Email marketing is an amazing lead-nurturing tactic, but there’s one small catch: You are reliant on the efficacy of your emailing list in order to see success.
Unlike SEO and paid advertising, which can reach potential leads who may have never heard of your brand, emails can only reach leads who have submitted their contact information.
The good news is that there are proven tactics to keep your email list brimming with leads who want to receive your emails. Over time, stagnant email lists can break down due to people opting out of subscriptions or abandoning old emails, so it’s important to run a few proactive strategies to refresh your audience.
Keep Track of Outgoing Emails
This is an important preliminary step to stay aware of the emails your customers are already receiving and make sure they aren’t being overloaded with messaging. By tracking your outgoing emails, you can identify every point where a customer could be receiving an email – and any points where you may be missing a potential marketing opportunity. These touchpoints could include service reminders, invitations to complete an unfinished purchase or a weekly newsletter featuring your hottest units.
Create Unique, Valuable Email Copy
Does every email you send serve a unique purpose? Does it solve a specific concern? Your audience may feel spammed if they’re receiving emails that don’t address their needs or interests, and they’re more likely to hit that Unsubscribe button. To ensure every marketing email is valuable, first determine if it meets the following criteria: 1) fulfills a need or request, 2) matches a customer’s interests and 3) moves them along the buying journey. You can easily identify appropriate marketing content by targeting the points of customer’s journey that could benefit from an email, such as filling out a lead form, purchasing a unit or showing interest in future services.
Bonus: When you create emails that benefit your audience, they’re more likely to circulate it within their social circles. You can make your content easier to pass along by adding “share with a friend” or “share on Facebook” features at the bottom of each email.
Take Advantage of Micro-Moments
“Micro-moments” are the small actions shoppers take that could encourage them to make a conversion. They also can be perfect moments to send a strong marketing email. I mentioned paying attention to important customer touchpoints, and here’s a closer look at how this can play out: When a potential customer submits a lead form about a unit, they can be added to a list specifically for limited-time promotions and new inventory arrivals. Customers who haven’t connected with you in a while may need to be reminded to schedule a maintenance appointment or purchase some new parts.
Separate Your Audience Lists
The previous scenarios highlight the importance of separating your audience into lists. It may seem logical to opt for quantity and target your whole audience, knowing that a few will interact with the email and possibly make a purchase. However, this tactic is not optimal for nurturing lead connections, and it can result in more opt-outs than opt-ins. Instead, segment your leads based on important characteristics like location, age and how they’ve interacted with your dealership in the past. Again, people who receive emails related to their interest are much more receptive to the content.
Include Links & Calls-to-Action
You can build your email lists through a variety of platforms, including your non-marketing emails. Your team can add links to their email signatures inviting any lead they’re communicating with to opt into featured inventory emails or your dealership’s newsletter.
You also can leverage your social media pages. Having an active and robust social media presence will draw leads to your profiles, and from there you can encourage them via call-to-action buttons to join your email lists exclusive promotions and news.
Offer a Free Online Resource
We all get excited about free content, and the prospect of gaining valuable information free of charge is enough incentive to provide an email address. Your dealership can offer shoppers a free resource such as an eBook filled with outdoor power equipment maintenance, a guide to landscaping tips or how-to videos on equipment repairs. If your dealership has the time and ability, you may consider hosting a webinar that people sign up for via email. If you aren’t currently in a position to create digital content, you can promote an online giveaway that requires participants to provide an email so the winner can be notified.
A characteristic that email marketing shares with other digital marketing strategies is that it performs best when you use a diversified approach that leverages multiple platforms. Connecting with your audience from different angles will help you reach a greater quantity of qualified leads throughout the buying process. As your audience list flourishes, so will your opportunities to nurture leads into becoming loyal customers.
For email marketing tips and more, connect with ARI today!
