Case Study: Shop Press Content Marketing Hub
The Challenge
As I described the marketing evolution at Dorman on my About Me page, we started looking at content marketing as a brand-building initiative a few years into my tenure there, after we had made progress overhauling product content operations and establishing clearer, more comprehensive brand standards. At that point, we were looking for ways to stand out from the sea of sameness that our research was telling us existed among automotive aftermarket repair products manufacturers.
Several direct competitors already had content marketing efforts of their own, although most it bordered on branded content, such as how to install or troubleshoot issues related to their own products. We were already developing a lot of value-add content for our own products, having recently doubled our video production quantity through smarter processes, and released a couple editions of our award-winning OE FIX Guide. Those efforts were undoubtedly critical to our success, and we felt we were already winning in this space, but could do more to differentiate ourselves.
The main goal was to show our target audience of mechanics that we shared their passion for motor vehicles. We were well known for having a prolific catalog of products, but as we faced increased competition, we wanted to build a closer relationship with our end consumers so they would be more likely to choose the Dorman brand.
The challenge was then developing a content tilt that would provide uniquely valuable original content to our target audiences, as well as secure the internal support to execute it. While content marketing had been growing in popularity for years, it was still relatively uncommon in our industry. We had to first explain the value of this approach to leadership, build guardrails that our legal team would feel comfortable with, and integrate it within our current processes so it wouldn’t distract from the constant need for new product content.
The Strategy
At first we brainstormed multiple media types that we could execute within our existing in-house team’s capabilities. We explored podcasts, seeing audio as the only format that mechanics could consume while also working with their hands in the shop. We eventually ruled it out as our initial approach for a number of reasons, including concerns about the potential reach of podcasts and the need to bring in additional equipment and capabilities to do it well.
What we already knew how to execute well was writing, video production, and web design, which pointed us down the path of not just adding a blog to DormanProducts.com, but building an entirely separate new platform. This made sense in our situation for a couple reasons:
From a practical standpoint, having a standalone site built on user-friendly web content management system like Wordpress would be easier and faster to update and manage than integrating into DormanProducts.com, which at the time did not have its own CMS. (Web designers had to edit code directly to build new landing pages.)
From a strategic standpoint, we believed the fastest way to build an audience would be to present the new platform as its own standalone media outlet. We didn’t want it to seem like another corporate blog of self-serving information about our own products and services, for which potential users might be less likely to visit and subscribe on the suspicion it would be mainly promotional. More clearly separating our product content from our content marketing would make it clearer that what we’d be providing was new and different from what our audience was used to seeing from us.
As for the content itself, we developed a list of different types of articles and videos that would be distinct from our direct competitors as well as the other traditional media outlets and social media accounts in our space. That list included uncommon repair tips, deep dives into the history and engineering of certain vehicle systems, perspectives on running an auto repair business, and even some entertaining posts and videos that repair technicians would be likely to share with other techs. We were able to execute on these topics because we had an experienced wrencher in our Marketing Content Manager, Liam Irving, and plenty of subject matter experts to tap throughout the organization.
Lastly, we came up with a name that was a double entendre repair professionals would get: Shop Press. Shop press is the shorthand name for a hydraulic press many garages have, but it also signaled we were a media outlet for repair shops. (It also felt full circle for me personally, having previously written for The Press of Atlantic City.)
With that, we bought the ShopPress.com domain, which, for technical SEO purposes, we pointed to a subdomain, ShopPress.DormanProducts.com. DormanProducts.com was already receiving more than 1 million pageviews a month, so we wanted to leverage that existing some of that existing domain authority to give us a head start in search rankings. This was also a light way to make clear that this content was coming from Dorman to eventual drive the brand equity we sought.
We first stood up the site at the end of 2021. To get leadership comfortable with this new approach, we then spent a few months gathering feedback from our existing network of repair shops. When the comments came back to be universally glowing, we officially launched in March 2022.
The promotional plan largely utilized owned media channels, such as the DormanProducts.com homepage and our email newsletters. We pushed the content out through Dorman’s existing social media channels and YouTube account, the intent being to intersperse our promotional content with more value-add content. With our limited ad budget, we mainly put money behind select posts to increase their reach on Facebook, but we also ran some sponsorships on Reddit, where several auto repair-focused forums had huge followings (e.g. r/Justrolledintotheshop). Lastly, we called on our employees to share articles and videos with their network to spread word of mouth, and with customer contacts to serve as additional brand touchpoints that would keep us top of mind.
The Results
Shop Press exceeded its pageview goals in that first partial year, so we set even more ambitious traffic targets in 2023, which we blew away from 300%. Multiple articles we promoted earned hundreds of comments from experienced repair professionals who carried on the conversations we started. Several more articles reached the top of Google SERPs for select keywords. We even had Motor Age, one of the leading automotive publications, ask to re-run one of our articles with a backlink to our site.
Aside from all the metrics, my favorite success measure was hearing from Product and Sales folks who visited auto repair shops and were told they loved receiving the Shop Press email newsletter every week, and that they always discussed the articles among their teams. That type of emotional connection is difficult to quantify, but it was exactly what we ultimately wanted to accomplish.
When I left Dorman in early 2024, we had even more ambitious plans, having also just on-boarded additional support from one of our newest technical trainers to write articles and appear in videos. Here were a few of my favorite articles and videos produced during my time at the helm.
Articles:
“Catalytic converters are the coolest car parts that get no respect”
“Ralph Nader inspired a vehicle safety revolution and all he got was a lousy bolt named after him”
“150+ of the truly best songs about cars, trucks and driving”
“Turbochargers saved the world long before they saved automakers fuel”
“Five different types of service techs everyone knows, based on how they manage their tools”
“An open letter to automotive customers about Christmas gifts (and tipping)”
Videos: