6.5 Tips to Make E-mail Work at your Dealership
By Cory Mosley, Mosley Automotive Group
The fact is that there are topics in the automotive Internet space that will always be talked about, CRM, leads, process, sales cycle, search engine marketing, web sites, and of course e-mail. There are too many mistakes to count that are made on a daily basis when it comes to e-mail, but I am going to give you 6.5 tips and must dos to make e-mail work at your dealership.
- Your e-mail address must be branded
One of the most unprofessional things you could be doing on a daily basis is advertising and communicating through a generic e-mail account like Hotmail, Yahoo or AOL. E-mail accounts like these send a message that your dealership is not trying to provide Internet customers with a true Internet experience. It also doesn’t build consumer confidence. Ask yourself, how confident would you feel if your bank’s e-mail address was bankofamerica@hotmail.com or worse yet you were sending credit card information to buy something from a company and the representative of the company told you to send it them at products@yahoo.com? It costs mere dollars per account to dealer brand your e-mail account. - Get a T.O. on your templates
For the people new to the industry, a T.O. is known as a “turn over,” typically involving a sales manager meeting with your prospects. In this case it means letting a second set of eyes review your e-mail templates. You’ve just written and created an exciting e-mail template that’s going to target customers who you have not heard from in 30 days. It’s all ready to go and the headline reads “A Month Has Past Since We’ve Heard From You” followed by exciting program changes, huge rebates and other information. Did you catch the error above? - Brand, brand, brand
Every e-mail must have your dealership name and dealership tagline. Logos are a plus as long as you have formatted the image properly. The harsh reality is that customers shop multiple dealerships so your e-mail communications should indicate to them who you are in more areas than the signature line. Also, make sure to stay away from including things that you may think are cool but could be considered hokey such as smiley faces, flames, or wagging dogs. (Yes, we have received e-mails with dancing dogs.) - Contact info
It may sound like a no brainer, but we secret shop a lot of Internet sales professionals who leave out the dealerships URL, misspell their own e-mail address, or leave out their title. Make sure your signature has your name, title, dealership, e-mail address, contact number, and dealership URL. You can also add a slogan or tag line that your dealership may use.
- Make sense
Another no brainer, think about what you’re trying to say and make sure that you have gotten that across at the end of your e-mail. In an effort to be creative don’t become foolish, a great example of this is an e-mail we received in a secret shop from a Honda dealer who indicated that part of the exclusive Internet benefits package at their dealership includes a TV in the waiting lounge. This would mean based on the e-mail that non Internet customers have to sit in the waiting lounge without a TV. Get my drift. - Have something to say
“Still Interested?” “Please call.” “Haven’t heard from you in a while.” Do any of your e-mails sound like this? If so, please stop sending those types of e-mails right away. Make your messages relevant to the prospect. Send communications like crash-test ratings, finance or lease incentives, and favorable articles from magazines. Ask yourself, if I was shopping for a vehicle would this be of interest to me?
6.5 Begin with the end in mind
I know many of you are thinking that this tip sounds familiar. Well you are right, it is actually the second habit of highly effective people according to speaker and author Stephen Covey. The premise of this applies to sending e-mail communications in that you shouldn’t be simply sending communications just to say you sent the customer an e-mail. When creating an e-mail, write it based on what you are trying to accomplish. If it is trying to get the customer to call you, then include reasons in the e-mail that would motivate a prospect to call you. If you’re trying to get more appointments on Saturday, make sure your message will motivate a prospect to follow your direction.
In previous articles I’ve talked about control. Control is key in everything that happens in the Internet sale. Every e-mail you send a customer should reflect professionalism, make the customer want to do business with you, and should be positioned so you are controlling the road to the sale. Finally I will leave you with this, if we take the emphasis off making appointments and closing sales and we redirect that effort in addressing the customer that never contacts your dealership or goes past the initial contact stage because your dealership lacks professionalism, whether it be your web site or your e-mail communications, wouldn’t you in the end sell more cars?
