Every business wants more new customers. It’s the only way to achieve your dealership’s long-term growth objectives.
But traditional marketing tactics like billboards and television/radio ads get expensive very quickly. And it’s really difficult to measure the success of those tactics.
At AutoSweet, we believe email marketing is a strong solution to funnel-filling. It’s inexpensive and we’re able to prove your return on investment with matchbacks.
Here are four ways to grow your customers fast with conquest email.
1. Make Sure You Are Targeting New Customers in Your DMA
The first and most obvious way to grab market share is to find new customers in your own area. Simply get a list of prospects in the areas where you sell and send them your offers.
Much like putting an offer in a newspaper, email is an inexpensive way to touch these customers in your DMA that haven’t previously bought from you.
Suppressing your current customers from this email marketing is vital; it maximizes your spending, and prevents you from saturating your current customers with too much messaging.
New people become in-market shoppers for dealerships all the time for a variety of reasons.
Consider these common examples:
- Newly relocated to your area and don’t know your dealership yet
- Young car shoppers who haven’t yet developed brand loyalty
- Shoppers that just entered a new income bracket and can afford to buy the vehicles you sell
There are all kinds of reasons that customers may not have purchased from you in the past. By reaching out to these customers over time, you build trust. They come to know you as a company, increasing the chances of doing business with you when they’re ready to buy.
We find that the majority of conquest customers see 5-6 emails over 90 days before they purchase. Regular offers from you in their inbox help make you their purchase destination.
2. Target a Different Geographic Area
If you’ve exhausted the marketing opportunities in your own DMA, you can try targeting a different geographic area. Affiliate databases allow you to find like audiences in nearby (or even nationwide) markets, finding new customers who are likely to buy and send them targeted emails.
With today’s product shortages, this is a compelling strategy. Customers are more likely to be open to searching in other parts of the country to find the exact vehicle they want.
But be mindful of your marketing messages: If you’re in Columbus, Ohio and you want to market to people in Cincinnati, which is two hours away, you’ll need to think differently about your value proposition.
People need an enticing offer to drive 200 miles (or the promise of free door-to-door delivery).
3. Target Owners of Particular Brands or Owners of Your Competitor Brands
Another possibility is to target owners of competitor brands. If you’re a Toyota dealer, you may want to market to Honda or Subaru customers, knowing that they are likely to cross over to a new brand if they’re served the right offer.
While brand loyalty in the automotive space remained high throughout the pandemic, 2022 is considered to be a “reset” year for brand loyalty, with a quarter of U.S. adults saying they’re willing to jump ship on their favored brands and try a new manufacturer or model.
Sales aren’t the only application for this strategy: you can also consider targeting service specials to customers. A Ford dealership could woo a list of Mitsubishi owners with targeted service emails.
4. Find and Target the Right Audience Segment
A third strategy is to find and target the right audience segment. An audience segment is simply a group of people with shared characteristics. Let’s say you’re a truck dealer, and you know that truck buyers shop at places like Cabela’s and Home Depot (they do), you can market to customers who visit these types of brick-and-mortar locations using geolocation and targeted email.
Or, imagine being an RV dealership and being able to market to every person who visited a state park in your area this year.
Third-party data like demographics, income, purchases, and category interests all help marketers find their ideal customer—or at least those who have opted-in to receive marketing emails from particular retailers.
Conclusion
Renowned college football coach Lou Holtz once said, if you’re not growing, you’re dying. Conquest email is about finding new customers; it’s about growth. Finding new customers in other geographic areas, ones similar to your current customers, or those who are ready to be wooed from the competition.
You can accomplish all that with conquest email. And the best part? At AutoSweet, we can also prove that it’s working by identifying new customer purchases that resulted from your marketing. So you’ll know your investment has paid off.
Want an email campaign solution that solves all these problems? Contact AutoSweet today for a free 5-minute demo and strategy session!
