And their behavior can be tracked in ways that print recipients cannot, including areas of reader interest, responses to specific messages within a campaign, and the relationship between receiving dealer messages and revenues generated for the store. Dealers make money by prompting customers to act. Using well-timed email messages targeted to specific groups, dealers have generated significant added business. For instance, by targeting customers who own aging vehicles or valuable makes, some dealers have increased their trade-in revenues. A service offer can prompt lapsed customers to return to your store, lengthening your relationship with customers that might otherwise leave.
Customers also respond well to the convenience of online appointment or appraisal scheduling.
Other ideas include promotion of a new shipment of vehicles, tire sale messages for customers with appropriately aged cars, customer-specific notifications of lease termination specials . All of these campaigns are also significantly more cost-effective than other marketing tools. Email is efficient, inexpensive and can replace other media when customers indicate that they prefer it. Most dealers use email marketing in conjunction with other systems because they are still building their customer email database. For the rest of their customers, they continue to use phone or mail follow-up.