How to Create the Best Automotive Internet Sales Process Ever! – PART 11

How to Create the Best Automotive Internet Sales Process Ever! (PART 11)

Internet Sales Process Emails: Avoiding Spam Filters & More

TRANSCRIPT: All right. Well what else is in the traditional process? Well it’s short, right? It’s 45 days max. We’re gonna bury the messages. It’s front loaded. 13 of the 21 activities are in the first seven days. It’s focused on treating the customer like a buy. So be aggressive about this. They submitted an order, right? They’re ready to buy. It has a single goal of a reconnection or the most overriding goal. And also make the CRM do the heavy lifting when it comes to emails.

Use templates, okay. So … but let’s look at our sample process email. Again, the goals are reconnection, but it has to get read. This means a compelling subject line that won’t get flagged as spam. So no need to reinvent the wheel here. There’s lots of great online sources to keep your email from hitting spam. One source that I like is called SimplyCast.com. Doing things like number one. I see that in dealer emails.

100%, right? Writing 100 and the % sign. Putting dollar signs in there. Act now. Action. Affordable. All new. Apply now. Bonus. Call now. Certified. Clearance. Congratulations. You’ll see all of these on the list at SimplyCast.com. The top 100 words that can get you flagged as spam. The point is, there’s no reason for me to reinvent the wheel and give you a new list. There are great lists out there. Use your Google and find them.

You also need to avoid using RE:, right? Unless it’s a reply. I know we think that’s really cool. We get more emails opened with that. We do. But we also get more emails flagged as spam. We also wanna avoid all caps in your email response body or message, but also in your subject and avoid using exclamation points, avoid typos, and avoid using one word subject lines like, “Hello.” Those get flagged as spam constantly.

So the question is how do you feel about automating emails? And I’m gonna tell you right now, automating emails is exactly what you wanna do. You only want one personal email. You may not have been here for that CKL, but one personal email is all that goes out to non-responsive prospects. After that, they’re all automated. That’s why you have a CRM. I see all this, it’s more of a comment from Danny.

To many dealerships have poor post sale follow-up. Absolutely. And that’s why I like a video response strategy for the post sale follow-up more than in the internet sales process. All right. So we’re gonna look at a sample email. And again, don’t worry about writing this down. This is the day 28 template and my traditional process. So when you download this free processes today. You’ll get that. My subject line is quick question.

By the way, don’t overuse that subject line, but that is the best subject line that I personally use to get my emails open. Now you gotta have a quick question in your email, right? So subject line, quick question. “Hey Mike. I got a quick question for you about your request for the 2018 Camry. Can you call me today at 208-555-1212? I promise to be brief. Thanks.” Don’t overthink this. That’s the whole email, okay.

You’re probably going, “Steve, this is what you have in your free processes?” Yeah, it is. This is day 28. This is four weeks after they submitted a lead. You’ve already left nine voice messages, you sent two requests to text, you sent seven emails, and he hasn’t responded yet, okay. Roughly 99% of those people who will respond have already responded by this time. Short, text only. It’s probably gonna be read on mobile, right?

So no images, no links, just text. And no spammy subject lines. If you wanna dress the body of the email up with a little, “Can you do me a favor and call today?” Then feel free. “I got a quick question. I got a quick question about your” … quick question in the subject line. “I got a quick question.” If you haven’t used that yet, use it. ‘Cause everything else you’ve done up until now has failed, okay.

Listen. Here’s the key on that email, is it sounds personal and it also sounds like as if it was written today. So remember what your goal is. Your goal is a reconnection. Hey wait. Steve, I like that email, but what if he calls back? What quick question do I have for him? You’re kidding right? I mean, I hope you’re ready for a question. How about are you ready to test drive the 2018 Camry ’cause I have two party test drives open on the all new Camry this morning. I’ve got a 10:15 and a 10:45. Which one works better for you?

That’s my quick question. All right. Listen. After deploying your traditional and your other processes, the key is always to test, measure, move, rewrite, or eliminate. So we’re gonna test the emails, we’re gonna make sure they look good. So we’ll talk about testing in a second. We’re gonna measure the ones that actually drive a reconnection. The ones that drive a good reconnection, we’re gonna move them earlier in the process.

Or we’re gonna rewrite or eliminate the bad ones. And then repeat this constantly. So for testing, every time you set up a new template, you need to send this to your personal email address. So set up a dummy customer in the CRM with an email address that you can monitor, like a separate Gmail address that you have or go to mail.com. They’ve got lots of email address, lots of domain names you can use for personal email addresses.

This is a dummy customer you’re gonna set up in the CRM. Make sure they have a nickel of interest in the CRM and a trade-in. This way you can see if the merge fields work when you’re sending these messages. So each time you log a new template, send it to this address. You’re gonna test the merge code, make sure everything merged properly, you’re gonna test the formatting, the spacing, and your gonna test your signature line.

And make sure everything looks good on the customer side. And then just correct any errors. And that’s the part we’re on now, the measurements. See you’re gonna track which voice mails get return as a percent of those who receive them. So for every 10 times I leave this day eight voice mail, if it gets returned 80% of the time, eight out of 10, I’m gonna move that up, right? Same thing with the emails.

Anything that has a high percent of reconnection, I’m gonna move those attempts earlier in the process.