Nissan Heads North

After four years of getting response rates as high as 10% in the United States, Nissan North America Inc. has exported its customer-retention direct mail program to Canada.

The pieces can be adapted to local market conditions as needed, says Liam Stueart, account director at the Toronto office of Nissan’s agency The Marketing Store.

Mailings are customized for each dealer using variable data imaging and other personalization technologies. Four standard and two supplemental drops — about 1 million pieces — go out to Canadians annually. That compares with some 20 million pieces mailed in the States, Stueart says.

The mailings encourage late-model Nissan owners to go to their dealers for basic maintenance like oil changes and tire rotations. Owners of older vehicles get pitches for more involved services such as timing-belt replacements.

“This program focuses on the other 80% — [those who] come to the dealership maybe once a year or who haven’t been there in maybe two years,” he says.

Dealer enrollment for the mailings started over the summer. The program kicked off in September and October and already has drawn better than 90% participation among its 140 Canadian dealers, with a high of 96% in Quebec.

Stueart concedes that “since this program is new, we’re assuming the response rates probably will lag from the outset.” But he’s hoping they eventually might reach 6%.

As part of the launch, Nissan dealers sent 100,000 pieces to customers in Quebec. Stueart points to a key challenge: adapting the English-language copy to Quebecois French.

To do this, he says, The Marketing Store worked with Nissan staff and a Quebecois French style guide to tweak the copy so that it “[would] have the most impact on the Quebecois customer.”

For example, communicating that a dealer is open between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. is done differently in Quebecois French than in English.

The same goes for offering discounts on oil changes and tire replacement. The copy is “written exactly in a way that Quebeckers are most likely to respond to,” he notes.

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