5 Recession-Busting Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business

Someone once said, "When the going gets
tough, the tough get going." This has
never been more true than in the
current economic climate. Unfortunately,
when the economy slows down the first
area to get hit is the "luxury goods"
sector.

In simple terms, it’s tougher to sell
Power Sports products in some areas
than just a few short years ago.

But smart Power Sports business owners
look at the economic slowdown as an
opportunity rather than an obstacle.
Instead of "laying low," they get tough
and try to gain market share, not by
spending more money, but by using
innovative low cost,high impact
marketing tactics that get results.
Allow me to share with you five marketing
strategies that are simple and inexpensive
to implement, and can bring you a flood
of new business.

Strategy # 1 - Implement a Publicity Marketing Campaign

Believe it or not, your local newspaper, television
station, and radio station desperately wants to give
you a bunch of free publicity. They are constantly
looking for great stories that they can share with
people in your community. All you need to do is
give it to them. If that sounds too simplistic,
it's not!

The trick is that you need to give them something
newsworthy to talk about, then simply call the
media up and tell them about itor send them a
news release.

For instance, after reading in my marketing
course about getting free publicity, a dealer
I know decided to write a brief "Dear Abbey"
type article. But instead of writing about
relationships, he gavetips about Power Sports
products and called it "Ask Jim." He then
approached each of the newspapers in which
he advertised and askedthem if they were
interested in publishing his column. To his
surprise, four out of the five newspapers
were very excited about it.

Jim instantly received thousands of dollars
worth of free publicity. The best part about
this is that it gave him credibility in his
market and positioned him as the local expert
in Power Sports products. He is also able to
use the reprints of his articles in his
marketing efforts (You should make copies,
frame them and put them up througout your
store). The article reprints have had
more impact than any brochure he’s ever
used.

Strategy # 2 - Develop a Referral Marketing System.

All Power Sports business owners know how
powerful referrals are but few have systematic
referral programs running in their company.
Many business owners believe that giving
great service will automatically result in
lots of referrals. That’s simply not true!
People want to give you referrals but they
are too busy or they don’t remember. That’s
why it’s important to have a referral
program that reminds and motivates people
to refer you to their friends.

The simplest and most powerful strategy for
getting more referrals is to implement a
simple "Thank You Card Program." How did
you feel the last time someone sent you
a personal thank you card? You probably
felt great inside and had an urge to do
something nice for that person. People
refer Power Sports professionals that
they (1) know, (2) like, and (3) trust.
What better way to get people to know,
like, and trust you than with a thank
you card?

To set up your Thank You Card Program
you should consider establishing a
"thank you card log" that records
all thank you cards that are sent
out and by whom. Every one of your
employees from your sales people to
your service technician should be
involved in this program. You should
send cards to prospects, customers,
local vendors and suppliers - even
the postal worker who drops off
your mail. Everyone is a potential
source of referrals.

At the end of every month, give
awards to the people who sent out
the most thank you cards or who
sent out a card to the most
unsuspecting person. Have fun
with the program and you’ll start
seeing instant results.

RESOURCE: For more information
on unique and powerful follow
up system developed specially
for Power Sports Dealers
go to http://www.increasesalesasap.com/

Strategy # 3 - Engage in Joint Venture Marketing.

It costs a lot of money to get a new customer.
Why not save your money and partner with another
business that has already spent the money to get
the customers that you want? In fact, you’ll be
surprised to know that many businesses will be
glad to not only allow you to market to their
customers, but actually endorse your business
to their customer base. This is called joint
venture marketing and is done every day by even
the largest businesses.

Here’s how to start your joint venture
marketing program.

Step 1, make a list of all the businesses
that market to the same group of people
that you do. This could be R.V.businesses,
travel agencies, boat dealers, fitness
centers etc. Yes, all those people you
thought were your indirect competitors.

Step 2, approach the owners of these
businesses and ask them if they would
like you to send a letter to all your
customers who own an ATV or Jet Ski
endorsing their products and services.
Many will say, "Yes, but what’s the
catch?" Your answer should be, "It’s
simple, I’ll send an endorsement
letter to my customers for you,
if you send an endorsement letter
to your customers for me."

The next step is to show the business
owner both endorsement letters so that
she can see what you’ll be sending to
both her customers and to your customers.
Make the process as painless and risk-free
as possible by offering to pay for both
mailings and to do all the work yourself.
If you’ve done this process before, show
the business owner comments from other
happy business owners who have participated
with you in the same process.

To make this tactic work even better, consider
extending an extra special offer to each other’s
customers and position the offer as something that
each business owner was able to negotiate on behalf
of their valued customers. Remember to always
place a deadline on the offer.

The beauty of this strategy is that someone who
already has an existing relationship with those
whom you are targeting is endorsing you and your
business. Another benefit is that you don’t have
to worry about your customers being "stolen" from
you because these people have already purchased
your power sports product. In fact, this strategy
will probably improve your relationship with your
customers because it shows that you care enough
about them to arrange a good deal from a reputable
business on their behalf.

Strategy # 4 - Start a Continuity Program.

Perhaps the easiest way to keep customers coming
back again and again, while essentially locking
out your competition is to implement a continuity
program.

A continuity program incentivizes your customers to
keep coming back to do business with you by offering
a free or low cost reward. This strategy is also very
simple to implement but extremely powerful.

The first step is to look at what you sell that is
"continuity-based." Normally, for Power Sports
businesses, this is motor oil, cleaning products,
scheduled maintenance, etc. Create a special offer
on those products. For example, for every five oil
changes, your customer gets a free oil change.

Next, create a continuity card that you can put
stickers on or hole-punch when your customer
purchases a product. Then send out the card
to all your customers with a letter explaining
the program.

Keep track of who is using their cards and
who isn’t. You might consider extending a
special offer just to jumpstart the program.
Once your customer has used the card once,
the chances of them using it again go up
dramatically.

The side benefit of a continuity program
is that it not only moves more chemicals
but it brings back people into the store
more frequently allowing you to upsell
them and cross sell them on different
products.

Strategy # 5 - Make Targeted Offers to Your Customers

The most valuable asset of any Power
Sports business is the relationship
you have with your customer base.
In my opinion, if you were to take
away all the employees, inventory,
and building fixtures from a Power
Sports business owner, but allow him to
keep his customer list, most owners
would be able to build their business
back up to its previous status in short
order. However, most businesses don’t
take advantage of this valuable asset.

Many customers are ready and willing
to buy from you, but are just waiting
to be asked. In hard times you should
start to make frequent targeted offers
to your customers. For instance, if you
know that a customer purchased a specific
power sports product from you but didn’t
buy any complimentary accessories,
why not send them a letter with a special
offer on a specific accessory? Another
strategy would be to send an offer letter
to those people who inquired about a Jet
Ski or Golf Cart but never bought from
you. Perhaps the time is now right for
them to make the purchase.

Some guidelines to consider when making
a targeted offer are to keep good data
on your customers by recording special
information about them in a database.
Plan your direct mail campaigns in
advance so that you are sending qualified
offers on a consistent and frequent basis.
Narrow down your offers to just one item,
and then draft a salesletter specifically
for that one item. Choices confuse people,
which is why most catalogs don’t make money.
Collect email addresses and use low-cost
email to make offers. Keep track of your
response rates and compute your return
on every campaign.

Conclusion

There’s no reason not to grow your
business during the economic slowdown.
There will always be people who want
to buy Power Sports products. Your mission
is to find those people and give them what
they want. While your competitors are
hunkering down to weather out the slow
times you should be boldly moving
forward in your marketing efforts
to dominate your local marketplace.

As I’ve shown you in this article,
it doesn’t take a lot of money to
market your business. It just
takes the know-how and the
motivation to get out and DO it.

To your continued success,

David Carleton
President
Power Sports Success