Over the years, dealers have been bombarded with messages about the next big thing. It seems like new marketing vendors are popping up daily, each promising a silver bullet that will magically uncover hidden troves of new traffic or leads. With so many vocal (and often conflicting) messages, it can be difficult to separate the myths from the best practices. That’s where we come in.
Myth #1: You shouldn't waste an email to a customer on content that doesn't directly drive sales or service.
Fact: Non-promotional content provides a reason for customers to engage even when they don’t have an immediate automotive need. Customers who engage with non-promotional content click 63% more than customers who don’t – and these customers are also those with the greatest overall lifetime value to your dealership. In the 3 Birds Core platform, each click powers our predictive models and customer value segmentation to help you get the most out of your database. These interactions also give us the opportunity to learn more about the likes and dislikes of your best customers, which puts us in a better position to find more people similar to them when we conquest.
Myth #2: Lifecycle service messaging will help you reach a majority of your customer base.
Fact: 59% of drivers don’t follow manufacturer-recommended 5,000-mile service intervals. For these customers, your helpful service reminders can quickly lose relevance--and when that happens, the Delete button is only a click away. In contrast, our Service Streams utilize our proprietary predictive modeling and customer value segmentation to predict which customers are likely to service within the next 30 days, then send appropriate messaging to bring them back into your service bays.
Myth #3: It’s better to email every offer to your entire database so you don’t leave any money on the table.
Fact: Irresponsible, heavy-handed messaging can end up alienating your customer database and lead to a high unsubscribe rate. With more targeted messaging tailored to customers’ preferences and position in the vehicle lifecycle, you can see much greater ROI from your email strategy with open rates upwards of 15% and unsubscribes well below 0.3% in the case of a typical 3 Birds client. This means more new leads on average and saves you from eroding your database, the single most valuable asset your dealership has.
Myth #4: Including inventory in your marketing pieces turns away more customers than it attracts.
Fact: 3 Birds recently conducted a study of more than 400,000 Digital Marketing emails across eight different dealerships to quantify the impact of including versus excluding live dealership inventory. We found that there was a 47% increase in click rate and over double the percentage of customers who purchased as a result of marketing communications that included inventory compared to those that didn’t. In addition, customers who purchased as a result of marketing did so 19 days faster when inventory was present.
Myth #5: A customer is a customer is a customer.
Fact: While you should strive to deliver excellent service to every customer, it's no secret that some customers are more valuable than others -- the challenge is identifying them. Just as there are some customers who will buy and service more from your dealership over time, there are others who simply won’t return after the first visit. Predictive modeling and customer value segmentation can help identify who’s who and build a profile of your ideal customer so that you can find more just like them. This allows you to tailor your marketing approach based on interest and purchasing intent so you can increase the value of customers in the middle segments and stop throwing all of your money at the lower tiers.