In today’s fast-paced automotive marketing landscape, the idea of a monthly newsletter can seem downright quaint. How valuable can this single monthly communication (the roots of which stretch back decades in the content marketing world) actually be? The answer, as it turns out, is “very”—at least when used effectively. The 3 Birds digital newsletter is more than just an email; it’s a Temperature Gauge that allows you to build long-lasting customer relationships, learn more about your best customers and take the pulse of your customers on a recurring basis in order to anticipate their needs. So my question is: why doesn’t every dealership incorporate a digital newsletter as part of their marketing strategy?
Digital newsletters humanize your dealership and make customers want to do business with you
Every dealership has a board somewhere near the customer lounge that shares “news” about the dealership and its staff. This news includes awards, press mentions, community service, upcoming events, recognition of associates and many other things. All good sales associates have an “evidence book” that contains similar types of information.
The purpose of these boards, books and postings around the dealership is to show the human side of the dealership and its people along with helping to differentiate the dealership from just a place to get cars and trucks. This humanization creates a sense of “engagement” that helps create a deeper bond between the store, its people and its customers. This bond is one of the keys to creating the loyalty that leads to repeat service and vehicle purchase and improved profitability. So why is there resistance to sending digital newsletters to customers and extending that content to social media? Frankly, I don’t get it!
Digital newsletters drive engagement to help you find your best customers
When I was responsible for helping build the loyalty of an active database of between 7 and 12 million customers, we sent a digital newsletter every single month. We found it produced leads and incremental sales and service (compared to a statistically significant holdout sample) well in excess of the meager cost. So my starting point is a bias of experience that concludes that a digital newsletter is a no-brainer.
In addition to driving sales, newsletters can tell you more about your highest-value customers. 3 Birds’ newsletters deliver a mix of promotional (coupons, offers, inventory) and non-promotional (editorial, lifestyle, ownership) content. Our data shows customers who click on your non-promotional content are 28% more likely to purchase and 61% more likely to service at your dealership. These are your best customers—the top 20% of customers who typically represent 60% of dealer revenue and spend over $2,000 annually, compared to the remaining 80% who spend an average of just over $250. Newsletters, when designed correctly, build deeper engagement with a dealership’s most profitable customers.
Digital newsletters help you anticipate customer needs and predict interests
We still haven’t gotten to the most important benefit of a digital newsletter, though, which is this: a newsletter allows you to mine customer behavioral data and tie it back to real-world intent. Different customers in different places in the ownership cycle and among different value segments behave differently and consume different types of content, and this behavioral data helps expose purchase intent. This is why we call our newsletter the Temperature Gauge—it lets you check in on your customers on a monthly basis to “see how they’re feeling” and identify their immediate needs.
3 Birds uses this information to learn when the customer plans to buy or service again. We incorporate this data within our automated marketing streams (such as the Smart Sales Accelerator) so that we can better serve these customers, pre-empting their shopping around. Newsletter click behavior triggers further campaign streams that help move customers into the market and further down the funnel.
A digital newsletter is not a one-time event, however—it’s an ongoing conversation. It is a way for you to share things of value about your dealership, your people and your products in a way that enables your customers and prospects to share their plans. Not only does it deepen engagement with the best customers, but it predicts intent and generates leads for your people that enables them to pre-empt customer defection. All of this produces leads, website visits and incremental sales and service transactions that dwarf the nominal costs of a good digital newsletter and marketing campaign. For more information about the 3 Birds Temperature Gauge (included with the Smart Sales Accelerator), contact our team today.