In my second blog, I am going to look at how digital technologies have impacted marketing strategies and in particular the tyre industry that I work in. The advancement in digital technologies has had a massive impact on consumer buyer behaviour allowing marketing strategies to be more customised and better targeted to the consumer. The traditional customer when buying a tyre would have walked into their local garage and ordered over the counter with no idea of what it would cost to replace their tyres which can be very daunting. Whereas today many of Protyre’s customers start by looking at the website – protyre.co.uk. The advances we have seen in technology now allow consumers to find out more information about the products and services they are interested in, including pricing from the comfort of their own homes. With thousands of tyres available using a simple vehicle registration search it makes it easier for consumers to find the tyres they need, showing the availability for fitting and a fully fitted price (with no hidden extras).
By using new technologies, marketers can collect and analyse increasingly complex data on consumers, buying patterns and personal characteristics, and quickly analyse and use this information for targeting smaller and increasingly more focused groups of consumers. (Schiffman,2012). At Protyre we are able to collect customer data when they are using our website and use personalisation in surfacing the consumer with specific products when we feel they are likely to purchase them – segmenting our website visitors accordingly. For example, where we have identified a customer who is looking for an MOT to purchase, because they have landed on our website from a paid search campaign around MOTs, we are able to show them promotions across the website that are relevant to MOTs. Not just on the landing page they click through to but we can also personalise the promotions they see on the home page Vs a customer we have identified as looking for a tyre. It is more important then ever that the products and services we offer provide the right benefits and value making sure they are positioned the most effectively to the consumer, to give them the best chance to be purchased. Using tools such as Google Analytics, we are able to track the conversion rate of all these advertising campaigns and optimise them to a cost per sale target – from our digital performance at Protyre we aim for a £10 cost per sale as an acceptable return on investment.
Digital technologies have also opened up a new market around price comparison websites, in the automotive industry there are now many providers offering price comparison, whether that be for tyres, mots or vehicle servicing. It is therefore important as a retail to offer more competitively priced products and more choice to secure the sale from the competitor. Protyre uses third parties like this to further increase its market share and sell more tyre units. We work with may third parties such as Blackcircles.com. Asdatyres.co.uk and Whocanfixmycar.com to increase our sales opportunity. Using the advances in digital technology, we can provide these retailers with real time – live pricing, stock availability and customer appointment information.
Email Marketing
The advances in digital technology have allowed acquisition campaigns such as email marketing to become a key channel in driving sales at Protyre. Using an email service provider called Pure360, We are able to personalise our email marketing, adapting it to the needs of our database of customers pushing our key messages and products. Despite the growth of mobile messengers and chat apps, email is still an integral part of our daily life. Email users is set to grow to 4.6 billions users in 2025. (Statista,2021) – example Protyre email campaign below.
Mobile First
Over the past few years at Protyre we have seen a big shift in digital technology towards a mobile first world, traditionally customers would use a PC to search for tyres and with the advancement in technology mobiles have now become even more then important. With over 50% of Protyre’s digital traffic now coming from a mobile device, we have to optimise our user experience to work the best on a mobile device. Businesses can now trade soley on a mobile device with new technologies making connection and collaboration possible. It is reported that 62% of smartphone users have made a purchase online in the last six months (Forbes.com).
Thanks for reading! I hope you have found my own experiences interesting and how I have related these subjects to my job role. Please leave a comment, I would love to get your thoughts.
Bibliography:
SCHIFFMAN, L.G., L.L. KANUK and H. HANSEN, 2012. Consumer behaviour : a European outlook. Harlow, England: Prentice Hall (Accessed: 30th January 2022)
Schiffman, Leon G., et al. Consumer Behaviour e Book, Pearson Education, Limited, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/solent-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5174052. (Accessed: 30th January 2022)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2018/05/29/what-does-a-mobile-first-digital-transformation-strategy-look-like/?sh=465d601ef3c0 (Accessed: 30th January 2022)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/255080/number-of-e-mail-users-worldwide/ (Accessed: 30th January 2022)
Ben Baker's Marketing Blog 
Hi Ben! I really enjoyed reading your blog post and I liked how you tied in the theory to your work context- it was really insightful! I think I would have found it an easier read if the main paragraph was broken down into smaller chunks. I also enjoyed reading about how your industry is responding to changes in technology. I look forward to reading the next one 😊
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Many thanks for your feedback Evie – glad you enjoyed the post 🙂
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Hi Ben, great blog post and interesting to understand how you and your organisation have utilised digital technologies to improve business. Have you found that pushing more digital has affected your walk in customers? and is their any evidence that your older customers prefer the walk in service as opposed to using mobile phones/technology?
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Hi Ben,
Excellent post! I really like how you tell a story from your company’s perspective. Digital is moving at a fast pace so being mobile ready can be a challenge especially since Google penalises slow sites and sites with images that have not been optimised. It would be interesting to know which part of these campaigns you worked on and if you applied any theory craft it.
Great post as always…look forward to the next one.
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Another great blog Ben! I’m gripped going through these. We have used pure360 in the past for email marketing so this was very useful for understanding the benefit this kind of B2B relationship helps your company. With advancements in the digital marketing environment, would you consider A/B testing emails to further ensure targeting is as accurate as possible for consumers. Great Blog – Josh!
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