Email marketing is a powerful tool if used properly, car dealers and vendors understand this. Of course I mystery shop dealers and vendors and watch the emails I receive for ideas and also see some examples of not what to do. One thing is clear is that you must have a call to action in every contact via email. It can be anything, try to get a phone call or a visit to the dealership or a links to a special promotion which also has a call to action.

But first you must have your prospects open your messages!!

I currently have access to Cobalt’s LMCC product as part of our online marketing package we receive for being a 5 Star Chrysler Dodge Dealer, but I do not use it any more than needed for us to maintain compliance with the 5 Star Program. The problem I have with the Cobalt LMCC is that the subject lines are prepended with a customer number.

A potential customer is not a number and relegating them to one in your opening line to them does not endear them to being receptive of your message. Also they do not allow you to change the from field to make it personally identifiable. A dealership has never sent an email message people do!!

As I was exploring options on a replacement I checked with several other vendors in the market place and went with AVV. In my research I contacted several vendors I looked at iMagic Labs and BZ Results as well. I do not think I will ever do business with iMagic Labs based on the interactions I had with their owner when I was researching their product.

Apparently BZ Results uses their own product to manage internet leads. Which is probably an adaptation of an open source product Sugar CRM. For them to be one of the leaders in the market for CRM and ILM solutions they sure do not get the deliverability part right. If you are going to send out html emails you need to send the out in “Multi Part MIME format” which basically sends out a text version or an email as well.

While open tracking and click through rates can only be tracked using html format it is still more important to get your message delivered versus tracking them 100%.

(click the image to see it full size if it does not display properly)

You will notice that a recent email that I received from them in a gmail account does not load the images unless I chose to allow them. What this could do for most consumers is cause them to hit the “Spam” button and permantly delete all emails that come in this poor html format and eventually will cause all emails sent from that domain to a gmail account to goto the spam folder thus alienating a portion of business for them and their customers.

The bold announcement of the message being “Permission Based Marketing” is typical of declarations that mass spammers use and their message does not comply with The CAN-SPAM Act. They do not include their Physical Postal Address which is a provision of the act.

Even when I set up our account with AVV they do not even mention that to their customers. I just wonder if the whole industry is out of compliance? What would be interesting to see is when a case does come forward where a dealership and a vendor are held accountable for not being in compliance if the industry will wake up. This is a huge liability and eventually some litigious minded consumer will nail someone to the wall if it has not already been done. Keep in mind I am not an attorney so this is not legal advice but if you will visit The CAN-SPAM Act it tells you exactly what you need to do to be in compliance.

Technorati Tags: bz results, crm, email, Email Marketing, ilm

One of the most critical aspects of marketing your dealership online is being aware of the conversation others are having about you online. In a previous post I talked about “How Much Does Negative Information Cost You” and gave some examples of the real cost of negative information. This factor in my opinion is even more important that website conversion, because it will have a more direct impact on conversion and walk in traffic and affect the bottom line more than conversion metrics.

One of the easiest way to be in control of this online conversation is to encourage it and there are several sites geared towards customer reviews and you can even create your own. While the list here is not exhaustive nor do the examples have a lot of content yet, it will give you some good starting points to encourage consumer feedback.

I love Squidoo.com it was the brain child of Seth Godin and it allows users to create many pages about their topic. I am using it for various online marketing initiatives not just cars but I have had amazing success with it in the automobile business. I created a Squidwho page that encourages customers to give feed back on my service to them of all the platforms out there you can encourage feedback without the customer having to sign up and be in complete control of the conversation. This is not available on any of the other platforms. Also there is some back end monetization in addition to just customer feedback. You can see my squidwho page just visit Paul Rushing on Squidoo.

Yelp.com – Yelp is positivity one of the coolest sites out there as far as customer reviews go. I am working on building up a personal profile there as well as encouraging customers to leave reviews of the dealership. Not only can this help with keeping less flattering information out of the SERPS for you dealership it can also prove to be a huge networking tool down the road.

I would make sure that you set up a yelp page for each one of the franchises you represent and give the first review with a marketing message for people to contact you if your store(s) are not set up there yet. You can also add images of your store, you, the staff or anything else related to your business. You can see my fledgling yelp profile at http://paulrushing.yelp.com/

You should make sure you store is listed in GoogleMaps and if you are doing your own SEO send it some link love or have your paid SEO firm make sure it is showing in the SERPS properly. I am working on getting the Carl Gregory map indexed now. You can also encourage customers to leave feed back there as well. Google will also pull from other sites like Yelp.com to add to the list of reviews. Another huge benefit of Googlemaps is that it can provide some SEO for your main site as well allow you to see what else is showing up in the SERPS for your dealership and location names.

These are the first of many sites that you can use to help build an online reputation personally and for your company. The time involved to use all of them optimized for proper use may be prohibitive for some and a good launching board for others getting started with their dealership online marketing initiatives.

Are you using any of these initiatives in your dealership online marketing? Successes, Failures?

Technorati Tags: csi, off site marketing, online reputation, social media