A message to your vendors to encourage activity. - Drive Thru Online - Support

Nathan · #1 (**permalink**) 10-16-2009, 10:41 PM

I recently sent this to all the vendors on my site.

Please feel free to share with your vendors if you feel it fits.

Quote:

Does creating a DIY guide cost you business?

Taken at face value one might think sharing your tips and techniques for common services would empower your current customers to tackle the job themselves and your shop would lose the labor charges and possibly the parts sale. A few will, and they may buy the supplies needed online robbing you of the parts sale as well. However, I contend that providing DIY Guides to the community, as a whole, will bring in more parts sales and drive more people to your shop.

This may fly in face of conventional thinking, but these are unconventional times. Community members are going to share this information at some point anyway. Why not establish yourself as an expert in the field. Sharing this information propels you and your organization above the fray. Demonstrating that you have the skills and knowledge offer advice. For your local community this can bring in more service customers that do not possess the skills, location, time, tools and/or desire to tackle these projects on their own.
To the community as a whole this can bring in more sales. The act of sharing builds rapport within the community. Given a choice where pricing of a commodity good, such as an oil filter, is close with your competition most people will shop with those that show they are invested in the community and not there just to sell parts.

Yes, it does take valuable time to create these types of guides. Identify someone local with writing skills and offer a discount on a service they need in return for writing or editing the guide. Ask within the community as a whole for someone to check and edit your written material. Make sure spelling is correct, pictures are clear and well labeled and most importantly that the steps are correct. The devil is in the details, nothing will turn away potential customers more than a sloppy guide.

In the end, a well-written DIY guide will drive more sales and service to you. One has to take a long term view on these types of projects. These are quiet marketing materials that represent you, creating a presence within community and establishing you and your shop as experts in the field.

jimsflies · #2 (**permalink**) 03-02-2010, 09:48 PM

Great idea Nathan. I think a lot of vendors play it too conservatively. Setting their business apart from the competition is a necessity to be successful these days. Sitting back and passively hoping to get business or conventional sales are not going to maximize their potential especially in a forum setting. I think many vendors don't realize that actively posting is far better than running a banner ad on the site. Of course it does take more effort.

I need to send more info to my vendors as well to get them more involved in the forum. I recently installed (yet another:)) hack that lets me send them a pm instead of an email. I prefer communicating through the site as much as possible with the members and vendors. The hack basically does the same thing the email member function does in the adminCP. I have my vendors in their own usergroup so sending info using the adminCP system is a snap.

Nathan · #3 (**permalink**) 03-03-2010, 08:51 AM

As you can see this was written with an automotive slant but with a few edits can easily be used for most any site.

FannBlade · #4 (**permalink**) 12-04-2011, 11:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nathan

I recently sent this to all the vendors on my site.

Please feel free to share with your vendors if you feel it fits.

Anyone have a sales letter made up to send out to perspective vendors?
Would be nice to have couple in the loop before I purchase the Vendor tool.

Thanks for this also. I have it saved for future use.

FannBlade · #5 (**permalink**) 12-08-2011, 01:20 PM

I think a "sales letter" and "promotion" template would be a great feature to include with the download that could be used after purchasing the Vendor program.

Thanks for all your help Nathan.