Driving Force: Maintenance Mailing Program is a Good Vehicle for Nissan

Posted on by Chief Marketer Staff

(Direct) For nearly four years, Nissan dealers have gotten response rates better than 4% to mailings promoting parts and service to their more than 20 million customers.

Six to eight times a year, Nissan and Infiniti dealers send customers self-mailers and other packages urging them to visit dealers for inspections, tune-ups and other basic maintenance work, says Doug Thompson, president of The Marketing Store, Nissan’s Toronto-based agency.

Since its inception, more than 1,000 Nissan dealers (roughly 70% of its total in the United States and Canada) and 95% of Infiniti dealers have joined this program. Both Nissan and its dealers share the mailing costs, Thompson says.

A format the company relies on is the 8-1/2-inch by 16-1/2-inch self-mailer. In one case for Nissan cars, the mailer had the words “Escape” and “Motion Without Concern” printed over a photograph of a highway by the ocean. On the flip side, the headline reads “Trust genuine Nissan service and parts to get you where you want to go.”

On the inside are coupons for oil and filter changes, transmission flushes and other maintenance services.

“We actually use a combination of formats, including letters and self-mailers,” Thompson says. “We have specific messages and formats based on consumers’ behavior and stage in the program’s life cycle.” The agency sends out all the mail on behalf of Nissan, Infiniti and its dealers, he adds, noting that each piece’s “high degree of personalization” makes it appear as if the mailings originate exclusively from the local dealer.

Besides creative, lists and other services for the mailing program, Nissan supplies dealers with banners, point-of-sale and other collateral material promoting parts and service.

“Once vehicles are sold, if we can set up a good relationship with those customers and keep them coming back to that dealership, the tendency to repurchase from that dealership goes up dramatically,” according to Thompson. Over the past year, Nissan has been testing the idea of extending these campaigns to e-mail. However, the firm and its dealers plan to stick with direct mail regardless.

“We’re quite happy with the way the [mailings are] working,” Thompson says.

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