Nyla and I survived 7-8 days on a 50 ft Catana Catamaran, with Bob Bitchin, the original publisher of Biker and Tattoo, and currently Latitudes and Attitudes. Top speed 14.7 knots with a mild 20 knots of wind.

We sailed from Martinique south through about seven islands and back up to the base. All went down like fine rum. You’ll read the story in the next couple of weeks.

Glad to be back, facing 6000 e-mails and the news tomorrow, so go easy
on me until Friday.

If you have some extra cash laying around, you can own the infamous motorcycle former Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino was riding when he crashed last month. The motorcycle, a 2007 Harley-Davidson, is up for auction on copart.com. The listed price for the vehicle is $16,000 with repair costs of $18,481.

The current bidding as of 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday was at $4,050. (I just checked on the bike and it shows a current bid of $15. ???)

After reading the story about Petrino, it made me want to know more about Copart. I would have expected to see this bike listed on eBay.
-Jeff Najar

About Copart.com
Copart sells more than one million vehicles each year through VB2, their  patented two-stage internet sales technology.

Members all over the world go to Copart because of their extensive inventory with more than 50,000 vehicles available for bidding each day. Members can choose from classics, early or late model cars, trucks, SUVs, motorcycles, boats, snowmobiles, jet skis, recreational vehicles, and more.

Copart sells vehicles for a variety of consignors including finance companies, banks, dealers, fleets, rental car companies and the insurance industry. Copart also sells vehicles for the public through its fast, easy service called CopartDirect, and for franchised and independent auto dealers through its Copart Dealer Services (CDS) division. They have more than 140 facilities throughout the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, allowing us to be closer to both our Members and Sellers.

Will Copart work for you? It looks like it is worth investigating and determining the value of the product.

More About Petrino

Petrino was hospitalized with broken ribs after the crash. It was later discovered a female assistant, Jessica Dorrell, was riding with Petrino. The coach later admitted to having an inappropriate relationship with Dorrell, which included a gift of $20,000 and misleading school officials.

Former Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino was fired after he lied to school administrators about a motorcycle accident and an inappropriate relationship with 25-year-old football staff member Jessica Dorrell. The school hired John L. Smith to replace him.

Petrino, who coached at the University of Louisville and the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons before becoming head coach at Arkansas, guided the Razorbacks to an 11-2 record last season, which included a 29-16 victory over Kansas State in the Cotton Bowl.

The auction is expected to close on May 30 so there’s plenty of time to get your funding together. Let’s hope whomever wins the auction has better luck with the motorcycle than Petrino.

Murray will be responsible for product and content development for Dealer Expo, the motorcycle shows, and Dealernews-branded properties, said Danny Phillips, Advanstar executive vice president. Murray will be based at Advanstar’s headquarters offices in Santa Monica, Calif.

Murray previously was general manager of Yamaha’s Customer Support Group, and senior vice president-brand development at Global MotorSport Group.

“As a lifelong powersports enthusiast and having spent my career in this industry, I am very excited to join the Advanstar team at this time,” Murray said. “As our industry recovers from a very challenging few years, the needs of its retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers are rapidly evolving to address new opportunities and deliver new customers. Advanstar is poised to lead this evolution, and I am proud to be given this opportunity to help shape the next great growth period in the powersports industry.”

Dealernews content director Mary Slepicka will report directly to Murray. The Dealernews editorial team is headed by Slepicka, who works out of the Chicago area, and national sales manager Angela Gibbs in Western Illinois. Dennis Johnson, Beth (Silva) Demont, Cynthia Furey, Jeanne Paloma, Bruce Steever, Mike Vaughan and longtime columnist Eric Anderson are based in Southern California. Holly Wagner and veteran columnist Dave Koshollek are in Arizona, Arlo Redwine is in the greater Kansas City area, and Joe Delmont works from Minneapolis-St. Paul. Contributors Rod Stuckey and Tory Hornsby of Dealership University are based in the Atlanta area, and Rick Fairless is in Dallas, Texas.

“The Dealernews editorial team spans the markets we cover, from West Coast to East Coast and from Minnesota to Florida. This is the largest, strongest and most strategically placed B2B editorial staff in the industry,” said Slepicka. “We look forward to working with Mo as we continue to expand the Dealernews and Top 100 brands.”

Anyone wishing to contact the editors and/or columnists can do so at editors@dealernews.com. Murray can be reached at 310-857-7500.

The Smoke Out is an annual pilgrimage to Rockingham, NC where over 15,000 chopper and bobber riders congregate to relax, drag race, swap lies and dance to good ole rock n’ roll. Commander Edge, The Smoke Out Head Chopper, puts together this all-star entertainment program that is a must-see event for every chopper fanatic.

The winner of the Quality Lifts’ grand prize has a lot in store for his garage build. The winner’s lift boasts a 1,000 lbs. capacity air operated scissor lift that is designed for superior stability and reliability. The lift is operated by a dual foot pedal for easy and safe operation. The back of the left include a rear drop panel for simple ingress and egress. The lift will hit 35”, which allows easy access to the bottom of the bike.

“We are excited to be working with The Smoke Out and The Horse Backstreet Chopper Magazine as they consistently support American ingenuity as well as the sport of motorcycles,” said Chad Massey, Quality Lifts, National Sales Manager. “And our lift will assist them in delivering stories for years to come.

The Smoke Out team was so excited about the lift that Edge order one for his workshop and the Horse Backstreet Chopper Magazine had one shipped to their facilities in Michigan.

“I have to say this is probably the most heavy-duty lift I have ever used,” said The Englishman.
“I had a small compressor I kept in my basement for blowing out the sprinklers once a year, and I wasn’t sure it would have the pressure to operate this lift, but it works just fine. The lift goes pretty high which is cool for working on the underside of the bike. The covered foot pedals are nice, as opposed to the type where you have to unhook the air supply to let them down. The unique front wheel chock holds the bike pretty steady, making it easy to secure the bike if you are working alone.”

Rod Stuckey is a big fan of online media for marketing your company. Companies have experienced success in executing campaigns with email, Google Adwords, Web landing pages, Web-banners, Facebook, etc. However, he also believes that diversity equals stability. This is one of many reasons he is also a huge fan of offline media — in particular, direct mail and telephone.

A little-known truth is that nearly every great business owner has built his or her business on good direct-response marketing using direct mail and telephone. In fact, right now, in the middle of the information age, good ol’ direct mail is still a $45.2 billion industry. And the telemarketing and call center industry is still north of $20 billion, despite constant attacks from the Federal Trade Commission.

Why? Because it works.

It troubles me when I hear dealers and experts say that direct mail doesn’t work. That’s B.S. If you don’t think it works, ask yourself why the execs at Google consistently invest in millions of direct mail pieces to sell their pay-per-click advertising. They also employ telemarketers to make cold calls for the same purpose. Also, the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition, which touts itself as the world’s largest e-commerce event, is sold via a 32-page direct-mail piece.

According to nonprofit research, “Nothing out-performs direct mail for new donor acquisition.

Nonprofits wish that social media, Web sites, email, etc. could do this job as well, but so far, extensive experimenting by the entire non-profit world has failed to come up with any way to survive and grow without relying on direct mail.”

According to news reports, e-commerce sales over the holidays were up 15 percent year-to-year. But, how much of that purchasing was driven there from print catalogs delivered to mailboxes? My wife ordered Justice Clothes online for our girls after receiving its catalog, where she was given a special discount coupon code. She also placed orders online with Omaha Steaks and Patagonia, but only after perusing through direct mail that was sent to us. E-commerce companies also use offline media to upsell: Omaha Steaks now calls us to replenish as we consume.

According to Epsilon research, 60 percent of consumers say they enjoy checking their mailbox and receiving mail (and my guess is motorcycle enthusiasts receiving motorcycle-related messages pumps at least another 15 percent into that figure). The same study concludes that 65 percent say they receive too many emails to open them all. U.S. Postal Service data says that 98 percent of consumers retrieve their mail from the mailbox the day it is delivered and 77 percent sort through it the same day.

BUT IT’S ALL IN THE DETAILS
Little hinges can swing big doors, and one small detail can sabotage an entire direct-mail or phone campaign.

For example, who you’re mailing to makes a big difference in your success. The reason direct mail doesn’t work for some dealers is because they’re sending it to the wrong people. Data hygiene, list segmentation, and ensuring the message is relevant and compelling are all key details of a successful direct-mail campaign.

Methodically figure out who you are trying to reach, and then match your message to the targeted recipient.

Details are equally as important when it comes to the telephone. Sales are missed by a few words, not a few dollars. With a professionally crafted script, one salesperson can make a call to an unsold prospect, or a repeat customer, and provide new information that converts him into a kept appointment.

Alternatively, give another salesperson the same unsold prospect to call and let him just wing it, and he’ll tell you the customer isn’t interested.

You must use offline media consistently to maximize customer retention, increase their frequency of visits, and re-activate lost customers.

Consider a customer’s journey from the point of purchasing a new bike all the way through 24 months when he or she is now statistically considering a trade. Here are some touch points you can leverage for offline media to boost sales:

• Follow-up. “Thank you for your purchase. Here’s an incentive to take our CSI survey and come back to the store.”
• Related add-ons. “Hope you’re enjoying your new bike. Have you had time to review all of the accessories available?”
• The First Service Reminder.
• Birthday greeting (for customer)
• Birthday greeting (for bike)
• Service Reminder No. 2.
• Invitation to your store’s upcoming event.

As mentioned, I’m a fan of online media, and you can utilize these touches with email, too. Multi-touch and multimedia have been proven to boost response. However, tangible materials such as direct mail trigger a deeper level of emotional processing than electronic. Telephones allow you to talk, one human to another, and develop an authentic relationship. That’s hard to do on Facebook.

Pinterest users who follow kate spade’s pinboard are invited to create their own pinboards based upon where they would travel on their Vespas, according to the scooter manufacturer. Users can select one of four custom-painted Vespa LX 50s to create their “Ride colorfully” boards and, when they submit their boards into the sweepstakes, will enter to win one of the custom Vespas. The contest ends on May 3, and winners will be notified on or about May 30.

“Riding a Vespa motor scooter adds an element of fun, adventure and style to everything we do,” said Melissa R. MacCaull, vice president of Piaggio Group Americas. “The “Ride colorfully sweepstakes’ is the perfect way to dream about a destination you would travel to on your Vespa, Knowing that the dream can quickly become a reality, just as it has for millions of people worldwide who ride Vespas on a regular basis.”

Visit www.katespade.info/ridecolorfully for more information.

“Recommendations have long been considered the most trusted form of “advertising,’ according to Nielsen Co.’s “Trust in Advertising’ surveys,” said Ben Grossman, communications strategist at agency Oxford Communications, Lambertville, N.J. “The great challenge for advertisers has been that recommendations don’t have the reach, frequency and number of impressions as real paid ads.

“With social media, advertisers now have the opportunity to amplify recommendations at scale,” he said.

A good example of the phenomenon is Facebook’s Sponsored Stories feature, rolled out in January, which turns the actions of friends into business or product recommendations. Marketers, armed with knowledge of members’ activities through the Facebook News Feed—such as “likes,” check-ins, page posts and custom applications like discount offers—can feature those actions in the column on the right to those members’ friends.

When viewers see these ads—capable of being delivered with the same scale, frequency and reach as traditional ads—they may consider their friends’ actions as company or product recommendations.

A more traditional but similar social ad unit is Twitter’s Promoted Tweets, introduced last year. Here, advertisers pay for tweets that appear at the top of search pages on Twitter.com. The tweets, based on keywords on which advertisers bid, can be retweeted by Twitter users to their own followers, just like ordinary Twitter posts, a process that once again can have the impact of recommendations.

“We were initially concerned that these promoted tweets wouldn’t perform because we weren’t sure they’d feel authentic,” said Noah Mallin, VP and group director-social marketing at global integrated brand agency Digitas, New York. “But they’ve been working well for us; we’ve gotten a response that’s noticeable. We believe this can work if the message is right, [if] it leads people to participate and is not just a one-way community.”

The “social at scale” trend is based on people getting excited about content, whether that content is delivered as a post or an ad. When they share that excitement, people can go to market for a brand.

“One thing we always encourage is transparency to build trust,” said Lisa Arthur, CMO at marketing software and services company Aprimo Inc., noting the need for paid social ads to do the same. “We are in an environment today where customers are very cynical about marketing messages. The recent economic climate has made [them] even more cynical. “Transparency in building a trusted relationship must be at the heart of all social marketing,” she said.

Arthur has not seen as rich a return from social ads as from free content, tweets and LinkedIn posts, content that leverages the network effect of a trusted environment.

But hybrids that combine earned and paid social media, such as Facebook’s Shared Stories, continue to be introduced. For example, advertisers are beginning to employ rich media ad units, which can include just about anything, including live social feeds.

“These rich media ads can go on your own website or on an ad network,” Oxford Communications’ Grossman said. “I’m starting to see major brands integrating their social feeds, which are trusted recommendations, into these ad units.”

A prime example, he said, is the new website of an Oxford client, consumer and auto electronics company AudioVox Corp. The site, unveiled this month, features a “social panel” along the bottom featuring live social interactions the company is having with its customers. The idea is to demonstrate to the investment community that the company has lively customer relationships.

The panel is, essentially, an onsite banner ad, but Grossman said there are some safeguards built in to the AudioVox site to protect against broadcasting negative comments.

“It’s no secret that this isn’t for companies that are faint of heart,” he said.

A similar melding of earned and paid social media was a recent Oxford campaign on behalf of Brother International, promoting its new large-scale printer-scanner. The campaign, “See the Bigger Picture,” featured LinkedIn display ads that drove viewers to a landing page where small-business owners could describe how a printer that produces 11-by-17-inch documents might help them in their businesses.

Home-crafted videos were a favorite medium among responders, who were entered into a contest where weekly prizes, as well as a grand prize of $10,000, were awarded.

Whether the earned-plus-paid combination can produce results greater than the sum of its parts is as yet undetermined. But if social participation already is huge, social advertising is getting there as well.

According to a report released last month by online intelligence company comScore, U.S. Internet users were exposed to about 1.11 trillion display ad impressions in the first quarter of this year. Facebook accounted for more than 346 billion of them—a 31.2% share.

That almost doubled Facebook’s share recorded in the same period a year ago and was up from the 25.8% share of all digital ads served in the fourth quarter of 2010. Facebook is extending its display-ad lead over Yahoo sites, which in the first quarter delivered 112.5 billion impressions, or 10.1% of the total, a bit higher than its 9.7% share the previous quarter.

On March 1, the social giant debuted Premium on Facebook, an upgraded advertising option designed to extend the distribution of ads and ensure a greater number of impressions. It also rolled out Offers, a new option enabling companies to post daily deals, and Timeline for business pages, which revamps the way a company’s Facebook page is displayed.

“We’re reshaping our relationships with customers,” said Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, adding Facebook wants to “make marketing social.”

“Principles that apply to people apply also to brands,” she said. “You have a voice; express yourselves.”

REACH GENERATOR ADDS POSTINGS
To increase the circulation of ads, Premium on Facebook uses what the company calls “Reach Generator” to take a single ad and post it in several places on fans’ Facebook sites, including in their news feeds, the right-hand columns of their sites, on mobile devices and even on fans’ log-out pages.

Facebook will charge advertisers for the service based on their number of fans and won’t charge for each iteration of an ad.

Previously, Facebook ads had been relegated to the righthand of users’ pages and were fairly small. Also, brand messages or “like” notices might have appeared in fans’ news feeds but in a fairly modest way that could be easily overlooked.

The new approach, according to Mike Hoefflinger, Facebook director-global business marketing, is intended to gain scale and boost impressions.

“Today, only 16% of a company’s fans on average see these ads,” Hoefflinger said. “But Reach Generator will enable a company to reach 75% of its fans.”

Ads appearing on log-out pages, to begin in April, will further extend the reach of Facebook ads, Hoefflinger said.

“Thirty-seven million people log out of Facebook every day,” he said. “If you’re running large-reach campaigns, it’s important to communicate throughout the Facebook experience.”

Facebook’s new approach to ads is grounded on commercial messages that mimic social interchanges. It now calls ads on its sites “stories” and is prompting advertisers to embed videos, photos, event announcements and other nontraditional ad messages in them.

However, Facebook may confront a problem if users—even those who are fans of a company—rebel at seeing multiple versions of the same ad and decide to unfriend the brand.

Brian Boland, Facebook director-product management, said this is unlikely, however.

“Over time, people have built a significant number of connections with different brands with all sorts of page content,” he said. “And when people “like’ a brand, they know it’s something they’ll hear from. Content is something they expect to get organically as a page post. Now, they’ll get more in this new sponsored format. The chance of someone liking a brand or not will depend on the quality of the content.”

Taking full advantage of Facebook’s new approach to ads will be a challenge for marketers, said Michael Scissons, CEO of social media marketing company Syncapse Corp. In particular, a conflict could arise between companies’ earned- and paid-media strategies, which typically have been divided between separate agencies or business units, he said.

“I think the new approach is good and powerful, amplifying messages around stories,” Scissons said. “But brands will have a hurdle here. Traditionally, Facebook is run by social managers who have built a content calendar and gotten it approved. Now, with media buying playing a role, it’s more challenging. And it has to be conversational, which sounds easy but [isn't].”

Scissons said Facebook should have a good handle on the Reach Generator option.

“One thing Facebook is good at is managing the throttle of messages,” he said. “It may bombard users to some extent, but Facebook has good control over their news feed, and this will be optimized over time.”

Extending the reach of brand ads to mobile devices is a first for Facebook, which has 425 million mobile users but previously had no means of gaining ad revenue from that traffic, or offering this potent new market to advertisers.

“In the post-PC era, Facebook users are accessing the site from their mobile phones more than ever,” said Beth McCabe, VP and director-social marketing and technology at ad agency Digitas Inc. “Mobile ad products could not come at a better time. Facebook is still not being specific, but in theory mobile could become an option for ad targeting, as could much finer geotargeting than currently exists.”

Announced along with Premium on Facebook was Facebook Offers, a social media version of daily deal emails. Businesses can post an offer to their fans and are not charged for the privilege, according to Facebook.

Facebook’s revamped advertising approach sets the stage for its initial public offering this spring. The company aims to raise $5 billion through the IPO.

Harley-Davidson Sales are Up

Harley-Davidson is scheduled to release first quarter 2012 earnings tomorrow Wednesday April 25.

But after information leaked from a research update by the Motorcycle Industry Council became public, Harley-Davidson was obliged yesterday to confirm in a federal filing that retail sales of motorcycles in the United States rose 25.5 percent in the first quarter of 2012 compared with the first quarter of 2011.

In the filing, Harley-Davidson claimed that the Motorcycle Industry Council, an Irvine, Calif.-based industry trade organization, released to its members certain information pertaining to the motorcycle industry in the United States, including Harley-Davidson, “subject to terms of applicable restricted use agreements.” “The company learned that one of the members of the Motorcycle Industry Council, in apparent violation of those terms, disclosed information in a research update, presumably based on the contents of the Motorcycle Industry Council report,” Harley-Davidson stated in the filing.