Forklifts in the Wild

Sighted in Portland: the talent arriving at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Look at him. Marquee overhead, doors open, ready to give the artists a lift. And zoom in on the two ladies on the steps. They know a headliner when they see one.

Seen a forklift in the wild? Reply and send it over. And a true forklift nerd has a camera roll full of forklifts spotted off the clock. I see you. You're my people. I'm building a Forklifts in the Wild Hall of Fame, because a collection like that deserves a proper tribute.

Now, from my desk this week. Imagine this: you look at one pair of shoes online, and they follow you across the internet for a month. I made the mistake of researching swimming pools once, weeks ago, and the ads have never let go. As far as the internet is concerned, I am forever thirty days from buying a pool.

A recent lawsuit claimed Google's AI was snooping on people's private conversations. Google swears it wasn’t on purpose, and they fixed the glitch, so legally speaking, your phone is not listening to you.

Emotionally speaking, we all still lower our voices around it.

That experience with tracking ads actually made me think about the missed opportunities most dealerships have on their own sites. We’re losing out on knowing who is actually interested in what we have, while other industries are already leveraging this behavior data.

Forklift Dealership Marketing Tip: Your website has visitors you've never met

Every day, people visit your forklift dealership's website, look around, and leave. The ones who fill out a form become leads, and a form fill is still the best lead there is: a real person raising their hand to hear from you. But for every visitor who fills out a form, plenty more browse and leave without a trace.

Until recently, those visitors were just gone. But now, thanks to buyer intent tools, we get signals about who they are.

What changed

A new kind of software identifies the companies visiting your website. Not the individual person, the employer. Instead of your analytics saying “14 people visited the rental page this week,” you get “Acme Distribution visited your rental page on Tuesday.”

Some of these tools go a step further and tell you which companies are researching forklifts and material handling equipment anywhere on the web, before they ever land on your site.

I'm using HubSpot's version, called Buyer Intent. If you want to shop around, search “website visitor identification” or “buyer intent data” and you'll find plenty of options. Fair warning: the moment you do, those companies will start following you around the internet with ads. If anybody knows how to use this technology, it's them.

Why this should be on your radar

Dealerships live and die on leads, and this is a lead source marketing strategy that was invisible a few years ago. It doesn't replace your forms. Forms tell you who the person is; this tells you which companies came and left.

What it means in practice:

• You find out which companies looked at your rentals, your used equipment, your service pages, with zero form fills
• You find out which companies in your territory are shopping for forklifts right now, even if they've never heard of you
• Your past customers show up the moment they start researching equipment again

That last one isn't a theory. While I was still setting this up for a forklift battery seller client, before anything launched, the tool flagged a company researching industrial batteries. It was a past customer who hadn't bought in years, warming back up on their own.

Without this running, nobody would have known until it’s too late. I tested this with another dealer. A rep followed up with a company that wasn’t even in the CRM and confirmed they had just submitted a bid to buy a Toyota forklift.

This is the quick win I’m doing with all my clients this week: Create a Reactivation Radar

This already worked for 2 clients, here’s what I’ll do with the rest… 👇

1. Make a list (or “segment”) of past customers inside the tool.
2. Tell it to only show research activity from companies on that list.
3. Have it email you a digest once a week.

Every Monday, the team will get a list of past customers who are shopping again. Each name is pre-qualified twice: they bought from you before, and they're researching now. Hand it to your best rep.

Keep in mind, your team can’t say, I saw you searching for a new forklift. That would be creepy. This is just a signal that they may need your services. Be cool. Call them up, check in, chances are they will be glad you called.

➡ If your dealership already runs a CRM, this bolts right on. If your team never adopted one, this might be the reason they finally do. Reps ignore CRMs that demand data entry. Reps do not ignore a weekly email of hot leads.

Over to you

Settle something for me: is anything like this already running at your dealership, or is this the first you've heard of it? Email me and tell me either way.

And if you start seeing ads for forklift marketing agencies after reading this, that wasn't me. Probably.

Stay visible,

Julie

P.S. I looked at one pool. One.

This blog originally appeared on the Material Handling Marketing LinkedIn newsletter. Go here to subscribe.