Owenhouse Ace Hardware Case Study
Email Automation | Web Development | SEO | PPC/SEM | Social Media | Traditional Advertising | Graphic Design | Videography | Marketing Roadmap | Event Activation | Local Lift
Summary
Owenhouse Ace Hardware’s Background
More than 140 years ago, Owenhouse Ace Hardware was founded in Bozeman, Montana, with a powerful mission: to be a trusted resource for hardworking Montanans. What started as a small shop serving the needs of a growing frontier town has evolved into a community cornerstone, providing the tools, materials, and expertise to help residents build, repair, and improve their homes and businesses.
Through generations of dedication, Owenhouse Ace Hardware has grown alongside Bozeman – expanding to two locations, employing hundreds of knowledgeable team members, and offering an unmatched selection of over 89,000 SKUs. But while their inventory has grown, their values have remained the same: Customer-First Service, Quality & Reliability, Community Commitment. And just as they take pride in serving their customers, the Owenhouse team wanted their marketing to reflect that same level of care, trust, and connection.
Marketing Strategy: A Roadmap To Success
With each new long term engagement we start by building a roadmap – a marketing strategy for hardware stores that can be used as a guide for all future branding and marketing efforts. Once the plan was built, presented, aligned, and collaboratively decided upon, it was time to go to work creating content to support social media, search engine optimization, paid advertising, event activations, website development, and their monthly newsletter, all cohesively with purpose and a measurable outcome.
Continue reading to see the results we achieved for Owenhouse Ace Hardware.
OWENHOUSE ACE HARDWARE PARTS & REPAIR SHOP, DOWNTOWN BOZEMAN 1939
OWENHOUSE ACE HARDWARE DOWNTOWN BOZEMAN, TODAY
Details
Strengthening existing brand awareness while driving in-store traffic
Challenge
How do I improve a successful legacy business with a strong national franchise brand and a dedicated team by strengthening relationships with pre-existing customers, while driving new customers into the stores, differentiating the brand from others, and supporting internal team pride and inclusiveness?
Solution
Make a plan! Our plan or roadmap, began with surveys of the internal team and Bozeman’s citizens, alongside a full audit of all past and present marketing efforts, an in-depth look into their analytics along with a competitive and comparative analysis.
Branding
Translating 140 years of brand history into 21st century digital platforms.
Social Media & Graphic Design
When you have a store with 140 years of community contribution, the brand pretty much speaks for itself. Translating those stories into the 21st century digital age is a delicate procedure that takes special care and communication with respect and careful consideration. Through social media and display ads, in store displays and team buttons and email signatures, we are constantly looking for ways to brand Owenhouse as a Bozeman mainstay. Our design projects include everything from blog infographics, email newsletters, product sale ads that highlight the monthly theme, website landing pages for new releases and specials, and lifestyle stories from local partnerships.
Owenhouse Ace Hardware social media statistics since working with MOJO:
+1,606%
Audience growth increased
+1,744%
Impressions increased
+870%
Engagement increased
+870%
Impressions increased
SEO & Content Creation
Increasing brand awareness and rankings online to compete against national and online retail businesses.
SEO & Content Creation
With the intention of increasing keywords to compete against both the hardware retail corporations and online retail websites, our goal was to focus our efforts on grassroots-inspired organic SEO that showcased local products through engaging, localized monthly blog content.
+88%
increase in organic search sessions
+725
change in Google rankings
+809
change in Bing rankings
+32%
increase in session duration
-17%
decrease in bounce rate
+146%
increase in website traffic from Google my Business
+45%
increase in phone calls from Google my Business
Marketing Strategy & Roadmap
Taking a hard look at existing marketing efforts and setting the path to complete short and long term goals
By combining the efforts of Ace and their marketing muscle, internal surveys conducted with their floor and leadership teams, and town-wide surveys that dug into how their community feels about them, we were able to take a hard look at the existing mission and vision statements, their guiding principles and their primary goals both short and long term.
After completing their competitive and comparative analysis, we audited all of Owenhouse’s existing marketing assets as well as reviewed previous surveys, data and analytics, and their Ace franchise marketing offerings (Ace Marketing Muscle). These strategies are not short and they can be overwhelming, but when trying to make a holistic plan that is both comprehensive and simple to execute, you need to get it all out on the table!
Once we knew the ‘why’, we went to work developing target customer personas that tell us the ‘who’. We want to know what these customers do every hour of every day and at what point they interact or potentially think about Owenhouse Ace. Once we know the ‘who’, we can get the messaging look, tone, feel, and cadence dialed in through actual campaign design that focuses on both branding and effective, measurable action oriented ads.
When the campaign graphics are in place, we fill in the various levels of the sales funnel, assign different tasks to different members of the Owenhouse Ace and Mojo teams (this depends on the strengths and weaknesses of your marketing team), and set a timeline. And then we are ready to present to the Owenhouse Ace team, get their feedback, tweak any inconsistencies, and finalize the plan!
HARDWARE STOREs
How Do You Compare?
Do you get more foot traffic than your competitors?
Do you know your market share?
How long do your customers stay in your store?
If you don’t know the answer to each of these questions, you’re not alone. Many hardware store owners face these same challenges. Without clear insights, it’s tough to pinpoint the right steps to grow your business. But with the right tools, you can uncover new opportunities and take action with confidence.
