2019 Recreation Dealer Digital Marketing Survey Results Released

AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 21, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Rollick, Inc. has released the results of a recent survey of Powersports, RV, and Boat dealers about their current and future digital marketing strategies. The survey asked recreation dealers for feedback regarding their vendors, spend, and future plans.

"The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of how recreation dealers plan for and spend their digital marketing budgets," said Rollick President Amit Maheshwari. "We also wanted to understand how national to local marketing strategies played out in a multi-OEM dealer structure while noting differences between the Powersports, RV and Boat verticals."

Some of the key survey findings include:

Websites Vendor Share and Features
A majority of Powersports dealers use Dealer Spike (41%), with ARI (27%) and DX1 (11%) taking the second and third place spots in the vertical. RV and Boat dealers are fragmented when it comes to website vendor selection with no single vendor commanding more than 15% market share. Dealer Spike, with an overall market share of 39%, is the single largest website provider for U.S. recreation dealers.

Dealers in all three industry verticals are generally satisfied with the offerings of their web vendors. A majority of dealers agreed that the most important website function was accurate inventory display followed by online pricing and easy lead response tools.

Marketing Spend and Goals
A majority of recreation dealers spend less than $18,000 a year on their website and related technologies, with approximately 30% of dealers spending less than $6,000 a year. In addition, most dealers spend over $500 a month on digital advertising and lead generation activities, with over 33% of dealers spending over $1,500 a month.

Although a majority of Powersports and Boat dealers plan to spend more on digital marketing in 2019, RV dealers plan to spend about the same as they did in 2018.

OEM Co-Op Support
Most Powersports dealers receive some form of OEM co-op funding, with almost half of them receiving over 25% of their total digital marketing spend from OEM sources. This is not the case for RV and Boat dealers -- over 80% receive little or no OEM digital marketing co-op support. Even though most Powersports dealers receive OEM marketing support, 65% had an unfavorable response to the concept of an OEM-controlled primary website.

Customer Acquisition and Lead Management
Dealers generally agree that finding new customers is the most important goal for their business in 2019, with an emphasis on quality leads over quantity.

In addition, RV and Powersport dealers report that 70% of their prospects are looking to buy within three months or less while boat dealers report that over 75% of their leads are looking to buy in three months or more.

On a related note, dealers ranked the ability to respond to digital leads within an hour as a "top three" capability required to convert sales. Yet, Rollick data shows that most dealers take an average of eight hours to respond to leads, with up to a third of all online leads left with no response.

"With digital customer acquisition becoming even more competitive in 2019, there's significant opportunity for OEMs and dealers to better align their digital marketing and customer contact strategies while creating a more seamless buying experience," said Maheshwari.

For additional detail on the survey, contact Jason Riley, Director of Marketing at [email protected].

About Rollick, Inc.
Rollick, along with its subsidiary company AVALA, connects manufacturers, dealers and in-market consumers in the powersports, RV, marine and industrial equipment industries to deliver a seamless customer journey. Rollick's solutions include new customer acquisition, enterprise lead management, customer experience/loyalty and marketing automation. In addition, the company has rapidly built a national outdoor recreational vehicle buying network to include hundreds of dealers, over 60 manufacturers and an affinity partner network with access to over 50 million high-quality customers including policy holders of major insurance providers, employees at more than 2,000 top U.S. companies, members of the military, veterans and first responders. For more information, visit Rollick and AVALA.

SOURCE Rollick, Inc.