We’re in the process of developing a number of new features for the site, with the making it more interesting, useful, and relevant while buying a car and–the big challenge–in between purchases.

So when I first rolled out the “Why (Not) This Car?” survey in last month’s email, and 20,000+ members submitted only 136 reviews in the following two days, I began to wonder if all of this effort would be for naught. Maybe members just wanted the site to be about the numbers topics: reliability, fuel economy, and prices?

But then I listened to initial feedback, and made some changes and improvements to the review process. Also, I had stuck the introduction at the bottom of a lengthy email–there was a lot of news last month. It was the classic case of “burying the lede.” (One member informed me that “lede” is more proper than “lead” in this usage.) This time around, I put “Why (Not) This Car?” at the top, and made it the focus of the email.

Big difference. Over 1,000 reviews were submitted the day that email went out. And another 400 the next day. There are now over 1,700 of them, enough for many models that I’ve reorganized the results into three sections: comparisons for, comparisons against, and single-car reviews.

As a result, my confidence in the upcoming new features has been restored. In the future, the big news goes at the top of the email.