Why No Online Sales?

Like most motorcycle website owners or marketing people, you’ve invested a lot of time, effort, and money to get your website going. So, it can be stressful when you’re only getting a slow trickle of sales. However, the marketing information below can help you increase your sales.

Here are two common questions we get from online motorcycle companies:

• Why is my motorcycle company’s website not getting sales?
• Why is my biker site not getting more sales?

There are many causes of low online sales. However, listing all the possible causes and solutions would be a book. Instead, let me narrow the scope of this article with a more specific question – Why is your biker website not getting sales when I’m advertising? Although there are many reasons, I’ll focus on just a few reasons for low sales.

Motorcycle Product’s Viability

First, the problem could be your motorcycle product or service. This answer isn’t what you want to hear. But hearing that your product or service will not sell early can save you time, money, and effort. Now, I will skip the details about offerings that will never sell. Instead, I’ll focus on a viable product that can generate solid sales but isn’t.

So, let’s say you have a great motorcycle product, and the quality of your ads is solid. In addition, let’s assume that your advertising budget is within reason. But even with the above, your online sales are still low. The question is, why?

Buyer’s Journey Issues

One possible reason is related to a buyer’s journey. Here are the three basic stages:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Decision

It makes sense that people need to see a product before deciding whether to buy it. So, when marketers push for a decision before creating awareness, this can be a problem.

Marketing Funnel

Marketers must guide prospects to become buyers. Below are the four stages of the marketing funnel:

• Awareness
• Interest
• Desire
• Action (purchase)

As you can see, there’s more room at the top of the funnel than at the bottom. This funnel shape represents the need for a large number of people to be aware of your product before they buy.

However, many biker companies have problems pushing people to purchase without creating awareness, building interest, and having people who want the product. Another problem is that they don’t continually fill the funnel. Even when prospects are in their funnel, they often fail to advance them down the funnel to purchase. But your search engine expert in the biker world should be able to help with this problem.

Motorcycle Website Sales Example

Here’s a good example of why ads are not converting. I’ll use my fictitious company, Kickstart Motorcycle Jackets (Kickstart). And their quality jackets range in price from $175 to $500.

Most riders who view the ad will see the Kickstart brand name and products for the first time. The motorcycle company’s proud owner often thinks this one ad view should generate sales, but this is not realistic.

Marketing “Rule of 7”

Let me discuss the marketing maxim “Rule of 7.” This maxim states that a needs to hear and see a message at least seven times before they buy. Notably, this “Rule of 7” is a theoretical guide. And this is because it does not always take seven views to convert into sales.

This standard was also developed in the 1930s. Still, this marketing theory is of value because it emphasizes that it takes a prospect multiple times to see an ad before they buy.

Product Variables

Next, there are many variables relating to how many times a person needs to hear and see a biker product’s ad before they buy:

• Price
• The uniqueness of a product
• Brand recognition
• Quality
• Product design
• Whether it is a need or a want
• Buyer’s journey on your site
• Customer-centric focus on your motorcycle site
• Quality of customer experience
• Reviews & testimonials
• Rider demographic factors
• Motorcycle safety products have a lot of unique factors that will impact your marketing.
• And the list goes on.

For instance, with Kickstart’s biker jacket there are a lot of things to consider:

• Is it competitively priced? How much are similar-looking (maybe not the same quality, but similar perceived quality) online biker companies selling this motorcycle jacket for?
• Although it might be a unique motorcycle jacket design, at a glance, it is still, in many ways, “just another motorcycle jacket.”
• As with many brands, it isn’t a biker household name. A big-name leather company or motorcycle superstore will have an advantage because of name recognition, and they can often offer a similar jacket at a lower price.
• The jacket could be of high quality. But with a glance at an online ad, it is hard to tell.
• Also, most bikers are not in the market for a new motorcycle jacket. And a product that costs $175 is not an impulse buy, let alone a jacket that costs $500.
• Does the motorcycle jacket look significantly different or have lots of unique features? Again, when someone sees an ad for a second, they haven’t seen it long enough to know.
• A simple buyer’s journey can help get sales with fewer interactions.
• If Kickstart has a customer-centric focus, this will help sales.
• Quality customer service helps inform potential customers and move them to the next stage of the buyer’s journey, and it factors in whether riders buy. 90% of Americans use the quality of a company’s customer service to decide whether they will do business with a company (Microsoft.com).
• Reviews & testimonials are also factors in people’s deciding if they buy Kickstart’s products – 93% of people read online reviews before purchasing a product (Qualtrics.com). Also, you might want to read other online marketing stats for motorcycle companies.

These and many other product and brand factors determine how often an ad must be seen before a purchase.

Impulse Buys

Notably, what would increase online sales with fewer views? One thing would be if the product were closer to an impulse buy. Just think about impulse buying items that you see online. Let’s call it a biker-widget.

Here are some features that help make the biker widget an impulse buy. First, is it a desirable widget that you want or need? Often, no one else is offering anything similar. And you’ve heard of the motorcycle website the biker-widget is sold on. Plus, you are familiar with the brand. Other riders give the widget excellent reviews. In addition, the biker brand always only sells quality motorcycle products. Finally, the widget only costs $20.

With all of the above, there is a higher probability that this widget will have higher sales than Kickstart does with its jackets. Plus, the widget will have higher online sales and fewer views of its ad.

Value of Motorcycle Ads

Next, not all ad views are equal. Your ad’s location is one reason you might not get sales when advertising.

For instance, think if you had a small banner ad on the side of a biker site filled with endless other advertisements. Then consider if you had a large banner ad in the middle of someone’s computer screen without other ads. Or imagine if your “ad” was a brief, quality video in the middle of a popular motorcycle website with very few ads.

There’s a big difference in the value of each of these motorcycle ads. This will change the number of times someone needs to see your ad to take any action, including buying. You don’t want to cut marketing your motorcycle site’s ads. Instead, you should dissect your advertising strategy and look for the best opportunities.

Moving Through the Marketing Funnel

So, it takes time, money, patience, and understanding to generate or increase sales on your motorcycle website. And, of course, you need an expert in marketing & motorcycle world knowledge to get visitors to the end of the marketing funnel. Moreover, the prospects must be convincingly moved through the buyer’s journey. Even to interest a highly qualified rider in your biker target audience, multiple ad views are needed before they buy.

Also, the buyer’s journey is important for any motorcycle website’s sales at any time of the year. With all the above, Kickstart needs to run ads on more than just big holidays. After seeing an ad one or two times, most people will not buy a $175 jacket, let alone a $500 jacket.

Note there are many variables to consider when advertising on Facebook vs. Google. And this alone can drastically change the results of your advertising.

Facebook Ad Site Example

As noted in other articles, there’s a lot of competition for limited ad space during holidays. For instance, with Facebook ads, you are bidding for ad space. Subsequently, the cost of ads is higher on big sales days.

In addition, people are bombarded by motorcycle products and sales during big sales days. Subsequently, a good part of your biker target audience will get burned out with ads. Subsequently, getting a sale takes more ad views and more money to get sales. Finally, filling your funnel is essential year-round. But it has to be filled before you start extensive holiday ad campaigns.

Common Errors Using Facebook Ads

Facebook can be a great place to advertise your motorcycle products. Moreover, it can help build your brand and product recognition. But your motorcycle site’s owner, employees, and biker social media marketers can make a huge mistake. The error below can drastically lower your sales. It can also increase your cost per conversion. Then, this, of course, reduces your return on ad spend (ROAS).

What is the mistake? Well, when Facebook ads are changed or turned off and back on, this kills your motorcycle ad’s performance. Specifically, Facebook ads go through a learning phase. When your motorcycle ads are started, the learning phase starts. During this phase, the cost of your motorcycle ads is higher. However, the price can drop drastically once your ads are out of the learning phase.

Significantly, changing your Facebook or turning it off temporarily ad can return your ads to the learning phase. Frequently, this happens if the person’s Facebook ads manager or the owner doesn’t like the sales metric they see during the learning phase.

Unfortunately, this can become a vicious cycle. And eventually, your company might give up on Facebook advertising. But if you stop your ads before they go through the learning phase, you haven’t seen the ongoing click-through rate (CTR), number of conversions, and return on ad spend (ROAS). In addition, you need solid data from ads to use Facebook’s lookalike audience ad option. 

What’s more, frequently changing your company’s Facebook ads increases the ROAS in another way. This is because creating ad graphics and text and setting up the ads are direct costs included in the calculation of ROAS.

Tips for Successful Ad Campaigns

One tip to get successful sales numbers on Facebook is to have a Facebook marketing expert run your motorcycle company’s ads. They will bring a lot of value by doing the following:

• Identifying your biker target audience who might buy your motorcycle product. If your target audience is off, your sales will be lower.
• Creating quality motorcycle ads, including graphics, calls-to-action (CTA), and text that convert into sales.
• Setting up your ads correctly – There are many options for setting up your motorcycle Facebook Business ads. No, I’m not talking about simple Facebook boosts or creating ads in Ad Center. Instead, I’m referring to motorcycle ads set up on the Facebook Business Manager ad platform.
• Analyzing your motorcycle company’s ad performance accurately is critical to formulating new and better ad strategies.
• Always A/B test your ads to find the version of a post that works the best.
• Then, your motorcycle company’s owner and biker social media marketing expert must be patient to see how your ads perform when they are out of the learning phase.

Biker Target Audience & Website Sales

It is very common for companies to not properly target their online motorcycle ads. One reason is that they think their product is an excellent fit for everyone who rides. Maybe a particular product or service does have broad appeal. But with any motorcycle product or service, there is a sweet spot target audience, meaning there will be a specific demographic that produces the highest conversion rate and profit.

The bottom line is that if your target audience is off or too broad, your total sales will be lower. And the cost per conversion will be high, which, of course, means your profits will be lower. Even worse, you could be losing money on each sale.

Identifying the best demographic for your motorcycle product isn’t easy, nor is filling a funnel or moving prospects to customers. Correctly setting up your ads is key. To continuously improve, you must test different ads, evaluate their success, formulate new strategies, and implement new ones. After you are done with this, this process repeats.

Finally, you can increase your sales significantly by providing world-class customer service. One example of excellent customer service I had, which made me a lifetime customer, was with Ray-Ban.