You can stock the best-used vehicles and provide superior customer service, but your business will only succeed if customers know what your dealership offers. Luckily, digital marketing channels like email make promoting your dealership easier than ever.
Learn how to leverage automotive email marketing to connect with customers and drive sales for your dealership.
What Is Email Marketing?
Email marketing involves sending promotional email messages to a list of interested subscribers. You can use email marketing to let customers know about deals you’re running, new product offerings, service reminders or any other relevant news.
Benefits of Email Marketing for Car Dealerships
Automotive email marketing campaigns offer significant benefits to dealerships, including:
- High return on investment: The average ROI for email marketing is $36 for every dollar spent2. That’s higher than many other forms of digital and traditional marketing.
- Increased web traffic: Links in emails direct customers to your website, boosting traffic and giving you more opportunities to drive conversions.
- Stronger customer relationships: Strong customer relationships pay off in the long term. Engage your customers with regular email messages tailored to their needs and preferences. Personalizing your emails shows customers that you value them as individuals, making them more loyal to your dealership.
- Improved brand recognition: The saying “out of sight, out of mind” is true for vehicle shoppers. Consistently sending promotional emails keeps customers thinking about your dealership and familiarizes them with your brand.
- Targeted audience segments: One of the biggest advantages of email marketing is that it allows you to send targeted messages that appeal to smaller audience segments. For example, you could send one message to existing customers and a different message to new customers.
With all these benefits, it’s no surprise over 90% of businesses say email marketing is critical to their overall success3.
Types of Car Dealership Emails
These are the most common types of automotive email marketing campaigns and why they’re beneficial for businesses.
Sales Event Announcements
When you’re hosting a new sales event, an email campaign is one of the best ways to make sure all your customers know. Share details about the sales event and encourage readers to take advantage of the deals you’re offering. Give your customers multiple ways to engage, such as calling your dealership to learn more or booking an appointment.
Newsletters
A newsletter keeps all your email subscribers updated with news about your dealership and inventory. They keep customers engaged and interested in your business. Send newsletters monthly or quarterly for the best results, and include details like upcoming events, tips for car owners, and exciting new vehicles you have in stock.
Trade-In Emails
With trade-in emails, you can persuade your subscribers to trade their vehicles at your dealership. These messages can tell them more about your trade-in process and provide the next steps if they’re interested.
Service Reminders
According to the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), the service and parts center accounts for nearly half of a dealership’s gross profits, on average1. Sending service reminder emails can help boost appointments for your service center and increase profits from this department. Even simple messages letting customers know that it’s time to bring their vehicles in for service can have a noticeable impact on your bottom line.
It’s important to remember that if your dealership uses a marketing automation system — or if you’re contemplating implementing this type of system — it’s most useful for timely reminders. For example, sending a maintenance email right before a car is due for a checkup based on the car’s age, make, and model could help improve your customer service.
Lead Follow-Ups
Some shoppers will show interest in your vehicle inventory and then disappear without taking any further action. With the right message, you can still turn those shoppers into customers for your dealership.
Send follow-up emails to remind shoppers about the vehicles they were looking at. Whether you use a CRM system that sends follow-up emails directly or you have a staff member who sends them manually, frequently following up with shoppers can turn leads into customers.
Auto Dealer Email Marketing Best Practices
Email marketing is always evolving. For the best results, it’s important to stay up to date on the current strategies.
Leverage Internal Data to Optimize Your Campaigns
The more you know about your customers, the better your marketing campaigns will be. With the right tools, you can use internal data about what vehicles customers are interested in, how they engage with your business, and other details to create highly personalized email messages.
Over 70% of customers expect brands to deliver personalized messages and experiences4. These personalized promotional emails are more impactful because they speak directly to each recipient’s preferences and interests.
Use Effective CTAs
A call-to-action (CTA) is one of the most effective ways to drive customers to take action based on what is included in the email. An effective CTA enhances engagement by directly telling your customers what steps to take next.
There are several ways to craft compelling CTAs. Some best practices include:
- Hyperlinks: Hyperlinks are the most direct way to take your customers to specific web pages. Use hyperlinks that lead to effective landing pages, including services, deals and promotions, holiday offers, vehicle inventory and appointment bookings.
- Buttons: Buttons are attractive ways to quickly engage customers in an email. A button that uses short yet direct language can help lead customers to specific web pages. Use short phrases, such as “See Inventory,” “Claim Offer,” or “Learn More.”
- Phone Number: If your dealership has a customer service line, make sure to clearly write the phone number in the CTA, along with an extension number, if applicable. If the customer is viewing your email on mobile, make sure the phone number is clickable. This way, the customer can directly call your dealership by clicking the phone number in the email, rather than clicking away.
Encourage Email Signups
Dealerships need subscribers to start reaping the benefits of email marketing. Dealerships can ask customers to consent to receive promotional emails when they purchase a car at your dealership, take a test drive or when they bring in a car for service.
Focus on Writing Compelling Subject Lines
A personalized and compelling subject line can do wonders for your dealership. For example, your dealership can use an email personalization software system that pulls customer data to create tailored subject lines. This system can then use the customer’s name, vehicle, and even urgent service needs to create customized subject lines. Some examples include:
- “[Customer’s Name], your [Make & Model] is due for maintenance - schedule an appointment today!”
- “[Customer’s Name], enhance your experience and check out these deals, just for you!”
- “[Customer’s Name], ready for a trade-in? Your [Make & Model] might be worth more than you think!
Regularly Clean Your Email List
As you grow your subscriber list, some addresses will no longer be valid or engaged. You might think having more email addresses on your list is always better, but that’s not true. Inactive or invalid email addresses can harm your campaign stats and cost you extra. To solve the problem, regularly review your list and remove any subscribers who no longer belong.
Upgrade Your Dealership’s Digital Marketing
Email marketing is a must for any car dealership, and the best campaigns are based on reliable data. You likely already have the internal data you need to tailor your emails—it’s just a matter of using software tools to integrate that data into your email campaigns.
ACV MAX is an innovative suite of software tools designed to help you sell vehicles faster and win more trades. The software automates and optimizes your online vehicle listings, uses OEM Build data to help customers find the right vehicles, and unlocks tons of internal data you can use to improve your email marketing campaigns.
Schedule a demo today to see ACV MAX in action.
Sources
- Where Does the Car Dealer Make Money? Edmunds. Retrieved August 7, 2024, from https://www.edmunds.com/car-buying/where-does-the-car-dealer-make-money.html
- Moller, M. (6 June 2024). The ROI of Email Marketing. Litmus. Retrieved August 7, 2024, from https://www.litmus.com/blog/infographic-the-roi-of-email-marketing
- 2021 State of Email Report. Litmus. Retrieved August 7, 2024, from https://www.litmus.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/2021-state-of-email-report.pdf?
- The value of getting personalization right—or wrong—is multiplying. McKinsey & Company. Retrieved August 7, 2024, from https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-value-of-getting-personalization-right-or-wrong-is-multiplying
