The Five Step Guide to Effective Email Advertising

The “How To” of Email

Tale of The Tape

Three Bites at the AppleEmail advertisers get three bites at the appleBranding Print Digital

Bite 1: When the consumer sees the From Line and Subject Line in

their Inbox, the impression provides material branding

value – very similar to display advertisement

Bite 2: When the consumer opens

up the email the offer is displayed due to a customer

action – very similar to a print advertisement

Bite 3:Email is digital. Consumers can link

directly to designated website pages and landing pages – clicking on the link to an inventory page is

the power of digital advertising

How Can I Be Successful?• What works, and what doesn’t?

• Is it too complicated?

• How can I tell?

• What can land me in hot water?

Step #1Have a Long View

Your Reputation Matters• Digital Signatures

IP Address/Domain Address of server(s) sending messages

From Line

Subject Line

• Over time, as consumers press the spam button on your email advertisements, it negatively impacts your good reputation with the ISPs (Google, MSN, AOL, Yahoo!)

• If you acquire a negative reputation, inbox delivery for your advertisements will suffer, and you can wind up blacklisted

Your Email Database is ValuableTreat it that way!

• Frequency Management• Following a purchase• Following service• Newsletters

• The right message, to the right customer, at the right time• Segment the data by warranty, service, and sales• Manage the data with enhancements

• Know which customers are likely in market• Know likely defection pattern and market appropriately

• Know when the customer will no longer receive free maintenance

Design Marketing Campaigns

Scientific Method

• Design

• Test

• Track

• Complete

• Review

Establish a Relationship With the Database

• Email campaigns, like all marketing, are a series of messages

• Random messages of sales are less effective• Have a plan or rules

• For your own customers, communicate with them at least monthly with relevant content about their vehicle, and service specials where appropriate

• For conquest sales, make sure you are marketing to the right people at the right time

• Avoid advertising to consumers who are unlikely to be in market to buy

Step #1Have a Long View

Step #2Steer Clear of Spam

What is SPAM?

• Spam is email advertisements that were not requested by the consumer. That is a very broad definition that has finite applications.

• Say what you mean and mean what you say

• Links need to go directly where the consumer believes it’s heading

• Purchased lists

Nature of an Email Responder

• They tend to want to remain anonymous in their shopping experience

• They are quick to look elsewhere if you do not immediately capture their attention

• If they do not think your ad is relevant, location for instance, they will think you are bothering them

• Identify openers in your database• Track what caused them to open• Track what links were clicked on• Track what coupons were redeemed

Step #3If it’s too Good to be True

What is a CPA Campaign?

• CPA campaigns, and other performance campaigns, are incented to throw as much at the wall as possible

• It is often akin to cold calling the same consumer every day over a lengthy period of time

• Remember the nature of the email responder, you will be putting a vast majority of consumers off from future opportunities

• Reputational concerns with the ISPs can become a significant issue

Step #4Developing an Email

Campaign

Best Practices• Replicate “old school” direct mail with an appropriate email

• Direct mail has always worked, it has simply gotten more expensive over time and is harder to monetize as the demographic is aging

• Use email as a promotion to drive consumers to a website or landing page

• Grab the consumers’ attention immediately

• You have 2 seconds before you lose them

• Graphics and cost drive behavior, not content

New Customer Acquisition ( Conquest )When prospecting for new customers by email, dealers need to:

1. Sales: Target consumers that are in

market for new / used car purchases

2. Service: Target consumers driving a

particular make for service campaigns

3. Appropriately develop the offer, mailing

list, subject line and creative to

maximize effectiveness

4. Manage communication frequency

appropriately

5. Track response rates to measure

effectiveness

6. Identify sales to measure ROI

Event Marketing & Vehicle Indicators

If you know the consumers (other than your customers) in your market that will

likely be buying a car in the next 3 – 6 months, it is logical to market directly to

them

• Polk’s Purchase Predictor identifies consumers likely in market. CityTwist has

thoroughly tested the accuracy of Polk’s Purchase Predictor, and found it to be highly

accurate

If you know what type of vehicle a consumer is driving,

conquest service campaigns become much more effective

• As with Polk’s Purchase Predictor, Polk’s Garage

Predictor identifies what make a consumer likely owns.

CityTwist has extensively tested Polk’s Garage

Predictor and found it to be highly accurate

Offer Development

• Consumers that respond to email advertisements often are not receiving information from traditional forms of media

• We have found that OEM incentives drive the most consistent traffic to dealer websites

• If the campaign is for new customer acquisition, and you are employing a purchase indicator, service offerings typically will not drive measurable traffic to the service department

• Conversely, if campaign is for service and a vehicle make indicator is being used, always market incentives as well

List Development

Use your PMA

• As with all marketing, the further you diverge from your market area the less likely your email advertisement will result in conversions

• Market area for conquest service campaigns requires tight radius

• No matter how good an oil change/tire rotation is, beyond 5 miles the likelihood of a consumer redeeming a coupon to save $10 - $20 becomes more remote

• Market area for conquest purchase campaigns has broader reach

• Rule of thumb: Urban = 10-15 mile radius, Suburban = 15-30 mile radius, rural = 30 mile +

Subject Line Development• How do you get a local in market consumer to open your email? Make it relevant to them!

• Relevance is a balance –

• Too much information, such as their name, will spook the consumer

• Too little information, such as just the offer, will seem more like spam

• After years of testing, we have found the best results come from putting the city followed by the dealership name at the beginning of the subject line

• Formula: <GEO><Dealership Name><Event Name>

• For instance: Paramus Prestige Motors Spring Sales Event

Creative Development

• Show cars & prices

• Graphics/pictures driven, not

content

• Ubiquitous offers, such as “No

Payments For 90 Days” work

• Prominent inventory links (not

homepage)

• No gimmicks!

Frequency Management• No more than twice per month

• More ….

• At best white noise, at worst a complaint, most likely an opt out

• House file of Sourced Data incredibly valuable asset

• Balance the risk/reward when reviewing whom to email

• Emailing new car offers to consumers within the first 12 months of vehicle purchase

• Emailing service offers to consumers with maintenance packages

• Identify, sort and categorize

Step #53rd Party Tracking

Website Analytics

• If a tree falls in the forest, but nobody hears it …..

• Open rates/click rates – are they real?

• There are services that pay consumers to open and click on email advertisements

• Only trustworthy source is 3rd party tracking

• For Instance Google Analytics

• Web analytics tracking provides:

Quality of web traffic Quantity of web traffic Ranking of traffic

Traffic destinations Geography of origin Vision

Analytics Sample

Website analytics provide unequivocal vision into digital marketing response and performance

Analytics Sample

Deeper dives into the data demonstrate which pages are being viewed by consumers, including particular vehicles

Analytics Sample

• When suppressing DMS & CRM data at the beginning, all sales should be conquest

• Sales Verification Reports, as provided by Polk, for instance, exactly match registrations to the marketing list

• Full circle tracking

• Opens / Clicks

• Website Analytics

• Sales Verification Reports

Selling Dealer Data Availability As of: April 2012 Report Month

NJ*CT

AK

HI

RI

NM

* CA

* WA

* ID

WY

* CO

* ND

SD

NENV

UTKS

OK

MN

WI

IL

MI

* OHIN

FL

GA

AR

MS AL

SC

NY

TN

KYMO

* IA

VA

* TX

AZ

MT

LA

PA

ME

* WV

OR

NC

NH

MD

MA

DE

VT

DC

Participating NON-Participating

AudiBentleyBuickCadillacChevroletChryslerDodgeFiatFordGMCHummerInfinitiJaguarJeepKiaLamborghiniLand RoverLincolnMazdaMercedes-BenzMercuryMitsubishiNissanPontiacSaabSaturnSubaruVolkswagenVolvo (Cars)

AcuraAston MartinBMWBugattiFerrariHondaHyundaiIsuzuLexusLotusMaseratiMaybachMiniPorscheRolls RoyceSmartSuzukiToyota / Scion

Med / Heavy VehiclesFreightlinerHinoIC CorpInternationalKenworthMackMitsubishi FusoNissan UDPeterbuiltRoadmaster RailSpartan MotorsVolvo Hvy TruckWestern StarWorkhorseAll Others not listed

Motorcycles All Makes

Make Status

State Status

PARTICIPATING STATE – Selling dealer data is received from the state. ALL manufacturers will be represented for New and Used vehicle reporting.

NON – PARTICIPATING STATE – Selling dealer data is NOT received from the state. Only “Participating” manufacturers will be represented for New vehicle reporting. There will be no dealer information for Used vehicle reporting.

Selling Dealer Availability Guide

Participating State / Participating Make

Availability: New Dealer & Used DealerSource: State & Manufacturer

NON- Participating State / Participating Make

Availability: New Dealer / NO Used DealerSource: Manufacturer Only

Participating State / NON- Participating Make

Availability: New Dealer & Used DealerSource: State Only

NON - Participating State / NON-Participating Make

Availability: NO New Dealer / NO Used DealerSource: None

* State Anomalies These states may have higher than average “Unknown” selling dealer counts, especially for Non-Participating Makes and Used Selling Dealer Reporting

CA / WA / VA Dealers selling vehicles through a “Branch” location will have those vehicles reported at their headquarter / parent location. This is caused by a lack of a “Branch” indicator on the state Title record, which contains the same base code for both a “Branch” and headquarter / parent location.

TX / IA / ND These states only provide a selling dealer name and address, no code, on their Title record. Name and address misspellings cause matching inefficiencies when trying to match the dealer name to Polk’s National Dealer Census file which is used to report a standardized name of a dealer.

CT / ID / OH / SC / CO Due to the timing relationship between Registration data and Title data, the selling dealer coverage will be lower in the initial month of reporting, and improve in the subsequent month of reporting

WV Polk last received a dealer roster from the state in Jan 2002. The state has changed it’s policy on releasing it dealer roster, and will no longer release it. However it has continued to populate the dealer code on its Title records. Dealer codes being received that match 2002 dealer roster will be reported, but any new dealer since 2002 will not.

LA State does not require dealer information on used transactions. Selling dealer information on used vehicle report s will be very low.