If you’ve ever been to Gainesville, then you’ve seen the “scooter culture” that exists at the University of Florida. Collin Austin, founder of New Scooters 4 Less (NS4L), opened shop in early 2004 with a solution to combat the hassle of public transportation. Prior to starting his entrepreneurial ways, Collin was a student at UF and experienced the traffic and transportation issues firsthand at the fast growing campus. He realized that the campus was landlocked, and the only place to put new buildings was on campus parking lots. Parking and transportation difficulties had become the norm at UF. After attending numerous career fairs and taking an honest look at himself, Collin knew that working for others was not for him. His vision was to open a scooter shop to start serving the needs of UF students and, to find success, he needed to relate to those students. He decided to brand his company on culture.
NS4L promotes itself as not just any scooter store — but THE scooter store that is all-in on culture. It adopted a set of core values. Chief among them was to Create and Recreate the Ultimate Customer Experience (“UCE”).
The key measure of his success is to find customers, provide them a customer service experience like no other, and earn their repeat business. By differentiating itself from other competitors by being the cool scooter shop and providing superior customer service, NS4L hopes to earn the respect of its customers and grow its business from referrals.
Social Media Strategy
Like many scooter shops, NS4L sells scooters, products, and accessories. Located conveniently near the University of Florida in Gainesville, it serves the school community and also offers repair and storage services. NS4L is a licensed scooter dealership selling Genuine, Wolf, Piaggio, Vespa, and Lance scooters. Its line of products is a slightly higher-priced set of scooters that provide greater reliability and enjoyment to owners.
The target clientele for NS4L is a younger-set college student or recent graduate that is looking for quality personal transportation in congested regions with unreliable public transportation and limited parking. The prime focus of NS4L’s brand awareness strategy is through the use of social media. Its homepage lists various social media platforms along the right side of the page which include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Medium. Use of social media is an extremely cost effective way to reach an audience. Unlike print, TV, radio, mail, and other types of traditional advertising, the use of social media to engage and inform the public is a relatively low cost proposition without significant financial risk. A new company can literally start pages on numerous social media platforms for no cost and can assign the duties of posting materials and monitoring comments, interest, and feedback to company employees. A separate position does not need to be created for an upstart business.
Collin’s main social media strategy appears to be sharing content regarding his scooter business that will attract new college-age students to use a scooter for campus-area transportation. It also continues to engage those who already use scooters as their go-to form of transportation, in the hopes they will choose NS4L. A main example of this is that on Collin’s primary business card, he includes his Snapchat user code, indicating that he’s inviting today’s college crowd to explore more about his business and his awesome scooters.
To serve its young demographic, NS4L understands that it needs to communicate with customers in their preferred way — often in electronic fashion with convenient access and the expectation of a prompt response. Its target customer grew up in a digital age, with instant information available via computer or smartphone, and a great comfort in dealing with others via text or chat. Many don’t know what a landline is! NS4L uses a handful of powerful social media platforms to educate and guide customers on its product offerings and services. Its target clientele is able to simply click and watch or learn about the various scooters, at their pace and on their terms, not bothered by a pushy salesperson or someone out to sell them a cheap product at an inflated price. For this consumer segment, information and convenience is key.
The first noticeable aspect of the firm’s Facebook page is that Messenger will automatically open with some FAQ’s queued: “What are your hours?/How can I schedule a sales or service appointment?/My scooter won’t start. How can I have it picked up and repaired?/Do you sell used scooters?” The purpose of this is that customers who open the Facebook page to learn something about the firm will be immediately intrigued and more likely to engage with the firm. This ease of asking FAQs will likely increase their incidence of first-time customers.
Additionally, the cover video posted is the first thing the user’s eyes are drawn to, and it does a fantastic job of highlighting exterior visuals of the shop, their beautiful scooters available for sale, and members of the team that are there to conduct repairs. This immediately increases customers’ familiarity with the brand and would make them want to visit the storefront.
Messenger
Facebook Messenger is a key component of NS4L’s commitment to serve its customers with prompt service. At the bottom right corner of each webpage, NS4L has a link to log into Facebook Messenger. It provides visitors with an easy way to chat with the company and offers assurance that the messages are usually responded to in about an hour. The use of Facebook Messenger is designed with the brand’s young target audience in mind. This consumer segment does not usually communicate by phone, but instead prefers the expediency and efficiency of text messaging.
YouTube
NS4L established its current YouTube channel in 2009. Since that time, its channel has recorded nearly 1.85 million views. It currently has over 3,500 subscribers. NS4L uses YouTube videos to provide product details on models of scooters it sells as well as to highlight culture and the coolness of some of its customers. Its most viewed videos show common problems and repairs that can be performed by owners, as well as tips and suggestions for starting and maintaining their scooters. They also include helpful videos on topics such as registration, licensure, and insurance for scooters.
NS4L posts a lot of strong Instagram content to keep followers engaged. Two categories of posts stand out in particular: 1) their funny memes relating to Covid that will resonate with many college-age students, and 2) their interconnectedness with the UF campus community that includes updates regarding their availability during the Covid crisis.
Furthermore, they have posted Story Highlights that share videos of a lot of their unique offerings such as “Scoots” (that displays, for example, a foldable small electric bike, scooters in a rare color, etc), “Used Scooters 4 Sale,” and “How-To’s” that show team members educating customers on easy scooter fix-it situations. They also have a “Furry Friends” story because honestly, who doesn’t love seeing cute little animals chillin on some scooters?
Snapchat
Collin utilizes Snapchat to captivate his audience through storytelling. He shares behind the scenes content, giving viewers a look into his personal life so he can build authentic relationships with them. Snapchat is a means of sharing valuable content with others. Through this platform, Collin can allow his audience to “get to know him” as a friend even if they have never met in real life. It helps in creating relationships by allowing others to get a look into his personal life. Snapchat provides the entrepreneur with the ability to develop and experiment with new ideas.
Medium
To round out the social media offerings, NS4L uses Medium to post periodic blogs largely targeted at its Florida Gators. The blog posts are a mix of useful information about college life and an occasional blog about various aspects of scooters. It is designed to relate to the college student life, share useful tips for navigating college, and gently educate readers of the benefits and opportunities that exist with owning a scooter. The information is intended to create a bond with readers in an effort to eventually convert them to becoming customers of NS4L. The company is promoted as being a cool group of people that share common interests and experiences. There are even periodic job postings that are published on Medium.
Goals/KPIs
NS4L is well known within the business community for its unique, eccentric, and innovative culture developed around a single core value, to wit, to create and recreate the ultimate customer experience. Collin Austin has built a company that attempts to align its social strategy with its other marketing and business activities.
The use of numerous social media platforms is designed to provide product information, collect leads, and drive sales. Brand focus is all about culture — which is intended to differentiate NS4L’s products and services from those of its competitors.
NS4L uses each layer of the Sales Funnel to align its goals and KPIs. NS4L’s social media efforts are designed to attract new customers and build awareness about all things scooter. Its focus on a hip culture is designed to attract young visitors, and it routinely adds content to bring in more views. NS4L’s array of social media posts provide young users with information on products and services, and efficient ways to communicate with the brand and get a prompt response. The company is customer-centric, and uses social media to put a name and a face to its employees to generate a feeling of personalization that customers can come to expect when visiting the shop. These efforts of NS4L will not only lead to loyalty of its customers, but will serve to share the company’s brand and its values to communities far beyond Gainesville.
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