7 Ways to Get More Out of Automotive Email Marketing

No matter what your business is hoping to achieve through your automotive marketing campaigns, it’s essential that you choose the methods that are proven to provide you with the best ROI possible.

Well, automotive email marketing just so happens to be one of the most lucrative marketing techniques around—with a 3800 percent ROI and $38 earned for every $1 spent.¹

With this statistic in mind, there’s no better time to think about how to get more out of your automotive email marketing strategies.

Fortunately, the auto marketing masters at Aspen Automotive have put together a list of seven ways to boost the click-through rate (CTR) of your dealership’s email marketing campaign. Ready to learn more? Let’s check it out!

START WITH DATA

First and foremost, the more effective automotive email marketing strategies are couched in trustworthy, accurate data. Most importantly, you want to focus on data that provides your team with insight on the recipients of your emails and how previous campaigns have performed.

For instance, make sure that your dealership is homing in on your customers’ purchasing histories, so that you can better determine which buyers will respond best to the offer or product included in your automotive email marketing campaign.

Ultimately, this technique ensures that the emails are relevant to your audience, which only improves the return on investment of your strategy.

Some of the other data you should consider while building your dealership’s email campaign are as follows:

Email addresses
Customer preferences
Delivery data
Number of mobile users
Click rates and more

After factoring in these datasets, you’ll have a game-winning automotive email marketing campaign in your midst that will drive online and in-person traffic to your dealership.

CLEANSE YOUR EMAIL LIST

Regularly cleansed email lists are at the heart of a successful automotive email strategy. Not only does removing old, inaccurate email addresses help you reduce your email bounce rate, it also ensures that your emails actually make it to your consumers’ inboxes.

In addition, email data deteriorates at roughly 22 percent per year³, which means that you’re paying to send emails to accounts that are no longer active. In the long run, regular email address and data cleansing improves your ROI and preserves your dealership’s advertising budget.

SEGMENT YOUR AUDIENCE

Not all buyers are the same. That’s why it’s important to avoid sending mass email campaign blasts that attempt to reach every customer with the same language and offer. Instead, segmenting your audience allows your team to get specific with the information included in the emails that you send.

Thanks to audience segmentation, you can design an automotive email strategy that focuses on buyers within a certain age range, household income, marital status, and more.

Plus, more advanced databases give your team insight into the specific make, model, year, and financing type of the vehicles that your customers own. That way, you can include personalized details within your dealership’s emails that provide your leads with exactly what they need to connect with your business.

PERSONALIZE THE CONTENT

Now that you’ve gathered plenty of data, cleansed your email list, and segmented your audience, you can get to work on personalizing the content of your email campaign to fit the lifestyles and personalities of your buyers.

Luckily, once you’ve filtered the leads included on your email list into smaller subsets, your team can more easily tailor the copy, graphics, and other fine points of your email message in a way that speaks directly to the individual buyer.

Need more proof that personalization works? According to Monetate, “Those in-house marketers who are personalizing web experiences…are seeing, on average, a 19% uplift in sales.”² What does this mean for your dealership? It’s time to start getting personal in your automotive email marketing campaigns.

USE A RESPONSIVE EMAIL TEMPLATE

Mobile usage is on the rise, which means that your automotive email marketing template should be designed with both mobile and desktop users in mind.

Appealing to both parties is as simple as crafting a responsive email template that’s navigable and eye-catching on any type of device—from laptops and smartphones to tablets and more.

In addition, responsive email templates increase the time that your audience spends with your email and encourages them to click any relevant links within the message. That way, they’ll be more likely to engage with your dealership and make a purchase.

Let’s take a look at some key best practices to consider when choosing an automotive marketing email template for mobile:

Think Apps: The majority of mobile users opt for third-party email applications. That’s why it’s important to choose a responsive email template that compliments a third-party app layout. By focusing your design on what will work best on the applications that your customers use most, you’ll craft a comprehensive, seamless user experience that encourages your buyers to support your brand.
Use a One-Column Design: Due to the size constraints of mobile screens, one-column email templates are ideal. With this design, your readers can easily absorb the contents of your dealership’s email without zooming in to see the text.
Choose the Right Font Size: The font size that you use for a desktop-formatted marketing email will be different than the size you choose for the mobile version of the same email. Using a larger font size for headings and between 14- to 16-point font for the main body of your message is the best way to keep your reader’s eyes moving along the page.

FOCUS ON THE SUBJECT LINE

As the hook that reels in your audience, it’s crucial to pair your email with a catchy, attention-grabbing subject line that’s personalized to its recipient.

For the most part, the subject line should contain no more than thirty to fifty characters and should exclude words like, “free,” “guarantee,” “100%,” and others to sidestep spam folder filters.

On top of that, you want to make sure that the subject line is reflective of the actual offer or resource that’s found within the email. This prevents you from misleading your audience and provides them with clear information about the benefits of opening your dealership’s email.

Tips for Crafting Effective Email Marketing Subject Lines

Finding the perfect balance for your email marketing subject lines requires an understanding of what spurs your audience to open an email. Here are a few of the best ways to ensure that the subject of your automotive email campaign pushes your customers to take action:

Be Mysterious: Buyers are driven by curiosity. If you’re aiming to raise awareness about a special offer or new vehicle model, providing enough but not too much information in the subject line is the perfect way to pique the curiosity of your consumers. Ultimately, this tactic can result in higher open rates.
Open with the Offer: If your dealership plans to provide your email recipients with a discount or special offer, make sure that that information is highlighted in the subject line. While you want to avoid spammy phrasing, clarifying the specific of your offer is a surefire way to get more clicks.
Provide Reminders: The digital world comes with many distractions for your customers. Ideally, your automotive email marketing campaign should aim to remind consumers where they left off in the purchasing process. So, for instance, if potential car buyer paused in the midst of filling out an online financing form, retargeting emails prompt automotive shoppers to pick up where they left off and complete a critical part of the buyer’s journey.

TEST, TEST, AND TEST AGAIN

Last, but certainly not least, putting your automotive email marketing campaign to the test helps your team refine the details of your strategy and determine the results that you’ll see once it’s deployed.

What type of test should you be running for your email strategy, you ask? Well, A/B testing is typically the best way to evaluate two different email formats.

During these tests, your team sends two different emails to a small sample of your current audience. The one that performs the best is usually the one that’s chosen to be sent to the rest of your subscribers.

After you’ve calculated the results of each email, your dealership will have the information it needs to decide which automotive email marketing techniques are most effective for your particular audience. That way, you can maximize the return on investment for each of your email campaigns.

LEARN HOW TO GET MORE OUT OF YOUR AUTOMOTIVE EMAIL MARKETING TODAY!

At Aspen Automotive, we pride ourselves on our team’s proven automotive email marketing strategies that incorporate advanced data, post-campaign test, and other industry-leading techniques.

So, if you’re looking for an automotive marketing agency that’ll lead you along the path to your dealership’s email advertising revamp, it’s time for us to meet. Learn how to get more out of your automotive email campaigns by giving us a call or sending us an email today!

7 Ways to Get More Out of Your Automotive Email Marketing