5 Performance-efficient Email Marketing Strategies Your Dealership Should Adopt

For a dealership or any business in general, nothing's scarier than sending email marketing newsletters and seeing unsubscribes and high bounce rates. But did you know that according to eMarketer, 62.9% of internet users worldwide prefer to receive emails over other forms of communication from retailers? If that’s not enough to convince you to reconsider sending more emails, here are 5 more reasons why your dealership should be sending more emails to your prospects.

1. Your customers prefer to be notified via email over other forms of notifications to receive updates from brands. 

According to eMarketer, internet users have a preference for receiving emails from brands over other forms of notifications and 49% of US internet users are more likely to open emails if the subject line offered a discount. Your dealership should include a special or deal in the subject line of the emails you send out. If your dealership sends out emails without an offer in the subject line, you may lose potential leads that are looking for a discounted vehicle. You want your customers to be intrigued by what you have to offer in the subject line to open your email, browse your website, and eventually fill out a lead form. 

2. Major companies are sending multiple emails a day and are seeing results.

How often do you open your email and see yet again another email from Groupon or  Best Buy? Major companies are sending multiple emails throughout the day to advertise new deals. You should not be afraid to send emails to your subscribers. After all, they are subscribed to you! Sending emails to your customers reminds them that your car dealership currently has a special deal and they should come in to check out a vehicle. You should not be afraid that your customers will unsubscribe to your emails because there will always be shoppers who willingly sign up for emails on your website when they are looking for a new vehicle because they want to see special offers that are relevant to them and their car-buying journey. 

3. Sending emails to your customers help with brand awareness and help keep your company at the top of their minds. 

When you send emails to your customers often, they are more likely to remember your brand the next time they are shopping for a vehicle. Sending these emails will remind your customers that your brand always has deals and offers for them. This keeps your dealership’s name in their thoughts, and the next time they do purchase a vehicle, your dealership is the one that they think of because they know you will offer good deals on vehicles.

4. You can segment your email lists to personalize your email campaigns.

Most car dealerships send out email blasts with the same email to all their subscribers. In 2017, Mailchimp found that segmented emails receive 100.95% more clicks than non-segmented campaigns, yet only 3 in 10 marketers segment all of their emails. When you segment your subscriber list to those who have bought a vehicle already to those who are interested in a vehicle, you can send out emails based on what kind of customer they are. If the customer has already bought a vehicle, you want to send them an email offering a service deal instead of a deal for a new car. If you know that their car is leased, you can send them emails about vehicles that can be leased or financed close to their lease end date. If you have a shopper that has not purchased a car yet, you should be sending these potential customers personalized deals or incentives to purchase a vehicle.

5. Personalized emails see more engagement and a higher click-through-rate with triggers and through website retargeting.

At Orbee, we noticed that there was a higher click-through rate with car shoppers who received an email that showed the most recently viewed vehicles on a dealership’s website compared to emails that had no personalization in them.

One way your dealership can personalize your email marketing campaigns are by setting up website retargeting emails, which sends an email to your customers a list of vehicles that they were recently browsing on your website. These emails are sent only once a week (so they do not get spammed) and sent to those who have signed up for emails and viewed at least one vehicle description page. With the website retargeting emails, your dealership is able to send automated emails to your shoppers, which remind them about the vehicle(s) they were shopping for. You can also send out emails when there are price changes on the vehicles to your customers to they know that there is a deal on the vehicle. This is beneficial for your dealership and shoppers because the personalization of the emails will result in a higher click-through rate, thus leading to more leads and sales for your car dealership.

We found that our email open rates reached 66% while our click-through rates hit 17% through using these personalized email tools that Orbee offers. According to IBM, in the average automotive industry, email marketing open rates are 45.1% and the click-through rates are 13.1%.

Adding a trigger can also increase your click-through-rates. An example of a trigger is placing your customer’s name in the subject of the email to grab their attention and make the email more personalized for them. Statistica’s survey found that emails with personalized messages received a click-through rate of 18.8%, as compared to 13.1% with no personalization.

Conclusion

Your email subscribers are not all in the market for the same reason, so why send them the same emails? This could lead to higher unsubscription rates and lower click-through rates because you do not segment your customers into different lists. Personalizing the subject line and emails specific to your subscribers’ needs will increase the click-through rate and your sales. Internet users prefer to be emailed by their subscribed brands rather than other forms of notifications to receive deals and product news. Knowing this, sending emails to your subscribers that are segmented, personalized, and include offers should reduce the number of unsubscribes and increase the number of clicks as well. Don’t be too spooked to send emails to your subscribers!