Harley-Davidson Route 66: SMS Case Study

7 Media Group, the marketing agency behind Route 66 Harley Davidson in Tulsa, OK took a very smart approach to its SMS campaign during the Christmas season in 2011. The campaign was called 12 days of Christmas and you guessed it, run for 12 days. Each day, Harley-Davidson would offer a different discount through texting and the customers just had to come to the store and present the offer.

The campaign was promoted through social media, in-store marketing and word of mouth. Once the consumer texted the number they got offers for the 12 days. The sales for those 12 days were remarkable, on the day of the t-shirt sale, sales went up 250 percent, in addition, higher priced items also sold especially on the sale days. On Helmet Day, they sold the same number of discounted helmets as they had the entire previous week the leather jackets sold well too, selling 16 percent more than the previous week. Lastly other merchandise that wasn’t on sale had increased sales because there was more traffic in the store.

Harley-Davidson Route 66 targeted existing customers to fill in a usually empty time of the month. However they were able to bring in new customers because the existing customers loved the deals so much they told their friends!

They successfully used a text subscription and will now be able to utilize it in the future since they have a positive rapport with their customer base and the customers know they won’t be hit with spam messages. That is probably the most important thing Harley-Davidson did during this campaign is earn the people’s trust. Now more people will join their text subscription plan because they have gotten positive feedback from real customers. This will lead to more opportunities and as the last text campaign has shown, more sales.

The campaign was so successful that it was brought to other parts of the country such as Silverdale, Washington and Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Harley-Davidson was very advanced in its mobile marketing, as only recently have companies been starting to put money into this outlet. According to Kari Jensen, apparel and accessories retailers will spend twice as much in 2014 as they did in 2013 to build relationships with consumers through mobile. This is because of the simple ways to get people involved in these campaigns such as flyers in stores, social media campaigns or ads on the mobile websites. The importance of mobile marketing has only increased, as two-thirds of mobile phones in the Unite States are smart phones. This allows more connectivity and ability to be creative. If an ad is successful and intrigues a consumer they can instantly buy the product or share it with a friend or two. Harley-Davidson has the advantage as a first mover and innovator. Harley-Davidson also has several apps such as a ride planner and can integrate all of the systems together being efficient and more interesting to the consumer. It will also be easier to track as micro-sites give instant information.