Motorcowboy Getting A Foot In The Door Case Solution

1. Motorcowboy had a unique business model, it was working on a direct to consumer distribution strategy, which meant that it was cutting the middle layer and hence there were high profit margins on each product sold. Also, the premise of the company was that of a customized shoe, in terms of size; "the perfect fit", and the design. So, consumers could order any design they wanted. Motorcowboy was targeting niche segments in the market, such as people who cross-dressed, plus-sized individuals who found it difficult to find their shoe size in the market, music lovers, bikers/ individuals have interests in motorbikes, and equestrian enthusiast. Moreover, Motocowboy was also looking into the expansion of exotic materials such a stingray and ostrich. Hence, the brand positioning of the product was that of a premium product, or a premium brand, because it was providing complete customization. Motorcowboy’s customer dealing was also personal or one-on-one, that is via phone calls and frequent email exchanges at various steps of the shoe making process, which added to the premium experience. Hence, because of this reason, the volumes of the sales were low; however, the return or value of the sales was high. Therefore, as Motorcowboy was providing a unique experience and a unique product, it is safe to say that its premium position (Elliott, Percy & Pervan, 2007).

2. According to the case data, it was seen that there was a boost in traffic when the Adwords campaign was going on, but on the other hand it was seen that Google could not properly analyze whether these potential visitors translated into actual customers mainly because of the order placement process of Motorcowboy. Customers of Motorcowboy did not usually place orders from its website, in fact, the ones who did amount to less than 5%; hence it cannot be confidently concluded whether the Adwords marketing campaign is suitable for Motorcowboy or not. Other tactics that could be used include social media marketing, through Facebook and Instagram, through sponsored or paid content, targeting people with specific interests, for example taking Facebook advertising, people who share material related to horses and have related interests such as a horseback riding etc., could be shown ads for equestrian boots, similarly, people having interests and liking pages related to role-playing and action characters like Batman, could be shown related sponsored posts on Instagram, possibly with a shop now button which could link it to their Instagram page with contact information (Ashley & Tuten, 2014). Hence, the order will not only be limited to emails and phone calls, but customers could now approach through the respective inboxes, which is generally faster and more responsive than email. Facebook analytical data will also help the company to assess the traffic of the page and whether people like the content or not.

3. The initial strategy of the team was to use highly specific words, that would narrow the research pool, and which was below bidding words rather than a highly targeted approach that would end up eating up money faster, as they were of high bid value. The result of this was that the team only ended up getting 28 clicks with the spending of about $5.17. At this rate, the team would not be able to spend the entire amount by the end of the competition. This was also because the terms they used for their search were low volume words, and words that had such a low bid that they would not help the Motorcowboy website page to land on the first page of Google search. The team was using terms such as custom made, handmade and custom, along with specific keywords, which are not unique enough to be attributed to only Motorcowboy, and could bring up hundreds and thousands of pages on Google search. Hence, due to the low volume, low bid and specific nature of the keywords selected by the team, it resulted in a low response in terms of lesser clicks on the website, lesser visitors and therefore, did not amount to "quality" clicks. When using Adwords, it is important to strike a balance between the ideal words and the amount to be spent, so that the correct target audience can be reached, otherwise, it can result in high bounce back rate (Sen, 2005).