What is this?
The following is a mock growth strategy that I created for a business called Jeff’s Bronco Graveyard.
After spending many hours researching this business and what they do, I came to the conclusion that their marketing could really use some help.
It seems like they are mainly relying on their reputation in the classic Ford Bronco and F-Series niche to help them make sales, and while there’s nothing wrong with that at all, I think they could do a bit better.
But what would be the best options for them when it comes to marketing strategies? What channels will be most effective for their resources? Those are the questions that I set out to answer.
I will begin with a brief introduction of the company itself and then we can move into the good stuff!
Introduction.
Jeff’s Bronco Graveyard is an Auto Parts Retailer for classic Ford Bronco’s and F-Series (F-150, F-250, and F-350) pick-up trucks. It all started in 1983 when Jeff Trapp and a group of his friends and brothers, decided to pursue their passion for mud racing in a classic Ford Bronco.
Their passion for the sport and that particular vehicle especially, is what drove Jeff to begin parting out Broncos and installing parts for customers on the side.
This grew into what you see today, a 30,000 sqft. building of classic Bronco heaven, in Brighton, Michigan. Bronco Graveyard has become one of the top suppliers of quality Ford Bronco and F-Series Parts in the U.S.A.
Priorities.
The first step I took was to decide what I thought their business optimization priorities and constraints are.
Business optimization priorities are the top priorities for the growth of a particular business. In other words, what are the key pieces of a potential marketing channel that would prove it to be most effective for a particular business.
For JBG (Jeff’s Bronco Graveyard), the optimization priorities I am assuming for the sake of this mock strategy are as follows:
- Cost Efficiency
The chosen channel needs to be cost effective. The current marketing that JBG currently has seems to be quite limited, so I am imagining that they do not have a large budget for marketing projects currently. Therefore, being cheap or at least using what funds we do have wisely is of the utmost importance.
- Highly Targeted
The chosen channel needs to be highly targeted. The products that JBG sells are in an extremely niche market. While there are many people out there who are not only restoring these classic vehicles but still driving them on the roads, it would be ridiculous to ignore the fact that they are a very small percentage of the total vehicles that are requiring parts. Therefore, targeting this select group of people specifically and effectively is a high priority.
- Effective
The chosen channel needs to be effective. JBG is a small business with limited resources and personnel. It is imperative that these resources not be wasted on ventures that do not lead to an increase in revenue or at least build towards that goal.
Business optimization constraints on the other hand are really the shadow twins of optimization priorities. The other side of the coin. The limits that are put on the business’s ability to market themselves.
The optimization constraints that I am assuming for the sake of this mock strategy are as follows:
- Engagement
A huge portion of modern marketing is engaging with your customers. Mainly via social media and other online forums. This allows the company to form a personal connection with its customer base and helps them to begin to build a brand around their company.
- Audience Specificity
At risk of beating a dead ox, (don’t judge me. It doesn’t always have to be a horse, okay?) Classic Ford Truck parts are a niche market. So, aiming specifically at people who are interested in those parts is really important.
- Limited Budget
Again, based on my research, it doesn’t look like JBG has put much money into their marketing efforts so far. That’s not to say they can’t, I don’t really know, but I’m going to assume that doing things on the cheap is gonna be helpful regardless. That doesn’t mean we want to sacrifice quality though! We just have to be smart about things.
Channels.
Now that I had the priorities and constraints, the next step was deciding which marketing channels will be the most effective for that specific company.
A marketing channel is simply a method of marketing.
Search engine optimization, Viral Marketing and Search engine Marketing are just a few examples. There are many, many, others, but I compiled a list of the ones that I thought would be most effective for JBG for use in the next step.
To do this required quite a bit of research on different options in the niche of the classic Ford truck parts market. However, I was able to gather some information and compile it into what is called a “Marketing Channel Matrix”.
A “Marketing Channel Matrix” is basically a way to help organize your information and thoughts when it comes to selecting a good marketing channel for a business.
It allows you to visualize your best options and judge them on a scale of Low-High based on each marketing channel’s attributes.
Below is the one I created for JBG.
I decided that I would select the two top channels to focus on. So, based off of my Marketing Channel Matrix, I determined that “Social Media Marketing” and “YouTube Marketing” would be the most effective for JBG right now.
Idea Generation.
With the optimal channels selected, the next task was to generate some ideas within those channels that could be implemented. Luckily, while completing all my research on the company, I was able to come up with quite a few ideas that I believe to be pretty good although I’ll admit, they are a bit basic.
My ideas were as follows:
- Revamp YouTube Channel
While JBG does currently have an active YouTube channel, I found many of their videos to be rather dry and old fashioned. It felt like I was watching videos from 2012.
Pretty amateur and while you can get away with amateur filming and editing if other parts of your video stand out, nothing I noticed about the videos were particularly good or interesting. I love their concept of product release videos, but I really feel they could stand to inject some energy and spice things up a bit with some better camera work, editing, and personality/direction. Aside from changing the current style of videos, I think some new video series like a “build” series, taking a rust bucket and turning it into to a nice-looking machine could be a good way to get people interested and show off the products.
- Micro-Influencer Endorsement
Sponsoring small OBS Ford and Classic Bronco Influencers on Instagram and YouTube would be a great way to get your name out there to a group of people who are likely in the market for the parts that JBG offers.
- Exclusive Promo Deals
Giving said Influencers exclusive codes that unlock savings for folks that make purchases using it could be a great way to boost sales and also track how effective your influencer endorsements are.
- Revamp Social Media Presence
Similarly to their YouTube channel, JBG is active on Instagram and Facebook. However, their posts are dry, uninteresting, and just seem old fashioned. Revamping their social media presence to be more modern, engaging, and exciting would be a great way to not only get people excited to buy parts from you but also help you build a brand around your company that could lead to merch and other additions in the future.
- Social Media Contests
This would really help boost engagement. Doing parts giveaways or letting followers vote to determine the best engine or coolest mod are great ways to get people excited and talking which will help you grow your brand and fan base.
- Revamp Blog
Back to beating another dead ox. The blog on their website is active but it’s dry as a bone and riddled with errors that make reading it an excruciating process. Getting someone to write some articles that are that are interesting, useful and factually correct, that don’t look like Chat GPT’s preschool brother wrote them, should help gain foot traffic on the main website.
The R.I.C.E Method.
So, armed with those amazing ideas, my next step was to determine which ones will be the most effective. To do that, I used the RICE method.
RICE stands for “Reach”, “Impact”, “Confidence”, and “Effort”. These are defined below.
- Reach:
Definition: Evaluate the potential audience size or the number of users affected by the proposed idea.
- Impact:
Definition: Assess the potential impact on key metrics or business goals.
- Confidence:
Definition: Gauge your confidence level in the accuracy of your Reach and Impact assessments.
- Ease:
Definition: Evaluate the perceived ease of implementing the idea.
The RICE method is a means of identifying the ideas that have the most potential and to help assess them by calculating a score for each one.
In order to do that, I used the following spreadsheet and ranked each Idea on a scale of 1-10 and allowed the spreadsheet to calculate the which ideas had the best probability of being a good option for JBG.
While many of the ideas I came up with could be implemented at the same time due to their nature of completely revamping the social media presence of JBG, according to the RICE calculations, Revamping the Blog, and The Social Media Presence would be the ideal starting place.
I personally think working on the YouTube channel would also be a good idea, but it didn’t rank nearly as high when plugged in due to its difficulty. (Depending on whether you were making the new video series I suggested or not)
That is my Mock Marketing Growth Strategy for Jeff’s Bronco Graveyard.
Travis McCoy 
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