An Analysis of Digital Marketing of Electric Car Makers : Nissan, Tesla, BMW & Fiat - USA

1. Harshavardhan M P
2015

2.  An Introduction - Electric Car Market
 Digital Marketing Objectives
 Keyword Analysis
 Offer Analysis
 Websites
 Landing Page/Microsite
 Paid Campaigns
 Analytics
 Social Media
 How Tesla is Changing Auto Markteing

3. An electric car is an automobile that is propelled by one or more electric motors,
using electrical energy stored in rechargeable batteries or another energy storage
device.
As of June 2015, the US has the largest fleet of plug-in electric vehicles in the world.
Nissan Leaf, Tesla Model S, Fiat 500e, BMW i3 are the top 4 electric cars in the USA
as seen in Chart.
Considered Nisan Leaf, Tesla, BMW i3, Fiat 500e – USA Market for the study.

4. Before starting with the Digital marketing for campaigns, need to understand
the objectives of the campaign. This will help in deciding the overall steps
for the campaign.
Some of the objectives can be creating awareness, try/buy, visibility for the
brand/service, adoption, branding, social media visibility & others
Note – This is not an exhaustive & detailed study of the Digital Mktg. practices of the electric car makers
but an attempt at understanding how various digital Mktg.components are used by the makers

5. Keyword Analysis
Various Free tools & paid tools are available to do keyword research. Google adwords, SEM
rush , Spyfu & others are some of the keywords.
Decide on the top 1 or 2 keywords related to your campaign & optimize the pages using it.
Use it in the hashtag also for your social media activities
For paid keywords, classify it as per Industry terms, brand terms, competitor terms &
others. Based on the search volume, competition, budget & other parameters select the
keywords

6. Offer AnalysisOffer Analysis
 Decide on what kind of offers to include, assets available, try/buy offers &
other details need to be chalked out. What phase of customer journey you are
targeting through the campaign also plays an important role in offers.
 Awareness, Interest, Evaluation, Trial & Adoption are the phases through
which a consumer goes & offers should be selected based on these factors.
Elon Musk published
the below image on
his Twitter to build
awareness about
Model X launch

7. WebsitesWebsites
 Among the websites, Tesla has a very simple home page with a clear CTA
while BMW has carousels which occupy the whole page below which content
is given.
 Nissan has included social feeds from FB/Twitter while Fiat has long format
webpage listing out the car details.
Examples of Nissan Leaf & Fiat 500e Home Page

8. Landing Page/MicrositeLanding Page/Microsite
 Decide on whether you want a landing page or a microsite for the campaign.
Include the relevant offers, assets, registration forms, thank you page &
others. Include relevant CTA buttons on the site
 Look at how BMW has designed the landing page for its BMW i3 electric car.
BMW i3 electric car Landing page

9. Paid CampaignsPaid Campaigns
 Depending on the budget, campaign objectives, buyer demography & other
factors paid campaigns can be run on Search, Paid social on twitter,
Facebook, Linkedin, programmatic media buying & display ads.
Paid
campaigns by
Mazda,
Nissan &
Ford.
Nissan Paid
search
Landing Page

10. AnalyticsAnalytics
 Analytics plays an important role in deciding how your campaign is
performing. Various free & paid tools are available for analysis like GA, Adobe
Omniture & others.
 Tagging the URL’s, Filters, URL shortners, Ad clicks, Impressions, CTR,
budget, keywords & others are some of the parameters to be kept in mind for
analytics
Example of Nissan & Ford tagging their URL’s

11. Social MediaSocial Media
 Social Media plays an important for electric car makers to connect with
customers. As this is a new market, users need to be educated & providing
information for various stages of buying cycle is an important issue.
 Twitter, FB, Youtube & others are some of the top channels used.
Examples of Tesla FB & Nissan Twitter Page

12. How Tesla is Changing Auto MarketingHow Tesla is Changing Auto Marketing
 There are no Tesla dealers
 There are no commissioned sales people
 Tesla cars are marketed and not aggressively sold
 Tesla transactions are conducted online
 The price is the price: no negotiation
 There is no inventory: the Tesla Model S is built to order
 They are building a new luxury brand from scratch
 They are evangelizing a new type of vehicle: an electric car
 They are selling a $60,000 – $100,000+ car that can’t go on a road trip
 They must sell an entirely new model of buying and owning a car
 There is no inventory: the Tesla Model S is built to order
 You can’t test drive a Tesla unless you put down a $5,000 deposit
 In many parts of the country, you can’t see or drive the car before you buy
even if you place a deposit
 You have to wait in line for months or years to get a car
Source: http://scienceofrevenue.com/tag/tesla-marketing-strategy/

13. ConclusionsConclusions
 Among the websites, Tesla is the simplest one with a clear CTA on the page,
BMW has images but could have been given with a CTA.
 Fiat & Nissan have CTA on the page with a detailed explanation & Nissan has
FB/Twitter feeds on the page
 Nissan, Tesla & BMW i3 have a good a presence on Facebook with a
dedicated page.
 Nissan, BMW i3 & Tesla have a great presence on twitter with dedicated
channels.
 Among the paid search results from India was able to see paid ads of Mazda,
Ford & Nissan.
 For “electric cars usa” keyword, tesla motors & Nissan leaf rank in 1St
page of
Google for organic search.

14. Thank YouThank You