The Power of an Email

Even in today’s smartphone-centered world, emails have remained a powerful tool to follow up and create opportunity for car deals. Nowadays, only 19% of Americans pick up the phone for unknown numbers (Pew Research). That said, sales calls are still incredibly important for breaking through to buyers. However, written communication is much more likely to get read than a phone being answered. In fact, more than 83% of buyers report to preferring email over phone for communications from businesses (Twilio).

Nevertheless, advancements in technology have still changed the way emails engage car buyers. With endless access to information, consumers can get in touch with and shop around at many different dealerships without even stepping foot in one. So, automotive professionals need to be aware of the competitiveness that the internet sales space has created. If you want to stand out from the crowd and avoid being marked as spam, crafting engaging emails that break through and inspire action is crucial. In this blog, learn the do’s and don’ts for creating automotive sales emails that make car deals happen!

Avoid Bland Automated Emails

Emails that are clearly automated often frustrate the buyer, making it more difficult to make the sale. It can oftentimes feel easy to use highly automated emails, but they feel impersonal and likely don’t give buyers any of the information they want. Especially in a race against other dealerships to get in communication, don’t make the vital mistake of leaving a bad first impression. Automated emails make no effort to move the deal forward while other dealerships could be claiming that car deal.

Yet, just because you don’t use an automated email, it doesn’t mean you can’t have ways to send out emails at lightning speed. Draw upon previous emails that got the best responses from buyers, sift through the best manual emails, and create a few templates. If you are sending out auto-response emails that look and feel like they were part of an automatic batch email, you're going to lose the buyer’s attention. However, if you know what works and what doesn’t, it makes it easy to quickly write something up with a personalizable template, address buyer’s questions, and send it off. This is a great way to move the conversation in the direction of an appointment, and then a car sale.

Don’t Send Noisy Emails

Long emails turn buyers off. Especially, when they need to search to find the information they asked for. Avoid being deleted or sent to spam by giving the buyer great information front and center from email #1. Remember, if you send noisy emails to buyers, they’re going to ignore everything else that you send them. From the very first email, send good, quality content that directly answers their questions or provides them with information they will want to read.

Give Them What They Want AND More

When you contact a buyer by email, and any other communication method, always provide what they want and more! Answer all of the buyer’s questions, give them all of the information they asked for, and then provide extra. So, when a buyer inquires on a vehicle, give them more to intrigue and entice them to come down to the dealership. For example, include additional information such as similar vehicles they haven’t considered yet, or special deals that could make it worth their while to come in soon.

Another great addition to any email is to include a hello email. This video allows the customer to gain insight into the friendly salesperson they will be working with and makes the deal feel real. Once they’re able to see the car they’re interested in and all of its amazing features and equipment on video, a lot of buyers will want to come to the dealership. Currently, less than 10% of email inquiries have videos, making them a great way to stand out to the buyer.

Email Read Reports

Most CRMs have a read report for emails. This gives great insights for getting better engagement with emails. We live in an era of information, and those who take advantage will sell a lot more vehicles. Even when an email is well-written, it doesn’t necessarily mean that car buyers will respond to that type of email. So, use this to ensure your read ratio is high by constantly tweaking aspects of your emails like subjects, teaser text, delivery time, and content. Then measure your levels of engagement and adjust further! As a result, your emails will be read more and you will get far higher engagement, which helps you make more deals!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HiDFjwDYms

Email Blasts

Sending emails blasts is a great way to show off inventory and generate some new car deals. When doing this, it can be tempting to send out all of the vehicles that have been at your dealership the longest. However, this creates a wasted opportunity. Remember, the vehicles that have been around the longest have a bad track record of engaging buyers. So, in an email blast, you should include attractive, newer vehicles to engage buyers. Then, sprinkle in the old inventory and make it a special, which will create a lot more opportunity!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx7f-W9stqg