Postcard Direct

Isuzu dealers sell midsized trucks that are used in a variety of occupations, including landscaping, plumbing, manufacturing, and materials distribution. Because of the differing vocations for which the trucks are used, the engines are the same but the appearance of the trucks varies considerably. To sell a truck to a nursery or an electrical contractor, it is useful to show the prospect a picture of what the truck will look like. To solve this problem, Isuzu worked with msdbm of Los Angeles to create a program called Postcard Direct.

Isuzu asked its dealers to provide it with scores of testimonials from satisfied Isuzu truck owners, complete with photographs of the trucks being used in various vocations. Msdbm helped Isuzu to assemble the best of these testimonials and photographs into a group of oversized postcards designed to be sent to customers in various vocations. Msdbm worked with Dun & Bradstreet and Isuzu to compile a database of small and midsized businesses and prospects, coded by business type. These names were put into a database with the latitude and longitude recorded in each record. In addition, the database contained the names, addresses, phone numbers, and logos of all the Isuzu dealers in the United States.

To launch the program, msdbm created a mailing to all Isuzu dealers, inviting them to come to an Isuzu microsite (see Figure 9-3) to order custom postcards to be sent to customers and prospects in their trade area. Dealers could come to the site and select the vocations that they wanted to promote, select the number of names they wanted to mail to, and view the test front and back of each postcard.

Figure 9-3: Postcard Direct

After dealers selected the postcards they wanted to send, they would see the number of prospects and customers whose offices were within a close radius of the dealership (see Figure 9-4). They could order the cards right on the Web. Dealers would click on the number of prospects they wanted to mail to and then would see a form for placing the order (see Figure 9-5).

Figure 9-4: Order Form for Postcard Direct

The program proved to be an outstanding success. Fifty percent of the Isuzu dealers in the United States logged on to the Web site and ordered postcards. After 1 year, a total of 128,000 postcards had been ordered using the system, at an average cost to the dealer of $0.25 each.

Figure 9-5: Postcard Order Details

Along with the postcards, the dealer got printed labels to affix to the postcards. The dealer could mail the cards on whatever schedule was suitable to keep the sales force busy.

This program was an extremely effective use of the Web. There was no other way that such a program could have been run in such a cost-effective manner. Direct mail would have been much more costly. Phone would not have worked, because the dealers would not have been able to view the postcards. Once the dealer ordered the cards, they were mailed within a week, together with the labels. The dealer got an immediate email thanking him or her for the order. The dealer was also able to get an email list of the names and phone numbers of the prospects to which the cards were to be sent so that the salespeople could follow up.