Prioritize quality over quantity for best ROI

Email marketing has been around nearly as long as the Internet has existed, but the nature of this digital strategy has changed quite a bit since its inception. While it provides a great platform for reaching customers, it is no longer a wise choice to overload customers with emails. With time, customers have gotten more selective when it comes to the emails they receive, and for good reason. Email marketing programs that are personalized and interactive bring the best return on investment, and to do this well it’s important to focus on quality over quantity.

The best way to create a personalized email marketing program for each contact is through Marketing Automation. This service not only helps to identify website visitors, but it also tracks the actions of each website visitor – such as browsing specific boat units or engaging with certain posts on social media.

The automated process adds prospects who take different actions to specified email lists that only initiate messages related to their interests. When people receive only communication efforts that are relevant to them, they are much more likely to engage. Even if this means that they are receiving less emails than they would have without Marketing Automation in place, the higher engagement that you are likely to receive is much more valuable and much more likely to lead to a conversion or sale.

The more a prospect engages with your dealership’s communication efforts, the higher priority that prospect is given within Marketing Automation software. Within Dealer Spike’s solution, this is called lead scoring, and it’s a completely customizable point system based on the kind of engagement that your dealership finds most valuable. A high lead score indicates to your dealership sales team that it’s time to reach out, as the customer’s engagement is at a high level. In this way, Marketing Automation helps foster an interactive relationship between your dealership and your customers.

Another important factor to remember in email marketing is the health of your email list. Gone are the days when blasting a huge list of contacts (who may not have subscribed to your emails in the first place) was an effective strategy. Email servers have ways of identifying and preventing this behavior, but more than that it creates a relationship of distrust between you and your email recipients.

A healthy email list contains only contacts who have demonstrated interest in receiving emails by signing up or opting in to your subscription. Those who once signed up but are no longer interested should be able to easily unsubscribe or remove themselves from your email list. This ensures that everyone you are reaching out to wants to hear from you, which results in much higher open, click, and response rates. Marketing Automation helps identify the most and least interested prospects in your audience so that it’s easier for your business to focus on the right customers.

Regularly sending personalized, interactive emails creates a pattern of equal engagement, and that should be the objective in an email marketing campaign. Email recipients (customers and prospects) receive the information they want, which in turn encourages them to follow through with submitting a lead on a boat or making a purchase. It’s a win-win for all when quality is prioritized over quantity.

Lauren Labunsky is the public relations manager for Dealer Spike, a company that provides innovative websites as well as a suite of powerful online advertising solutions that help marine dealers help increase sales and service profitability. For more information, visit www.DealerSpikeMarine.com or call 800-288-5917.