The Background

ELT Systems is a manufacturer and distributor of aftermarket automotive parts, ultimately specializing in mild lift kits for four wheel drive trucks. For the first two decades of operations, their primary revenue stream came from bulk orders placed by high-end lift kit companies with the intent of rebranding ELT’s products as their entry-level lift kits. In approximately 2009, ELT began marketing their lift kits under their own brands with Supreme Suspensions serving as the flagship. They achieved sales success by marketing through eBay and later moved into the Amazon space, when I became involved with the company.

With Amazon sales quickly surpassing eBay, ELT moved to overhaul the Supreme Suspensions brand including a new ecommerce website and an aggressive approach to social media marketing. After developing a series of installation video tutorials for Supreme’s YouTube channel, I began to seek low-cost avenues to gain traction in both the YouTube and Instagram spheres. 

The Influencer

After contacting several truck-oriented YouTube influencers, it became apparent that Supreme’s mild product line was not suited to the aggressive content that the off-roading YouTubers were aiming to produce. I then began to seek well-followed influencers outside of the truck sphere that may be using a truck to light capacities.

GuitarmageddonZL1 (Later rebranded as Muscle Car Central) is a Pennsylvania-based influencer whose primary content was based around the drag racing niche and a pair of Camaros that he builds for competitive racing. He also collaborated with several influencers local to him. In mid-2017, he announced (on a collaborator’s channel) that he had purchased a new pickup truck to serve as a tow vehicle for his race car.

I tracked down his PO box and sent him a complimentary leveling kit for the truck the next day, along with a letter introducing myself and the company. He unboxed the kit on-air and I later provided him with a discount code to share on the installation video. In September of that year, he collaborated with a local shop owner with his own YouTube channel (DiabloFormula Racing) for the installation of our product.

The Result

GuitarmageddonZL1’s installation video received over 200,000 views and the increased traffic to Supreme’s website briefly crashed the web server. Supreme also enjoyed low-cost exposure to DiabloFormula Racing’s small following. Ultimately, the promotion code netted over 1500 sales and ranked as the company’s most successful promotion by a factor of two.