by Daniel Wedeking 

At RKR Marketing & Advertising we are often asked “How can I make my online advertising, specifically Social Networking, yield a return on investment?”  There is not a pat answer that fits every business but using the correct formula of social networking tools and online advertising integrated with traditional advertising and internal customer service we are seeing companies realize measurable return on investment from their Social Networking efforts. One local company, PRP Racing Seats, who specialize in custom made off-road racing seats, has used Social Networking and Search Engine Optimization to increase their sales five-fold.

PRP Seats - Case Study - Product: Aftermarket manufacturer of off-road suspension seats.

Opportunity:  PRP, owned by Aaron Wedeking, was under new ownership and needed to rebound from poor customer service and a lack of cohesive branding strategy. They needed to get back to the roots of “of-roaders building quality products for other off-roaders” by increasing awareness in the off-road community, top-of-mind awareness, and improved online ordering solution.

Solution: PRP allows for a wide selection of fabric colors in the ordering process of their seats. RKR rebuilt their website so that this complex process of selection was simplified and easy for the consumer to navigate. We focused the website content to the core business of building and selling seats and removed unnecessary distractions and confusion. We implemented a scalable ecommerce solution to increase the number of products and variations that PRP is able to deliver to its customers in an efficient manner. Our next focus was on reconnecting with the off road community. We took the basics of a Face Book account that PRP already had (700 friends in their network) and increased that to the maximum 5,000 friends in 60 days. We also built a “Fan” page on Face Book which drew an instant 2,600 fans after only 30 days. Utilizing Face Book we showcased customer vehicles, new products and announced offline shows and events that PRP was attending.  Face Book became a great source of customer testimonials and pictures to give creditability to PRP in the community. We then implemented an aggressive search engine optimization program. Within just 30 days we had tripled traffic to the main domain and increased sales 5 fold.

Results:  The aggressive approach to getting back to the roots of “off-road products for off-road people designed by off-road enthusiasts” reconnected with the community.  The simplified sales tools allowed PRP staff to focus on customer service and exploring new business opportunities instead of having to “hand-hold” their customers through the purchasing process. Expanded exposure on the internet has opened up a number of international distributorships while inexpensively increasing domestic exposure

to the multi-faceted off road enthusiast hobby.

Daniel Wedeking is the Online Advertising Specialist for RKR Marketing.  For further information, call RKR Media at (951) 694-4400.