A recent ag equipment dealer update grabbed my attention and the lessons learned are worth sharing to rural lifestyle dealers looking toward continuous improvement that drives revenue. 

Keeping up and keeping readers informed also means knowing when an item is too good not to share. Such was the case when a colleague shared a recent social media post. It was told by and about a dealer who generated a return on investment (ROI) from time spent in deep-dive analytics on website traffic. Just last month, I’d written an overview of a webinar held on our sister brand, Farm Equipment. The webinar, “The Power of Your Website: Build It, Maintain It, Profit From It,” focused on the value of building and manning a website.

I’m sharing a social media success story here as a way of reinforcing the value of meeting customers where they are. Tending to all aspects of customer prospecting is key in today’s dynamic media market. Identifying how they are finding your website, on which platforms they spend time and crafting the best ways to reach them is critical.  

Reynold’s Farm Equipment in Fishers, Ind., credited TikTok with a mower sale last week. That’s not something we see every day. Yet, the backstory is valuable for dealers wondering how to get customers to work with them on product selection as opposed to buying online from a big box  or direct from the manufacturer. As I hear from so many dealers, that’s a big challenge, more so since COVID. 

The Reynolds team, in sharing the story, reinforces the value of spending time studying search engines, digging into the dealership’s website traffic and communicating with prospective customers. What started as a video experiment led to a sale after Marketing Director Kyle Nagy took time to track on which platform it was that viewers were watching a product video. As it is, one of their salespersons was featuring a John Deere Z500 series zero-turn mower in a video which the dealership posted. It was one of several point-of-view (POV) style walkthroughs to help prospective customers learn about the equipment and its benefits. 

Apparently, the video “did fine” on views, according to Nagy. But what he found when he dug deeper into the source of the video traffic was most compelling. His search revealed that 60% of its views have come from TikTok searches. Specifically, they were looking for: John Deere Zero Turn; John Deere Z530M and Z530R and a variation on the search with Z350R John Deere. To say that was not expected would be an understatement. Am I right? 

“People weren’t just scrolling, they were searching,” wrote Nagy in a social media update. “Asking real questions, looking for information. And earlier this week, someone filled out a lead form on the dealership’s TikTok asking for a quote on that model and shortly thereafter, we closed the deal.”

Nagy has since shared his story on other social media outlets, noting that TikTok is one of the fastest-growing search engines. He adds that research shows 40% of millennial and Gen Z users now use it to discover and research new products. 

Lesson learned: show up where your customers are looking, says Nagy. His takeaways? “It’s not just about making content, it’s about answering questions, showing up in the search and engaging authentically with the people watching … there is much more you can get out of social media.” 

“Meet them where they are” is more than just good life advice, it’s also a good tip for dealer success.