How To Use SMS Marketing Effectively

Remember how easy it used to be to market your car dealership? All you needed was an ad in the Yellow Pages, the occasional ad in the Sunday paper, and a TV commercial in prime time. Throw in a website and you’d be good as gold. Now, only a small percentage of the population gets the phone book or the paper, they fast forward through the commercials, and your website is just one of the millions. Don’t despair yet. Just work smarter. SMS marketing could provide an edge for your dealership, and CarCasm is here to help you get it right.

What is SMS Marketing?

SMS stands for Short Message Service, which is what most of us would think of as text messages. It’s deceptively simple; people sign up for updates, so they’re opted in already. Then, they can get a reminder at home or when they return to your dealership. This has its advantages.Forbes cites market research that suggests customers prefer SMS to email. That leads to higher open rates and better engagement, which leads in turn to a better chance at conversion for your dealership.

Better SMS Marketing for Car Dealerships: Five Tips

So if it’s more effective than the approaches you might be using now, how can you turn SMS marketing for car dealerships to your advantage?

Improve Communication

Not everyone buys on the first visit; in fact, most don’t. So CarCasm lets you open up two-way communication between your customers and salespeople via SMS.

Gain Insights

Nobody wants to guess at which parts of their ad spend are giving the best ROI. That’s why we also offer call tracking that captures and logs texts and phone calls so you can analyze, coach, and improve without the guesswork.

Do More with MMS

You can think of MMS (Multi Media Service) as SMS on steroids. Add your logo, a photo of the model a customer test drove, or a reminder of an ongoing promotion to entice browsers back to your dealership. Send service and parts specials to make the dealership “sticky” and improve customer loyalty. A bit of the right tech, and a little imagination, goes a long way.

Use All of Your Touch Points

When a customer visits your showroom, it’s likely they’ve seen you somewhere else — your website, your Twitter feed, your Facebook page — first. Each of those touch points is an opportunity to invite more interaction, so it helps to have signup buttons for SMS on each of them.

Build Loyalty

Up to this point, we’ve kept our focus on attracting and converting new clients. However, SMS can also be a key component of customer retention. You can use SMS so customers have quick access to common questions (like figuring out their new infotainment system), or send service and parts specials to make the dealership “sticky” and keep them coming back. A bit of the right tech, and a little imagination, goes a long way.

Getting Your Car Dealership’s SMS Marketing Right

So that covers the who, what, where, when, and why of SMS marketing for car dealerships. That leaves the how, which turns out to be the easiest part of all. More than website templates, we’re a full-stack marketing solution for car dealerships, and we’ll get all of your marketing — from SMS to SEO and social media — off on the right foot. It’s as simple as a call to (954) 361-1227 or an email to CarCasm support at support@carcasm.com.