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May 24, 2010 – A way to spur floor traffic

Allen White used it as the main attraction for an open house for his relatively new independent dealership.

The result: The highest preowned unit sales day in store history.

Kim Love used it in a similar function, although the store she works for in Moon Township, Pa., is more reliant on new unit sales.

The result: The Honda store had its biggest turnout for a spring sale ever.

In each case, the dealerships were using a new and free aftermarket program geared to drive floor traffic into stores this spring and summer. The program, called Revive Your Ride!, offers a contest to consumers that will pay out $25,000 in prepaid credit cards that can be used to purchase anything motorcycle or ATV-related. The program, originated by the Motorcycle Industry Council’s Aftermarket Committee, runs through June 30.

“We’re going to be working it until the end,” said White, who owns an independent dealership in Henderson, N.C.

For his store’s open house, White had his staff put up all the promotional material in his store that is available to dealers. He also went further, creating Revive Your Ride! T-shirts for his staff and then taking advantage of the postcards that come with the dealer package. Some of those postcards were sent to his customers to invite them to the open house. But he also saved a portion of those postcards for the event itself. Those postcards were handed out to consumers with not only the Revive Your Ride! information, but a calendar on the back that showed the store’s upcoming rides and aftermarket specials.

“It was simple. It was easy,” he said of the contest. “The $25,000 is such a huge number that everybody gets excited about it. I think it’s wonderful. I wish they would have more things like this.”

White, the only independent dealership in his town, associated the contest’s appeal to a franchise OEM’s nationwide marketing campaign for a new unit.

“I look at it as an equivalent to Honda coming out with a sale that helps their customers get in (the dealership),” he said.

Love of West Hills Honda in Moon Township, Pa., said the dealership marketed the Revive Your Ride! program both through direct mail, sending out 4,000 mailers, and online. The latter included placing a banner on a local motorcycle page Web site and a separate banner on the local Cycle Trader Web site. Consumers who searched for a dealer within 25 miles of West Hills Honda saw the store’s Revive Your Ride! banner.

Love said the store’s spring event was helped by other considerations, including a number of sales packages and terrific weather, “and we have a tradition of choosing the worst day of the spring to have our sale,” she said, laughing.

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The aftermarket contest, however, did have a prominent role in the promotional piece sent to consumers, with mention of it throughout the 8-page mailer sent to the public.

“It could not have been a better promotion for me,” White said. “Not only did it look professional, but it was easy and simple to put together.”

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