I have a question for you guys. Well, multiple questions. For those of you who get our WCCC Newsletter by email, what do you think of it overall? Is there anything you’d like to see us do differently with it, any suggestions to improve it?
If you don’t get the newsletter, here is what the most recent one looked like. (And if you’re interested in signing up, you can PM me your email address.)
Here are my thoughts, see if you agree. So far, it’s mostly just been advertising. There’s nothing wrong with announcing new parts that we think people are interested in, but I think we need to offer more informative, useful material in our emails. Yes, we throw in a link to a new video when we make one, but those aren’t happening very often. I’d like to see the ratio swing towards something like 75% useful information, and 25% advertising. The trouble becomes - where do we get ideas from, who writes the content (who has time to?!), and how does the content serve our sales goals?
Let me offer up a current example. This is in keeping with Don’s policy of transparency, which I like a lot, but most companies probably wouldn’t talk openly about this kind of stuff. Right now we have too many oil pans in our inventory, and we’d like to move some of them. So, the plan is to give a 25% discount on oil pans through the end of March to our email subscribers. I see two potential ways to formulate the message.
Straightforward, short & to the point - here’s a 25% coupon code for oil pans! Yay!
Open with a short article with some useful information related to oil pans, then place the coupon thing after the article
Talk about cork vs. rubber gaskets, pros/cons of each
Baffle vs no baffle, pros/cons
Whether or not to use sealant & where to use it
Anything else?
Both methods probably have their strengths and weaknesses, but I’m interested in hearing your opinions. I know it probably looks pretty unprofessional to ask for marketing advice from your own audience, but our goal is to serve you guys better, not necessarily to look like pros all the time.
Andrew I like the overall layout. It’s clean and crisp. A 75:25 ratio might not be that good for your overall goal. I think a 50:50 ratio would be better towards your sales. How about a section of the newsletter that covers what you guys are working on, videos, product development ideas, status of product development or even an employee ride section/profile.
Steven
The fact is consumers respond more favorably and spend more money with companies that offer information. It gives them a reason to continually revisit you and makes them feel that you are offering them something for nothing. There’s nothing wrong with “here’s a coupon”, but long term you will be far better served with the article to go along with it.
I think more videos would be cool. It was cool seeing all the new cougar videos you guys were pumpin out. Probably hard to keep coming up with new ideas all the time though. I just ordered proportioning valve and distribution block rebuild kit and will be tuning into the video step by step when it arives.
While I don’t have a Cougar (yet), I’ll throw my 2cents in.
What I would want to see is something similar to your #2. I think that if you have a advertisement for a particular part in your newsletter, then it would be most beneficial to the audience if you also had an accompanying article on how to best use that part.
Your door pulls in the newsletter you linked. I’ve never replaced one, and I’m sure it is fairly easy to do (it would seem so even to me). But a nice simple article with the basic steps, and some warnings about common pitfalls or variations (is it harder to do on a certain model / optioned car?). Maybe have a picture of some beat up door pulls in a car, a pic or 2 of the replacement process, and then the final product installed.
Coupon / discount optional
If you already have a video of the process then you could snip a pic or two and then just link to the video.
Or maybe at the end of each newsletter you could request someone to submit an article / procedure for a part that you plan to showcase in the near future?
Thanks for the input guys, that’s definitely along the lines of what I’ve been thinking. I think it’s worth the extra time and effort to come up with something people actually want to read. The videos are definitely a great medium too.
Sometime next month (tentatively) we’re switching email providers, so the newsletter format will be changing a little bit. In the meantime, I want to take these ideas and run with them. I like the suggestions a lot, it’s just a matter of implementing them and taking some extra time to come up with quality material. Stay tuned for the next one (probably about oil pans…) and see if we get on the right track!
