Automotive Mailers that Still Work – Epsilon Individual Automotive Automotive Marketing

As a successful automotive business, you rely on attention-grabbing, lead-nurturing advertising strategies to drive traffic to your dealership. Fortunately, direct mail marketing is one of the most effective ways to engage with your target audience and reward them for choosing your business.¹

What are some of the automotive mailers that still work? Well, the marketing experts at Epsilon Individual Automotive are here to determine which direct mail solutions are ideal for your company.

With these insights, you’ll be ready to reap the multitude of benefits of a strong direct mail marketing campaign.

A Brief History of Direct Mail

Think back to the days before the internet was around. How did you learn about a product release or the latest fashion trends from your favorite store? You read about it in a catalog or newsletter. This is direct mail marketing.

Direct mail marketing involves sending a physical letter or piece of mail directly to the recipient. This type of marketing is used to drive sales, provide updates, and increase brand awareness.

Why Direct Mail Still Works

In simplest terms, direct mail works because there is little competition for recipients to see your mailers. Many other businesses have abandoned their direct mail strategy for digital marketing, making it difficult to be noticed in the noisy digital world.

That’s because it’s estimated that individuals receive over 100 emails and view more than 60 daily ads. Compare this to the approximately two pieces of mail per day that individuals receive, and it’s clear that direct mail works because of less competition.

In addition to less competition, direct mail works because of its tangible, interactive capabilities. Not only will your recipients physically interact with your mailers, but this mail will also be a constant reminder about your dealership. This is because it takes up space in their home. This constant reminder of your dealership helps you see results.

According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), “Direct mail response rates hover between 2.7% – 4.4%, while email has around 0.6%.”²

Direct Mail vs Digital Marketing: Direct Mail in a Digital Era

With the spur of the digital era in recent years, you may wonder how direct mail still works as a marketing strategy compared to social media and other digital forms of marketing. With individuals spending an estimated 6 hours and 42 minutes online daily, why not turn your strategy to where the people are going?

The reason is that there are many things that direct mail can do that are nearly impossible with digital marketing. Just a few of the direct mail-exclusive capabilities include:

It elicits emotion: Getting a letter in the mail is like traveling back in time to simpler times. It makes people remember the good old days. Due to the nostalgic feeling direct mail provides, an estimated 73 percent of people said they prefer direct mail over other types of marketing.

It’s highly creative: There’s great creative potential when creating a direct mail campaign. The possibilities are sky-high, with the option to send anything from a postcard to a three-dimensional mailer.

It uses senses: Direct mail can include all five senses correctly. Digital marketing, on the other hand, can only use up to two senses: sight and hearing.

Direct mail marketing prevails in the digital world for many reasons, thanks to its exclusive capabilities. Look closer at direct mail and examples of automotive mailers that still work!

Effective Direct Mailers: Things to Consider

Direct mail aims to create brand awareness, provide information, and have an overall effective marketing campaign. To do that, you need to grab the attention of your recipients. You’ll want to utilize the help of professional designers who are experts in color theory and design techniques.

Did you know that 84.7 percent of buyers say that color is what draws them to an object?¹

This means you’ll want to take full advantage of color theory when sending information to your clients. Here are some colors and ways they can influence your client’s mood and/or beliefs:

Red: Encourages appetite and creates a sense of urgency, excitement, or passion

Orange/Yellow: Increases cheerfulness and is often used to encourage impulse buys

Green: Associated with health and wealth while balancing body and brain to lead to decisiveness

Black: Oftentimes associated with power and authority

After choosing your primary color, look to the color wheel to build an appealing contrast. Some of the most frequently used types of contrast include monochromatic, complementary, and triple color schemes. Choosing the right contrast or color scheme is as important as your primary color, as each color scheme induces different feelings.

Direct Mail Finance Programs

When purchasing a vehicle, financing is top-of-mind for most buyers. By providing your audience with direct mailers outlining your dealership’s lease and finance programs, you’ll tap into leads looking for an auto financing offer on their next vehicle.

Thanks to the incentive included in your advertisement, your potential and existing customers will learn more about the ever-changing deals your automotive business provides, which will increase their likelihood of visiting your dealership.

Plus, our loan and finance direct mailers use real-time credit score data to target your recipients based on the credit score you’re looking to pursue.

In addition to targeting based on credit score, you can send direct mail based on the recipient’s loan amount. Using the Lease/Loan Enders tool, you’ll receive information on the remaining percentage of the loan, how many months are left, and more.

Combine DIRECT MAIL & DIGITAL MARKETING WITH PERSONAL URLS

These days, adding a personal touch to your direct mailers is crucial to the overall success of your marketing strategy. That’s why Personal URLs (PURLs) have earned a place on our list of automotive mailers that still work.

PURLs are a form of direct mail that includes a specific URL, often including the prospect’s name, that directs them to their own landing page. This personalized link grabs the recipient’s attention and then strikes their curiosity.

So, why are personal URLs so effective? PURLs are a great way to blend direct mail and digital marketing into one effective plan. The recipient is more likely to participate because of their piqued attention and curiosity.

You can also include these in the form of QR codes that your client can easily scan.

So, regardless of whether you’re providing your audience with more information on their car’s maintenance needs or presenting them with an opportunity to send feedback to your team, PURLs are a great way to encourage your customers to take action.

Direct Mail Booklets

Think about it: when you receive a large piece of mail, you’re more likely to flip through it to see what’s inside. For that reason, booklet-style automotive mailers continue to provide dealerships with solid ROIs (returns on investment).

For most, model release information and booklets attract the eye with flashy graphics and bold photography, encouraging the reader to flip through the pages.

This type of direct mail motivates buyers to visit your dealership and gives them a sneak peek at the models in your showroom. As a result, the odds of your targeted audience visiting your dealership drastically improve.

Direct Mail Interactive Mailers

Above all else, it’s essential to design an automotive direct mailer that engages as many of your customers’ senses as possible.

In fact, direct mail’s tangibility leaves a more significant impact on our brains, especially when combined with features that encourage your targeted audience to interact with your advertisement.

According to a study performed by Millward Brown and Bangor University, “Tangible materials leave a deeper footprint in the brain… This suggests that physical material is more ‘real’ to the brain. It has a meaning and a place. It is better connected to memory because it engages with its spatial memory networks.”³

Considering these results, adding interactive components to direct mailers can only increase the positive effects this medium has on your audience’s brains.

Modern advancements allow for more in-depth interactive features, like virtual and augmented reality. For instance, scannable QR codes on postcards open a gateway of capabilities for your dealership to tap into.

Your customers would need only scan the code with their smartphone or tablet to enjoy a virtual tour or another form of augmented reality.

As a result of your dealership’s efforts to produce interactive direct mailers, you’ll see improved buyer engagement and more positive feedback for your automotive marketing campaigns.

3D Objects/Free Merchandise

Let’s face it: Every customer loves a free gift, which just so happens to be a proven automotive marketing tactic. What could possibly be more exciting for your consumers than receiving a free keychain, bumper sticker, or some other type of gift from your dealership?

Not only does this make your brand memorable for your buyers, but it also gives them a reason to look forward to receiving other advertisements from you. From calendars or pens to product samples and more, mailers with 3D objects and valuable promotional items are more likely to hold your customers’ attention for longer.

Due to your campaign’s attention-grabbing abilities, the chances of your leads taking action on your dealership’s offer increase tenfold. Overall, automotive mailers that include free merchandise and 3D objects still work by keeping your brand at the top of your customer’s minds.

Make Receiving Direct Mail an Experience: Using Your Senses

As previously mentioned, we experience the world through our senses. Give your target audience an experience they’ll never forget by adding as many of the five senses—sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste—to your direct mail campaign as possible. Here are some ways you can incorporate senses into your campaigns!

Sight

Get the most out of your marketing campaign by utilizing bright colors, changing up the size of your mailer, using cut-outs, and experimenting with fold-out or pop-up mailers. All of these are sure to excite the recipient.

Sound

Blasting tunes and singing out of key are some of the best times spent inside a car. Use a scannable QR code to create a custom playlist for a vehicle in your inventory. This gives the recipient something fun to listen to on their way home from the dealership. This highly unique idea is sure to help you stand out.

Smell

There’s nothing quite like a new car smell. Bottle it up and send it to recipients as a car freshener. Not only will this use a highly underused sense in marketing, but it might also remind them how pleasant that smell is and encourage them to buy a new car.

Touch

One of direct mail’s benefits is that it forces interaction. Experiment with paper types and font textures to change the feel of your mailer. You can also include something extra that the recipient can touch, like a keychain for their new car keys or a mini version of a vehicle in your inventory.

Taste

What’s better than enjoying ice cream on a hot summer’s day? Snacks and road trips go hand-in-hand, right? Elicit the sense of taste by incorporating food into your direct mail marketing campaign.

Perhaps a family SUV in your inventory comes with stain-resistant or easy-clean material. Maybe your off-roading SUV has plenty of room for coolers or snacks. Use the sense of taste to show the recipient the food-filled options a vehicle offers.

Direct Mail Service Promotions

Keeping your customers informed about programs and specials they care about is part of what turns leads into lifelong patrons.

Luckily, direct mailers that feature information about your service promotions help your audience stay updated on all the benefits of shopping at your dealership.

Plus, advertising these service specials using direct mailer techniques like POP cards makes your offer stand out from the other items in your customers’ mailboxes.

With the dramatic presentation of your service promotion POP cards, your ideal client is more likely to remember your company when it’s time for them to visit an automotive service center.

Learn More About Why Automotives Mailers Work Today

The right advertising strategy can guide your leads along the buyer’s journey and help your business thrive. With the assistance of the professionals at Epsilon Individual Automotive, you’ll equip your dealership with direct mailers that deliver measurable results.

Ready to learn more about the automotive mailers that still work? All you have to do is give us a call or contact us today!

¹^{https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/seven-benefits-direct-mail-marketing-why-you-should-consider-frasure/}

²^{https://colorcom.com/research/why-color-matters}

³^{http://printinthemix.com/Research/Show/92}