Articles

I spoke to a dealer this morning and, once again, the conversation turned to brand advertising. This happens a lot. So many dealers say, “We’re doing everything through the OEM. We’ve got our marketing covered.” Or, “We do radio and TV; our name is getting out there to everyone.” 

Brand advertising does have its place. If you’re Nike, Coca-Cola, Apple, then branding works well. If you’re in a niche industry, Powersports for instance, and only a tiny percentage of folks are likely to spend money with you, then brand advertising isn’t going to get you the results you truly want. 

In order to really benefit from your marketing, and see growth each and every month, you must put a pro-active, direct response strategy in place. Forget everything you’ve been told about simply blasting your dealership’s name across every airwave, billboard, and television screen you can, and focus on a call to action that drives traffic through your doors and generates leads. 

This particular guy was feeling the frustration of five inches of freshly fallen snow that came in overnight on the heels of some pretty incredible, early spring temperatures. He shared with me that the dealership had taken on an air of disappointment and the hope they had been feeling about a great first quarter had disappeared with the arrival of this blanket of doom on the ground. He had spent hard earned money on traditional mass media and the results he thought he had gotten from it were really just a byproduct of the good weather they had been having. 

I told him of one client we have in Wisconsin and how they had just experienced the two best months they have had in six and seven years, respectively. January and February in Wisconsin isn’t exactly prime riding season, yet, they had over a thousand proven riders respond - that’s right, I said respond - to the marketing. This resulted in 181 people who were interested in a new or pre-owned motorcycle giving their contact information directly to this dealer. When is the last time any of your current marketing did that for you? 

His response, initially, was to bet that this dealership was going to be slow this week, too, along with his, due to the weather change. I agreed with him that their door swings might be a little lower, but that no one would be sitting around playing on their smartphones, because they had over five hundred total sales opportunities to follow up on all week long from their February Sharp Shooter campaign. He didn’t have an argument for me on that point. Frankly, there isn’t one. 

Stop wasting your hard-earned marketing dollars on methods that you can’t truly quantify, are dependent on the weather, and whatever happens on the one day of your event is what you get. Stop it. 

Use that budget to target the right audience, which is going to be riders who will spend money with you. Then, give them multiple opportunities to respond to a compelling call to action, with a sense of urgency. Send out the right message, ensuring that you aren’t alienating anyone. Lastly, do it at the right time, so you are guaranteed the best possible response. 

That’s what our Sharp Shooter system does, time and time, again. We grow the number of active customers you have doing business with you, then we increase the number of times they come into the dealership each year. It’s a simple formula that yields major results. 

Call me today and let’s chat about how to put more control in your hands and truly grow your business. 

Marisa Tils 877-242-4472  ext 131

 OBJECTIVE 

Big Sky Harley-Davidson® has been dedicated to serving Great Falls, Montana and surrounding areas for more than 14 years.  Because of their northern, rural location, business is extremely seasonal (as most northern Harley dealers are already painfully aware). But, Owner, Brian Moen is a proactive and astute business-man with a strong, consistent marketing strategy and sales process in place.  So, Big Sky Harley-Davidson® is usually able to brave the winter months without dropping into the red.  But, just like most powersports dealers, Brian is always looking for the ‘magic bullet’ to help increase sales in the winter months and decrease some of the ebb and flow of our seasonal industry.

SOLUTION

Big Sky Harley-Davidson® has been a long-time Local Web Dominator(LWD) client, and has been using the Firestorm Email system to communicate with their past, current, & prospective customers on a regular basis.  But, the real excitement came when the LWD program rolled out the new Onboarding feature linked to the Firestorm Email system.  Onboarding allowed Big Sky Harley-Davidson to match website visitors (who had previously been anonymous) with their name and contact information – without the visitor having to fill out a form.  Additionally, Brian got an email each day with a list of customers, including their name, email address and phone number (if applicable), who were visiting his website the previous day and links to exactly what pages they were looking at.  Marketing Manager, Jeremy Rolfsmeyer, took that list of website visitors and used Firestorm Email to send them a targeted email featuring current promotions being offered at the dealership at that time. 

RESULTS

The results generated the kind of ‘magic bullet’ that Brian and his team had been looking for.  Check out what Jeremy had to say about the results of a single email generated in Firestorm from one Onboarding report: 

“Last week we used the onboarding tool to send a pointed directed email to customers based on what they did in the onboarding list…the results do not lie one damn bit.  And the following day, Jan 7th, we sold 8 bikes... in one day... in the middle of winter... more than what we sold the whole last month...in 2 feet of snow... nothing else going on at the dealership....”

Does your email marketing program generate those kind of quantifiable results?  If not, and you’d like to learn how Firestorm Email and Onboarding can generate sales for your dealership, regardless of the season, give us a call today at 877-242-4472. 

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.

I love Cajun cooking. Gumbo, jambalaya, and e’touffee. If it’s Cajun, I love it. 

A common theme in Cajun cooking is the presence of what they call “The Holy Trinity.” The trinity is onions, bell peppers, and celery. You see them as the base of some of the best food you’ll ever taste. It’s a proven recipe for success.

In the same way that Cajun cooking has a trinity, digital marketing has one as well. In digital marketing, the Holy Trinity is your web site, paid search, and social media.

When all three of these elements are in balance, the results are amazing. The trick is to keep them in balance – which should be a team effort, not an individual one.

Web Site – This is the foundation of your web presence. As we’ve discussed in previous articles this is your ‘conversion machine.’ The idea is for it to be streamlined for conversions with no roadblocks or distractions from it’s main purpose of turning browsers into buyers. Your web site provider, marketing manager, and dealer principal should be responsible for the initial design, with the marketing manager tasked with keeping it lean. The sales manager will be the key stakeholder in making sure that inventory listed on your site is current, has good pictures, and is priced correctly. It’s also the responsibility of sales to be proactive and jump on every lead that comes in as quickly as possible.

Paid Search – Paid search is the fuel for your web site. AdWords is the 800lb. gorilla when it comes to search marketing because most people who are actively searching are doing so with an intent to buy – which your web site will give them the opportunity to do. While designing your site for organic results has its place, paid search is where you should spend your money. An up and coming subset of paid search that is becoming more and more relevant is Facebook advertising. The demographic of motorcyclists fits perfectly into the Facebook user demographic. The ability to effectively (and inexpensively) drive traffic to your web site based on the demographic info available in Facebook is pretty amazing.

Whether AdWords or Facebook (preferably both), your marketing person should steer whatever professional company you use to achieve your marketing goals. I can’t think of a time when having someone in a dealership managing either has been more effective (or cheaper) than having a professional handle the execution.

Social Media – In the past year or so, my feelings about social media with regards to motorcycle dealerships has changed a great deal. If you had asked me two years ago, my answer was that it was a necessary evil. Now, if used properly, it can be a powerful tool.

I’m speaking primarily about Facebook. Maybe even only about Facebook.

First, Facebook fits the rider demographic about as perfectly as anything could, and it has a tremendous number of users.

Second, because Facebook is somewhat of a ‘closed universe,’ they can see what you like, share, and post. Over time, they develop a real understanding of who you are. While that may seem a little scary to you as an individual, as a marketer it’s a gold mine. Pinpoint, surgical accuracy in advertising through them is possible – and in some cases less expensive than AdWords.

Finally, people buy from people they know, like, and trust. Facebook allows you to create a history over time. Facebook is where you post all those things that used to go on your web site, only to be forgotten and left to go stale and make you look like you aren’t paying attention enough to keep your site fresh. 

With Facebook, you can post all those cool pictures of events, specials, people who bought bikes, concerts, or whatever. And there’s no need to go back and remove anything from history, because over time it allows browsers to see what a great dealership you have and begin to – you guessed it – know, like, and trust you.

Nothing is better than searching a dealership in Facebook and finding all kinds of pictures of the cool things going on there. Nothing is worse than searching for them and finding nothing.

This is also the perfect place for your marketing person to thrive. Take and post pictures, share funny pictures or videos, show personality and warm up browsers to your dealership. 

The important thing is to remember the dealership ‘Holy Trinity,’ because it is the path to success for your dealership. 

Want to learn how to put this in to practice in your dealership? Give us a call.

Talk Soon,

Brad

Picture a bucket, and visualize each one of your department transactions as pouring money into that bucket. If you’re like most dealers, you spend countless hours trying to figure out ways to get more money into the bucket. But the reality is, many dealers are so focused on how many units they’ve sold this month, that they fail to look inside the bucket and see just how many holes there are, and how many dollars are seeping out the bottom of the bucket.

Many moons ago, I had a hole in my bucket that was nearly as big as the whole damn bottom of the bucket. We owned a multi-line metric store and our PWC OEM had a recall on its most popular engine requiring a short block replacement, and a return of the core. There were a lot of these units out in the market and we were replacing engines left and right. Before I knew it, our warranty receivables on this one job had climbed to well over $25,000. Turns out, we weren’t sending back the cores, they were mysteriously disappearing out the back door and we ended up eating a big portion of that 25k. That one left a mark.

Obviously, there are many other places in the dealership that can spring a leak too, like obsolete P&A, and parts returns to vendors missing deadlines and losing eligibility, ancient and over appraised used inventory, abandoned service units, contracts in transit, and on and on. These are all tough best practices to master, but they are at least on the radar of most good operators. 

But there are some other holes in the bucket, that even the best operators can overlook. One of the most common we see here at PSM is not capturing customer or prospect’s name, physical address, and email address. In analyzing over 800 dealer data bases the average dealer has 43% with missing or inaccurate physical mailing address, meaning they only capture this information 57% of the time. Email is only captured 25% of the time, leaving a 75% shortfall, and on average the phone number is only accurately captured 56% of the time. 

When you invest in your facility and advertising you’re not just paying for the customers who buy from you, you’re paying for every walk in, phone up, and web lead regardless of whether they buy or not. As I’ve said in this newsletter a hundred times, your customer data base is your number one asset, and the key to consistent predictable growth is growing your data base month after month. It’s simple math, if you increase the size of your list and keep your conversion ratio and value per customer the same (which you can increase if you keep reading), you’ll achieve annual growth. 

The other often over looked hole in the bucket which builds off of the lack of customer informat

ion captured, is the lack of follow up with both sold and unsold leads. For easy math let’s say your annual monthly expenses are $100,000, and that generates a total of 500 sales opportunities that month (phone, walk-in and web).  This means that you paid $200 dollars for each sales opportunity. Now, let’s say that you made some type of sale in parts, service, or sales to half or 250 of those opportunities.

That leaves 250 leads that you didn’t sell to. If you do zero follow up with those 250 leads multiplied by the $200 you invested in each, you’re wasting $50,000 in opportunities. 

But let’s shift back to the 250 that you did sell to. Do you think that if you sent them a thanks for your business email after purchase, dropped them in an automated nurture email sequence including a Happy Birthday and Happy Anniversary message that you could increase retention? What if you invited them monthly down to a fun event at the dealership with free food, drinks, and door prizes, do you think you might increase the annual amount they spend per year? You bet you could.

Now back to the 250 leads that you didn’t sell anything to. Do you think if you captured their contact information and followed up by phone 

providing some new compelling information, that you may be able to get a few more of them to convert into sales? What if you add them to your master data base and also invite them monthly down to a party at the dealership? Do you think you might convert a few more of those $50 prospects into customers? You bet you could. 

When you plug these two hard to see holes in the bucket and capture customer contact information, and follow up with consistent relationship driven marketing to your entire database, you not only increase retention and grow new market share, you also boost referrals as well as re-activate lost customers. 

I’m not saying that plugging all these holes is easy, nothing worth having ever is, but thanks to marketing automation technology it’s much more scalable and less people dependent than ever before. 

To learn more contact us at 877-242-4472. 

Happy Spring!!

Good news… winter is over and spring is here! That means you’re about to be busier than a one-legged cat trying to bury a mouse on a frozen pond, if you’re not already. This is the time of the year when it can be tough to get things done. The late Ed Lemco called it “getting caught in the swirl”. It’s when the ‘important’ things you should be doing end up getting sidelined for the ‘urgent’ things that are happening all around you.

It takes incredible discipline to simultaneously work ‘in’ the business (doing the urgent things) and ‘on’ the business (creating and following your vision/values, improving, training, following a well thought out marketing plan, etc.) when it gets busy, but you have to make ‘working on it’ a priority. 

In the book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey devotes one of the habits specifically to time management. Habit 3: Put First Things First

He writes about how all the ‘things to do’ that come up on a daily basis can be divided into 4 Quadrants that differentiate between activities that are important and those that are urgent.

Important: Activities that lead to the achievement of your goals, both professional & personal.

Urgent: Activities that demand immediate attention, but are often not associated with the achievement of your goals, or are related to someone else’s goals.

The 4 Quadrants

1. Important & Urgent 

2. Important, but Not Urgent

3. Not Important, but Urgent

4. Not Important & Not Urgent

Following is more detail on each of the four. As the things to do pile up on you each day, I challenge you to decide which quadrant they fall into so you can start taking better control of your time.

Quadrant 1 – Important & Urgent – Things that fall into this quadrant include putting out fires, crises that arise, other pressing problems, and things/projects that are deadline-driven. If you’re not careful, this quadrant will occupy your time and leave little to nothing left for Quadrant 2.

Quadrant 2 – Important, but Not Urgent – Prevention, improving capabilities, team building, your culture, finding new opportunities, planning, recreation, exercising, and marketing. This Quadrant is where your focus & time should be spent, but it’s tough to live in this quadrant because it’s not Urgent. It doesn’t jump out and demand attention. 

Quadrant 3 – Urgent, but Not Important – Interruptions, some meetings, some calls/texts/emails, immediate pressing matters, popular activities.  This quadrant is tricky because the activities feel Urgent, they need to be done Right Now! Therefore, you want to jump on it and get it done. This quadrant can give you a false sense of accomplishment. You may have accomplished something, but the only problem is that it wasn’t Important, so you likely were wasting your time. 

Quadrant 4 – Not Important & Not Urgent – Trivial/busy work, time wasters (like constantly checking Facebook, YouTube, or playing games), some calls/texts/emails, etc. The endless amount of distractions around you every day fall into this Quadrant. Avoid them at all costs.

As you probably noticed, your marketing plan falls into Quadrant 2 – it’s extremely important, but it’s often not urgent. Especially during the busy season. But, as the old farming quote goes, “you have to make hay while the sun is shining.” 

The good, direct-response marketing you do right now, when it’s busy, will not only generate more opportunities for your team and profit for the dealership each month, it will also carryover in to the slower season and makes those months better as well. In other words, you can make your peak months even higher and your low months better too.

So, no, you shouldn’t consider turning off your marketing during the busy season. Instead, learn to live in Quadrant 2 for all things business, especially your marketing. Simply put, there is no higher valued and rewarded skill in this great country than the ability to get your product sold.

PSM can drive QUALIFIED traffic to your store, generate leads who raise their hands and tell you what they want to buy in New & Used Sales, Parts & Accessories, Apparel, and Service. This level of lead generation provides a positive ROI on what you spend. Hands down, every time.  And it’s even better in the Bull Market we have right now. Consumer confidence is super high and enthusiasts are spending money. 

If your focus is of the ‘digital sort’, PSM can drive traffic to your website with a more holistic approach than just SEM/PPC. We can increase your web leads/conversions, grow your online reviews, and even email you every morning a list of the customers who were looking at inventory on your website yesterday. 

Call 1-877-242-4472 for more info. Ask for me - I’m happy to help.

- Tory

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.

Congratulations to our 2016 ‘Voice of Customer’ Excellence winners! Earning this prestigious award is quite an accomplishment, as it’s not being issued because of financial contributions, politics, or other biased factors. This award is EARNED by the ultimate judge of ‘Excellence’ - your customers!

• National Dealer of the Year - Wolverine Harley-Davidson - Clinton Township, MI

• Region 2 Winner - Kissimmee Motorsports - Kissimmee, FL 

• Region 3 Winner - Indianapolis Southside H-D® - Indianapolis, IN

• Region 4 Winner - Thunder Mountain H-D® - Loveland, CO

Each of the winners will receive a plaque to prominently display in the dealership, email blast announcing their award, web graphics and badges to display on their website.

A special congratulation goes to our three-time national winner Wolverine Harley Davidson who has won this prestigious award for the third year in a row! 

For those of you who may not be aware, the ‘Voice of Customer’ Excellence Award is determined by a dealership’s Repeat and Referral Score (RRS).  The RRS is a pivotal industry metric that analyzes the comprehensive picture of a dealership’s reputation. The RRS is determined by using an algorit

hm that considers a dealership’s Voice of Customer (the combination of their customer reviews and feedbacks), the average review star rating, trending customer commentary by department, and the action of responding and handling these reviews and feedbacks in a timely manner.

This measurement is much more powerful than the traditional reporting of the Customer Service Index (CSI) and here’s why:

The CSI is a series of historical snapshots of limited information with no prescribed corrective action for dealers with a low score.  Whereas the RRS is a dynamic, fluid report with the ability to re-activate potentially lost customers in a real-time environment.  The RRS is a more accurate indicator of the overall performance of a dealership, and it provides dealers with the ability to have a thumb on the pulse of their customers’ satisfaction.

The purpose of this statistic is to provide a real-world, quantifiable perspective of how well a dealership is doing at cultivating repeat and referral business compared to other dealers across the nation.

The results have been amazing. All reviews are posted on our national consumer site www.powersportsdealerlocator.com which has almost 100,000 reviews from real Powersports customers.  PDL certified dealers have saved hundreds of thousands dollars in potential lost revenue through the ability to quickly and easily identify upset customers in real time before they choose to take their business elsewhere. 

We’re very grateful to be a part of the ‘Voice of Customer’ Excellence Award, but the real honor goes to the high performing dealers across the country, who have illustrated an intense focus on customer satisfaction and a dedication to continually improving their repeat and referral business.