Member Spotlight

Tony Schaefer, founder, ChevyTalk

Customer since: June 2008
List size: 8,000
Website: http://www.chevytalk.org

Tony Schaefer is no stranger to online communities. Owner of an online forum called ChevyTalk, which currently has more than 50,000 registered members, Schaefer uses Constant Contact to stay in touch with active members of the classic automobile community. Want to know what kind of carburetor to drop into your classic Chevrolet, or the best way to change out your rear gears? This is the place where everyone who's anyone turns for answers.

A Constant Contact user since June 2008, Schaefer currently delivers email newsletters to a mailing list of approximately 8,000 classic car enthusiasts who flock to the site for everything from information about parts and service, to details about cruise-ins and meet-ups. "I use Constant Contact to send out welcome notes, sponsor offers, site news, and reminders for our volunteer supporters when their membership is due," Schaefer says. "My site also just started using the survey and polling system for contacting members regarding site improvements," he adds. "I'm a total Constant Contact junkie."

A Forum for All Things Email-Related

When Schaefer first signed up for Constant Contact at a seminar in the Los Angeles area, he was very impressed when he saw the room was packed full of new people interested in email marketing. "I realized there was a need for these kinds of tools in many different areas of business," Schaefer says. Soon after, Schaefer opened Clique Marketing, a business that uses professional-level marketing techniques to help other small- to medium-sized businesses and restaurants master customer retention and business loyalty. Covering areas that include list building and management, SMS marketing messages, data mining, and even employee training, Clique helps its customers become marketing-savvy in a hurry. "Constant Contact is a cornerstone of my business plan," Schaefer says.

After just six months of using Constant Contact, Schaefer found himself increasingly involved in learning more about email marketing and reading as much as he could about trends and best practices. "I receive a dozen industry newsletters and visit as many websites as I can to stay current so I can offer Constant Contact members and customers the most accurate information and most up-to-date business strategies," he says.

Of course, one of his daily stops is the user community at Constant Contact. "I find it a great place to meet new and old users alike," Schaefer explains. He enjoys reading the questions and answers on the forum, and he continues to learn from the users' experience and the variety of questions they ask.

Reaping the Rewards

Schaefer has been using online forums for almost as long as they've existed — he was a system operator on CompuServe, back when the dial-up Internet service provider was all the rage. "I enjoy interacting with the members who have questions," he says." Many times I find questions are an opportunity to learn more about the Constant Contact program, and I use it as a reason to experiment a bit."

For example, one of the recent questions Schaefer investigated involved adding PayPal buttons to a newsletter. "Although I had read about it in the past, I never took the time to try it," he says. "Now I have incorporated that into my own site's newsletter and have had great success using it."

Schaefer tries to visit the Constant Contact user community twice a day to see if he can lend a hand or learn something new that he had not previously known. "Lately I've been reading over older posts made by some of the senior posters," he says. "Those posts are chock-full of technical goodies that I can use to advise my customers and also use to help some of the newbies."

Overall, Schaefer thinks the product, support, and pricing of Constant Contact is great. "My ROI is fantastic, and I'm very pleased overall with its ability to help me stay in touch with my site members and consultant customers," he says.

Schaefer adds that he plans to continue using Constant Contact to help grow ChevyTalk, and to visit the User Community to meet new contacts and to see what others are doing. "If I can help others while learning, so much the better," he says.