Because most people spend lots of time engaged on social media, most dealers have turned away from email marketing to sell cars.

While it’s the oldest form of online marketing, it can also be the most effective if used right. You have to put time and energy into the process of utilizing email to reach your customers. As a marketing tool, it’s the cheapest and can reach the largest audience, so why wouldn’t you use it?

Collect the Data that Will Reach Customers

To be truly impactful with email marketing, you must have a large email list. This is the data you need to collect. The larger your email list, the more likely you’re going to receive leads from the emails you send out. You can collect these emails from the various departments of your dealership and send out information easily and quickly.

Send the Right Emails to the Right Customers

Within your email list, you need to have the customers grouped according to their engagement with your dealership. If you have customers who have purchased a new vehicle in the past few months, they don’t want to know about your sales right now. If you have a customer who has recently been in for a test drive, they might not be interested in your service specials. Pay attention to how your email list is segmented.

Use Mobile-Friendly Email Marketing to Sell Cars

You know the audience you’re trying to reach is using cell phones to engage on social media, they also use these phones for their emails as well. The items you include in your emails need to show up and give your subscribers an easy way to view the content you’ve sent them. This should be one of the easiest and most important steps to success with email marketing.

Use Triggered Emails to Quickly Engage with Customers

The actions taken by your customers can trigger emails being sent to them to give them more information. Whether this means a special deal offer is sent when a customer looks at a vehicle online or service coupons are sent via email when a service appointment is scheduled, the actions of your customers can trigger emails when you use this form of marketing correctly.

The Content of Your Emails is Extremely Important

You want to use email marketing to sell cars and part of this means ensuring your emails aren’t simply sales pitches. Offer information regarding new models in the market, the latest automotive technology, and recalls for vehicles that should be brought to your dealership to be addressed. This information can be helpful to your customers and make you a trusted resource for them.

Perform Some Testing to See Which Emails are Most Effective

Instead of sending only one email to your entire list, try to create a couple of different versions of the same email. Once you do this, you can measure the success of this marketing based on the engagement level and the leads you receive from the various versions of the email sent. This is a great way to improve your message and reach a larger audience.

Videos Can Boost the Success of your Email Marketing

Add videos in the emails you send and give your customers more information. This gives your email list something more than what you’ve written and the images you offer. We know that more people use videos than ever before to engage and learn, why not offer the same when you’re sending out your emails? Add videos and boost your success today.

Respond to All Your Email Inquiries

Your email marketing isn’t just a tool for you to reach customers in the hope they will visit your dealership, it’s an opportunity to engage with your customer base. You need to respond to every email the comes into your inbox with a customer inquiry included in it. This means you’ll have to ensure a dedicated part of your team is working the email box and responding to customers for your dealership.

Minimize Promotions in Your Email Marketing

If all you send in your emails are ads and promotional materials, your email list will dwindle because many will unsubscribe to your list. Don’t send promotional material out very often or at all. If you want, you can include links to promotions to help your customers see what they can save when they buy a car or have their vehicle serviced at your dealership but avoid having emails that are heavy with promotional materials.