Holiday Motorcycle Marketing Guide
The march of time carries on. With Halloween behind us and Thanksgiving around the corner, you are already behind in getting your seasonal holiday marketing together. So, what are you going to do? Sure, you could throw out a “Merry Christmas” or “Holiday Holidays” on social media. But that usually happens on the holiday. You missed a perfect opportunity to market your business. So, let’s do things differently this year with some holiday motorcycle marketing for your business.
Table of Contents
Impact of Seasonal Marketing
Seasonal marketing can help drive business by encouraging your target audience and customers to make a purchase. The goal is to move potential customers through the marketing funnel. Seasonal marketing can encourage someone who has been thinking to purchase to finally act on their decision. You can also motivate people to purchase who haven’t thought about making a purchase. These would be impulse purchases.
Before you start planning your next seasonal marketing campaign, look at what you have done in the past. If you have never done a seasonal promotion, then there is nowhere to go but up! If you have done a seasonal campaign, ask yourself a few questions. By asking these questions, you can get a better idea of how effective your seasonal marketing efforts were.
- What product or service did we promote?
- What marketing content and materials did we create?
- Where and how did we promote it?
- What ROI did we achieve from our efforts?
Identifying Key Holidays
Of course, you can identify all of the national holidays. These are a given for creating a motorcycle marketing campaign. However, they aren’t your only option. Look for days and events that are important to people who ride motorcycles. For example, if you sell a particular motorcycle manufacturer, celebrate brand milestones. You can do the same with your company milestones. Then, there are yearly events that take place. Create a marketing campaign that is well-timed with Daytona Bike Week, Laconia, or Sturgis.
You can take the same approach if you are a local business. What local holidays and events does your community recognize? I live in the Tampa Bay area. So here, a motorcycle business could create a marketing campaign around Gasparilla, St Pete Bike Fest, Chasco Fiesta, and many more.
Crafting Seasonal Marketing Campaigns
You don’t have to wait for a holiday to have a seasonal marketing campaign. I am willing to bet there is a motorcycle riding season in your area. Even here in Florida, where we ride throughout the year, there is a riding season. You can time your marketing campaign around the start or end of the motorcycle riding season.
Creating Limited-Time Offers
Create a sense of urgency with your holiday marketing. This will motivate people to act sooner rather than wait until later. You could simply rely on the fact that the holidays are coming. However, this is standard messaging, and you risk your holiday campaign getting lost in the noise.
Another option is to create multiple promotions that are only available at specific times. For example, one product is discounted for a week. Then another product is discounted for the second week. For the third week, you could offer free shipping. With this approach, you reach a broader audience by extending your promotions and featuring more than one benefit.
Engaging Social Media Strategies
Extend your holiday marketing campaign to your social media. Create a short message that conveys the most important information. This could be an event you are hosting, seasonal products, or limited-time offers. Use a compelling original image to pair with your written content. Another great option is to host a social media contest or challenge. This will help increase engagement and reach. These types of promotions can last several weeks or a month.
Seasonal Product Releases
For motorcycle companies that sell products, consider creating a limited edition seasonal product. These are small promotional items that are at a low price point. The idea is to draw people in with the limited edition item. Then, you convince them to purchase more while in the store. Harley Davidson does this well with a series of small seasonal items. I find myself going to the local dealer every year to grab my father a Harley Davidson Christmas tree ornament.
Tailoring Email Marketing Campaigns
Use your email marketing list to get the word out about your campaign. If you have a general list, simply sending out an email is a great start. If you have segmented email lists, you can personalize your email passages. This creates a better connection with the recipient and increases engagement. For example, if you have a list of people who bought a bike in the last three months, send them holiday marketing for bike accessories to customize their new bike. If you have a list of gear purchasers, you could send them a holiday promotion about other gear. If you have a list of people who showed interest in your business but never made a purchase, your holiday campaign could be to re-engage these people and motivate them to buy.
Hosting Seasonal Events
The local motorcycle shops in my area all host or co-host events. They could be something simple as family picture day. You bring your motorcycles and your family and get your picture taken in front of a themed backdrop. Or you could plan something more elaborate, such as a party with food and a band. Many promote a charity for their event, such as Toys for Tots.
Consider motorcycle brand cross-promotion with companies that are in or adjacent to the motorcycle industry. This will reduce the overhead cost of hosting the event. It will also increase your reach as they promote your co-event. With plenty of vendors involved, you are more likely to bring in a crowd. Try to look for companies that offer shopping opportunities that would appeal to motorcycle owners and riders. This lets them do more of their holiday shopping in one place.
Another option is to go in the exact opposite direction. If your target market doesn’t dive headfirst into the holidays, you may want to host an anti-holiday event. Give people an escape and relief from the holiday overload.
Decor and Merchandising
If you have a physical location that customers come to, don’t forget to decorate. You don’t have to create a winter wonderland. However, you need to do enough to create messaging continuity. Someone coming to your business will expect to see similar messaging that they saw in advertising or social media.
Building Emotional Connections
One approach to your motorcycle marketing is to take an emotional approach. Build deeper connections with your target audience by tapping into common core memories. Using this approach helps you tap into positive emotions.
Measuring the Success of Seasonal Campaigns
Once the holiday season is over, it is time to evaluate the results of your efforts. While the obvious hope is that you get more customers through sales, this may not be your only goal. Start by calculating your sales and revenue, conversion rate, and customer acquisition cost. All of this will tell you how much money you made and what it cost you to make those additional sales.
Next, look at how your target audience interacted with the different marketing channels where you promoted your holiday campaign. Look at website traffic, click-through rate, email engagement, and social media engagement. This will tell you where you most successful at reaching your target audience. Next year, you can put more effort into your most effective communication channel.
Finally, look at the promotion code rate usage, average order value, and customer lifetime value. This will tell you how your holiday campaign influenced your customer’s buying habits. Your sales could have gone up, but the promo code was rarely used. Or perhaps your customers heavily used the promo code, but the average order value also went up. This means you brought your target audience in with the lure of a code, and they ended up sending more than they normally would.
Overcoming Challenges in Seasonal Marketing
One of the biggest challenges of executing a holiday motorcycle marketing campaign is time. The best thing you can do is start early. The sooner you get started, the more affordable things will be, and the less stress you will feel. Starting early also lets you plan for inventory supply challenges. You don’t want to promote a product and then run out of it mid-promotion. Work with your suppliers, sales team, inventory management team, customer service, and shipping team. Let everyone know what the plan is. This allows for each department to ramp up in preparation for increased customer demand.
Plan Your Seasonal Motorcycle Marketing
Seasonal marketing can inspire purchases, lure in new customers, and create a sense of belonging. Create urgency with limited-time offers, extend your reach through engaging social media strategies, and consider hosting events or collaborating with nearby businesses. Leverage email marketing, consider limited-edition seasonal products, and tap into shared emotions to connect on a deeper level. Overcoming challenges like time constraints is easier when you start early and coordinate efforts across departments, ensuring a successful holiday marketing season for your motorcycle business. Let’s get started today by letting me help you with the content writing for your holiday motorcycle marketing campaign.
FAQs
Are motorcycle sales seasonal?
Yes, motorcycle sales and promotions are seasonal. They tend to follow the riding season. Demand increases with warmer weather when more people want to ride. Demand drops with cooling temperatures at the end of the riding season.
How can I increase my motorcycle sales?
Focus on creating engaging marketing material that speaks directly to your target audience. Develop a marketing plan that speaks to consumers throughout the marketing funnel. Utilize a variety of channels to have a broader reach.
