Proudly serving the industry for which it was named for more than 50 years, Outdoor Power Equipment provides dealers who sell and service outdoor power equipment with valuable information to succeed in a competitive market.
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help establish your dealership as a local authority on outdoor power equipment, drive search engine traffic, and ultimately increase your in-bound leads. Here's where your blogging work continues to pay off. The content that you create for your blog can be shared across your social media and through a monthly newsletter to amplify your exposure overall and drive in-bound traffic to your website. Trend #3: Visual sToryTelling connecTs W h e t h e r through images or videos, 2015's online shoppers will continue to be drawn to visual s t o r y t e l l i n g through images and videos that spark emotion. The best part? They like to share those visual nuggets with their social networks! Try a little #TBT (that's "Throwback Thursday" for those of you out of the loop on the social media lingo). Or take a cue from a manufacturer and launch your own Facebook video contest. Briggs & Statton's Mower Mouth Facebook contest invited Briggs fans to submit videos of themselves doing lawn mower impersonations. A few deserving winners were awarded Craftsman quiet lawn mowers powered by Briggs & Stratton's Quiet Power Technology engine. What spin can your dealership put on this idea to engage your community with visual stories that beg to be shared? Trend #4: Mobile blurs The line beTween online and offline experiences The lines between your customers online and offline worlds will continue to blur as smartphones become more ingrained in the American lifestyle. Consider the following eye-opening stats from the Pew Research Internet Project: 90 percent of American adults have a cell phone. 58 percent of American adults have a smartphone. 67 percent of cell phone owners find themselves checking their phone for messages, alerts or calls — even when they don't notice their phone ringing or vibrating. 44 percent of cell phone owners have slept with their phone next to their beds because they wanted to make sure they didn't miss any calls, text messages, or other updates during the night. 29 percent of cell phone owners describe their cell phone as "something they can't imagine living without." Take advantage of these blurring lines by incorporating the following digital tactics into your brick-and-mortar sales plan: 1) Arm your sales team with tablets: According to Merchant Survey 2014, tablets are already being used by 60 percent of retailers to enhance the customer experience. Consider using tablets to allow your sales team to: Access customers' past purchases to make new recommendations Share manufacturer brochures and specifications to answer customer questions Look up inventory across all locations Look up parts Take pictures of in-store inventory to upload to your website — both new and used 2) Offer digital receipts: According to Merchant Survey 2014, 48 percent of retailers, including Apple, are offering digital receipt options to customers. For many retailers, however, this just means emailing a receipt to the customer — leaving it up to the customers to go through their emails and organize the digital receipts on their own. To get the most out of this emerging trend, take digital receipts to the next level. Offer customers the option to register for an electronic personal receipt folder that stores all of their receipts — making it easier for customers to find receipts, track their purchases, and expedite returns. The upside: Use of digital receipts not only improves the customer experience, but also provides you with the opportunity to capture data that you can use to aid in your personalization efforts! 3) Experiment with iBeacons: Introduced in December 2013, Apple's industry-leading iBeacons use Bluetooth low-energy technology to communicate with nearby mobile devices. You can use iBeacons to: Send coupons and other offers to shoppers while they are literally standing in your dealership. Example: If they are browsing for oil filters and spark plugs, connect them with 20-percent-off service. Create an engaging customer experience (e.g. reward shoppers with mystery prizes for shopping in-store). Worried your customers will resist these "Big Brother" technologies? A recent study, released by Swirl Networks, Inc., found that 77 percent of consumers said that they would be willing to share their location information, as long as they received enough value in return. I hope this trend report serves as inspiration as you draft your dealership's 2015 marketing plan. Got a digital marketing success story you'd like to share? I'd love to hear from you! Send me an email at colleen.brousil@arinet.com. www.outdoorpowerequipment.com OUTDOOR POWER EQUIPMENT DECEMBER 2014 15 Colleen Brousil is the director of marketing at ARI Network Services (www.arinet.com). Brousil is dedicated to the mission of helping dealers improve their operations through the implementation of ever- evolving best practices paired with ARI's suite of an award-winning data-driven software tools and marketing services that help dealers "Sell More Stuff!" — online and in-store. OPE