What sets great car dealers apart: key metrics for e-newsletters

Carefully measuring the performance of your email newsletter leads to better content and more engaged customers

As a car dealer who wants to engage customers and nurture loyalty, you probably send a regular e-newsletter (and if you don’t, you really should). But too many customer newsletters are bland, self-serving, and easily ignored. Great dealers set their newsletters apart by using key metrics to continually fine tune everything from core content to the time of day they send them. Customers value their newsletters, which become a potent weapon in their marketing armoury.

Refining your own newsletter isn’t complicated, and it will never be wasted effort. Email marketing—of which an e-newsletter is an important component—remains a stunningly effective marketing channel. According to Campaign Monitor, every $1 spent on email marketing earns $44 in return (the equivalent UK figure is calculated at £33 for every £1).

In other words, an effective e-newsletter is a key part of your marketing mix. But measuring that effectiveness and tweaking it accordingly is vital. Newsletters that offer no value annoy consumers, who are increasingly prepared to report irrelevant emails as spam and unsubscribe from contact lists.