Automotive email marketing campaigns are often overlooked, but they shouldn’t be. Many dealerships don’t understand the importance of this simple advertising method, so they simply choose to ignore it instead. Whether you are currently running email campaigns that are ineffective or you aren’t using them correctly, we are ready to help. Here are five ways to get your email marketing plan back on track.
1. Gather More Auto Dealership Leads
While you likely want to jump head first into the email marketing realm, there is a vital step that must be done first. You need to gather as many customer leads as possible. After all, if you don’t have email addresses, who will you be sending the correspondence to? Sure, creating the best email is important, but if you have no one to read it, the message is wasted. Thankfully, it isn’t difficult to gather emails for a dealership. With all of the departments you are running, you have plenty of customers to utilize. Whether you get an email from someone looking at a car or a visitor to the service department, the outcome will be the same. Gather emails from everyone that enters your dealership. These customers include those who:
- Buy a part
- Receive a service
- Visit a community event
- Take a test drive
- Visit your blog
While gathering the emails in-person is simple, you might find it more difficult on the digital front. However, it doesn’t take much effort to set up lead capture forms on your website to gather this information. Consider offering your customers a free e-book about buying a car when they sign up for a newsletter. Once you have a full email list, you are ready to move onto the next step.
2. Turn Your Automotive Email Marketing Contacts Into Lists
You might think you are done once you collect the emails, but the party is just getting started. Now, you want to segment these emails into lists. Otherwise, you will be sending emails to people that have no interest in what you are talking about. For example, is the person who just bought a new car going to want to hear about the latest financing offers? Probably not. Attribution is the name of the process that keeps track of your emails. With the right attribution in place, you can accurately target the leads and nurture a relationship. You will also find a lower unsubscribe rate as you provide relevant information to the readers.
3. Curate Useful Content
Now, it’s time to move into the creative aspect of the process. By producing useful content for your readers, you keep them engaged. However, many dealerships don’t know where to start. Here are some ideas for useful content.
- Safety features of a car
- How to maintain a car
- When to bring the vehicle in for repair
- How to improve credit score for financing
- Whether to choose a new or used car
- What’s the difference between a lease and purchase
When you offer useful information, you build trust, authority and credibility. It also establishes a connection between you and the customer.
4. Personalize Automotive Email Marketing Campaigns
You can’t send out a generic message and hope to get results. Instead, you must be willing to take it a step further and personalize the content. With the segmentation we talked about earlier, personalization becomes easier than ever before. Depending on how much information you have, it’s possible to create highly personalized emails. However, even using simple personalization, such as the customer’s first name, can go a long way. Studies show that adding the user’s name to the subject line might increase the open rate by 26%. That’s a big difference between not personalizing the email at all. Plus, this additional open rate is going to convert into more appointments, sales and test drives. If you aren’t taking advantage of this simple step yet, you are missing the chance to increase your ROI exponentially.
5. Avoid Sending Out Too Many Promotions
We have walked you through the steps to start an automotive email marketing campaign and follow through. Once everything is up and running, you are going to be tempted to send out lots of promotions in hopes of driving sales. This is a big mistake. Instead, you must limit the number of promotions you send to customers. Your audience will likely tune out the promotional emails and will unsubscribe if they come too frequently. A good rule of thumb is to send no more than one promotional email per month. By sending your latest deals a few times a quarter, you stay in front of your customer without becoming annoying. Instead, make sure that the majority of your content is strictly informational. Additionally, when you send out an email promotion, make it worthwhile. After all, there’s no reason to clog up your customers’ inbox with junk mail. For example, don’t waste anyone’s time with a “Buy one car wash, get one free” offer valid on a particular day of the week only. Of course, that example is going to the extreme, but you get the point. Instead, your promotion must be exclusive, in limited quantity and special. If you are going to offer $50 off a tune-up two weeks from now, don’t offer it to your email clients. Instead, offer something that’s never been seen or provides a real value. Elevate your marketing approach with competitive conquesting advertising. If it’s a strategy you would leverage, then it undoubtedly holds substantial value.
Turn Your Automotive Email Marketing Campaigns Into Winners
One way to enhance your email marketing is to add innovative solutions that your competition doesn’t utilize. At AimLogic, we have some unique offerings that help you stand out in the crowd. From our Cinemagraphic Ads to our OEM Video Style Ads, you can find the solutions that get more attention. Our team is made up of professionals that only work with automotive dealerships, such as yours. We have the experience you need to gain more traffic. With more traffic, you can count on more sales and a higher ROI. Talk to us about our custom digital marketing solutions today.