This past spring, the North Texas Chevy Dealers worked with Velocity Marketing and CBS Radio to put together a very cool blogger outreach program. In short, the program targeted 5 moms. As you’ll see from the interview below with project lead Amy Krause, the SVP at Velocity Marketing, the impact of even this small number was huge. Who says influencer programs need to have huge numbers to be effective??
On with the interview!
How would you explain the Mommy Madness program?
We realized the power of word of mouth over any other kind of communication. Now, more than ever, we see that with blogs and social media – word of mouth is happening to a greater amount of people at the same time and…faster! As a marketer, I feel it’s important to “join in” the fun rather than try to direct the conversation. And you need to be confident of your product. In this case, the Chevy Traverse was the perfect product to put in front of moms in a very casual way. Our goal was to get 5 local moms who like to blog into the all-new Chevy Traverse, love it (like we knew they would) and tell their friends about it. We had a contest for moms to nominate themselves to be a part of the “Chevy Traverse Mom Squad”. In addition to letting them check it out, we put them on “missions” with their vehicle – to the grocery store, to a baseball game, on a “girls day outing” and let them write about their adventures in their Chevy Traverse. Each “mission” was fun for the mom and their family and showed off attributes of the Chevy Traverse. During the “Mommy Madness” program, people could register to win an all-expense paid trip to a spa for them and their friends by voting for a mom. The winning mom also got a trip. It was a fun program!
There was an interesting combination of players involved (agencies, CBS, Chevy dealers, etc). Can you talk about whose idea this was?
This was a program that I thought of after having so many friends, who are moms, start to blog. I thought that it would be great to be able to bring together some moms who blog, and let Chevy give them more to write about – be a part of the family adventure. The vehicle is just perfect for moms. I then brought CBS Radio/Dallas into the fold and we brainstormed together – they added all the details, execution and creative to the program so it was a great partnership. I then presented it to the local Chevy Dealers who were thrilled to do this local media promotion.
Many other car companies are doing blogger outreach and loaning cars for a few days. Why go so far as to loan your cars for 8 weeks?
We felt like in order for the blogs to gain traction, we needed to do the program for 8 weeks. We would have fewer moms involved, but really be able to give them a sense of the vehicles they are driving.
Convincing five dealers to donate (or at least donate the “new” moniker) on five pricey vehicles must have been quite a feat! Can you share some of the surprises and frustrations to making a great program idea actually get sold in?
There weren’t any frustration or surprises. The dealers were all very excited about the program and thrilled to be doing something different.
How did you select the five moms?
We read all the entries and chose the moms based on what they wrote on their entry and checked out their blogs – we had several people take a look at all the entries.
Talk to me about your challenges with the legal department; loaning 5 cars for two months must have made the lawyers more than a little nervous!
The dealers loaned the cars and had the moms fill out the proper paperwork that the dealers would have anyone fill out. In some markets we rented the vehicles. It wasn’t an issue.
You did something most brands are scared to do: you put your volunteers to work. The Moms were tasked with specific activities as part of their participation. How did that turn out?
It was interesting. We learned a lot about that AFTER the program ended and we asked many of the mom’s for feedback. Evidently, we didn’t ask them to work enough! The tasks that they were asked to do were very much a part of their regular routine and we helped with that task. For example, going to the grocery store…a family outing…a girls trip to Massage Envy. The moms were thrilled and we were able to showcase the attributes of the Chevy Traverse in each mission.
Now that the program has ended, what surprised you the most? What would you do differently?
I was surprised at how very creative all the moms were with their videos and their blog. They were all fantastic. I couldn’t have had better brand ambassadors than these moms! What also surprised me was how much they wanted to sell the Chevy Traverse. Some moms organized test drives with their local Chevy Dealer, one mom brought some sales people to her house and had her neighbors over who all got a walk-around of the vehicle. They were far more creative than me.
As far as what I would do differently, I think we will make the program a little shorter. Some of the missions may change and we’ll add a mission in that supports the community and possibly support a local non-profit.
Many marketers don’t think that a number like 5 would be worth their time. How did these five scale to deliver program results?
It’s important to note that this was a local program, sponsored by the local Chevy dealers – not a regional or national program. Since it was a new program, we wanted to start small and take our learnings from there and go bigger. We didn’t know what kind of results to expect just using select radio stations and moms blogging!
I know it’s tough to share results, but… Can you share some results about how successful the program was?
We did the program in three markets – Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston and Kansas City. Between the dates of 4/17 – 8/10, we could attribute the sale of 46 Chevy Traverses’, 44 people bought another Chevy vehicle and 17 people bought a GM product. A total of 107 people bought a new vehicle. And we’ll keep measuring the program. In addition, we had over 873 test drives of the all new Chevy Traverse… thanks to the moms!
Consistent, moderate growth and profitability can be boring to some. But what some great, sustaining companies do is remain focused on the successful, core elements of their business. They wash, rinse, repeat (and improve) basic functions of their business model and cautiously add to the business model. 