Do you remember the days before email, when you would actually pick up the phone to call customers and prospects, or send them a piece of snail mail? Well the world without email marketing is over and if you’re not using this powerful marketing medium to reach customers and prospects, you are missing out. With 91% of consumers using email at least once a day¹, you can feel confident your message is making an impression and building top-of-mind awareness for your dealership.
Chances are you already utilize email to market to customers and prospects, but it is estimated that 294 billion emails are sent each day, which means approximately 2.8 million emails are sent every second². How will you ensure your marketing stands out from the sea of email messages? What can you do to help increase retention rates, generate traffic and revenue, and enhance owner loyalty? Today, you’ll learn why email marketing is important and some real-world best practices to ensure you receive the most from your efforts.
The Importance of Email Marketing Email, or electronic mail, has been around for decades and although many Americans use it as a way to communicate with friends, family, and co-workers, it is also a great way to reach current customers and potential prospects. What you may not realize though is that email can be a highly effective marketing tool. You’ll find that in today’s economy, many consumers are signing up to receive promotions from their favorite retail stores. As a matter of fact, 77% of consumers prefer to receive permission-based marketing communications via email¹.
Not only is email an unobtrusive marketing technique that consumers are all-on-board with receiving, but it also creates higher click-through rates, conversion rates, and ROI than any other marketing channel¹. To be specific, marketers (yes that means you) are seeing a $40 return on every $1 spent when marketing with email, where as keyword ads are only seeing a $17 return on that same dollar and banner ads are only getting $2 for every $1 spent¹. If you’re not utilizing email marketing, it is time to jump on the bandwagon.
Not only does email produce the highest ROI of any marketing channel, but it is also one of the most cost effective ways to reach customers and prospects to raise brand awareness. To deliver an email today, your cost will only be a couple of cents to a fraction of a cent. This does not include the time spent to develop the email content and images, or the time to test the email to ensure proper inbox delivery.
Email Marketing Best Practices
The first thing you need to do is have a good email database. There are several ways you can go about obtaining email addresses, but the most effective way is to simply ask your customers. That’s right, during every vehicle write-up in your service drive and every vehicle purchase in your showroom, be sure your staff is collecting email addresses. Once captured in your DMS, it will be a cinch to pull specific customer lists to ensure your message is targeted to your customers’ specific needs. Marketers have found that personalized emails improve click-through rates by 14%, and conversion rates by 10%³. Identifying the needs of your customers and then marketing to them is an essential key when utilizing an email channel. Be sure not to over communicate with your customers and prospects, otherwise you become part of the 2.8 billion emails sent every second², and find your message getting lost in the marketing noise.
Next, determine the goals of your email marketing program; do you want to build brand awareness, help with lead or sales to service conversions, build direct sales, increase customer satisfaction, drive traffic to your website, etc.
Once you’ve determined your goals, you’re ready to develop your content. Remember to have compelling and personalized content that not only meets your goals, but also your recipient’s needs, as well. As a general rule, effective emails should contain about 60% editorial content and about 40% promotional content. Editorial content gives the recipient a reason to read and focuses on the reader’s needs. Promotional content gives the reader something to do, including a call to action, and promoting your products and services. Good content doesn’t have to be expensive; re-use and re-purpose content or partner with other content providers.
When designing your email, there are several things to keep in mind to ensure you create an engaging design:
- Develop a clear message
- Keep it simple, clean, and professional – not too busy
- Provide the most important information first
- Identify a clear call to action
Lastly, remember that not all images will render when the consumer receives your email. You’ll want to layout the template so the consumer can still understand the message without seeing any of the images.
Once you have your data, identified your goals, and created a great layout with great content, you’re ready to pick out a subject line and a “from” line. Let’s start with the subject line, since this could be considered the most important element to increase email open rates:
- Use your dealership’s name
- Stick to fewer than 50 characters
- Give actionable information representing the main content in the email
- Avoid using words that may be considered spam or strong promotional words
As for the “from” line, there is really only one rule to follow – ensure that the recipient knows who the email is from. You could use your dealership, Service Manager, or General Manager’s name to create validity of the email with the recipient and increase the likelihood of your email being read.
Utilize Email Marketing
With 66% of consumers making a purchase as a result of an email¹, you cannot afford to ignore this communication channel. By leveraging the power of email, your dealership can create top-of-mind awareness, which translates into increased retention, traffic, revenue, and owner loyalty. Plus, with email’s low delivery cost, chances are you can reduce your marketing spend and receive higher ROI.
OneCommand offers an email solution that features a robust template library and a Client Support Team that will ensure you receive the most out of your marketing efforts. In addition, OneCommand’s team has years of email marketing experience and are up-to-date on the latest in email technology and best practices. Click here to learn more.
Source:
¹ Smith, Lauren. "Blog." Email Preferred Communication Channel; Commands More Clicks & ROI – Litmus. Litmus, 20 Feb. 2013. Web. 14 May 2013.
² Wing. "Ready Artwork." Ready Artwork. Ready Art Work, 1 May 2013. Web. 14 May 2013.
³ Howes, Audrey. "Article: 7 Marketing Predictions and Trends for 2013." Empowering E-marketing. Swiftpage Connect, n.d. Web. 14 May 2013.