Earlier this year, we invited Jim Seaman, Marketing Director at the Molle Automotive Group, to speak with us about his experiences as a 3 Birds client. Over the course of the conversation, he spoke about how 3 Birds has helped strengthen his relationships with existing customers, send higher-quality traffic to his website, and even help his team members to feel more invested.
Here are some excerpts from our conversation with Jim.
3 BIRDS: Why do you do a newsletter? What's the purpose of your newsletter for you?
JIM SEAMAN: We do our newsletter because first and foremost it helps build relationships with our current customers, hopefully with future prospects. It helps build loyalty to our brand and our dealership and certainly it generates quite a bit of repeat business for us. From my perspective, I think of it as building a fortress around our database. It's so competitive here in Kansas City, not just in Toyota-land but at every dealership. [T]here's over 130 dealers in Kansas City.
So protecting our customer database is a top priority in my mind and being able to communicate with those customers on an ongoing basis and not just having it be top-heavy with offers. We want to communicate the type of culture we have here in the organization and the newsletter really is an extension of our website, which..gives our customers and new visitors that feel that we really are a different organization, very atypical from what most people think dealerships do.
3 BIRDS: What kind of impact has the newsletter had on your website traffic?
JS: The newsletter has had [a] significant positive impact on our website traffic, and not just in new vehicle leads or used vehicle leads but also in the service and parts side, even the collision center. And we're able to track all that data that comes through off the newsletter and then pinpoint that back to our customers—we can follow their patterns on our website.
So it has definitely improved our website traffic and I think the quality of the folks that are coming in and engaging with whatever offer it is or whatever special that we have that's actually up on the newsletter. Because everything on the newsletter, you're going to find is a carbon copy on our website, so there's complete consistency across the board. [I]t has definitely had an impact and just continues to influence our customers' and visitors' behavior in a positive way.
3 BIRDS: Could you elaborate a little bit on the impact your newsletter has on your sales and your service?
JS: The impact it's had on service has been paramount because we have [one] of the largest databases of any Toyota dealer in the Midwest, probably of any dealer within at least an eight-state region. And as you know, not all those customers from our database are active customers with us. So I can go back through, I can see those hand-raisers.
For example, we have a couple coupons in every newsletter—typically an oil change coupon and we have a tire special coupon. So I can track that and look at that customer profile and I know in several cases we've had customers that have actually clicked those coupons and come into the dealership that haven't been here for at least 12 months. So for me that's a win.
Some might say, "Well, but they're just coming in for the $29.95 coupon and they won't come back for two or three more years." Well, that may be the case, but at least we have them now. We didn't have them [five] days ago, we haven't had them for a year, so now we have them—so from my perspective that's really a positive aspect.
And the service industry, as you all well know, I mean there's an independent competitor at the turn of every corner, so we want to make sure that we retain all those service customers and [the] newsletter's done a marvelous job in helping us with that. Plus the articles, I think the tips that are there from technicians, I think those are just marvelous. On the sales side,[the] newsletter has really helped me understand how I can better merchandise our product, especially through our specials.
3 BIRDS: Have you seen any impact from your newsletter on your social media pages?
JS: I have. In terms of social media, I think one of the things every dealer is trying to do more of is to obtain positive reviews. I think some dealers do it for the wrong reasons, just for indexing or for search results and to rank higher and so on and so forth. [O]ne of the things that I've found that the newsletter has helped us with is especially our Facebook page.
The reviews on Facebook to me are probably the most important ones on a personal level, because you figure the people that are on Facebook that are giving reviews, other people are in their sphere of influence. So it's not like looking at 950 dealer reviews on our website or on another Toyota dealership's website where those are great reviews but it's a little bit impersonal. On Facebook, these are people who have connected with other people so to me there's more credibility there. We've posted bits and pieces about the newsletter on Facebook, tweeted it out here in the last two months, and had a lot of good response.
3 BIRDS: Have you had any feedback from your customers about your newsletter?
JS: We have, and you can well imagine that the top two engagement pieces in our newsletter have been Mother's Day/Father's Day or employee profiles and spotlights. But it's only number two. Number one is the Molle family recipes and we've gotten considerable feedback, even customers who've tried those recipes and are ranting and raving about the dishes. So that's really gratifying, it certainly is to our owner and the entire Molle family.
The first [employee spotlight] we did was one of our employees who's been here 28 years. He had several emails and calls and people who stopped by, who said "I read your profile and didn't know that about you." So it's been very, very positive.
3 BIRDS: So why do you put recipes and spotlights on employee's mothers [for Mother’s Day] and those things in your newsletters?
JS: I want people to know, when I'm putting a recipe, putting a spotlight on an employee, this is again an organization that really values our assets, which is our employees. People say that day in and day out. Every organization says that: "Our most important assets are our employees." But you have to be good at some press, too. If you say that you're all these things and you say that you're courteous and respectful to all your customers as well as your employees, it'd better be as good as your press.
[J]ust being able to share that information with our customer base, I think it's very engaging, I think that's what they want to read, and I think they make connections to our people. We're not a one-and-done operation in terms of customer relationships. We've been in business now for 30 years. We’re the largest Toyota dealership in four states, has been for 19 consecutive years, so you can well imagine we have thousands of customers in our database and we try to treat each customer as though they were the only customer we had. So that's why we do what we do in the newsletter, to make sure that we don't appear to be this large and impersonal organization because that's not what we are.
3 BIRDS: Have you gotten any feedback from your employees on your newsletter and have you seen any positive impact from them being featured?
JS: Absolutely. [T]hey feel more engaged, they see themselves in the newsletter, they're getting feedback from spotlights in the newsletter, the Mother's Day and Father's Day piece that was in there—again just very, very positive feedback. [I]t makes people more appreciative of the work that they do in the organization. And I guess in some ways it makes them feel more in on some things in the organization, more a part of the organization. [T]hat's what it's all about, to have that continuity of when you hit critical mass. They always say you can stop one person, but you can't stop a hundred people.
3 BIRDS: What role does Chip [Reed, Molle Toyota’s Account Strategist] play in helping you create your newsletter and how does he help you with your content every month?
JS: Chip has been just a godsend in terms of support. He's got great ideas, he's a very bright and capable confident young man. I know that he's there to support me every step of the way. He offers suggestions on content, on layout, and is just awesome to work with. He's always there, he's very accessible, too, which is important with me. And very, very approachable. He makes suggestions in such a professional way that it never comes across as being anything but helpful. That's what I like about Chip.
3 BIRDS: You guys are located in Kansas City in a really big market. We think the newsletter is really valuable no matter what the size of your market is. In smaller cities and close communities, it's easy to imagine that customers and the dealership employees are closer and often they know each other. But why would you still recommend doing a newsletter in a smaller community like that?
JS: If I were in a smaller community, if I was only given a few choices in terms of marketing products and services, the newsletter would be at the top of my list for several reasons. Number one: a small community still has competitors. Even if you're a one-store operation in a town of 10 or 12,000 people—say you're the one Toyota store there—you've got competitors. All the independent repair shops are competitors.
Plus, [it's] risky if your thinking is such that people aren't shopping from, in some cases, hundreds of miles away. I say that because we're in Kansas City but we had customers last week from Dallas, Omaha, St. Louis. We've had customers from as far away as San Francisco that flew in, bought a Prius, flew the Prius back to the West Coast. So I think smaller communities that have smaller dealerships—I think it's paramount to have that little communication with your customers.
And true, you may have a lot of friends and family that are part of that community, but I think it extends beyond that community too. [T]he Internet has basically changed the way people shop for services, whether it be cars, watches, shoes, it doesn't really matter. [T]he world is a competitor, if you will, and if you're not being proactive in something like this in terms of service you're taking a real risk in terms of the longevity of your business.
3 BIRDS: So would you do the newsletter any differently if you were in just a one-store town?
JS: If we were located in a smaller town I don't know that I would approach it much differently than I do now. I'd have to be careful not to assume we were the only game in town, the only game in our county, within our area. So I wouldn't do anything differently than we're doing right now. [Even though] we have a larger dealership here, everything we do in our newsletter could be replicated in any smaller town's dealership newsletter. So I don't know that I would do anything differently. I might highlight more of the employees since it's a closer-knit community. I think that would have more impact, but other than that I don't know that I would do anything differently were I in a small town.
3 BIRDS: Any closing thoughts or closing statement you want to make?
JS: [T]he newsletter is probably the best tool that any dealership could have in terms of staying top-of-mind with an existing customer base. [T]hat's the risk that a lot of organizations take and make in terms of mistakes is that they forget about existing customer base. It's all about acquiring new customers, and I get that—I'm not opposed to that—but I think there has to be a balance. And if I were to choose between one or the other, I would choose our existing customer base and focus more attention in terms of time and effort, like through a newsletter, if I only had that choice. [P]rotecting the interests of your own customer database is just paramount, especially when you figure how much of your monthly business comes from your strongest customers, so if my name were on the letterhead that's what I would do.
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