The phrase digital marketing is often thrown around casually. Usually, the heaviest emphasis is placed on social media, but this ignores some of the most exciting and worthwhile aspects of digital marketing. Far away from Facebook and the Twittersphere, here are you can kickstart a full-scale digital marketing effort and increase your ROI in 2017. 

1. Replace (Some) Direct Mail With Marketing Email

Direct mail is a mainstay of dealership marketing. However, it has two major drawbacks: it is expensive, and its ROI can be very difficult to measure. Email, on the other hand, has strong advantages in both of these categories. 

Email is cheap, and with proper branding and design can deliver a consistent, impactful message. Email can also be rigorously monitored, allowing you to see exactly which customers open your email and click your links. 

While you may not want to ditch your direct mail campaigns entirely, you can certainly save a significant amount of money by shifting your efforts to targeting email campaigns. 

2. Consider Text Messaging for Service Features

Before we dive into what is considered a frontier of digital marketing, consider one fact: 80% of text messages are opened within the first three minutes of deliver. That's some powerful reach! While most dealers will approach mass text messaging with trepidation, it has the potential to differentiate and have the highest ROI of all digital media platforms if used properly. 

For example, service offers are a prime place within your dealership for text marketing. Offering oil changes or other services at a discount via text can drive business into the shop, creating customer loyalty, upsell opportunities, and future sales. 

3. Capture Your Leads For Re-Targeting

At the end of the day, the above suggestions are very difficult to implement if you don't capture your client data effectively! After all, what good are Facebook likes if you can't directly reach out to every lead?

Lead nurturing is a key part of your everyday sales process--you expect that your sales staff is calling leads who expressed interest but didn't buy--so why wouldn't you incorporate follow up into your digital marketing? Why not augment those phone calls with targeted emails, saving time for your sales staff? 

These three ideas, if taken and considered, can lead to significant impacts in your marketing efforts. Good luck!

Email is one of the most effective follow-up tools you can use to keep your message and brand fresh in customer's minds. In fact, email should be a regular, integrated part of your lead follow up process because of how quickly it can be done, and how easy the results are to track and measure. However, sending a bad email can be worse than sending no email at all. Here are three of the most common errors when sending marketing email to leads and clients. 

1. No Clear Call To Action

Calls to action are vital in any sales pitch, but you'd be surprised how often they go AWOL in marketing emails. It's common to see the writer get so wrapped up in the content and design of their email that they lose sight of the very reason they're writing it--to generate more sales!

Calls to action in emails generally take the form of links, or a phone number to call. Links can be useful if you have the right software: you can set alerts for yourself that will let you know when someone has clicked a link from your email, thus letting you know to call that particular lead and follow up. 

Remember: in your emails, always include either a link to your inventory, a phone number to call if the recipient is interested, or a specific person to reply to. 

2. Poor Subject Line

How can you know how good your call to action is if nobody opens your email? Subject lines are one of the most important, yet most ignored, elements of a professional marketing email. If you find that you aren't getting a good ROI on your marketing email campaigns, take a look at your subject line composition. 

Most emails today are read on mobile devices, so subject lines should be no more than 4 words in length so they won't be cut off on the screen. Avoid all caps in your subject lines, and when possible pose a question to the recipient. Remember that short, snappy subject lines will almost always have higher open rates than highly descriptive ones. You can always add more description in your pre-header.

Some good subject lines: 'Your New Car Awaits!', 'Save Big Today', 'Ready to Ride?'

Some bad subject lines: 'Come & See Our Great Deals Today!', 'Drive Off The Lot In Your Dream Car!', 'CHECK THESE GREAT DEALS!'.

3. Being Long-Winded

The best marketing emails in the world are short, sweet, and to-the-point. Most recipients will spend less than 5 seconds reading marketing emails unless they are familiar with the sender, so you have an incredibly small window to make a great impression. The best way to accomplish this? Links and images! Provide images of your inventory, be very clear by using large (but not too large) font, and avoid being overly descriptive. 

Remember: the entire point of the marketing email is to get the recipient interested enough to call and/or visit the lot. There's no need to run through an entire sales pitch in the email!

Good luck!

If you have any further questions about email marketing or how you can improve your dealership's email marketing campaigns, feel free to reach out directly at steve@copyhook.com.