[crzycowboy]

Originally Posted by Ford diesel girl

I have been working on analysis of our marketing and advertising here. I started back in the 2009 area for them, and have analyzed each quarter since then. We are in:

Magazines
Forums
Google
IG
Facebook
Twitter
SOME events (not enough for me lol)

We also do some non-mainstream stuff like sponsoring Baja trophy trucks.

Word of mouth, forums, and the magazines are our best bets.

I feel your pain about the events. It's hard sometimes to convince them it's worth the time and effort. Way I see it, if there are 50,000 people at TS or Scheid, getting 1% of those people to buy a product is better than none at all. Usually if you sell a product, and they like it, they're going to tell their friends...usually.

Originally Posted by Shainer

I don't visit performance shops. I suspect not very many guys do if for no other reason then there are none local. I search the web via google for products. Come up with a list of vendors, then research their web sites. I would say clarity within the vendors site is a significant influencer. I find more and more manufactures are posting videos of the product. Anywhere from some go-pro to full professional productions. That can add a lot of clarity. Finally I check forums for end user's experiences with the products and sales transaction.

I do like to see product releases on the forums.

I think focusing on the website, and search engine optimization is money well spent. Forum updates are nice, but might be a challenge to support. I do allow a select few vendors to email me product updates as well

Yeah I know performance shops are not readily available in most areas. I agree with keeping a clean easy to use website so that end users can find what they're looking for quickly. You mentioned the vendors contacting you via email, that is something I've also suggested to them to use. That "Constant Contact" is relatively an inexpensive means to promote products to potential and new customers. As long as you're not sending a bunch of nonsense spam.

Originally Posted by zfaylor

I can see competition vehicles and success attached to them being very beneficial. When you see "so and so's" truck dominating events you are more apt to give those parts a try. Of course that can backfire and if that person breaks at every event people will shy away from the products.

The proof of competition vehicles being beneficial can be see at SDX every year. Look at the shear numbers of Haisley Machine shirts roaming around there. Haisley tends to do quite well at that event and I think spectators see that.

Yes, I actually have a Haisley Machine shirt myself. That is though because Eric Squires with the pulling truck we sponsor introduced me to them though. It is a great tool to advertise your products, but like I mentioned above, it only works if it has the proper support system in place.

Originally Posted by aka_chewy

I gotcha.

The reason I brought up the different demographics was just to show the difference in what they might look at. Obviously you want as many people to spend money as possible, just covering all those groups is a challange....as you've pointed out here.

Have you ever written a business plan before? Think the 'top brass' has? While they can be tedious to do, it's a great tool to get down to the basics of your business and how to address the different markets.

Not sure if it would matter to them or not, but might be a good way to add info to the data being collected from one of your target markets. Maybe will help them see what worked 15 years ago isn't working now.

Good luck with the endeavor...sounds like you have your hands full

I have not ever written a business plan. Mostly because what I know is through just going to events and talking with other vendors, and asking the right questions. I do however talk to the people here who generally do that. Hopefully since we have a marketing guy now, between him and myself we can write something up and submit it. They're number people here, so they want to see how much money they'll get in return for the advertising that they do.

Originally Posted by weazel

When my dad had his taxidermy shop, it took a bit to get going, as most businesses do.

By the time he sold the business, we were 2.5 years stacked with work. It wasn't because we were slow, that's just how good of a reputation he had built over the years.

He paid for a few magazine adds, but the most beneficial was word of mouth. Get in good with a couple of sellers to help push your product, and just keep pushing out good products, and the business will come to you.

I personally like grab in an old magazine and thumbing through them. Few days later I'll think oh yeah so and so was asking about a certain product, I can show them this... So for me word of mouth and stuff like magazine adds would be my choice.

I have noticed though with the younger crowd, they like the social media stuff, especially FB, and IG. my stepson is all over IG, constantly showing me stuff companies have posted, but I do not have an IG account. Don't really want one either.

Social media is a love / hate relationship with most people. I've seen more younger crowds obviously involved there, but I've also noticed some of the older crowds getting involved too as of late. Hell the former owner of the company here, now president of sales, has a Facebook page now. He's following mostly our customers pages, and other sources of product suppliers.


Thank you all for your feedback, and keep it coming! This is good stuff!