Need marketing ideas/help

I'll answer the second question - dealing with the email list...because you basically answered your first question (with my answer...just measure, see what works best, optimize, repeat)

But, I would recommend Sendy - it'll allow you to import those 3,500 emails with ease.

I don't recommend Classifieds, they're really a wast of time, the strategy that I suggest is use Aweber e-mail marketing fo your list,they're the best, then advertise with Adroll, they will give you a free 15 days advertising, thus you promote your business and get new customers easily. after that you can use other PPC publishers to grow your business.
Good Luck.

You have a good list to start it with, you can use getresponse to send mass emails/news letters.
It is the best software and it has trial version too.

Well.....

You need to find out where your target market is. Did you do some research seeing if people ARE searching for BMW parts?

Marketing on the BMW forums is a pretty good idea.

The most important thing is to figure out your demographic and advertise there.

Matter of fact you can do media buys.

Say the keywords your targeting are valuable....

ex: Cheap BMW Parts

You can go to the website owner and ask to place a banner there. You can do this for all your top keywords.

You can also do Google Image Ads

Do a search for your best keywords. The visit those sites to see if Adsense is running and if the ads are running above the fold. Then you can bid to have your ads ran on those sites. (Got that from IM Kingpin Frank Kern).

More importantly just test small bro and see what works then scale!

Just make sure the audience you target is right for your products.

Suggest you signup with a contact manager such as Constant Contact (expensive but good), or perhaps GetResponse that allows email sending and contact a email list broker for some names that you can rent and start building a client list. A contact manager will keep you out of trouble with CAN-SPAM but this type of marketing requires a slow steady grind. You need a good call to action, great landing page, specials and a solid back end web site for ordering.

Good luck!

Just keep trying and never give up

I recommend laser target PPC keywords. Promote on bing, yahoo, and google. Do keyword research. find out who your customers are and what they search for.
You could also become an advertiser on networks such as cj or linkshare. Offer 4% to 6% commission to your affiliates. Let them drive traffic. Put a subscription form on the site and collect leads.

PG,

Start with the end goal in mind and work toward it.

You stated you wanted the business to return to previous profitability. I'm assuming you know what that was and also what the previous owner was doing with his marketing at the time. Right? (If not, you'd better have some serious talks with the former owner to see what he was doing to make his money.)

So why not start at the place you know is possible? Do what the previous owner was doing to achieve the income he got.

Then test and track ways to further ramp up the business once you have brought it back to where you want it to be. This shouldn't be difficult at all. It's much harder to make something profitable in the first plan than to simply expand an already profitable idea.

If you can't return the business to its former glory, then you'll have to be more creative to try other ways to make it profitable.

One concern I would have is this statement you made: "sales have been declining year to year." That's not a good thing; especially if the reason is beyond your control. Typically those buying a business want it to be in the growth stages - not in decline.

There are those that are "turnaround specialists." They buy cheap failing companies, perform their magic, then sell the company later when they have turned the direction it's heading from south to north.

But they always understand why a company is failing before they buy it. I hope that is your situation; otherwise, you may have purchased the Titanic which can only have one fate.

The very best to you,

Steve