Polaris’ Chief Customer Growth Officer talks with The Current Podcast about how many of the company’s customers are multicultural and have preferred style over performance.

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

[00:00:59 ] Damian: I'm [00:01:00 ] Damian ​Fowler.

[00:01:05 ] Ilyse: And I'm Ilyse Liffreing. And

[00:01:07 ] Damian: welcome to this edition of The Current Podcast.

[00:01:09 ] Ilyse: This week, we're delighted to talk with Pam Kermisch, the Chief Customer Growth Officer at Polaris. 

[00:01:15 ] Damian: Polaris was founded 70 years ago with the invention of the early snowmobile in 1954. Polaris takes its name after the North Star, and it's meant to reflect the location of the company's first headquarters in northern Minnesota. 

[00:01:34 ] Ilyse: These days, Polaris is the global industry leader in power sports. Offering everything from Indian motorcycles to its off road racers. And all the accessories that go with them.

[00:01:44 ] Damian: During the pandemic, the brands saw a surge of interest in its vehicles as people embraced outdoor activity. Although it started out as a specialized brand, it continues to build on its popularity through its marketing campaign. Think outside. 

[00:02:03 ] Pam: Back in 1954, two brothers and a best friend decided they way, faster to get to their location. And they literally strapped a motor to the back of a sled and created the first snowmobile. It was ingenuity at its best. 

[00:02:20 ] And when I think about Polaris today, We have recreational vehicles. We have motorcycles. We have off road vehicles. We have boats. We also have utility vehicles that help people do work smarter. And at the end of the day, it's really about getting people outside and helping to have a better way to do things, whether it's working smarter or on the recreational side, having the most epic experiences with your friends and family.

[00:02:47 ] Ilyse: Very nice. Now in 2019, the brand actually underwent a new rebranding with a new Think Outside campaign. 

[00:02:56 ] Ilyse: I read that there is a goal to basically grow the base [00:03:00 ] by 50 percent by tapping into your existing base and finding new customers as well. What was your strategy around that and how has it played out to this point?

[00:03:11 ] Pam: Yes. So in 2019, We really took a look at talking to our existing customers, talking to potential intenders of our brands and talking to people we thought might be interested in what we offer. And we did some great consumer research. And what we learned is at the heart of it, we tapped into what they really care about.

[00:03:35 ] And what we found is what our current existing owners care about. More people could care about. We just had to find the right people. We had to reach out to them. We had to show them how this could fit into their lives and introduce them to our brand. And it's really been a  huge effort the past few years. To find the right people and show them how this could fit in with what they  already do and make it better. And on top of bringing in more new customers, it's also bringing in new people that look a little different than our core customers.

[00:04:11 ] Damian: Very interesting, because when you think what sell in a way, kind of very specialized, I don't know whether I'd it niche. 

[00:04:22 ] Pam: you know, I think when you look at household penetration off road vehicles, for example, household - So you're right. It's not something where it's 70, 80, 90 percent of the market has one of these. But what I will say is if you think about some of the audiences. We do attract people love outdoor recreation. love being outside. They love adventure. They might do camping, they might do hiking, they might do fishing. We also think about the people who do property maintenance They're farmers, they're ranchers, They're hunters. So, when you think about those populations, they are much more likely to buy our products. But if you look at the penetration even within those, We don't have 80 90 percent of hunters, so there's still so much penetration opportunity within people who do the activities where it seems like they would really benefit from something that we could offer them. 

[00:05:26 ] Damian: Was there a moment when you realized there was the potential to expand the audience? That's so interesting to me and I wonder how you found that opportunity.

[00:05:40 ] Pam:  So I'm kind of a nerd, self admittedly kind of a nerd. And I really think that CRM and data and analytics played a huge role in this journey because prior to [00:06:00 ] having that type of capability, we actually didn't know how many customers we had. We had customers for decades, but we actually didn't know how many customers. We knew how many units we had sold, but units does not equal customers because you have people who have owned more than one over time. So going back a handful of years, we were able to Get CRM, take our data in, cleanse the data, de dupe our, people and, understand how many customers we had and set some goals and start measuring how many new customers came in each year.

[00:06:35 ] And when I say new customers, some were brand new to the category. Some had owned competitive vehicles before, but never bought from Polaris.

[00:06:45 ] Pam: some may have owned a used Polaris vehicle, but had never bought new from us. So It's not a flash in the pan sort of thing. This is a strategy that we really need to go after. And so it became very intentional to, of course, as the global leader, it's in our best interest to get existing customers and come back to buy again because we have the largest number of existing customers. But we also need to focus on bringing in new people and we've proven we can do it. So let's do it. 

[00:07:17 ] Ilyse: And that first party data is huge to any brand. How is Polaris is actually getting your first-party data from customers? Can you explain that shopper journey a little bit? And may how that journey may be different from a traditional auto dealer.

[00:07:31 ] Pam: And Absolutely. So if you buy a car. It has to be warranty registered. So that manufacturer will know that you bought a car from them. So if anything should go wrong with warranty, that they are able to contact you. Very similar, when someone buys one of our vehicles and it gets warranty registered, we receive the customer information.

[00:07:54 ] And we certainly can use third party data to append that, but we know who owns that vehicle. [00:08:00 ] We also do have people who visit our website. In our dealerships, the majority of them, we call them multi line dealerships. So, they do sell Polaris, but they also may sell Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Can Am. And so, you think of it very to being grocery store being in a cereal aisle, where you have all the competitors right there in the same you may think you're going to the cereal aisle to buy Frosted Flakes and Flip and buy multigrain cheerios. 

[00:08:32 ] Pam: A customer can come to our dealership thinking they're going to buy a Polaris Ranger and that salesperson can flip to a Can Am Defender. And so when you think about it, it is in our best interest with marketing to try to get that customer as committed to which brand and which product they want as early in the journey as possible to make sure that they can't get flipped at the last minute at the dealership. 

[00:08:59 ] Ilyse: You know, when it comes to digital marketing, because it's such a niche product, are there specific digital channels you've found to have more potential to reach the type of consumers you're trying to reach? 

[00:09:20 ] Pam: You know, I would say it's less about it being one particular channel because at the end of the day, our, our customers are, they're all over the place 

[00:09:31 ] in terms of their habits, their consumption habits, and whatnot. They're 

[00:09:34 ] regular people. But what's more important to us is understanding the people who buy our products. So we do have our owners. We know who our owners are. 

[00:09:44 ] And we can do third party data appending, we can do look alike modeling to understand. We can't afford to go after maybe everyone who loves the outdoors. That wouldn't make financial sense. We may not be able to afford to go after everyone who owns one or two or 

[00:10:00 ] five acres of property or more around the country or the world. But what we can do is do look alike modeling and use that data with our media partners to try to get more narrowed in on: Who are the right hunters that we should be going after? Who are the right type of landowners? And part of it is not only being able to find the right people but understanding which populations which segments came to our ones ended up buying, and using that info to continually optimize. But also, lot of really, smart things these days where using our current inventory and using that our media to be able to reach out to the right show them this sportsman that you looked at recently is available right now at this dealer down the block and trying to [00:11:00 ] drive urgency there or using other types of data that we might have.

[00:11:04 ] whether they think they're shopping or not at that moment in time. 

[00:11:08 ] Damian: I wonder how you're connecting this because adventure tourism is a big deal right. And that's a growig market. Is tha