Market Your Dealership with eNewsletters
What if your dealership had a unique and fully managed solution to keep in touch with your customers on a regular basis? What if it could be customized with content authored specifically for your dealership and targeted with geographic information relevant your audience? In addition, what if this relationship-building tool could be filled with interesting and informative content that your customers would enjoy reading? Did I mention that if would be very inexpensive and require no work to prepare.
Let me introduce you to one of the latest ”must haves” in your dealership’s marketing mix… the customized and fully managed eNewsletter.
Studies show that emotions play an important role in consumers’ decisions when making an automotive purchase. According to statistics published by The Neilsen Company, familiarity is the leading factor in online shoppers’ decisions about where to buy. In fact, 60 percent of the consumers say they buy mostly from sites with which they are familiar. This shows the importance of branding your dealership, its staff, and its products. If the regularity of seeing a monthly newsletter from your dealership can create a positive experience for your customers, then you are likely to capture their loyalty and their business.
Enhanced with dynamic media such as video and live chat, eNewsletters have become a key component to an effective digital marketing strategy that greatly enhances the perception and brand identity of your dealership—improving loyalty retention, and referrals. Today’s customers want immediate attention, and with features like a live chat link embedded into the body of the newsletter, these publications facilitate instantaneous communication with customers when they have questions or issues.
Many dealerships are not staffed to write articles or handle live chat: instead, they choose to outsource this solution to professionals, who write and produce monthly interactive eNewsletters that are polished and professional, complete with banners and graphics, customized to reflect their dealership’s brand identity. The content of the newsletter includes a range of sales and service offerings, discount coupons, service and safety tips, general information about the industry, and lifestyle articles. The intent is to educate, inform, and entertain your customers in an effort to build loyalty and promote advocacy for the dealership, as well as drive sales, service and parts revenues. The question is: Will the customer read it?
Vice President Bobby Tasca III reports that Tasca Automotive Group located in Rhode Island recently launched their first eNewsletter to over 12,000 customers with a remarkable 27.2 percent total opening rate within the first 24 hours! Tasca’s marketing partner offered the fully managed solution as a ”one-stop functionality” by writing the articles, creating the newsletter, enhancing it with interactive media-enriched features, and then sending it to Tasca’s list of clients and prospects. The solution is complete with monthly reports on what articles their customers liked best, open rates, and click through activity to continually improve on the newsletter results.
eNewsletter can be a significant boost to your bottom line, and that statistics bare that out:
- 74 percent of eNewsletter readers say they are more likely to shortlist the dealership for their next vehicle purchase.
- 63 percent say they are more likely to purchase a vehicle from the dealership.
- 57 percent say they are more likely to contact the dealership about sales specials.
- 77 percent say they are more likely to use the dealership for service.
The e Newsletter can be used not only with the existing clients, but also with prospective clients and referrals. It is a great way to keep your dealership’s name ahead of the competition and in front of the customers. Find a marketing partner who has automotive marketing expertise and advanced technological platforms and you will see a significant return from your investment from an e Newsletter.
This article originally appeared in the March 2008 Dealer Marketing Magazine, author Daymond Decker.