Digital Dealer
Creating an e-mail Marketing Campaign That Gets Response
By Todd Smith
The very first thing that plays a role in developing an e-mail campaign is the list. Make sure you use an opt-in list that you either purchase or develop from your own contact list. You should be collecting names at every customer contact point in your dealership. If you aren't you need to start today. For your edification, never e-mail to people who haven't requested to receive promotional information. It is called spamming and it is a big, big, no-no online and you will have more problems than it is worth. Now let's get onto the next critical part.
Investing in good copy is a critical step in having a successful email campaign. Your e-mails need to be shorter and more aggressive than direct mail copy with a call to action close to the top of the message. After testing we found that most e-mail programs offer preview mode for people to read the first three lines of their e-mails this reconfirms and stresses the importance of your copy getting to the point right away or using copy that draws the reader further into your email message. The most critical part of your e-mail copy is the subject line. You have about eight words to capture someone's attention so I recommend that you spend 80% of your time on your headline because if you fail to capture them right away; it doesn't matter how good the copy below is written. To really succeed, make sure your offer is very specific and according to a recent survey by e-buyersguide.com of what people respond most to - 72% responded to a special offer or promotion, while 58% responded to coupons. Now formatting your e-mail is another issue that needs to be addressed. HTML-formatted e-mails pull response rates two to three times higher than just using a plain text email. This is a little more costly but it allows you to display more interactive content which has a dramatic affect on auto web shoppers.
When it comes to sending out your messages, make sure you use a program that will personalize each recipients name onto the e-mail. I personally recommend Mailking if you are sending text based email messages. If you want to send HTML emails you need to use a more robust program like Mailloop, which is easy to use and also supports HTML emails. If you are just getting started, use the Mailking and if you really want to get serious use the Mailloop.
So you've designed your e-mail, gotten a list, have the program to mail it now all you need is a system to monitor your response and determine what works and what doesn't. E-mail marketing is all about testing, testing, and more testing so remember to always keep improving your letters and offers and never give up the fight for your prospects mind. With each e-mail campaign you should set up a unique entry point to your Web site that corresponds with the offer that you sent them. An example would be to have a promotion for all new Jeep Cherokees at $250 over invoice and have them click on a link that takes them to a page that gives them an in-depth product description and an order form or purchase request form. This allows you a specific page so you can track the responses to your campaign.
In conclusion, a well-thought-out campaign can have a dramatic affect on the number of responses you'll receive as well as the bottom line improvement in sales. I don't have time to tell you all the reasons why you need to be doing this in your dealership, but I will tell you the single most important reason that I got involved with email marketing. Running a dealership, I spent an enormous amount of money attracting people to our dealership using direct mail. At $.42 per mailer I thought this was the best money I spent at my store. It eventually dawned on me that I could e-mail people with an offer just like direct mail with one key difference. E-mail is free and just as effective if done properly. So I invested the time and energy to find out what worked and what didn't and let me tell you that once I got a little success under my wings I'll never chop down another tree for a promotional event again. One word of advice: no matter how poorly your Internet program is going today I want you to remember this is the future of our business, in one capacity or another, and it takes an investment of both money and time to grow into a successful business. Our success will come one day at a time and the winners will be the ones who stayed in the game and figured out how to play to win.
Todd Smith is President and CEO of Target Marketing Group, the leading automotive Internet solutions provider. He is the publisher of the manual "Automotive Retailing on the Internet." TMG works with OEMs, dealership groups and individual dealerships on creating Internet strategies. Visit Target Marketing Group's Web site at www.tmg-online.com. tsmith@dealeronline.com
