Email Marketing & Email Campaigns

As email marketing becomes more and more popular it's becoming clear there is a lot of confusion regarding this medium. Many companies offer email campaigns of one kind or another, here are the breakdown on the most popular - and the two kinds we offer here at Tri Auto. Database Email Marketing I'm calling this part "marketing" because it's not just a single advertising campaign, it should be a long term marketing effort aimed at continuing name recognition & goodwill to your client base.

• The email list is provided by the dealership, it can be pulled out of your DMS, CRM or from Marketvision data from previous sales.
• The email comes directly from your dealership.
• The message of the email can vary based on who the customer is. For example, you could segment your list into recent buyers, buyers 3+ years or older & service customers. The recent buyers could receive new vehicle tips, accessory info & an incentive for the service or detailing department. The buyers from several years ago would likely receive sales info, special incentives on vehicles similar to what they own, or a buyback offer. ...you get the picture.
• It is also common to keep in touch with all past leads & customers through a monthly newsletter that works in all departments of the dealership along with some warm & fuzzy content like recipes, automotive tips, local news, etc.

Saturation Email Campaigns

• The email list is provided by us. We let you know how many emails are available & legally opted in around your dealership and you choose what zip codes to email.
• The email comes from a third party, but has whatever you like in the subject line.
• The email message has to be the same for all recipients.
• Typically dealers use this type of campaign in one of two ways: in collaboration with a specific direct mail sale or promotion or monthly as an inexpensive way to keep their name out there.

Email marketing doesn't typically draw huge responses immediately to the dealership. It's just one more tool that can be added to a well rounded marketing campaign.

*New Product Alert* Saturation Emails

Good morning all-just wanted to get the word out about a brand new program we're offering at Tri Auto! As most of my readers know we already offered personalized emails to your database or MarketVision list of emails. We typically send 3-4 different messages depending on the different groups of leads. For example people who purchased recently would get a service offer, while those that haven't bought in a few years would get a more sales focused email. However, now we can also do basically what we sometimes do with mail-saturate your market via email. I'll be honest, we've had the opportunity to get into this market before and have declined-there are a lot of shady ways to send out emails and we wanted to make sure we were keeping our clients compliant with phishing & spamming laws. Through a lot of diligence and searching we've found a way to do this for our dealers. I'll blog later on the best uses for saturation emails-but they are a great way to boost traffic to your next event type sale, database mailer or VIP event. You can saturate your entire market for pennies per email. Let me know if you want to talk in more detail on this new product.

Dealer Inventory Shortages

The past couple of weeks I'm hearing about inventory challenges more and more. The Clunkers boom is beginning to start a new car shortage, and prices at the auctions are making pre-owned vehicles hard to come by. Obviously, I don't build cars in my garage so I can't help on the new side but here are a couple of ideas on the used car side:

• Send out a true "buy back" mailer. We've all used these in the past with the aim to actual sell vehicles off of it-by why not actually try to buy back nice, late model used vehicles from the public? Chances are you'll get the same or better deal than you would at the auction and you've made a new contact--then it's just bonus points if they buy while they 're in! We've created a letter and an event style mailer for just this reason.
• Ask for help! There are experts out there when it comes to working the auction circuit that can help you make sure your time is well spent. Devin Weisleder at Vuenu Media is one of those guys I happen to know. He helps dealers with knowing exactly what is selling in their market and which vehicles are most profitable, sorting those vehicles by which can gross dealers the most profit, displays which lenders are financing those vehicles AND he knows where and when those vehicles will be running at upcoming auctions. Devin helps a lot of dealers, he might be able to help you too--and their reports start at only $395!
• Get online. Spread the word that you are paying top dollar for local vehicles on your website, Facebook page, Twitter, etc. If you aren't completely savvy in the social media world try an email campaign. You could saturate your entire market for just a couple thousand dollars!
• Call me. If you are having trouble with inventory, don't hesitate to call. Our best ideas are spurred by conversations with real dealers about their real issues. We'll talk through it and see if there is anything I can do to help.

Marketing to your Database

People call and ask me for the most effective mailing lists we can get our hands on. ...and we don't have it--you do! Your own, in house, sales & service database is really the very best list you can market to. If all you are doing is having the sales people put together some personal letters to a handful of people every month there is a huge opportunity for you! We recommend hitting your database once a quarter with some kind of sales offer and keeping up with them that often or more with service mailers. In addition to sending them mail via the Post Office--it's also a great idea to email them on a monthly basis. Email newsletters with info about vehicle maintenance, recipes & specials at the dealership are a great way to stay in touch and offer relevant information. Database mailers produce a higher ROI than any other type, if you haven't contacted yours, as a group, in the past 3 months--it's time.

What's a PURL or personalized website?

We've been offering PURL's or Personal Websites for a while now, and I'm finding many dealers don't know what they are, and are having trouble seeing the value in them. This post is going to be just a basic explanation of what these snazzy little websites can do for you and why you might want to give them a shot. I'll do some Frequently Asked Questions early next week, if you have a question please leave it as a comment or shoot me an email with it and I'll be sure it makes the list (sthompson@triauto.com). First off, what's a PURL? These are not the type your wife (or yourself) ask for as Christmsa gifts! PURL stands for "Personal url" a "url" is a Uniform Resource Locator, or in regular person terms, a website. So for our purposes it's a Personal Website, but PURL is shorter so that's what I'm using for the rest of the article :) Who is the personal in PURL? Your future customer. Anyone you send a mailer to will have their own personalized website. On the mailer it may something like "Attention John, check out your website below for additional offers & discounts: www.Reveal.MyNextVehicle.com/JohnSample" Every mailer will have a different website with the person's name included in the URL. What is the experience like for the PURL user? It's simple really. They type the website into the Internet browser and it takes them to a site that is personalized with their name, and has a copy of your mailer & dealership information. It asks them 3 quick questions and gathers a little more contact info (in addition to name and address which are already there). If you really want to know what the experience is like, go to www.Reveal.MyNextVehicle.com/JohnSample, be sure to fill out the contact info with your name & email address. You'll then receive an email from "the dealership" thanking you for your participation. The dealership would then receive and email immediately with your contact info and the answers to your questions. In short, the experience is:

1. Log on to PURL
2. Fill out quick questions & info
3. Receive thank you email from dealership immediately
4. Receive follow up email correspondence or email from an actual person at the dealership within the next couple of hours

Why would I put a PURL on my direct mailer?

1. You gain new responders. The people that respond to mail by walking in the door or picking up the phone are different from the people willing to go online to check things out.
2. PURL responders are much more likely to be in the market than your typical prize seeker. Over 60% of our respondents say they are in the market to buy in the next 6 months.
3. PURLS drive more traffic to your website. Most dealers I talk to are trying to get more people on their website-at the end of the PURL they can click to "view inventory" which takes them directly to your site.
4. You get their email addresses and you know how these people like to be marketed to. Building a large & valid email database is becoming more and more important. You can now keep in touch with these people for the long term by adding them to your email list. You also know the best way to reach them is via the Internet since that's how they reached you (see my post on customer follow up for more http://directmaildiva.blogspot.com/2008/12/customer-follow-up-on-automotive.html)
5. You close more car deals. These leads are real and timely, most are in the market & they are usually on your website looking at inventory when you get the email letting you know they've visited their PURL. What is a hotter lead than that?

That's all for now on PURL's. If you haven't experienced this type of marketing before please take a minute to go to the sample site & follow the steps. The best way to understand this technology is to experience it. I'm excited to answer any additional questions readers have on this one--so please get them over to me this week or weekend.