How Equipment Dealers Can Leverage Email Marketing

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How Equipment Dealers Can Leverage Email Marketing

Guest writer Debbie Frakes takes a detailed and instructive approach in this week’s blog, “How Equipment Dealers Can Leverage Email Marketing.”

Email marketing is a vital component of an equipment dealer’s strategy. It’s an efficient method to consistently present your brand, products, and services to customers. The advantages of email marketing include reminding clients of your offerings, encouraging purchases, and establishing yourself as the go to expert for customers and prospects. 

To fully leverage the benefits of email marketing for equipment dealers, proper execution is key. We’ve compiled the most important components to include in your emails for effective equipment dealer marketing.

What Dealers Should Include in Marketing Emails 

The steps listed here are a road map for you to follow.

Highlight your full range of services. 

It’s crucial to highlight all your capabilities because everyone is not always in the market for new equipment. You need to highlight all the things you offer in your email campaigns. All equipment owners purchase parts, service, and rentals a lot more often than they buy a new machine. 

Continuously update your email distribution list  

About 20% to 30% of the email addresses on your list will go bad every year. That means that nearly a third of your contacts may not be receiving your marketing emails. To address this problem, regularly verify your contacts’ information and add new leads and new customers as they come in.

Provide a clear call to action. 

Make it straightforward for recipients to take desired actions. Each email section should have a visible next step. For instance, include a scheduling option for preventive maintenance discussions or a link for more information about new equipment.

Create honest subject lines. 

To maximize the benefits of email marketing, recipients must trust you. While “clickbait” subject lines have become common to boost open rates, they often lead to customer frustration. Instead, craft compelling subject lines that offer value or pique interest, but ensure they accurately reflect the email’s content.

Optimize for mobile viewing. 

Ensure your emails are mobile friendly. People check emails on their phones as much as, if not more than, on desktops. Emails that don’t display well on mobile devices can harm your company’s image. Assess your emails across various browsers and devices to ensure consistent appearance.

Deliver professional and readable content. 

For dealers to extract maximum value from marketing emails, they need to be easy to understand by their recipients. While your emails can be engaging and reflect your brand voice, they should appear polished with high quality images and appealing designs. Be clear and concise to demonstrate your understanding of customers’ challenges and how you can help.

Send emails consistently. 

Regular communication keeps your brand top of mind for your customers. Establish a consistent email schedule that aligns with your business cycles and customers’ needs.

Personalize your messages. 

Use customer data to tailor your emails. Personalized content can significantly improve engagement and conversion rates.

 

For expert assistance in maximizing the benefits of email marketing for equipment dealers, reach out to our partner, Winsby Inc. They will manage the entire process of email creation and distribution and demonstrate their effectiveness through measurable results. Typically, customers on their dealers’ email lists purchase two to three times more often than customers who are not receiving the emails!

Contact Winsby Today! 

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Top Equipment Dealership Marketing Tips

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Top Equipment Dealership Marketing Tips

Guest writer Debbie Frakes provides readers with four concrete strategies to employ in her blog, “Top Equipment Dealership Marketing.”

The key to success for heavy equipment dealers is to prioritize customer retention and purchase frequency. With the economy potentially tightening, it’s crucial to maintain your current customer base and motivate them to increase the number of purchases they make. To achieve that goal, we recommend implementing the following four key equipment dealership marketing strategies immediately:

  1. Customer satisfaction surveys.
  2. Email marketing.
  3. Website SEO.
  4. Email list expansion. 

Equipment dealership marketing strategy #1. 

Customer satisfaction surveys

Understanding your customers’ needs and how well you meet them should be an essential part of any distributor’s marketing plan. Conducting customer satisfaction surveys is the best way to gather this crucial information and increase retention. For example, the surveys that our partner, Winsby, conducts for their clients help boost their customer retention by 20% to 30%.

These surveys are effective because they provide insights into what matters most to your customers and where your processes might be lacking. For instance, one client was losing customers without knowing the reason. Winsby suggested conducting customer satisfaction surveys, including questions about invoices. The survey revealed several unfriendly accounting processes that the company was unaware of. After addressing these issues, their customer loss rate significantly decreased.

Customer satisfaction surveys are vital for equipment dealership marketing, because they help you solve issues before they turn into bigger problems and customers leave you for the competition. Retention is especially important for construction equipment dealers, as customer revenue significantly increases from the second to the third year. Typically, we see dealer customers purchasing 2.9X more equipment, 9.1X more rentals, 4.1X more services, and 5.6X more parts in the third year compared to the second.

Equipment dealership marketing strategy #2. 

Email marketing.

In addition to customer satisfaction surveys, sending effective emails is another crucial strategy for equipment dealers. Emails remind customers of the products and services you offer and how you can address their challenges, leading to increased and more frequent purchases.

Winsby has found that customers on their clients’ email lists buy two to three times more often than those who aren’t. Their clients typically see a return on investment of around 4,300% from their email campaigns.

Emails not only boost purchase frequency but also help keep your customers from turning to competitors. Frequent messages remind them of your offerings, encouraging them to buy from you and reducing the temptation to seek alternatives.

Equipment dealership marketing strategy #3. 

Website SEO

In a tough economy, it’s essential to capture every potential customer. For that reason, website search engine optimization (SEO) should be a core component of your distributor marketing strategy. How does your website rank for relevant keywords? Is it generating and converting leads, or merely existing online?

Your dealership’s website should clearly highlight what you offer, showcase your capabilities, and make it easy for visitors to find and purchase what they need. If your website isn’t guiding prospects and customers through the sales funnel, it needs improvement.

In addition to customer satisfaction surveys and emails, Winsby also develops websites that deliver results. They continuously add content based on relevant keywords to improve your search rankings. This way, you won’t miss potential business.

Equipment dealership marketing strategy #4. 

Email list expansion. 

It might be hard to believe, but as much as 20% to 30% of your list goes bad every year. What that means is that up to nearly a third of your contacts are no longer looking at your marketing emails. To help fix this problem, you should review your customer list, call any company that doesn’t have an email address on file or that has stopped engaging with your emails, determine the email addresses you should be using going forward, and add them to your email distribution list.

In addition to verifying contacts already on your list, you should also be continuously adding new prospects. One of the best ways to grow your email distribution list is to analyze it in terms of SIC or NAICS codes. First, you must determine which industries are most prevalent in your current customer base. Then, you’ll want to find companies that look like the ones on your list—in the same industries and with the same geographic limitations, if there are any. Add them to your prospect list, then call through the list to determine who the decision makers are at those companies, ask them for their email addresses, and send them information about your company.

Winsby will continually call through your email list to verify the right people are on it, and help you find new leads to add to the list, so it is as effective as possible for your marketing emails. 

If you want to enhance customer retention, increase purchase frequency, and capture more leads, then contact Winsby today to implement an effective distributor marketing strategy.

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Top Lead Generation Tips for Equipment Dealers

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Top Lead Generation Tips for Equipment Dealers

Guest writer Debbie Frakes brings a practical issue to the forefront with this week’s blog post, “Top Lead Generation Tips for Equipment Dealers.” 

Lead generation is one of the most important tasks for equipment dealers. The process of finding people to work with ultimately boils down to locating businesses who use your products or services and adding them to your sales funnel, where they can be nurtured and converted into a customer. To help you out with this process, we’ve put together some key lead generation tips for equipment dealers that will make it easier to identify and add prospects to your sales funnel. 

Use market research to understand your current customers. 

Market research should be a key part of all your dealer strategies across your entire operation. One of the most important lead generation tips we can share with you is to survey your current customers, before you search for new ones. Surveys will show you which aspects of your business are most important to your customers, what sort of turnaround times they expect and which types of media they respond to. Once you understand that information, you can refine and target your emails, ads, web pages, and sales materials to focus on what the people in your industry care about most. The more effective your marketing campaigns, the more often prospects will enter and respond to your offers to become part of your sales funnel.

Collect information on your website. 

Your website can do a lot more than just highlight the products and services you offer. One of our top lead generation tips is to make it easy for people to give you their contact information throughout your site. Place forms on multiple web pages and, if you can, offer something in return for their information, like a brochure, discount, sample, or eBook with tips and best practices relevant to their business. Also, install a web tagging program that identifies visitors to your site, so you can contact them after they start engaging with your website.

Develop content often.

When it comes to lead generation tips, one of the key dealer strategies is to create content consistently for your website. You should be regularly adding blog posts, case studies, white papers, and videos. Consistent content creation will help improve your rankings from Google searches (SEO), helping more people find and visit your website organically. Plus, high quality content will establish your dealership as the expert in the industry, the most knowledgeable resource for information, products, and services, encouraging more equipment users to seek you out. 

Add chatbots to your site. 

Placing chatbots on your website is a crucial lead generation strategy for equipment dealers. Because chatbots are available 24/7, you can use them to generate leads even while you’re sleeping! Simply set them up to match your brand personality and voice, and they will be your 24/7 digital sales representatives.

Take advantage of every lead source.

Equipment dealers have a variety of sources for potential leads. The problem is that some of them are often neglected. Your sales team should prioritize the most fruitful lead sources, but if you have the time and resources, one of the top lead generation tips is to work them all. Here are some examples of lead sources for equipment dealers: 

  • Customers that are using one part of your business, but not the others
  • Email open reports that show who is interested in what you are sending.
  • Last purchase reports that indicate how long it’s been since someone has purchased.
  • Customer satisfaction surveys that provide feedback to identify unhappy customers.

At the end of the day, the more lead sources you work, the more customers you can bring in the door and increase your sales! 

Our partner, Winsby, can help you generate more leads. 

Winsby helps equipment dealers develop and implement successful lead generation plans using proven strategies. By combining effective emails with professional, easy to use websites, email list verification, calling, and reporting, they can ensure a steady stream of new business coming in the door.

If you have any questions about these lead generation tips or want help implementing your dealer strategies for marketing, contact Winsby today.  

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What Is an Industry Analysis and What Can It Do for Your Business?

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What Is an Industry Analysis and What Can It Do for Your Business?

Guest writers Debbie Frakes and Steve Clegg are back with another resource available to businesses in “What Is an Industry Analysis and What Can It Do for Your Business?”

Equipment dealers only have a limited number of resources at their disposal. The key to being successful is allocating those resources in the most productive, efficient way possible. When it comes to your marketing and sales efforts, it’s impossible to target everyone. You must make important decisions about who to go after based on who will produce the most value for your business. 

The key is to target potential customers who are most likely to work with you. An industry analysis tells you who those people are. 

What is an industry analysis?

Zintoro conducts your industry analysis by determining which industries are most prevalent in your customer list. By looking at Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes, you can identify which industries your different customers are in and which industries you do business with most often. 

Part of the industry analysis is looking at the customer count, sales volume, revenue, number of potential customers, and a variety of other key metrics for every SIC code found in your list. That way, you can understand the market potential for each segment of your current customer base and how much value they can produce for your business. 

Armed with the knowledge of your customer base and the revenue potential of different industries, you’ll be better informed on which new prospects to target with your limited resources. An industry analysis helps you focus your time, money, and effort on increasing your market share in the industries that you know have the most potential for your equipment dealership. 

Use what the industry analysis tells you.

Conducting a Zintoro industry analysis gives you a better understanding of your customers and how valuable different segments of your base are. Once you know who will deliver the greatest return, you will know where to invest your marketing and sales resources. More than just giving you directions, an industry analysis also helps you tailor your messaging, exclusive offers, and even inventory to appeal to the most valuable segments in your customer list. 

For example, if you sell excavators, but you find out that most of your customers exclusively oversee demolition projects instead of digging jobs, then you can change your marketing and sales messaging to match that. In your emails you can use pictures of excavators demolishing a building and highlight features of the machine that are most useful on demo jobs. The more targeted you are at the customers that produce the most value, the fewer resources you’ll waste going after customers who are less likely to work with you.

Start better understanding your customers and your business by contacting Zintoro for an industry analysis today! 

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Equipment Dealer Strategies for Growing Sales

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Equipment Dealer Strategies for Growing Sales

Guest writers Steve Clegg and Debbie Frakes return with their blog this week covering the ways you can create lifelong customers in “Equipment Dealer Strategies for Growing Sales.”

The key to sustained success in selling equipment, parts, and service is to create long-term customers. And creating long term customers comes down to following several equipment dealer strategies that show your customers you care about their businesses and are invested in helping them grow their businesses, and that you know what works. Here are the golden rules for dealers that you need to follow:

  1. Never make your problem the customer’s problem; they have enough problems of their own, which is why they are calling you.
  2. Always say YES! Then, the question becomes when and how much.
  3. Be proactive and contact the customer before they contact you.
  4. Manage your customers’ expectations. Customers often don’t remember what you told them; they only remember what they expected to happen.

In this article, we’re going to cover these rules and strategies, and how they make you more effective at selling equipment, parts, and service, all while developing more loyal customers. 

Be positive with customers and say YES! 

When talking with customers, you should always be finding a way to solve their problem. For example, if one branch doesn’t have the part they need in stock, find the part at another location, and tell the customer when they will receive it. You don’t want to tell a customer that you can’t do something, you want to tell them how you can. If you start with a positive reply of what you can do, there’s a 70% chance of closing compared to a 50% chance if you start with a no. If you’re the dealer that can effectively solve their problem, then you will continue to be their source for equipment, parts, and service for them. 

How to respond when a customer needs a product or service from you. 

Being positive and solving the problem shows the customer that you understand their needs and care about their problems. Here is an example of the hierarchy of responding to customers: 

  1. Tell them you have exactly what they need and when you can get it to them. 
  2. If you don’t have it at a particular branch, check other locations and give them options for delivery or pickup. 
  3. If you need to order a part, figure out how long it will take for delivery, and provide options for delivery. 
  4. If the timeline of receiving the product or service doesn’t work for them, suggest other options that could work for them. 
  5. Always tell the customer the next step and provide details of how you can solve their problem.

Stay on top of communication. 

It’s your job to keep customers informed of service updates and order status proactively. If they must call and ask about something to get an update, it’s too late. One of the most important dealer strategies is to anticipate their questions and stay ahead of them. You also need to understand which forms of communication they prefer, and when is the best time to contact them. Communicating with customers on their own terms will make it easier to reach them and shows that you respect their time.

Answer the phone every time. 

Answering the phone is critical for effective customer communication. Your team should be picking up on the third ring or sooner. The reason is that the call drops off rate is 20% per ring after three rings, and customer frustration is exponential for each additional ring and every missed call. Because only 2% to 4% of callers will leave a voicemail, answering the phone is an important first step in understanding what their needs and problems are. If you’re consistently not answering the phone or a customer has several bad phone experiences, they will start to look for another company they can work with for their equipment needs. 

Managing expectations. 

Managing expectations at every point of contact with your customers opens the opportunity to create a raving fan or to lose the customer. One of the most important equipment dealer strategies we can share with you is to always undersell and over deliver. Customers will eventually leave you for the competition if you are consistently falling short of your promised timelines. In fact, the number one reason for losing customers is mismanaged expectations. Be honest with them about when they will receive equipment and parts, when service will be completed, and your rental availability. Honesty and managed expectations will develop trust and strengthen relationships.

Our partner, Zintoro, can help. 

By consistently providing value and outstanding service, you can build long-lasting relationships with your customers and increase their loyalty to your brand. Zintoro provides you with the monthly analyses of your invoices that show your customer retention rate, which customers you’re in danger of losing, customer purchase behavior that will help you anticipate their needs, and much more. They give you the tools and data you need to keep customers, improve communication, and increase your sales. 

Schedule a Zintoro demo to find out how to boost your customer retention, track and accurately forecast business performance, and better communicate with customers. 

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Exceed Revenue Goals

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Exceed Revenue Goals

Guest writers Debbie Frakes and Steve Clegg are back with a new and relevant blog post this week which covers the topic of how to meet and exceed your revenue goals.

Revenue and transaction trends tell a story about your company. They allow you to recognize sales patterns and understand what activities, processes, and methods lead to consistent business growth. Without this information, you won’t be able to make sound decisions for your company. Tracking and acting on revenue analytics and trends will help you answer the following critical questions: 

  • Who should you target for marketing initiatives? 
  • Which products or services should you focus on? 
  • What customers and prospects should your salespeople spend time contacting?

If you don’t determine the right answers to these questions, then you won’t be able to meet your revenue goals, let alone exceed them. 

How to achieve your revenue goals. 

When it comes to drivers of revenue, two of the most important analytics are the number of transactions and customer retention. They explain exactly what is happening in your business and where you may be falling short. These two revenue analytics go hand in hand, because the longer someone works with you, the more transactions they will make. 

Below is an example of a business whose new customers during the past 12 months make up 51% of their total number of customers. The numbers show how the behavior of these customers changes over time, if they keep working with you. 

Average transactions

Year 1: 3

Year 2: 13

Year 3: 18

Average revenue 

Year 1: $39,099 

Year 2: $154,537 

Year 3: $178,789

These revenue analytics show that the longer a customer works with you, the more valuable they become to your company. For this reason, when it comes to meeting and exceeding your revenue goals, retaining customers over the long term should be a primary focus of your sales and marketing teams. 

Act on revenue trend information. 

Tracking revenue analytics is great, but they won’t do you any good if you don’t actually use the information to your advantage. The area where you can make the largest impact towards meeting and exceeding your revenue goals is by improving customer retention and increasing purchase frequency. Remember, for most companies, the longer someone works with you, the more lucrative they become for you. Here are some methods for boosting your company’s customer retention and purchase frequency: 

  • Regular emails – It’s important to consistently communicate with your customers. We recommend sending several emails a month highlighting the products and services you offer, reminding them to purchase, and establishing yourself as the expert in the industry and their go-to source for assistance. Emails sent out by our partner, Winsby, typically double or triple customer purchase frequency. 
  • Offer targeted suggestions – View your customer purchase data to recognize patterns and anticipate what they may need or when they might be getting low on a product. Then you can send them a message or give them a call that is specific to their current needs. 
  • Use customer satisfaction surveys – Regularly ask for feedback from customers about how they feel about your company and how well you are fulfilling their needs. By conducting customer satisfaction surveys, you’ll find out about problems and have the opportunity to solve them before a customer leaves you. Customer satisfaction surveys conducted by Winsby typically boost retention by 20% – 30%. 
  • Calling prospects to expand your email list – Calling provides new leads and introduces customers to your company. Winsby clients see an average increase of 60% in customers’ purchases when they have been called. 

The effectiveness of Winsby email and calling services. 

Customers receiving Winsby emails typically purchase two to three times more often than customers who don’t receive emails. Here is an example the results that an equipment dealer saw with Winsby emails: 

The Winsby calling program identifies decision makers at the companies you’re targeting and then adds them to the email list. Here are the results for a dealer they work with: 

Understand the types of purchases customers are making. 

In addition to looking at customer retention and number of transactions, you also should be tracking types of purchases. Identifying which products sell the greatest quantities will help you focus your marketing and advertising strategies better. Products that are normally purchased more often will deliver a greater ROI for your marketing campaigns than less popular products would.

Once you determine your most frequently bought products, you can then place greater resources behind them and see a higher return. 

Take full advantage of revenue analytics. 

By understanding which customers produce the most value for your business and which types of products and services result in the most transactions, you can better target your sales and marketing efforts. You’ll reach and exceed your revenue goals if you focus on retaining your current customers and push the products that generate the most money. 

Our partner company, Zintoro, will track these key revenue analytics and many others, as well as provide specific strategies for improving them. Their portal shows you exactly which customers should be called when and which products should be promoted. They are the answer for equipment dealers and other businesses who want to make sense of their numbers and use them to their advantage. 

If you want to understand your revenue analytics and use proven strategies to exceed your revenue goals, contact Zintoro today for a demo. Today many businesses rely on outdated data and backward-looking reports for planning. Zintoro generates greater than 95% accuracy in their 12 month forecasts to see the future and plan versus reacting and continually trying to explain the past. 

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How to Measure Sales Performance Unlocking Success: A Guide to Effectively Track and Boost Your Sales Reps’ Performance

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How to Measure Sales Performance – Unlocking Success: A Guide to Effectively Track and Boost Your Sales Reps’ Performance 

Guest writers Debbie Frakes and Steve Clegg return this week in, “How to Measure Sales Performance – Unlocking Success: A Guide to Effectively Track and Boost Your Sales Reps’ Performance.”

In the dynamic world of equipment sales, your sales reps are the driving force behind your success. They not only steer potential leads to becoming valued customers but also play a pivotal role in nurturing existing client relationships. Without a high performing sales team, your business risks stagnation and having customers leave for competitors.

It is essential to employ robust strategies for tracking and improving the sales performance of your representatives. This blog will guide you through the process, emphasizing the significance of regular performance analysis and introducing the effectiveness of Zintoro.com to guide actions that result in improving sales.

Complete a Sales Performance Analysis

To ensure your sales reps consistently meet their goals, conducting a comprehensive sales performance analysis is imperative. This involves tracking key metrics such as:

  • Conversion Rates—Measure how effectively leads are turning into customers.
  • Appointment Setting Rates—Evaluate the efficiency of securing meetings with potential clients and existing customers to capture more of their transaction.
  • Customer Retention Rates—Assess how well your reps are maintaining relationships with existing customers and building these relationships by expanding the products and service purchased.
  • Customer Purchase Frequency and Consistency—Understand the frequency at which customers make purchases and the impact of weekly and monthly purchases.
  • Overall Revenue and Gross Margin—Gauge the contribution of each rep to the company’s revenue and profits.

Setting realistic goals for these metrics is an important part of this process. With regular analysis you can track progress and identify areas for improvement. Zintoro forecasts expected sales with a >95% accuracy which provides realistic expectations for branches and sales territories. 

Why it Matters for Your Dealership

Sales rep tracking is not just about metrics; it’s about the success and sustainability of your dealership. By regularly monitoring performance, focusing on customers that are at risk of being lost, managers can quickly identify underperforming reps and take corrective actions. Recognizing critical Zintoro sales metrics helps in setting benchmarks for the team, providing insights into individual achievements or shortcomings.

Without tracking sales performance and customer engagement, you risk being in the dark about your team’s accomplishments or any underlying issues. Early detection of performance problems allows for timely corrections, action plans, and issue resolution, preventing customer loss.

Implement a Zintoro Sales Performance Analysis

Enter Zintoro.com — your comprehensive solution for an exact understanding of how well your reps are meeting their goals. With Zintoro’s sales performance analysis, you can:

  • Identify Shortcomings—Recognize areas where reps are falling short and gain insights into the root causes.
  • Comparison Insights—Let your sales reps compare their performance with others, fostering healthy competition and motivation.
  • Strategic Actions—Zintoro not only provides insights but suggests actionable steps to enhance customer engagement, retention, and overall growth.

Zintoro’s suggested actions pinpoint precisely what needs to be done to elevate sales performance with real growth both in upturns and industry downturns. If you’re ready to embark on a journey of tracking and improving sales performance, or if you have questions about the most important sales metrics, contact Zintoro today.

Unlock the potential of your sales team with Zintoro.com — where insights meet action for unparalleled growth.

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Why Your Geographic Market Matters

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Why Your Geographic Market Matters

Guest writers Debbie Frakes and Steve Clegg write about why your geographic market matters, and how this concept directly impacts your business.

Why Geographic Market Matters for Your Business

When it comes to whether someone will work with a company or not, there are a wide variety of factors that come into play. Many of those factors are things you can control, like your parts availability, quality of customer service, and how effective your technicians are. But there are some other factors that are not in your control. For equipment dealers, one of those is your geographic market. 

What is an equipment dealer’s geographic market? 

Distance for geographic market is one of the most important business metrics for your dealership. It measures the number of miles and travel time that a customer will travel in order to work with you or buy products from you. The geographic market for a business can vary, based on the industry, market, or region that a company is located in. But if distance is a factor for your business, like it is for equipment dealers, then a customer is very unlikely to do business with you if you’re beyond that distance. 

In order to learn what the distance for geographic market is for your dealership, you must understand where your current customers are coming from. After knowing how far away from you most of your customers are, you’ll be able to recognize patterns, see if there are any outliers, and know how important a factor distance is for building your customer base. 

Why distance for geographic market matters for you

If a prospect is beyond the maximum range people are willing to travel to work with you, then it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to turn them into a customer. In general, most equipment dealers have a maximum service area within a 60-mile radius. The reason for this limit is that with a greater distance than that, it’s too difficult for your field service trucks to respond quickly enough to an emergency service situation. 

Geographic market is one of the most important business metrics for you to pay attention to, because if a customer is beyond that 60-mile range, you don’t want to expend any resources going after them. You should use this metric to focus your marketing and sales strategy on targeting people who are within your maximum distance and, therefore, more likely to work with you. 

How to use geographic market to your advantage 

Although you can’t control how far your dealership is from any given customer, you can use knowledge of geographic market, like other business metrics, to make your marketing and sales efforts more effective. You should only be targeting prospects within your dealer’s range, because they have a much greater potential for your business. 

Over the long term, this type of geographic targeting will save your dealership money, help you tailor your marketing and sales messaging, and allow you to become highly skilled at serving customers in your specific area. All these activities are conducive to your long-term growth and success. 

If you want to understand your dealership’s geographic market and other key business metrics for your operation, then we recommend conducting a market analysis through our partner, Zintoro. It will determine how large your potential market is and exactly what the distance is for your maximum reach. This analysis will help guide your business strategy and keep you from wasting resources.

Schedule a Zintoro market analysis today. 

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How to Improve Customer Retention

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How to Improve Customer Retention

Guest writers Debbie Frakes and Stephen Clegg analyze the key measure of business success in this week’s blog post, “How to Improve Customer Retention.”

Customer retention is crucial for the success of every company. It describes the percentage of customers who purchased within the last 12 months who also purchased within the prior 12 months—13 to 24 months ago. Poor customer retention means that you aren’t keeping customers over the long term and people are not committed to working with you. The result is that you must devote resources continually toward acquiring new customers, taking up valuable time and money. 

Maintaining strong customer retention is important for two primary reasons. The first is that it’s significantly more expensive to sell to a new customer than to an existing one. The second is that the longer a customer works with you, the more they buy from you and the more valuable they become to you. 

The question is, how can you improve your customer retention? 

Understand why customers leave you. 

The primary reasons that customer will leave you are these:

  • You’re mismanaging their expectations and not keeping them informed on the status of their orders. 
  • There is a change in contacts for either the customer or for you. 
  • Your employees aren’t adequately trained or knowledgeable about your products and services or they lack the information system support and tools required to be responsive.

Despite what you may think, price is not at the top of the list when it comes to reasons that customers leave your company to purchase from a competitor. Once you understand why people may stop working with you, you can take steps to prevent them from leaving to buy from competitors. 

How Zintoro helps you retain more customers. 

Zintoro provides the data and insights to recognize at risk customers, while our partner Winsby gives you the tools to significantly improve your customer retention. 

Offer great customer service – In order to deliver top notch customer service, you must understand expectations and be responsive to questions and concerns. Zintoro uses Winsby Inc.’s customer satisfaction and benchmark survey programs to find out what your customers’ expectations are and to determine if there are any issues they are having. Your team can then act on this information and keep at risk customers from leaving you. 

Provide a personalized customer experience – Our AI system tracks each of your customers to identify their next purchase, what industry, and market they are in, and whether they are at risk of being lost. Armed with that information, your sales team can personalize customer interactions and tailor offers and recommendations to meet their specific needs. Our partner Winsby will keep your master lists up to date with the correct contacts, phone numbers, and email addresses. 

Develop strong relationships through consistent communication – Zintoro helps you contact and communicate with customers in several ways. First, you can use purchase history data to identify people who have not purchased in their usual time period, then reach out to ask about their needs. Second, you can distribute highly effective emails through Winsby. Customers who receive Winsby emails typically purchase two to three times more often than those who don’t. Third, Zintoro works with most CRM systems to integrate analytics data with your sales and marketing data, helping streamline customer communication. 

Use customer feedback to take action – Implementing Winsby’s customer satisfaction surveys is a great first step, but you must actually act on the information and feedback you receive. Utilize the insights from the surveys to improve your sales process, products, and other aspects of your business before at-risk customers leave you. 

Recognize the signs of at-risk customers – Zintoro tracks the frequency, consistency, and types of purchases, so you can know who your at-risk customers are. Your sales team can then use that information and reach out to those customers, ask about their needs, and even provide a special offer or other incentive to encourage them to stay with you.

Take steps now to improve your customer retention. 

Increasing your retention rate is an ongoing process that should be started as soon as possible. Building lasting relationships with customers is crucial for the long-term viability of your company because it makes them more valuable to you and it takes fewer resources to sell to them. Zintoro gives you the information and tools required to retain customers and boost your sales. 

Schedule a Zintoro demo to find out how to boost your customer retention, track, and accurately forecast business performance, and to determine the ROI for your marketing and customer satisfaction efforts.

 

Types of Purchases: Understand What Your Customers Are Buying

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Types of Purchases: Understand What Your Customers Are Buying

Guest writers Debbie Frakes and Steve Clegg take a look at customer behavior in this week’s blog post, “Types of Purchases: Understand What Your Customers Are Buying.”

To market your business effectively, it’s important to understand which products and services your customers buy most often and what causes someone to purchase from you. By identifying common buying patterns and the factors that influence purchase decisions, equipment dealers can tailor their strategies to appeal to their target industries and markets. The result is more transactions, improved customer retention, and increased profits.

Why do the types of purchases matter? 

By identifying what triggers a purchase for equipment, rentals, service, or parts, and what is bought most often in each category, you’ll determine what is important to your customer base. Armed with that information, you will know which strategies and messaging for offers, pricing, marketing, and advertising will produce the most significant ROI for your business. Excellent customer service with frequent and consistent customer transactions drive customer retention. Revenue and profits are the result, not the driver.

Understanding what customers purchase most often and why allows you to avoid wasting time and resources featuring products and services with nominal engagement and ROI. 

Capture more sales opportunities. 

The local NAPA, Grainger, and other general supply houses are selling the filters, fluids, and parts to your customers that are required for your equipment. Grainger and Genuine NAPA have an average gross margin above 40%. Most types of equipment require two to six filter changes a year as well as numerous fluid changes. The question is, are you capturing those sales opportunities, or are you allowing someone else to take the order? Recognizing types of purchases will increase transactions, help you engage and retain customers and capitalize on the needs of your customer base. 

Know your trigger products. 

Triggers are items or situations that drive customers to a store or dealer. For example, grocery store trigger products are milk, eggs, and bread, because these items are the reason someone goes to the store in the first place. However, these products represent less than 10% of the dollars spent. They serve to get people in the door, so they can be sold other products sold in the store. 

Examples of equipment dealer triggers for machines, rentals, parts, and service:

  • Emergency machine repairs can trigger equipment purchases when the repair cost doesn’t justify the expense versus renting or replacing the machine.
  • Machine breakdowns or a specific type of project will trigger renting equipment that is not in the customer’s fleet. 
  • Breakdowns or equipment crises will trigger repair or maintenance parts. 
  • Offering a free inspection or a season change can trigger service. 

Crises maintenance represents over 25% of a dealer’s customer interactions for parts, service, and rentals. These transactions require same day or next day service and delivery to meet customer expectations. Equipment represents only 1% to 2% of a dealer’s total transactions, whereas parts and services are 88% and rental is 10%. As a result, your parts and service departments create your customer experience and are ultimately responsible for overall customer satisfaction and retention.

Understanding what purchases bring customers through the door tells you where your main focus should be. 

 Place your resources where they make the most difference. 

Every business only has a limited number of sales, marketing, and financial resources they can utilize at any time. The reason why types of purchases is one of the most critical business metrics is that it will show you which products and services to run promos on, which ones to highlight in your emails and on your website, and what to run paid advertising on. In addition, it will determine pricing offers and your inventory requirements. 

You need to know what people are buying and what triggers those purchases. Businesses should carefully consider their target audience and tailor their marketing strategies to appeal to triggers that resonate with specific types of customers. 

Knowing types of purchases helps you introduce people to additional products. 

Armed with the knowledge of which types of purchases are most common, you can familiarize customers with what you offer. They will come to your website or view your email based on the products they typically buy or because of a specific trigger, but then they’ll see other things that you carry. Use your most popular offerings as a hook to get them in the door, where they can see everything that your dealership provides. 

Zintoro provides equipment dealers and other businesses with monthly business analytics reporting to recognize, measure, and take advantage of key business metrics like purchases, purchase frequency, customer retention, at-risk customers, and more. 

Schedule a Zintoro demo to understand your most common types of purchases and start receiving business analytics reporting today! 

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