For this particular blog, I will
examine the traffic trends as it relates to the company of my choice and its
top competitors. I will select the Ford Motor Company as my primary company. I
will use GM and Dodge as my top competitors for this exercise. I will also
analyze the related keywords and the geographic differences. The tool I will
use to do my research is Google Trends. In the end I will provide the
recommendations I would give to the brand manager of Ford.
Using Google trends I conducted a comparison of the traffic
trends for these three companies. My initial search was based on data from
January 2004 to the present relating to a web search across all categories. Here
is a screen shot of the results.
As you can see, Ford was in the 100th percentile
and ahead of the other two companies. Ford continued to score high levels of
interest throughout the search and finished ahead of its competitors at the end
of September at the 79yh percentile. Dodge was second, followed by GM, in the
22nd and 12th percentiles.
Next, I narrowed my search to reflect data from the “Autos
and Vehicles” category. Here is a screen shot of my results.
Even though the graphs changed, you can see Ford maintained
a higher percentile average throughout the search (82%). The September results
showed that Ford continued to garner a larger portion of the interest.
Looking at the regional results, you can get a better scope
of where Ford is acquiring most of the interest. The top related terms gives us
an understanding of what topics are popular across the world. Here are screen
shots for each company.
Ford:
GM:
Dodge:
These results show that interest in Ford is very high in
North America and has steady interest across the globe. GM also has strong
interest in North America, but only moderate interest in the rest of the world.
Dodge’s share of the interest is primarily in the US and pretty much nothing
everywhere else.
Looking at the Top Keywords, the biggest generators for Ford
were: ford focus, focus, fiesta, and ford fiesta. The least producing ones
were: “ford cars”, “ford explorer”, and “ford ranger”. In order to gain a better understanding of
where improvements can be made, I narrowed the search to reflect the Rising
Keywords. Here are the results for Ford:
As you can see, the “ford edge” is the biggest riser and the
“focus” is the lowest. What is important to notice is the lowest producers from
the Top Keywords results (“ford cars”, “ford explorer”, and “ford ranger”) are
not among the Rising Keywords. This could be an area where Ford could make some
improvements.
After examining the results, I would recommend to the brand
manager at Ford to continue to market globally. With solid grasp on interest in
the US, Ford can afford to expand its brand in South America, Europe and Asia.
These are areas where the interest for the competitors is weak and Ford can
capitalize on it. Additionally, I would recommend re-evaluating the marketing
for “ford cars”, “ford explorer”, and “ford ranger” in order to find out why there
is minimal interest for these products. Based the Rising Keywords results, Ford
has seen significant increases in the interest in many of its products. I would
recommend Ford continue promoting it fuel-efficient vehicles and cross-market
them with the lower interest producing products.
