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Email Marketing Strategy Guide
Over the years, we have developed a set of best practices designed to help Car Dealers get the most out of their email marketing. Below are some of those best practices.
- Have the right tools available before you get started. This includes:
- A high-quality CRM that supports email marketing. A good CRM will help you manage opt-outs and will provide tracking and reporting of your campaigns. If your CRM does not do these things, a third party send tool will be required.
- A Website that supports deep linking. Your emails should drive customers back to your website to take actions, such as look at vehicles or schedule a service appointment. Getting your customers to the exact right destination is critical for success.
- A good database of customers. The more customers with email addresses you have in your database, the more successful you will be. Within the dealership in every department, your staff needs to collect email addresses as a standard piece of customer information. Note – we generally recommend email marketing to dealerships with 5000 or more email addresses.
- Determine how frequently you wish to send emails. We recommend that each customer in your database receive between 1 and 3 emails per month. More than 3 and opt-out rates begin to climb. The exact number depends on several factors, including:
- Size of your customer database. If you have under 5000 email addresses, 1 email is suggested. If you have more, then 2 or 3 emails a month are suggested. If you have a very large database, you can buy even more emails and target segments of your database (ie, a Truck email for Truck and SUV customers plus a Car email for everyone else).
- Emphasis of email marketing – want to grow your Service Department? More service emails are the answer. Wanting to sell more Used Cars, then doing more Used Vehicle Email Marketing makes sense.
- What you sell. A Mercedes dealership, a Chevrolet dealership and a Kia dealership are going to use email marketing differently to communicate with their customers. Know your customers and target your message to them.
- Determine what kind of emails you want to send out. These include:
- Service Coupons and Tips
- Incentives Email Marketing
- New Vehicle Specials
- Used Vehicle Specials
- Service Recalls Email Marketing
- Sales Event Invitations
- Create a schedule for your marketing. Sending the same types of emails every month around the same time builds expectation – your customers begin to look for your emails and respond to them.
- Don't Overdo it – most people receive a lot of unwanted emails every month. With success, it becomes tempting to want to increase the frequency of emails to generate more success. However, with every email that a customer receives from you every month, the likelihood of opt-out increases. Beyond 3 or 4 emails a month, and you will find your customer database shrinking instead of growing due to opt-outs.
- Stay Focused – Your customers came to you with specific needs, and they are interested mostly in saving money on service and vehicles, and learning more about the vehicles you sell. If you stray from your message too much, your customers will be more likely to opt-out.
- Trust the Professionals – RnD Interactive exists to help Car Dealers navigate the online marketing world. Our designers will make you look good to your customers and our Account Managers will keep you on target and on message.
Please contact us at 972-535-0177 to learn more about how our email marketing solution can fit in your marketing strategy – or look to our Gallery to see examples of our work.
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