Steve Richards Motorsport

Case Study: Steve Richards Motorsport

Promoting Ford’s new star driver

Ford Performance Racing is a leading race team in the Australian V8 Supercar Championship Series. At the beginning of 2007, their new star driver Steven Richards (2 time Bathurst winner and son of 7 time Bathurst winner Jim Richards) had recently migrated from Jack Daniels Racing, a Holden team managed by V8 legend Larry Perkins. A move from Holden to Ford is always a major event in the media, and even more so when it involves a champion like Steven Richards.

It is no secret that a race team is fuelled by its fan base just as much as the latest high-octane petrol, so the challenge in the times ahead lay not only in promoting the new star driver to existing fans of the Ford team, but also in maintaining the existing fan base of predominantly Holden Fans. With a racing personality as well respected within the V8 racing community as Richo, the question was not whether fans would respect his move to Ford, but rather whether all fans would retain their interest in Richo’s racing efforts after the move.

Driving the communication process

The key to sustaining the interest of fans on an ongoing basis is a continuous, two-way communication process and, while regular website visits would be an important part of the strategy, scheduled contact through a growing mailing list was clearly the best method for driving the process. A mailing list would also give the team the ability to advertise upcoming events such as special merchandise promotions and auctions of exclusive memorabilia, which would be important in generating revenue from the website.

In order to justify sending a high volume of regular emails it is absolutely crucial that the information sent is welcomed by the receiver. Fortunately V8 fans are generally enthusiastic about compelling information related to their sport, so by ensuring that the website was filled with relevant and exciting content at a regular pace, we would also be gathering material that could justify keeping in touch with the mailing list.

“WebDynamic™’s suggestion to use an email marketing strategy to tie the website, the auctions, the live chats and the other interactive components together gave us a brand new perspective on the whole project. We are now able to retain the initiative and drive the communication process on our own terms, something that we didn’t see as a possibility before.” - Steven Richards, V8 Supercar Driver, Ford Performance Racing

Creating an interactive hub of live audio-visual content

A strategy was put in place for the production of regular text updates through Richo’s Blog, reports on events such as race meetings, photo galleries with images from races and other events attended by Richo, regular audio and video streams produced from racing and other footage as well as scheduled chat sessions. In order to access most of this information from Richo’s website a visitor would need to register, and thus become part of the mailing list, so in this way the list would continuously grow as more and more people would visit the website.

Using a website content management system in combination with a sophisticated mailing list management software, WebDynamic™ created a system by which the client could add new content to the website from just about anywhere (including the race track) and simultaneously send an automatically formatted email to a preselected list of mailing list subscribers, essentially putting the news in front of their eyes instantaneously.

Targeting a varied client base

In addition to communication with members the system also allowed the team to create a number of separate lists for alternative purposes. For example, by creating a list of affiliates, sponsors and stake holders, the team is now able to create a preformatted monthly newsletter containing a summary of recent news and events, specifically formatted for this target group, and send it out automatically using the same system. This has acted as a value-added service that the team can now provide at little or no additional cost.

Building an online community

“Within a few months our membership rate has almost doubled, as has the subscriber base for our mailing list. The ideas put forth by WebDynamic™ have allowed us to create a much more effective marketing campaign, and the response rate to the email marketing alone has been phenomenal.” - Steven Richards, V8 Supercar Driver, Ford Performance Racing

The mailing list system was up and running in time for the launch of the new website. In response to the mail-outs, website memberships skyrocketed, and a community of regular website visitors formed virtually overnight. In just a couple of months the public mailing list grew to over 700 subscribers, which is largely attributed to simply ‘giving the members what they want’. This is a lesson in using mailing lists to market your organisation that should not be taken lightly. Success in Email Marketing is often walking a fine line between giving the members ‘what you want to give them’ and giving them ‘what they want to receive’. A great strategy, which WebDynamic™ can help you develop, is one which strikes the right balance between these two elements.