No Sales Lead Left Behind
For most, buying a car is a hefty investment--a purchase that the majority of customers do not make every year. Lately, most of the auto-buying public is waiting even longer to replace their older cars. This is why it makes even more sense to market to the sales leads generated by your auto dealership website, encouraging them to service their cars at your dealership, a move which will help increase your monthly revenue.
Your sales staff is busy pursuing new car sales, and your service staff is not typically in the business of nurturing leads, so these leads often fall between the cracks and see no activity beyond the original sales push. With so many of these leads to follow up on, these opportunities for revenue can often be lost.
In this article, learn how to apply a "no sales lead left behind" policy while increasing your auto dealership's revenue by sending automated, relevant emails for the life-cycle of these seemingly inactive leads.
The Email Marketing Strategy
One way to build these electronic relationships with former sales leads is to create a strategic, three-part series of nurturing email messages. The goal of each email is to learn more about the lead and their individual needs. Why three? Because studies have shown that subsequent mailings can increase responses by up to 80%.
Email 1
The subject line should clearly state which service or accessory you are marketing, as well as your dealership name. The body of the email should clearly state (in context) that this is the first message in a series. The email should offer special services to this lead, with a "click here" link to see more information. The web page you link to should include a number of lead-qualifying questions asked to determine if the prospect has (or will have) service needs, and then make the special offer. As an incentive to read future messages, the reader is promised other valuable offers down the road.
Email 2
The second message should refer to the previous service offer and offer another relevant service saving. To access details, more lead-qualifying questions must be answered to gather information about the prospect's needs. The more you know about each potential customer, the more you will be able to create a relevant, nurturing relationship for the entire life-cycle of the customer, and that means more revenue for your dealership. The email message concludes with a promise of another great offer.
Email 3
Again, the message opens with the previous offer, then moves on to the next one. New questions are asked of prospects which they must answer to access the download. Questions might include requesting the names of family members and colleagues who may also be interested in your dealership's services. At the end, links to all three offers are provided.
By filtering leads in this way, the dealership is spared following up on leads that are not ready for in-person contact, and instead can focus on building relationships with those better qualified leads. Eventually this kind of 'service' relationship may again be a 'sales' relationship, and then a 'service' relationship again. Remember that these types of emails are opportunities to nurture these leads in the context of helping them save money. Industry vendors can help you set up this kind of life-cycle nurturing strategy so that you can use vehicle sales to spur on service bay sales, and vice versa.
