Automotive Marketing Articles

Marketing topics for the automotive aftermarket

6 Reasons Why Manufacturers Should Advertise on Google or Bing With Paid Search Ads

May 7, 2013

If you’re an automotive specialty equipment manufacturer you might not have seriously considered online advertising before. Here are 6 important reasons to start a digital marketing campaign right now. Paid search, or pay per click (PPC) advertising, is a great way to reach consumers on the Internet when they’re making buying decisions. Today more than 4 out of 5 automotive consumers turn to search engines first when deciding what to buy. Reason #1: Take control of your brand. If you’re an aftermarket manufacturer, you probably ‘Googled’ your brand name before. Chances are you found dozens or hundreds of listings for...

What You Should Know About Google’s Quality Score (or, How to Save 50% on AdWords)

April 27, 2013

If you’re a Google AdWords advertiser selling car, truck, ATV or motorcycle parts and accessories, you may already know the importance of your Quality Score. You might not know how it affects your bid or how to improve it, so as an automotive aftermarket digital marketing agency we thought this would be helpful. (Why you should improve it and reduce bid costs is at the bottom of this article.) Quality Score factors Our diagram at the left shows the factors that determine your Google AdWords Quality Score for keywords. Your QS can run from 1 (bad) to 10 (good)....

Auto Parts Customer Behavior in Google Analytics (or, Where the Heck Do My Customers Come From??)

April 26, 2013

You can improve your search engine optimization (SEO) and Google AdWords paid search results by understanding how automotive parts and accessory customers originally find your website, and how they return to make a purchase. You can discover a lot of information hidden in the Multi-Channel Funnels reporting section of Google Analytics (menu shown at left) so as an automotive aftermarket digital marketing agency we thought we’d pass this along in our blog. As Google puts it, “…these days, the customer journey has grown more complex.” Amen. Customers can come to your site from many marketing channels: social media, email,...

Google Reveals Automotive Repair & Maintenance Shopping Secrets

April 25, 2013

Here are some interesting stats on consumers searching for vehicle maintenance and repair services, for both Do It Yourself (DIY) and Do It For Me (DIFM) vehicle owners. It’s the subject of a report released by the folks over at Google Think Insights and shows the importance of automotive Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and paid search. As an automotive aftermarket digital marketing agency we enjoy data like this. DIFM consumers were responsible for 77% of the aftermarket’s sales volume in 2012 (excluding tires). That’s only down slightly from a decade ago, when it was 78%. It’s projected to get...

Increase Relevance (and Sales!) with Email Segmentation

January 23, 2013

We’re all bombarded with thousands of marketing messages throughout the day, and people run avoidance measures in an effort to escape many of these messages. One of the most popular platforms to reach consumers is through email marketing, yet countless marketing messages go ignored and unread. So how do you keep consumers interested and engaged in your emails? One word: segmentation. Email segmentation lets you cut through the clutter by staying relevant and providing material you know your audience is interested in. You send email with one type of content to a group of customers, based on their interest,...

Trend 1: Why New Car Auto Sales Are Rising

October 29, 2012

Today we’re going to wrap up our “66 Trends in 66 Days” series with Trend 1: reasons for the continuing increase in automobile and light truck sales in the face of a weak economy. The auto industry tracks monthly unit sales as a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) figure, which has been steadily rising since the summer of 2009. Monthly auto sales in September 2012 hit 14.9 million units, the highest level in over four years. And it could have been even higher because September was soft for fleet sales, meaning the September surge was primarily based on consumer...

Trend 7: 3 Things Aftermarket Retail Stores Need to Stay Ahead of the Curve

October 23, 2012

There’s a lot of competition in the automotive aftermarket—retail stores have to compete with online prices and specialty parts catalogs, and the seemingly endless selection that both provide. So what advantages do retail stores have that can keep them ahead of the competition? 1). Customer service: When customers enter an automotive parts store, they aren’t just looking for a part, many need help. Parts stores have an advantage over non-retail entities in the fact that their employees can actively provide help in a personal environment. Employees are able to explain benefits of certain products, ask open-ended questions about the...

Trend 11: How Enthusiasts Decide Where to Buy

October 19, 2012

Welcome back to our blog, today we’ll take a look at how enthusiasts decide where to buy their engine components. We surveyed thousands of automotive enthusiasts about their shopping habits to find out things like where they go to find information, what magazines they read and websites they visit, how much they spend on parts annually, etc. Today, we’ll give you a look at our findings of what enthusiasts considered most important when deciding where to buy. The choices enthusiasts were given were: product knowledge, return policy, business reputation, ability to install, bought from them before, lowest price, product...

Trend 12: 2 Things to Know About How Consumers Perceive Price

October 18, 2012

Welcome back to our countdown of 66 trends in 66 days! Today we’ll give you a look at how consumers perceive prices when shopping. How you present a price greatly affects if a consumer perceives the product as “expensive” or “cheap.” Research shows that typeface, size of the price or dollar symbol and other characteristics have an effect on of price impression and consumer buying behavior. How you present the price can also influence whether consumers will believe it to be “too high” or “fair.” 1). How far apart you space a “regular” price and a “sale” price can have...

Trend 13: 3 Things You Didn’t Know about 1994-2004 Mustang Owners

October 17, 2012

The fourth generation Ford Mustang, also known as “SN-95,” included styling from previous Mustangs and came with a 3.8 liter overhead valve V6 engine or a 4.6 liter single overhead camshaft V8. This generation included three alternate models: the 2001 Bullitt, the 2003 and 2004 Mach 1, and the 2003 and 2004 Cobra. Here are three things to know about fourth generation Mustang owners: 1). 53% of 1994-2004 Mustang owners are homeowners. 2). The average household income of a 1994-2004 Ford Mustang owner is $61,741; for comparison, the average US household income is around $51,000. 3). 62% of 1994-2004...

Trend 14: A Sign Auto Parts Retail Sales Are Slowing?

October 16, 2012

Today’s trend is a little concerning: the growth in auto parts sales is slowing down compared to the first half of 2012. This is important to watch as you plan your company’s automotive aftermarket forecast for 2013. Retail sales of auto parts went negative for the second time this year. August 2012 showed a slight drop from 2011, following a decent July (up about 3.5%) and a slight drop in June. We’re holding to our forecast that the year will come in between 3% and 4% over 2011 but we’ll be watching economic signs closely for any changes over...

Trend 15: How to Grow Sales With New Products From the SEMA Show

October 15, 2012

Welcome back to the Hedges & Company blog, here is Trend 15, how to grow your sales with new products. We’re introducing a new term for some of our readers, the New Product Ratio (NPR). The specialty auto parts industry thrives on new products and innovation. For retailers, warehouse distributors (WDs), manufacturers, and automobile dealers selling aftermarket products, new products are one of the best opportunities to grow sales in 2013. They create excitement among consumers and for brick and mortar retailers they help drive store traffic. For online marketers, new products increase organic search web traffic and bring...

Trend 17: 3 Things You Didn’t Know About Audi Owners

October 13, 2012

Today, we continue our trends with a look at Audi owners. Below are some interesting facts and demographic information about people who own any model Audi. Audi is a German luxury car company with a large presence in the United States; in fact, in recent years Audi has been breaking its own records in U.S. sales. Audi is owned by Volkswagen and has been around since 1909. The manufacturer specializes in compact, mid-size and full size cars as well as crossover vehicles. Here are a few things you probably didn’t know about the owners of Audi vehicles: 1). 52%...

Trend 18: Where Consumers Find Information on Engine Parts, by Age Group

October 12, 2012

Today we are going to look at some of our own research to give you an idea of where enthusiasts go to find information about engine parts. We will also look at how certain age groups tend to visit different outlets to find their answers. As a part of our own syndicated Hedges & Company research, we sought to find out where enthusiasts find information about engine components. We surveyed 2,768 enthusiasts and asked them where they tend to look for information. Their choices were the following: mail order catalog, social media sites, garage, independent shop, blogs, chain parts...

Trend 20: 6 Ways to Improve Email Deliverability

October 10, 2012

As an email marketer, it’s important to make sure consumers you send emails to are actually getting them. Blacklists, spam filters and all sorts of other automated technologies can keep email out of the inbox. Don’t panic though, there are steps you can take to ensure emails are delivered, based on our own experience delivering more than 100 million emails in a year. 1). Monitor the returned email server codes from your bounced emails. The three digit error codes that begin with 4 or 5 are sometimes cryptic but will help you understand if any of your emails were...

Trend 21: Using Social Media Effectively

October 9, 2012

Here’s how to effectively use your social media campaign to connect with your customers and evaluate your business. Building a large following of fans is nice, but to really make your social media campaign work, you have to attract fans that have the potential to become customers. For example, if you are a small business with no online presence operating in Miami FL, having fans from Cleveland, OH won’t do you much good. Having “likes” and “fans” is helpful, but what you should really strive for is actual interaction with your subscribers. The more involved subscribers become with your...

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