never bought from them. Once we had those numbers, we marketed to 5,200 customers per store with half going to past customers and half going to new customers. 
 

Two of the six dealers were new open points, which meant no current customer database. Removing the past customer database, removes two of the most effective poles in the water: the integrated call blast and two email blasts. It also means you’re marketing to a cold list, a group of customers who’ve never bought from that particular dealership. This campaign would literally act as an introduction to the store.

Once we identified who we were going to marketing to for each store, we created a custom “49 Degree” Campaign. The card asked, “Did you know it’s going to be 49 degrees at ___ Dealership this weekend?” Curiosity is a huge driver of response and this was a great hook to drive customers both to the survey site to capture contact information (email addresses and phone numbers, which was especially important for the two new points), and generate a pipeline of leads for every department. 

With the Right Audience and Right Message nailed down, we used our signature media channels and timing to generate maximum results. For all but the two new stores, we used a combination of direct mail, two emails blasts, a call blast, event signage, web banner, fliers, survey site and a lead magnet to drive traffic to the event and generate hundreds of leads per store.

Marketing to a 100% conquest list for two of the six locations, we expected a significant reduction in response. We were pleasantly surprised, when the average response rate for all six stores came back at a 5.5% response rate! Each store averaged 275 completed surveys, with over 119 Parts & Accessories and Service Leads generated and 86 New & Used Bike Leads! Again, that’s PER STORE. Fresh off our trip to the Polaris, Indian, Victory Dealer Meeting in Las Vegas last week, we were very pleased with the response from the participating dealers. Todd Gaines, Indian of Libertyville’s Dealer Principal, stated, “The 49 Degree Event was awesome! Traffic was crazy and we had a great day in P&A and service. We rolled 4 bikes with several more in the works!” The best part about the campaign? Each dealership is left with hundreds of sales opportunities in each department. Below is the full report by store. Needless to say, they should each sell some additional P&A, book some more service and sell some more bikes over the next few weeks:

If you’re an Indian Dealer reading this, go to www.PowersportsMarketing.com/49degrees.  For everyone else, it’s August, which means back to school for the kids and new models for the adults. These are two of the very best reasons to celebrate! So get involved with a ‘While the Kids are Away, Come In and Play’ event or a ‘New Model Open House’. These are two proven winners to move the needle in late August and Early September. But that’s not all, we’ve got lots of great excuses to market to you base this month. Check out the inserts for just a few examples. To have Powersports Marketing build your dealership’s Buying Base and put a plan in place to hit them consistently, call me on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or get more details at www.PowersportsMarketing.com/49degrees.  Happy selling!

Walters Brother’s Harley-Davidson has a long and storied history. In 1921, they started as Walters Brothers Motorcycle and Bicycle Shop by brothers, Ambrose (Bruce) and Robert (Bob), becoming Walters Brother’s Harley-Davidson in 1922. Bruce built a new store in Peoria, IL in 1949 and Wayne Weibler began working for him as an apprentice in 1951. Wayne would go on to buy the dealership in 1979, building a new facility in 1998 and bringing his sons, Steve and Scott, and nephew Bill Wiebler into managing the business in 2012.

Holding a monthly event at the dealership is a great excuse to market to your buying base with a compelling message.  The first step is targeting the people who are most likely to respond and spend money at the store. We don’t care about anyone else. It’s not your job to convince a non-motorcycle/enthusiast to join the industry. That’s the job of the manufacturer. With your limited time, energy and budget, your job is to get the best possible results for your money. The way to do that, is to identify your buying base. These is a combination of past customers and conquest customers, or folks who ride what you sell, live in your backyard, but have never bought from you. Next, it’s time to hit them 52-104 times per year. That may sound like a lot, but the Sharp Shooter Program uses up to 12 different, direct marketing strategies per campaign (or month) to guarantee you are achieving your goal of 52-104 touches. The key here, is making sure you have the right message.
 

Think about some of your hobbies outside of the business, something your passionate about. I’ll use golf as an example. If a local golf store invited you into an open house once per month for food, drinks, demos on the new clubs, and more…would you attend at least one of them? Of course. Fact is everyone loves getting invited to a party. So, if your invite you buying base to a party at your dealership 12 times per year, over time you will own them.
 

We’ve proven that focusing your message on the party and not the sale is the fastest way to create affinity with your buying base, turn prospects into customers and achieve your best ROI. By focusing on the party/event, you’ll create many more opportunities by not alienating the 99% of folks who didn’t have ‘buy a bike’ on their ‘top 5 things to do this week list’. You’ll still get those guys, you’ll just get everyone else, plant seeds for future sales and hold higher margin since you won’t be discounting. With this style of marketing, the event doesn’t mark the end of your campaign, but the beginning of a month-long sales process working the leads that were generated. The actual results of the event are a happy bi-product of following a system to touch your buying base 52 to 104 times per year so that you can increase customer retention and carve off new market share.
 

Every month, there are several great, relevant excuses to market to your base. The theme of your party should be relevant to the broadest base possible and should tap into the conversation already going on in the heads of your customers. This is exactly what Walters Brother’s H-D did the weekend before the 4th of July with their ‘Stars, Stripes & Bikes’ Party.

The Wednesday before the event, we delivered the Campaign Update which includes a list of leads generated from the campaign up to that point. 

Walters Brothers marketed to 2,500 past customers and had 547 surveys completed, which created a total of 439 sales opportunities in P&A, Service, and riding gear, PLUS 92 responses for a new or used bike. This resulted in a 21.71% response rate, which is over 20x’s the national average for direct response marketing!

Our most successful clients don’t look at this program like an event marketing solution. You can’t do this once or twice per year and truly grow your business…just like you can’t go to the gym once or twice and expect to be fit. You’ve got to go consistently. But if you market to your buying base consistently, over time, you’ll own them. 
 

If you don’t currently have a plan in place to hit your buying base 52-104 times per year, call us today and we will help you identify that  group of customers is where the majority, it not all of your future sales should come from this year. The results you want out of your marketing start here. We’ve got lots of great excuses to market to you base this month. Check out the inserts for just a few examples. To have Powersports Marketing build your dealership’s Buying Base and put a plan in place to hit them consistently for FREE, call me on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or chat us up at www.powersportsmarketing.com. Happy selling!

It’s hard to believe, but by the time you read this, Memorial Day will be right around the corner and the industry will be escalating into full-swing, summertime madness. Hopefully, your 1st quarter wrapped up nicely, 2nd quarter is going strong and you have your eyes set on some lofty 3rd quarter goals. If you’re like many of our clients, you’ve recently finished up a big Spring Open House, Armed Forces Day Event, or you’re looking forward to a Memorial Day Campaign. 

It’s no secret that word of our success has traveled throughout the industry. In 2014 alone, (January-April) we’ve already worked with hundreds of dealerships and earned many success stories from our clients. This has made it extremely difficult to pick just one dealership to highlight in this article. So, I thought why fight it? Let’s share a few! Here are just a handful of incredible success stories from the last few weeks:

Motorcycles of Manchester (M.O.M.’s):

These guys just finished up their ‘Spring Open House’ and said it was the “Best Event in 15 years of ownership.  We SOLD 25 units on Saturday alone, and lined up a ton more.  Ran out of hot dogs and hamburgers in the first two hours, and bought over 500!  It was a great turn out as usual, fantastic event.  You guys Rock!”

Calumet Harley-Davidson®:

Calumet H-D® just finished up their ‘Have a Fling with Spring’ campaign and the results were ridiculous. They said, “We sold 8 units Saturday with more working and broke records for single-day sales in EVERY single department. Motorclothes & parts were just insane. Haven’t seen lines at the registers like that in years! There was a HUGE crowd and everyone was really excited about the event and all the marketing. It was a major success!” There were 1013 surveys completed, which created a total of 979 sales opportunities in P&A, Service, and riding gear, PLUS 145 responses for a new or used bike! They’re continuing to sell units from the leads generated as this article goes to print.

Southern Thunder H-D:

At their ‘Spring Bling’ event, the GM said, “There was a huge crowd! We had lines at every register all day long and rolled several units. Now that the traffic has left, the guys are eager to get started on all the new and used unit leads!” They have plenty of leads to go around. There were 1777 survey responses, including 265 people looking for a new or used Harley-Davidson. This equates to a 13.8% response rate and generated over 1,000 P&A, Motorclothes and Service Leads! 

As you’re probably aware, the Sharp Shooter Program focuses on the four fundamental components of marketing which are 1) Identifying the Right Target Audience 2) Surrounding them with the Right Media Channels 3) Hitting them with the Right Message and 4) Executing the campaign with the Right Timing. When you combine these four components, a couple of really fun things happen; you drive a ton of qualified traffic to an event at your dealership (your customers and your competitor’s customers), and you generate a pipeline of leads for every department of the store…which is exactly what happened for the dealerships listed above.

If you’ve missed out on the first part of the season, don’t worry, there are plenty of great reasons to market to your base the rest of the year. The best part of the riding season is just getting going and you can celebrate the kick-off to Summer with Backyard BBQ’s,  a 4th of July Event, Stunt Shows, Demo Days, Sizzlin’ Summer Events, Dog Days of Summer Parties and a whole lot more! Need help planning June and the rest of the year? Call me on my direct line at 877-242-4472 ext: 112 or chat us up at powersportsmarketing.com. We’ve got hundreds of designs and campaign themes that have proven to be effective in every corner of the country and we’re eager to help. Happy selling!