At the year’s end everyone needs to look back on their email marketing efforts to see how successful their email marketing program was and if it wasn’t as successful as they were expecting, then what steps should be taken in order to make the program successful. 

The main points to be looked upon are:

Key performance metrics
The first step in the process of annual review is to note down the newsletter or campaign’s annual result in a spreadsheet. All important statistics such as clicks, referrals, complains, unsubscribe, bounces, spam, etc., should be included. After assembling the results must be used to calculate the overall averages. The best and the worst performing messages can be calculated for every metric. Beyond standard metrics like click through, open, and bounce rates, dealerships must also look at metrics which are more appropriate for achieving the company’s objectives and goals. The major metrics which should be looked upon based on objectives are open rate, click to open rate, click through rate, deliver rate, bounce rate, referral rate, unsubscribe rate, spam complaints, net subscribers, subscriber retention, unique clicks, unique clicks on certain recurring links (inventory, specials, service, etc.), website interactions, transactions, total revenue, conversion rate and average investment per email. 

Content
The content of the actual messages should be analyzed. Every aspect should be relevant and should also involve creativity. The style, tone and the length of the subject line should be reviewed. It is very important to include the dealerships’s or group’s name in the subject line or easy recognition by the reader, otherwise the email may land in the spam folder. If the format of the emails is being changed constantly, the samples must be compared to see which one is more effective. If personalized emails have been sent, observe the results to see whether the attempt was successful or not.  

Recipient feedbacks, web site analytics and surveys
An email account can be created to receive feedbacks containing both negative and positive comments, which can be reviewed upon at the end of the year. If the number of feedbacks received isn’t adequate, the feedback procedure must be made easier. Another problem could be of not creating a motivating personality which could make the subscribers to respond. Reader surveying helps in finding keys which can be worked upon in the next year. Analyzing the website statistics also helps a lot. If there are articles present on the website, figure out which ones interest the readers the most. Check out for the vehicle categories which are visited the most and produce the most revenue and orders. Also ponder upon the offers which draw the most attention from the subscribers.

And finally comparison between internal and external benchmarks
Marketers can share information in an organization that produces more than one campaign or newsletter. This helps in benchmarking the key metrics. The dealership’s performance can be compared to the industry averages to see whether the program is going according to the plan or if it needs attention immediately.

At the year’s end everyone needs to look back on their email marketing efforts to see how successful their email marketing program was and if it wasn’t as successful as they were expecting, then what steps should be taken in order to make the program successful. 

The main points to be looked upon are:

Key performance metrics
The first step in the process of annual review is to note down the newsletter or campaign’s annual result in a spreadsheet. All important statistics such as clicks, referrals, complains, unsubscribe, bounces, spam, etc., should be included. After assembling the results must be used to calculate the overall averages. The best and the worst performing messages can be calculated for every metric. Beyond standard metrics like click through, open, and bounce rates, dealerships must also look at metrics which are more appropriate for achieving the company’s objectives and goals. The major metrics which should be looked upon based on objectives are open rate, click to open rate, click through rate, deliver rate, bounce rate, referral rate, unsubscribe rate, spam complaints, net subscribers, subscriber retention, unique clicks, unique clicks on certain recurring links (inventory, specials, service, etc.), website interactions, transactions, total revenue, conversion rate and average investment per email. 

Content
The content of the actual messages should be analyzed. Every aspect should be relevant and should also involve creativity. The style, tone and the length of the subject line should be reviewed. It is very important to include the dealerships’s or group’s name in the subject line or easy recognition by the reader, otherwise the email may land in the spam folder. If the format of the emails is being changed constantly, the samples must be compared to see which one is more effective. If personalized emails have been sent, observe the results to see whether the attempt was successful or not.  

Recipient feedbacks, web site analytics and surveys
An email account can be created to receive feedbacks containing both negative and positive comments, which can be reviewed upon at the end of the year. If the number of feedbacks received isn’t adequate, the feedback procedure must be made easier. Another problem could be of not creating a motivating personality which could make the subscribers to respond. Reader surveying helps in finding keys which can be worked upon in the next year. Analyzing the website statistics also helps a lot. If there are articles present on the website, figure out which ones interest the readers the most. Check out for the vehicle categories which are visited the most and produce the most revenue and orders. Also ponder upon the offers which draw the most attention from the subscribers.

And finally comparison between internal and external benchmarks
Marketers can share information in an organization that produces more than one campaign or newsletter. This helps in benchmarking the key metrics. The dealership’s performance can be compared to the industry averages to see whether the program is going according to the plan or if it needs attention immediately.

An automated solution is the ideal tool to help you build customer loyalty and offer a highly personalized level of customer service. You want to look for an automated solution that is easy to use and allows you to communicate with your  customers using multiple channels, such as email, text messages and voicemail. You should also select a solution that can be easily integrated with your  current dealer management system so you canbe highly efficient.

All you need to do is integrate the solution with your current DMS and create some basic messages. These touchpoints can easily be set up in advance with an automated communication solution.

Customers enjoy being recognized and appreciated. An automated solution stores each customer’s purchase and maintenance history, important dates, vehicle information and contact information so almost all messages can be automatically sent based on a customer’s stored profile.

This detailed information means that each customer will receive a highly personalized communication campaign, based on their own needs and vehicle. Targeted personalized messages outperform messages that are sent out to every customer on a list. They enjoy higher open and response rates and are more engaging to customers.

Maintaining meaningful contact with your customers through regular automated messages also helps your dealership to build trust and brand consistency. Customers will come to recognize your brand and will associate it with strong, personalized customer service and follow up.

An automated solution is the ideal tool to help you build customer loyalty and offer a highly personalized level of customer service. You want to look for an automated solution that is easy to use and allows you to communicate with your  customers using multiple channels, such as email, text messages and voicemail. You should also select a solution that can be easily integrated with your  current dealer management system so you canbe highly efficient.

All you need to do is integrate the solution with your current DMS and create some basic messages. These touchpoints can easily be set up in advance with an automated communication solution.

Customers enjoy being recognized and appreciated. An automated solution stores each customer’s purchase and maintenance history, important dates, vehicle information and contact information so almost all messages can be automatically sent based on a customer’s stored profile.

This detailed information means that each customer will receive a highly personalized communication campaign, based on their own needs and vehicle. Targeted personalized messages outperform messages that are sent out to every customer on a list. They enjoy higher open and response rates and are more engaging to customers.

Maintaining meaningful contact with your customers through regular automated messages also helps your dealership to build trust and brand consistency. Customers will come to recognize your brand and will associate it with strong, personalized customer service and follow up.

As a dealership, you’ve probably heard of marketing automation. I am going to bet though, that 90 percent of you have no clue what the term means. But don’t blame you — ‘marketing automation’ is a mouthful to say, and they're probably should be a better way to describe the concept from an automotive industry perspective. 

As a dealer grows it’s impossible to maintain 1 to 1 relationship with everybody. At this point, it’s time to hire a marketing director who can build performance-driven, conversion-centric programs at scale.

Eventually, the dealership marketing program will get so big that you can’t manage all electronic marketing via Outlook, Word, and Excel spreadsheets. You could always hire a team of marketing, but eventually, you’re going to start wasting cash on redundant tasks like emailing new leads and customers, setting up social media-to-email programs, and emailing your users every time you post dealership blog content on a specific model or service offering. 

Marketing automation is the use of software to automate marketing processes such as customer segmentation, customer data integration, and campaign management. The use of marketing automation makes processes that would have otherwise been performed manually much more efficiently and makes new processes possible. Marketing automation is an integral component of customer relationship management.

Automated Automotive Communication combines customer acquisition and retention channels to conform to your dealership's conversion funnel.

It’s common for dealership internet managers to talk about marketing automation and email marketing interchangeably. The fact is that email marketing is a component of marketing automation, but the two are far from the same thing - communication also includes text, voice, and social channels.

Dealership conversion paths are unique. Imagine trying to chase down hundreds of them – it’s impossible. That’s where marketing automation comes in.

Fact:
Marketing automation connects multiple touchpoints and marketing channels including social media, email marketing, and content marketing. One of the core goals of automotive marketing automation is to nurture prospects for the long-term, which means focusing on goals beyond direct sales.

Myth:
Marketing automation is cold, inhuman, and impersonal. “Automation” is just another way of saying that we’re spamming customers.

Fact:
Marketing automation makes it easier to send personalized, 1:1 targeted messages. In other words, marketing automation makes communication stronger. When you automate your marketing, you can focus more heavily on the quality of your campaigns and messaging. Marketing automation gives your team the ability to add more personal touches to your campaign – by collecting data on a prospect’s interests and goals, you can custom-tailor future offers so that they are more relevant.

In fact, marketing automation will empower your organization to do the following:

• Add dynamic content based on an individual’s specific user profile. For instance, you can send targeted offers based on website patterns or email open interaction. 
   
•  
• Categorize customers and prospects by common behaviors, interests, and demographic details. These will be great for segmenting your customers.
   
• Develop optimal marketing patterns. Marketing automation can help your dealership test different variables like email send times, subject headings, and ideas for specific personalization.
   
• Integrate marketing channels to deliver a comprehensive, cross-platform user experience. Make sure that every touchpoint is carefully planned for optimal conversion and unified messages.

Myth:
Marketing automation is spam.

Fact:
Marketing automation is one of the most user-friendly marketing channels out there because it’s tailored around personalized automotive customer experiences. You’re not blasting audiences with a general advertising message. Imagine instead that you’re nurturing leads and guiding prospects through the vehicle and service sales conversion funnel on a personalized basis.

A vehicle sale isn’t the end of a dealership / consumer relationship. Marketing automation, social media, and service-driven calls to action are crucial to this stage of customer retention. 

Make sure that you’re maintaining your relationships with all customers for the long haul. Focus on more than just acquisition – embrace the art of service loyalty. It’s always easy to feel like vehicle sales are the low hanging-fruit. Keep in mind that growth from within is just as — perhaps even more — important to your automotive marketing process.

As a dealership, you’ve probably heard of marketing automation. I am going to bet though, that 90 percent of you have no clue what the term means. But don’t blame you — ‘marketing automation’ is a mouthful to say, and they're probably should be a better way to describe the concept from an automotive industry perspective. 

As a dealer grows it’s impossible to maintain 1 to 1 relationship with everybody. At this point, it’s time to hire a marketing director who can build performance-driven, conversion-centric programs at scale.

Eventually, the dealership marketing program will get so big that you can’t manage all electronic marketing via Outlook, Word, and Excel spreadsheets. You could always hire a team of marketing, but eventually, you’re going to start wasting cash on redundant tasks like emailing new leads and customers, setting up social media-to-email programs, and emailing your users every time you post dealership blog content on a specific model or service offering. 

Marketing automation is the use of software to automate marketing processes such as customer segmentation, customer data integration, and campaign management. The use of marketing automation makes processes that would have otherwise been performed manually much more efficiently and makes new processes possible. Marketing automation is an integral component of customer relationship management.

Automated Automotive Communication combines customer acquisition and retention channels to conform to your dealership's conversion funnel.

It’s common for dealership internet managers to talk about marketing automation and email marketing interchangeably. The fact is that email marketing is a component of marketing automation, but the two are far from the same thing - communication also includes text, voice, and social channels.

Dealership conversion paths are unique. Imagine trying to chase down hundreds of them – it’s impossible. That’s where marketing automation comes in.

Fact:
Marketing automation connects multiple touchpoints and marketing channels including social media, email marketing, and content marketing. One of the core goals of automotive marketing automation is to nurture prospects for the long-term, which means focusing on goals beyond direct sales.

Myth:
Marketing automation is cold, inhuman, and impersonal. “Automation” is just another way of saying that we’re spamming customers.

Fact:
Marketing automation makes it easier to send personalized, 1:1 targeted messages. In other words, marketing automation makes communication stronger. When you automate your marketing, you can focus more heavily on the quality of your campaigns and messaging. Marketing automation gives your team the ability to add more personal touches to your campaign – by collecting data on a prospect’s interests and goals, you can custom-tailor future offers so that they are more relevant.

In fact, marketing automation will empower your organization to do the following:

• Add dynamic content based on an individual’s specific user profile. For instance, you can send targeted offers based on website patterns or email open interaction. 
   
•  
• Categorize customers and prospects by common behaviors, interests, and demographic details. These will be great for segmenting your customers.
   
• Develop optimal marketing patterns. Marketing automation can help your dealership test different variables like email send times, subject headings, and ideas for specific personalization.
   
• Integrate marketing channels to deliver a comprehensive, cross-platform user experience. Make sure that every touchpoint is carefully planned for optimal conversion and unified messages.

Myth:
Marketing automation is spam.

Fact:
Marketing automation is one of the most user-friendly marketing channels out there because it’s tailored around personalized automotive customer experiences. You’re not blasting audiences with a general advertising message. Imagine instead that you’re nurturing leads and guiding prospects through the vehicle and service sales conversion funnel on a personalized basis.

A vehicle sale isn’t the end of a dealership / consumer relationship. Marketing automation, social media, and service-driven calls to action are crucial to this stage of customer retention. 

Make sure that you’re maintaining your relationships with all customers for the long haul. Focus on more than just acquisition – embrace the art of service loyalty. It’s always easy to feel like vehicle sales are the low hanging-fruit. Keep in mind that growth from within is just as — perhaps even more — important to your automotive marketing process.

We all know that the Service Department is key to growth of business - both on the maintenance and repair, but also on future sales by doing a great job with service customers when the visit the dealership.

All manufacturers provide inspections to dealers for ensure the vehicle is reviewed by the technicians for many points of the safety, focused on the customer and having the vehicle in the shop at that point.

However as we know - not every customer is going to purchase at the time of recommendations that day. So often there needs to be a follow up process in place to contact customers who were in the Yellow or Red on the inspection. 

What does this mean for marketing opportunities? Well.... it is a HUGE way to send out custom content to customers based on the inspections. 

Some thought starters may include:

• Yellow tires - automate email based on the importance of new tires, should they open the email send one based on a savings offering after a couple of days. Include links to YouTube videos with information on the tire options.
• Windshield wipers - looking a little worn on the customer vehicle? automate a text message to the customer with a coupon of savings the next day and offer an incentive to come in for new wipers.
• Belts in yellow - after a couple weeks send out a email with the importance of the belt and engine functionality

Using collected customer information is always best for growing engagement, so now use it to customize messaging for the customer. 

We all know that the Service Department is key to growth of business - both on the maintenance and repair, but also on future sales by doing a great job with service customers when the visit the dealership.

All manufacturers provide inspections to dealers for ensure the vehicle is reviewed by the technicians for many points of the safety, focused on the customer and having the vehicle in the shop at that point.

However as we know - not every customer is going to purchase at the time of recommendations that day. So often there needs to be a follow up process in place to contact customers who were in the Yellow or Red on the inspection. 

What does this mean for marketing opportunities? Well.... it is a HUGE way to send out custom content to customers based on the inspections. 

Some thought starters may include:

• Yellow tires - automate email based on the importance of new tires, should they open the email send one based on a savings offering after a couple of days. Include links to YouTube videos with information on the tire options.
• Windshield wipers - looking a little worn on the customer vehicle? automate a text message to the customer with a coupon of savings the next day and offer an incentive to come in for new wipers.
• Belts in yellow - after a couple weeks send out a email with the importance of the belt and engine functionality

Using collected customer information is always best for growing engagement, so now use it to customize messaging for the customer. 

Halifax, Nova Scotia, September 9, 2014 - Dealer Engage is proud to announce the launch of Version 8.7 of its automated marketing and communication software application. One of its features is a new Contact Manager, with functionality and features based largely on requests and feedback from Dealer Engage customers.

The Dealer Engage Contact Manager

The Contact Manager, as the name suggests, enables users of the automated marketing platform to manage their contacts and track the history, behavior and preferences of all contacts. It also allows for lead nurturing so users can learn about their leads and convert them into loyal customers.

Using the Contact Manager, dealers can view any individual contact’s activity and set up marketing tasks and timelines for that contact as well as add notes that provide more information about the customer. 

Lead Scoring with the New Dealer Engage Version

Automotive email marketers can score their leads, meaning rank them according to how engaged they are with the user's content. Users score each lead with a number, helping keep track of exactly how active each lead is and how much focus should be placed on them. Lead scoring can be an automated or manual process, or a combination of both.

Using the Dealer Engage email platform, users can rate each lead depending on whether they are considered to be a hot lead, based on the data gathered about them. Rating and scoring leads makes it easier to know which leads to focus on, and increases sales and marketing effectiveness.

In addition, users will be able to add and move leads in their pipeline manually or automatically. Dealer Engage 360 can automate the process so that it can move leads through different stages of a user's pipeline. Users who prefer to manually add a lead to their pipeline or move a lead who is already in the pipeline can use the Pipeline Editor. The Contact Manager will always show which stage of the pipeline the lead is in, to prevent users from losing track.

With the improved functionality of the Contact Manager, users are able to manage all their contact data as well as nurture and manage leads and track behavior. Users can track anonymous visitors to their site, including those who don’t sign up for anything or interact with the site content. This provides a more complete picture of who is on the site and what they are doing while they’re there.

About Dealer Engage

Dealer Engage (http://www.dealerengage.com) is the dealership engine for easy and efficient automotive communication. The platform responds to the constantly growing need for integration among the many different communication methods of today’s online environment. Actions performed by customers trigger relevant and timely reactions from the marketing automation manager through the entire life cycle of a client.

For More Information Contact:

Shawn Ryder
shawn@shawnryder.com 
902-488-4107
Shawn Ryder Digital

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When you receive a list from a manufacturer informing you of customers who are driving an older vehicle or reaching the end of their lease and listing which customers are driving what models, what do you do with that goldmine of data? If you have an effective way to connect with a large amount of customers based on their individual vehicle information, you can form a personal connection with each customer that can bring in new business and build lasting, loyal business relationships.

Each customer has different needs based on their vehicle history, specific model, price range, location and so on. Reaching out to each customer on a manufacturer’s list can be complicated, even when you have detailed information about what services they would require, because of the time it takes to make each connection.

The solution may lie in an automated marketing plan that can connect individually with each customer without sacrificing your time, staff resources or budget. These plans enable you to stay in touch with thousands of customers efficiently, sending them messages that are designed to engage them with prompt and relevant information.

Using the information from a manufacturer’s list, a good automated marketing solution can create personalized campaigns for individual customers. You control what you want the solution to look for. Want to run targeted ads based on vehicle purchase date? Last maintenance appointment? Vehicle model? It is possible to create campaigns based on almost anything, and the marketing automation solution sorts out which messages would be most relevant to which customers.