By Debbie Frakes, Guest Bloggers/by Carloline Slee-Poulos
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.