Chairman’s Chat

chairman’schat

BMW Car Club Chairman - Jamal Blanc

An interesting year to look back on, 2020 has gone both slowly and fast in equal measures. Whilst there is no doubt we had our challenges, there is also much to celebrate, recognising how far we’ve come and what we’ve been able to achieve during such a challenging period.

Membership Management System launch

December saw the launch of the Club’s new Membership Management System. Developed consultation with our solution provider Next Step Heritage, a feasibility study of all member requirements was done and used as the basis for the technical design, framework and website functionality.

During testing, no major problems were detected and a key milestone, migrating the legacy databases, website and shop, was completed successfully. As we move into 2021, there are plans to expand the website with additional capabilities: Integrate partnership agreements Car sales and Classified ads A Valuation submission tool Design the framework for a technical database A new simplified forum solution

Our new platform pulls together all the Club elements into one integrated system, with automation capability to simplify a number of operational tasks. Members will also see a much-improved website interface, with lots of new features and much more targeted content.

Publishing update

Thanks to the collaborative efforts of Cedar Group, NSH and the Club, the Board of Directors were encouraged to see everyone work together in delivering the new solution at very short notice, with minimal disruption. The scope of the project included building a new advertising database to facilitate new business relationships, secure the introduction and changeover of our core market of advertisers, increase ad market share for BMW retailers and independents - a key market for future growth, and increase advertising revenue.

Instrumental in meeting this new demand is Madeleine Lillywhite, Advertising Manager at NSH and responsible for all print and digital media advertising, newsletters and the Club website. We will benefit from Maddie’s vast publishing experience as Digital Advertising Manager at Kelsey Media, and Advertising Research Executive at EMAP (Bauer) covering publications across youth, sport, lifestyle, motorbikes and classic cars, and she was one of the original launch team behind Octane magazine.

Since joining, Maddie has secured the core Club advertisers and attracted new business, such as the ALPINA retailer, Sytner, which we hope will lead to further commercial opportunities and added member benefits in 2021. We were pleased to feature an ALPINA on the front cover of the December issue, not only in support of this iconic brand and long-time sponsor, Sytner Group, but also a proud nod to our very own ALPINA members.

Straight Six saw a 25% growth in Q4, which under the circumstances was quite an achievement, digital advertising revenue has grown from zero to triple figures, a promising start and a good indicator of where the BMW Car Club will see a growth in their revenue stream for the future.

Maddie is now developing the BMW Car Club digital ‘High Street’ on the new website, offering advertisers the opportunity to reach new customers via the BMW Car Club website. If you manage a business and want to target this market sector, please contact Maddie at advertising@ bmwcarclubgb.co.uk or call on 01485 779454.

Warren Skelton – Cedar Group Sales Director

Cedar Group has worked with the BMW Car Club since 2017, with an initial brief to create an engaging and visually inspiring membership pack that members would be excited to receive. During this project we also undertook the card printing and fulfilment to help streamline and deliver the end-to-end process.

As our relationship has developed, we have now embarked on the design, production and delivery of this fantastic Straight Six magazine. This has been a pleasure to work on and our designer, Jamie Curtis, has thoroughly enjoyed working with Lisa Davies, Madeleine Lillywhite and Andrew Coles to bring the magazine to life. We were able to demonstrate once again, our ability to undertake all the disciplines involved under the Cedar Group umbrella to simplify the production process and make managing it easier for the BMW Car Club, so you’re only dealing with one company. Moving forward we are looking at promotional ideas for a new presentation pack and range of merchandise for the BMW Car Club members to enjoy.

Pirelli virtual evening

As we explore new ways of collaborating digitally, James Tomlinson of Pirelli demonstrated how it’s done with our first virtual zoom event which took place on December 2nd. With a team of Pirelli professionals involved in the presentation and 50 Club members in attendance, an engaging evening with topics ranging from tyre fitting to the science behind development of specific tyres for new cars. There may be another session covering winter tyres, which will be published via all Club channels. Thank you to James from Pirelli for hosting the event, and the members who participated.

Conclusion

It has been a difficult journey, with a tremendous amount of hard work to get us to this point and I would like to extend a big thank you to everyone for delivering when it matters - The Office team, Directors, Neil Robinson, Editorial, Next Step Heritage, Cedar Group. It’s not done yet, but we are confident in having agreed the right strategy with the right partners to put the tech in place, to provide a greater and more valuable, member experience.