HiQ Announces Investment in Online Marketing

A ‘six figure’ investment in online marketing has been outlined at the recent HiQ national conference. This sum will cover a pay per click and rich media campaign driving new business to the fast fit network’s website, where each of the company’s 150 centres hosts its own bespoke micro site. The year-long online campaign will begin in January and target popular search engines including Google, Bing and Yahoo. HiQ says it will also shortly announce some new strategic online partnerships in the affinity marketing arena.

The HiQ network says the campaign has been carefully developed and targeted and will be driven by behavioural analysis. Significant sales results are anticipated through the search engine marketing and advertising. According to HiQ’s Create Demand manager, Geraldine McGovern, the investment is another example of the brand’s commitment to its franchise partners: “Overall, we think this is a really strong message. In addition, we are tripling our investment in search engine optimisation and we also announced new investment in a new Direct Marketing (DM) and eDM programme, again demonstrating our commitment to our partners in driving footfall and new business.”

“We are absolutely committed to the online arena; we always play smart with investment and online give us the transparency on return on investment that we are looking for,” McGovern added. “We continue to remain committed to leading the fast fit category online and innovation lies at the heart of what we do. Continuing innovation and investment in unique industry offerings like our bespoke micro sites for each HiQ Centre drives our success. HiQ will also lead and set the benchmark for groundbreaking use of social media and marketing in the automotive category. Watch out for some very exciting announcements from HiQ in 2011.”

The network’s website, www.hiqonline.co.uk, has already outperformed its set business objectives for 2010 and has increased its traffic by 24 per cent year-on-year.