Looking for ways to reach your customers effectively and maximize your marketing ROI during the COVID-19 Pandemic? Look no further than your CRM. Email marketing still features the highest ROI of any marketing channel and features flexibility and adaptability for most any situation, so creating engaging email campaigns during this time is crucial. For that reason, we're going to cover 5 important aspects and tips dealers should focus on to ensure their emails capture their audience, convert at a high rate, and bring in revenue.
1. Email Marketing Is Now More Important Than Ever
With so many potential buyers and prospects staying indoors and using their cars less, it's important dealers evaluate marketing spend and potentially divert a portion of their attention away from radio and billboard ads and into email marketing channels.
While some areas of the country haven't been as affected as others and people are still driving quite a bit, major metropolitan areas and states on lockdown/shelter-in-place would benefit from taking some of their marketing spend on radio and billboard ads and shifting that towards list building and email blasts.
This way you're able to capture the shifting market that is moving online more and more.
2. Mobile Optimization Is Still The Priority
That being said, make sure that you're optimizing all your emails for smaller screens and copy spaces. Concise, engaging creative should be your main focus, and all emails should be previewed on mobile screens before sending them out.
Doing so can ensure you're able to capture those recipients within that crucial 3-5 seconds to increase conversions and profit opportunities.
3. Be Empathetic Above All
We've said it before, but we have to emphasize how important it is to display empathy and compassion in your outreach. Blasting deals and savings may seem insensitive in this time, so it's wise to lean into your dealership's community presence to gain the attention of your prospects.
Appealing to the concerns of your buyers can help ensure you're able to bring them back into your dealership.
4. Push Engaging Visuals
We mentioned above how most people use their phones for accessing things like social media and email. This means you have a smaller window of opportunity to grab their attention. How do you capture their attention most effectively? With engaging visuals.
Did you know that emails featuring images increase engagement by 650%? Avoid generic stock images and low quality photos or videos in your emails, and opt for well designed, optimized images and videos to get the most from your emails.
5. It's A Great Time For Retargeting
Getting customers to come back to your service department and sales floor is critical. While we always recommend retargeting campaigns for our clients, they are more important now than ever.
So, we highly recommend segmenting out the customers who haven't visited your dealership in 6 months for service and 12 months for both sales and service, and retarget them with engaging email campaigns.
Capturing these visitors is vital and staying present in their minds is imperative to coming out of this crisis stronger.
Final Thoughts
Your email marketing is one of the most powerful weapons in your arsenal during this time. Make the most of it with these tips.
Edifice Automotive Marketing has been partnering with dealerships to increase their marketing ROI and engagement for years, and we're still here during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Reach out for more information on sending quality email campaigns during this time.
