Get FinancingRing Power Lift Trucks Strengthens Brand Recognition With LiftsToday
Ring Power Lift Trucks (LiftTrucks.RingPower.com) enjoys strong brand recognition with customers in Florida’s lift equipment market. Significant credit goes to its parent company, Ring Power Corporation. RPC is Cat’s decades-long full-line dealer for Central and North Florida, with a dealership territory comprising 44 Florida counties.
“Ring Power is widely known, including outside of the lift trucks industry,” says Ring Power Vice President and Used Equipment Manager Dennis Schofield. “The brand recognition of Cat and Ring Power sets us apart. We’re widely known in and out of our territory.”
LiftsToday is also helping boost Ring Power Lift Trucks’ awareness with customers. LiftsToday is the niche lift equipment platform Sandhills Global spun off from MachineryTrader.com, the construction equipment industry’s leading buying and selling platform.
Florida’s Go-To Forklift Destination
RPC has over a dozen separately functioning businesses that target a wide range of industries. The Lift Trucks unit serves 10 Florida locations and, in addition to Cat, is a dealer for Jungheinrich, LiftKing, Kalmar, Mitsubishi, and other forklift brands. The company regularly has hundreds of new and used forklifts for sale and rent. It offers forklift parts and service, warehouse equipment sales, pallet racking, warehouse space, and upgrading services.
The company’s broad range of offerings and outstanding customer service have made it the go-to forklift resource in Central and North Florida. “It’s important for us to stand behind a product that isn’t going to break down,” says Schofield. “But if it does, it’s important customers know they can rely on us to provide parts and service right away. Less downtime for the customer means more profits for the customer. That's how you make your reputation.”
Advertising Dollars Well Spent
Ring Power Lift Trucks markets for-sale assets with a consistent full-page ad in the biweekly LiftsToday magazine, distributed throughout the U.S. and Canada. The Cat, Kalmar, Mitsubishi, and other machines in its print ad appear as featured listings on LiftsToday.com and MachineryTrader.com. As a consistent advertiser, the company can list its entire inventory as general listings on both websites, reaching tens of thousands of visitors.
“We have a really good relationship with LiftsToday and Machinery Trader on the lifts side and across Ring Power’s other divisions,” says Schofield. “The return on investment justifies the cost of advertising our equipment tenfold.”
A Dual-Purpose Website
Ring Power Lift Trucks features its used forklifts for sale on a Machinery Trader-hosted website at RPCUsedForklifts.com, built by Sandhills’ web design team with direction from Schofield. The website typically generates double-digit strong leads each month, many of which are eventually converted to sales. The site’s Hotlist page showcases equipment the company is looking to exit from its inventory that’s often available at lower prices.
Schofield says the site serves two purposes: It’s a gateway for customers to view its equipment and learn about its services, and it’s a tool for the sales team to stay current on ready-to-go equipment, such as the machines on the Hotlist.
The Right Kind Of Buyers
LiftsToday and Machinery Trader enable the company to reach the right buyers, Schofield says, including those likely to buy only one forklift every five to 10 years. The platforms also help demonstrate what it offers vs. the competition. “We don’t have to hit home runs all the time. Singles are fine,” he says. “LiftsToday and Machinery Trader get us in front of people, and that’s been extremely helpful to us.”
Schofield points to a recent sale success involving a customer looking to buy Kalmar forklifts as an example of the platforms’ exposure. “Not everyone is going after Kalmars because it’s a huge type of forklift. We had people in our backyard who didn’t realize we had those machines until they saw our ad,” he says. “That exposure led them to contact us and say, ‘Yeah, absolutely, we’re interested in buying Kalmars from you.’”
A Forward-Thinking Rep
Sandhills sales rep Dylan Scheele keeps Schofield updated on Sandhills services that he feels can help grow Ring Power Lift Trucks’ business. Scheele recently helped create a flyer for the company featuring for-sale floor scrubbers, which was distributed via email blast to targeted, active LiftsToday and Machinery Trader buyers.
“We’ve received a lot of traffic from the flyer,” says Schofield. “That type of exposure is what we're looking for.” Scheele also ensures that Ring Power Lift Trucks’ ad in LiftsToday magazine appears next to the Ring Power The Cat Rental Store full-page ad, helping further build Ring Power's brand recognition. “That's something that someone looking out for you brings to the table,” he says.