What Is Automotive Email Marketing And How To Use It to Get Results

Everything you need to know about email marketing for car dealerships

Email marketing can quickly attract new customers and boost online sales – a subscriber just needs to click a couple of buttons in the newsletter, and the product is already in their cart. Sadly for car dealers, in the automotive business, fast online sales in two clicks are the exception rather than the rule. 

The good news is that people who purchase cars spend hours on automotive websites, looking for info and, of course, some special offers from car dealerships. Sounds much better. 

In this article, we will talk about how to make email marketing work to the maximum for the automotive industry. Fasten your seat belts and let’s go.

The importance of email marketing for car dealerships

In any industry, the more expensive the product, the fewer customers there are. But it’s not as bad as it might seem at first glance. Fewer customers mean that an individual one of them is more valuable, as well as their loyalty is more expensive – this is exactly what car dealers can achieve with the help of email marketing. 

Email marketing is constantly evolving and every year offers new opportunities. To operate it effectively, you always need to keep an eye on the latest marketing trends and adapt them to your industry. Let’s have a look at how to operate email marketing for car dealerships.

Targeted communication

Car dealers and brands have all the opportunities and resources to study their customers, their preferences, and their behavior in as much detail and depth as possible. This way, they can customize the mailing list for each customer to make them feel special.

Based on a few details a car dealership can create a portrait of its future client and go through all the stages – from selection and purchase, to future maintenance of the vehicle. The goal is not to sell a car but to become a friendly guide for the client.

Cost-effectiveness

Let’s face it: sometimes it seems that the cost of traditional advertising burns money faster than a sports car consumes gas. 

But not email marketing. Email marketing management is still the simplest way not only to boost sales but to set up the whole process of communication with your clients and automatically manage your digital marketing campaign. For car dealerships, this is the way to go. 

With less investment, it provides a higher ROI. According to Litmus research, the profitability of email marketing significantly exceeds the performance of other channels (on average about 36:1). Instead of spending huge amounts of money on billboards and TV commercials, car dealers can reach thousands of potential buyers with a few clicks and for a small fee.

Increased brand awareness

The automotive industry is a highly competitive business, and it is not enough to simply send a newsletter once a month with a story about the brand to increase brand awareness and maintain it. The reputation of such cars as BMW, Ford, Tesla, Lamborghini and others was formed not even for years, but for decades, and, let’s be honest, an email is not likely to change overall opinion about the product.

However, that’s no reason to hit the brakes. An email newsletter in this case can be a great tool to create a vision beyond the car itself, to maintain the brand’s philosophy, where the brand is not just a car, but a long-term provider of dreams.

Customer retention

Customer retention is the same as servicing a classic car: it requires constant attention and care. When people choose a car brand, they become part of a big family. And car dealers are a support team whose mission is to constantly remind their clients of why they chose to become part of this particular family. 

Lead generation

Email newsletters are an ideal way to attract more visitors to the website, and therefore to the offline dealership. Car brands offer new models only occasionally, which is not enough for an efficient email marketing flow. 

However, prices are constantly changing, models get upgrades,  plus there can be various special offers. All together it is a good reason for a dealership to make a creative announcement to their target audience by email and attract them to the website, increasing traffic. 

Automation and efficiency

Why do we use cars at all? Because they are fast, convenient, and everything works automatically. 

Similarly, email marketing automation turns the routine of sending the right messages at the right time into an exciting journey.

Types of emails to use in automotive email marketing campaigns

Now let’s see what types of emails will help bring any automotive marketing campaign to the top of car dealership lists.

Welcome email

A welcome email is the most important impression. This is a red carpet for your new subscribers and future customers. Declare yourself, while leaving the intrigue. As a rule, the simpler and more concise the design of an email, the more pleasant the impression it makes.

Invitation to connect

Social media in the modern world is the fastest way to establish friendly ties with future customers. So there is no need to be shy about talking about social networks and inviting people to subscribe. In return, you can suggest a special offer additional bonuses, or even a “favorite customer” status. Why not?

Monthly newsletter

Consider your newsletter as a magazine about the life and main events of your dealership. It can be published once a month or less, but its main feature is to inform. It should be of interest to both your most loyal visitors and potential customers. Talk about the latest updates and offers, and create the right impression of the dealership — being competent and caring for each customer.

Promotional emails

Has your best-selling model reappeared in a limited color? Or has there been a sharp price drop? Or maybe the company has finally presented a new electric car? That’s news! And you should share this news with your customers.

Use emails to not only talk about the latest innovations but also to attract users to your site so that they learn even more.

Service reminders

People, unlike machines, tend to forget things all the time. Customers will be grateful to you if from time to time you talk about the need to keep your cars in perfect condition and remind them about maintenance, oil changes, tire changes and other services. 

Or simply notify about the change of the season and the necessary measures to take. Customers will appreciate such care — it’s like having full car maintenance in their pocket.

Tech updates

The world is not standing still, and even more so the automotive industry. There is always something innovative going on there. Even earlier, no one could have thought that electric cars would take over the world so quickly. And what awaits us ahead?

You can and should share all the latest innovations in the industry with your audience. This way, they will see that you keep your finger on the pulse and very soon you will be able to offer these novelties to them.

Cross-selling promotions

Cross-selling is when you offer something related to a product or associated with the brand – from a keychain or branded seat covers, related to a car, to a collection of books or clothing, related to the brand in general. It’s like the merch of your favorite band – the client has to be a real fan of the brand! 

Cross-selling is important, because it generates additional revenue, and highly increases brand awareness, both online and offline.

How to start a car dealer email marketing campaign

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to help a car dealership to start a race in email marketing.

1. Define the goals

Before you start moving, set an end goal for your marketing navigator. Like with GPS.

What point of growth do you want to reach? Increase sales and attract more new customers to the dealership? Increase the loyalty of your customers and offer them long-term relationships? Convince your former customers to get back?

Email marketing will help you set up the fastest and most effective way to your goal.

2. Build the email list

The second step is to determine who exactly you will send your emails to. Make a list of clients. Add pop-up subscription forms to your site where people will add their emails.

Think step by step about how you will compile and then update your database. The larger and more targeted your list is, the more effective your campaign will be.

3. Segment the audience

The most important thing in email marketing is to set up who and what to send. Divide the audience by age, gender, geolocation and interests.

We have already mentioned that your customers come with a variety of requests.
Someone needs a compact city car, someone wants a crossover for a big family, and another customer is looking for a new-brand electric car. It is worth considering their different preferences in newsletters. And to those clients who have purchased a new car just a month ago, it would not be worth sending offers about new models and discounts for the coming season. Instead, you can remind them about car maintenance or other services that your dealership can offer. 

4. Choose an email marketing platform

Now imagine yourself as a customer. As well as a customer choosing a car, now you have to choose a high-quality and reliable platform that will drive your marketing campaign right to your goals.

How to find the best email marketing service? Which one is better? The one that is right for you. Pay attention to key functions such as automation, mailing analytics, and templates for ready-made emails. 

For example, Selzy offers a wide range of email management services, including a built-in email builder with email templates and subscription forms. Selzy also offers chatbots as additional communication channels and a set of artificial intelligence functions. You can start with a free plan and upgrade to a paid plan when you grow your mailing list. 

5. Create compelling content

How to determine which content is compelling and which is not? It’s simple — your audience just will not react to unattractive content — they close those emails in the very beginning. Imagine how many emails get into mailboxes every day, and how many of them look unattractive? Thus, compelling content is the essential thing in email marketing. 

The main task is to make your content stand out, attract attention, and make your audience read it and even go to your website. This is tricky, especially if you are at the beginning of your marketing efforts, but we know something that can help.

Pre-designed email templates are real-life savers. On the marketing platforms, you can find plenty of ready-made templates for any marketing tasks and customize them to your brand. Selzy offers 40+ pre-designed modern templates for various industries and purposes: sales, new offers, surveys and many more. You can enhance those templates with your branded colors and your own designs and logos.  

6. Personalize the messages

Personalization is inherently very similar to targeting, only it’s the next level. 

Your task is not just to divide people into general categories, but to set up the newsletter in such a way that each client feels special. Address your clients by name. Study the history of their purchases, as well as learn to anticipate their possible needs. 

For example, if a customer has purchased a car, offer them in an email a list of maintenance services for the year ahead. Or related products specifically for their car. If this is your loyal customer, give them a special status or an offer that they will not be able to refuse.

7. Optimize for mobile devices

Mobile phones are with us 24/7. According to Statista, mobile devices account for about half of the web traffic worldwide. It says that in the last quarter of 2023, mobile devices accounted for 58.67% of global website traffic. It also means that more and more often people check emails via smartphones. This means that most likely they do not have time to read the long newsletters filled with small typed texts and a bunch of pictures from their car dealer. Think about the convenience of your client and make your emails mobile-friendly. 

• Do not add too much information at once. An email that provides one particular offer will work more effectively than an email describing all possible promotions at once. 
• Keep your subject line short. Make it in a few main words so that it doesn’t get cut on mobile.
• Use a minimalistic design with a clear structure. Choose images and designs that look and work well on any device.
• Use responsive email templates. With the help of modern email builders, you can easily create and adapt any email for mobile devices. 

8. Test and refine the emails

At this stage, it might seem to you that you have understood everything and now your email campaign will immediately bring results. It may happen, though, that your email campaign will not appeal to your audience for whatever reason. 

So, first, conduct a test drive, or in marketing language — A/B testing. A/B testing is when two email campaigns are created with similar purposes, but with different settings, different segmentation, or different design, and so on.

And then, by using email analytics and comparing the results, you may easily estimate which campaign your audience likes best.

Tips and best practices to boost the campaign’s efficiency

All images provided in this article are credited to Really Good Emails