Response rates are an essential part of a marketing campaign. Your dealership can find out how successful your campaign was with your customers, which influences future business. That’s why your customers’ response rates to the advertisements and the offers you send them are equally as important. However, you first want to establish the best marketing methods to boost engagement with your dealership.
Direct mail provides businesses with great response rates, even when compared to more modern advertising methods. To find out more about the response rates your auto dealer will see with automotive direct marketing mailers, check out this guide, created by the experts at Epsilon Individual Automotive.
What Is Marketing Response Rate?
Before we dive into the details of automotive direct mail response rates, it’s important to define what this term means. A response rate is how you measure the number of people who have responded to your advertisement’s call-to-action.1
To calculate the response rate of a particular direct mail marketing campaign, marketers divide the number of respondents who completed the call-to-action by the total number of recipients who received your direct mail piece. Then, you can compare that metric to your previous direct mail marketing campaigns. This will tell you if your most recent campaign has been more or less effective than previous campaigns.
Response Rates: How Does Direct Mail Hold Up?
Direct mail has excellent response rates. The average response rate for direct mail is 9 percent for house lists.2 For prospect lists, the response rate hovers around 4.9 percent.
When matched against digital marketing techniques, the direct mail response rate reigns supreme. Emails offer around a 1 percent household response rate.2
What does that mean for your dealership? Direct mail may be the better option for your business. Customers are more likely to look at it and take advantage of your promotions.
How To Track Your Direct Mail Response Rate
Now that you’re aware of the response rate benefits that automotive direct mail has to offer, it’s time to learn more about how you can track your customers’ responses.
Tracking your customers’ response rates is as simple as adding key features to your direct mailers. Let’s take a look at some of the best marketing methods to use to see how your direct mail campaign performs.
Personalized URL
Tracking your buyers’ behaviors is easy when you harness the power of the internet. By adding a personalized URL to your direct mailers, you’ll not only add an element of personalization to your advertisement, but you’ll also be able to evaluate the customer response rates with online analytics resources effortlessly.
Coupon Codes
Redeemable coupon codes are a great way to encourage your leads to do business with you. Plus, your dealership’s direct mailers can be further enhanced by online redeemable coupon codes. This makes it convenient for your customers but also allows you to measure the number of coupon codes used vs. the number of mailers sent more easily.
You can also keep track of the coupon codes used in person for those who prefer to do business face-to-face.
800 Lead-Generating Tracking Numbers
Another way to effectively determine the number of customers who responded to your auto dealer’s direct mail advertisement is to create a unique phone number that they’ll call to participate in the special that’s listed on your mailer.
Then, have your team log the number of calls they receive through that number to calculate your direct mail response rate.
Increasing Direct Mail Response Rate: Things to Consider
In addition to including unique URLs and coupon codes in your direct mail campaign, there are a few things you can do during the design process that may help to increase your campaign’s response rate.
To make improving your response rate easier than ever, here are three things you should always keep in mind: a specific mailing list, a great offer, and creativity.
Mailing List
To get the best response rates, you need to make sure you’re sending your mailers to the right people. To do so, make sure your mailing list is both up-to-date and targeted correctly.
Ensuring your contact list is up to date means your loyal customers will always receive your information. This helps keep them shopping, financing, and servicing with your dealership for the long haul. Don’t be afraid to periodically double-check that contact information is correct. That way, if a customer moves, they’ll still receive your mailers.
When you’re looking to expand your client list, direct mail is a great way to reach new shoppers. You spent all that time creating an eye-catching campaign; now it’s time to make sure it gets seen by the right people.
For example, if you’re sending out information about a college graduate rebate program you’re running, sending this to everyone on your contact list may not be the best way to go. Instead, utilize data solutions to fine-tune your contact list, like the ones used by our experts. By doing so, you can create smaller, custom contact lists based on demographics, credit scores, and much more. You can specifically reach out to college graduates, who are the target audience for your campaign and will be more likely to respond to it.
A Great Offer
Coupon codes are a great way to track response rates. Before you can track the response rate, however, you need to create an offer that your customers can take advantage of. The first way to do this is to create a simple-to-understand offer. Is this an exclusive coupon that’s only redeemable with the mailer? Can they claim a free car wash with their next service appointment?
By offering a coupon with simple redeeming directions, you’re likely to see higher response rates.
Creativity
Many dealerships flock to direct mail as their go-to marketing technique because of the flexibility this option provides. Take advantage of the creative freedom direct mail offers by thinking outside the box. Consider making your envelopes larger. Experts estimate using large envelopes lands the highest response at 5 percent, compared to postcards and catalogs.2
You can also experiment with colors, textures, and types of mailers—like foldouts, brochures, three-dimensional boxes, and more. Chances are, the more unique your mailer is, the higher the response rate.
Increase Your Response Rate with Automotive Direct Mail
At Epsilon Individual Automotive, we’re committed to helping dealerships nationwide increase their revenue and improve their direct mail response rates.
With our exclusive services and customizable options, our team can lead you to business growth with your next direct mail campaign. Get the conversation started by giving us a call or sending us an email today!
1 https://www.skyword.com/marketing-dictionary/response-rate/
2 https://www.smallbizgenius.net/by-the-numbers/direct-mail-statistics/#gref
