Harley adjusts marketing to get more women riding

[totalmotorcycle]

Harley adjusts marketing to get more women riding
JULIE MORAN ALTERIO
GANNETT NEWS SERVICE



People sometimes ask Karna Shelton if she has a tattoo. It's not a question most grandmothers have to answer, but then again most grandmothers aren't sitting on a Harley-Davidson wearing jeans and leather.

"I'll be 60 this year, and enjoying every minute of riding," she said.
Shelton didn't feel this way 14 years ago when her husband asked her to join him in his new hobby after he bought a used Harley.

"I had never liked motorcycles. They always scared me," she said. "A month later, he surprised me with lessons for Mother's Day, and I didn't have the heart to tell him I didn't want to do it."

An executive secretary who lives in White Plains, N.Y., Shelton said it's not a pastime she imagined would fill her golden years. When she was young, women riders were almost unheard of in her circles.

"If you were a woman rider, you were macho and tough, and women didn't do that," she said.

The stereotypes might linger, but more women will be throwing a leg over a motorcycle seat as riding season begins.

That's good news for Harley- Davidson Inc., which reports that about 10 percent of its buyers today are women, up from about 2 percent in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The venerable American motorcycle manufacturer, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2003, wants its customers in the next century to reflect America's changing demographics.

The company reports that the average buyer of a Harley-Davidson today is a married man in his mid-40s with a household income of about $81,400.

Just 1 percent of sales are to African Americans and 3.4 percent are to Hispanics. Overall, nonwhite buyers make up just 8 percent of purchasers.

"Purely from a business perspective, women make up over 50 percent of the population, Hispanics are the fastest-growing minority group. African Americans have excellent purchasing power.

"All of those groups certainly have the economic ability to be part of our future customer base," said Kathleen Lawler, Harley-Davidson's vice president of communication.

In recent years, Harley- Davidson hasn't had too much trouble attracting more customers -- despite selling motorcycles that it acknowledges can cost as much as 50 percent more than comparable rivals.

Harley-Davidson's 23.7 percent of the market is second only to Honda's 27.4 percent in the United States, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council.

In the category of heavyweight motorcycles with bigger engines, Harley's market share is 49.5 percent. Honda is No. 2 with 18.7 percent of that segment, which accounts for about half of U.S. motorcycle sales.

Ivan Feinseth, director of research at the investment firm Matrix USA in New York, doesn't question Harley's need to attract more buyers. However, he wonders whether women are the way to go.

"If I was in marketing of Harley-Davidson, I wouldn't go after women. I'd go after people who ride motorcycles," Feinseth said. "I really don't think a random woman on her own wakes up and says, 'I'd like to buy a motorcycle today.' I would think their interest would be triggered by someone in their life with a motorcycle."

It's a challenge that Harley-Davidson readily acknowledges.

"Without question, helping our products to become relevant to the lives of women and minorities is going to take time, and we recognize that," Lawler said. "Riding a motorcycle isn't necessarily the first thing that women think of, but we're going to be talking to women and helping them become more familiar with it, particularly women who have active lifestyles."

"The idea is role modeling," Lawler said. "If a woman sees that other women have done it and hears them talk about how they did it, why they did it and how much fun it was, and how easy it was to get involved, they may say, 'Wow, I can do that.' "

[CentralOzzy]

This is a picture of my Wife riding Her Sportster 1200 on her Birthday which was Monday 2nd May!



Finally we got a break from the 2 kids after what seemed like forever.

She was nervous to start with but was soon riding as well as ever, all I have to do is get her to ride on the road!



If only we could find the time, I'm sure she'd start to like it....eh Girls?

[Loonette]

I've been wondering how she's doing, Oz. Looks like she's at least sticking with it. Time is always an issue. We do some of our riding during the day when the kids are in school. I have to say, I've always hated the idea of viewing school as a babysitter, but it does have it's advatages at times. We take our turns on the weekends, still allowing for family time at home, and once in awhile my mom will be in town and we'll get out for a bit together. Your wife is going at her pace, and as long as she's still riding, she's still riding. Enjoy!

Cheers,
Loonette

[CentralOzzy]

Yeah....getting there slowly but surely

2 Kids do take up a lot of time, bless em.