Do you know how to boost your motorcycle sales? I do. I know of eight ways you can improve your motorcycle dealership marketing and increase your brand awareness and sales. With the right marketing mix, you can make your business stand out in the motorcycle industry.
By turning your efforts online, you can have a broader reach, which leads to more potential customers. These days, people don’t head to their local shop to see what’s available. They travel to a shop that has a specific bike that they want. You can use these eight marketing tips to boost your motorcycle sales.
1. Website Optimization
It isn’t enough to have a website these days. You need to make sure that it appeals to your target audience. It also needs to be optimized for SEO. This means using best practices to ensure you have a website that Google will think is useful. The more relevant and authoritative Google thinks your website is, the higher you will rank.
The way to do this is to target the keywords, or search terms, that people use to find you or your competitors’ businesses. Using these search terms signals to Google that you are talking about the same subject your audience is searching for. Take a look at your website design and make sure that each page has the proper amount of content, a meta description, images with alt tags, and a targetted keyword or two.
2. Online Ads
In conjunction with your organic rankings, you can pay for positions. There are a couple of different options when it comes to online paid advertising. You can pay for ads that show up at the top of the Google search results and through the display ad network. Then there are social paid ads for platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
You should use your paid ads as an element of your marketing campaign. Online ads shouldn’t be your sole source of leads. This will get expensive as time goes on. Instead, use your paid advertising to target key search terms. Or you could use them to promote specific promotions.
3. Social Media
Does your dealership have its own social media profiles? If not, you need to create them. This is an excellent way to engage with your current and potential customers directly. Social media marketing lets small businesses have a broader reach. Use your social media accounts to develop your brand profile and personality. Then promote the content you produce and any other information that your audience will want to see.
A balanced mix of original, curated, and promotional content will be the most appealing. Consider using paid advertising, such as Instagram and Facebook ads to reach people beyond your organic audience. The pricing is adjustable, so you can easily spend what your budget can afford.
4. Email Marketing
When someone is interested in a motorcycle, do you ask for their contact information to follow up with them? How about asking for an email? What about people who go through the process of buying a motorcycle? How do you keep in touch with them after the sale? Did you know that it is cheaper and easier to remarket to current and previous customers?
Develop an email list and start sending out marketing emails. You don’t need to get aggressive about your emails. Remember, too many, and you risk people unsubscribing. One successful method is to create a monthly newsletter of sorts. You can promote your latest informative content and keep people up to date on your dealership happenings.
This will feel more genuine and less like a promotional voice. It encourages people to connect with your dealership rather than tune you out. Then you can occasionally send out a promotional email with a seasonal special or specific sale. Another smart tactic is to separate your email recipients into categories. You can use demographic information to help you create biker personas for each category.
5. Content Marketing
Content marketing allows you to answer the questions that people have. Start by making a list of the most common questions your customers ask you.
Now create blog posts in text, images, or video that answer those questions. The goal is to create an authoritative voice. By producing quality and informative content, you build trust, and through this, generate leads. Create content that is a minimum of 500 words. For the best format, you’ll want to include an intro and conclusion.
Each piece of content should end with a call to action. This should be a statement that inspires an action that you want people to take. Since your goal is to sell motorcycles, a sensible call to action would be to direct people to your available motorcycles page. Or you could have people contact you.
6. Focus on the Experience
When was the last time you walked into a dealership and got inspired by that line of motorcycles on the showroom floor? There are usually several bikes of the same model all sitting close to each other. Displaying motorcycles in the same manner as new refrigerators is not inspiring or enticing. This isn’t the way to sell motorcycles.
So focus your marketing on the experience of owning and riding a motorcycle. Highlight the community you join when you venture out to events or go on group rides. Give people a taste of the freedom they’ll feel as they escape from their daily grind to become one with their machine.
7. Educate Your Sales People
Old-school sales tactics may work on a certain generation, but not others. Invest in training for your sales team so they can develop different strategies for the different people coming in to buy. Your sales team almost needs to act like marketers. They should know the important selling facts of your business and the products or services that you’re selling.
Talk to a representative from Harley-Davidson, Yamaha, or Honda and they will tell you everything about the company and motorcycles. They express a passion for the brand they represent that goes beyond the template selling strategy.
8. Partnering With Influencers
Before you write this idea off, hear me out. Us riders are a tight-knit community that turns to each other for advice and recommendations. If I need a new jacket, or I’m shopping for new headlights, I ask my fellow riders. Then I head online to read reviews and performance evaluations.
So why not leverage this for your motorcycles, accessories, and other products and services? Do not jump into this blindly; it can be easy to get starry-eyed by an “influencer” who has a couple of million followers. However, this doesn’t always translate to sales.
It is more important to ask about their engagement rate. These influencers may have a smaller following, but their followers are active and interested. This will be more effective as these people are more likely to buy.
Let’s Create Your Motorcycle Dealership Marketing Strategy
By implementing these motorcycle dealership marketing ideas, you can help attract new customers. You will no longer be limited to your immediate geographic area. Your efforts will increase your brand’s authority and trustworthiness. With this increased awareness will come more leads, which leads to an increase in sales.
Now all of this might sound like a lot of work, but nothing good comes for free. So if you don’t want to invest the time and effort to do these tips yourself, reach out to me. AnDel Marketing specializes in content marketing for automotive and motorcycle dealers so they can improve their digital marketing efforts.
