Perpetual Event Marketing for Motorcycle/Powersports Retailers

I just read an article in the June 2008 Motorcycle Product News magazine titled: More Than A Free Lunch by Dean Kelly and Chad Wiggen. The basic premise is that motorcycle and powersports retailers need to start running more events and to be more creative in how they run them.

Amen. But I want to take it even further. Like to a whole new level!

I came to the same conclusion a little over a year ago when I started doing marketing work in addition to running e-commerce for the dealership that I’m responsible for [Edit:2/18/10 No longer there].

When I was asked to take over marketing and advertising I looked at the budget, and I looked at what they were already spending and decided (in typical Radical fashion) to do something outside of the box. I said to myself, “Self, you need to get people into and involved with the dealership. We don’t have anywhere near the budget to do that via traditional advertising or marketing tools, what else can be done?” I had run a few open houses and they were huge successes. What would it be like if there was an open house every month? I had also started doing some social networking outreach (forums, blogs, etc.) and could imagine that they were going to be useful. However, all of that stuff took a lot of time. None of it took a lot of money however. So I had the epiphany that I was going to essentially use a huge chunk of the advertising budget and spend the money on a full time position to do all of this stuff.

I pulled all but the most non-essential advertising, left enough to allow us to match CoOp funds and set out to create the position of Community Relationship Manager.

It was the single most successful initiative that the dealership had ever seen. Obviously most of the success came down to getting an outstanding superstar for the position that embraced it and made it her own. [Aside: At the risk of being non-PC or running afoul of the EEOC, I recommend staffing this position with an outgoing, attractive, female that rides and is passionate about all things motorcycles (or powersports, watercraft, whatever your niche is). Facts are facts. Most motorcyclists are men and most men like talking to women especially when the woman is an avid rider herself. Let the nasty e-mails flow :)] But the fact remains that using money that we would have pretty much wasted by advertising like everyone else does and doing something radical and creative (at least for the vast majority of the motorcycle industry).

This position handles setting up interesting and engaging events every month and using word-of-mouth marketing techniques to get the word out. Blogs, forums, e-mail marketing, local clubs, etc. And when we do our larger open houses they are even more large and even more grand because you have a person that can dedicate all their time and energy to seeing that they are huge.

This position is now the public face and persona of the dealership. People now know the dealership is serious, and real, and personal. It’s a place that does more than just sell stuff and do service. It’s a place that participates in a real and personal way with the local motorcycle community.

Tasks for this position include but are no limited to: chamber of commerce involvement, social networking (FaceBook, MySpace, YouTube, Forums, Blogs, e-Mail) administration, dealership representation and participation in any and all motorcycle/powersports clubs and events in the area.

It’s insane how successful it is and it’s amazing that every 20 group leader out there is not making this the number one priority for every dealership out there! It’s even more insane that I’m letting this out of the bag for free and not getting a huge consulting fee for offering up what could be the single most successful thing you will ever do in the marketing and advertising area! I’m just feeling generous today I guess!

Stop throwing money away on TV ads, full page newspaper ads, direct mail, etc. etc. when for way less money they could have a Community Relationship Manager dragging people in off the street. In the nicest possible way of course.

Tags:community-marketing, events, MPN, radical-idea