[Case Study] New Email Marketing Platform and Strategy Generates Better Leads and Engagement
Are you wondering whether email is worth the time and effort? There are some numbers you might want to see.
- 50% of people buy from marketing emails at least once per month.
- 99% of email users now check their inboxes every day.
- 59% of survey respondents say that marketing emails have influenced their purchases.
So how can you get results from email for your brand? We have a client who had the same question.
The Challenge
The Menholt Auto Group has more than 12 dealerships across the country, with three locations in Rapid City, SD. When we started working with the Rapid City stores, we noticed their monthly email newsletters had very low click-through rates (CTRs) and were not performing well.
We first asked the client if they wanted to continue sending them. When they said they did, we dug in to see what was happening.
We pinpointed two main areas that contributed to the poor email engagement:
- Their current platform didn’t allow for creative email design.
- Their contact lists were focused on lead quantity over quality, and they had a lot of unengaged contacts.
The Strategy
We’ve partnered with Menholt Auto Group for many years, and we’ve created effective email strategies to sell vehicles. For several of the other dealerships in the group, we use SharpSpring — which we suggested to these stores, too.
This email marketing and automation platform (acquired by Constant Contact a few years ago) allows for much more creativity in email design than their previous email service provider (ESP). It also gives you stats on a contact’s engagement, so you can make sure you’re sending emails to people who actually want them and are likely to buy.
(It also helps that we’re a silver partner for this marketing automation platform, so we have the experience to use it to its potential for our allies.)
Step 1: Update Email Design
The first step was updating the design of their emails. Our digital strategists crafted some fresh email templates for the client — complete with their branding — designed to hook more clicks and conversions with engaging layouts.
Step 2: Get Rid of Unengaged Contacts
The next step took longer, but it was just as important. Over the next year, we kept a close eye on email performance — watching clicks and engagement, working through A/B tests, and weeding out contacts who weren’t really interested.
Our goal was to narrow their send list down to only the quality contacts who wanted to receive their emails.
The Results
Our updated email strategy resulted in improved opens and CTRs for the e-newsletters for the Rapid City Denny Menholt dealerships.
The automotive industry benchmark for marketing emails is an open rate of 18% and a CTR of 12.4%. However, from December 2023 to June 2024 (after the initial few months of improving strategy and design), these newsletters averaged 19% open rate and 24.6% CTR — double the industry benchmark for CTR!
Here are the individual stores’ newsletter emails average results.
| Store | Initial Open Rate | Initial CTR | Average Open Rate Dec. 2023 – June 2024 | Average CTR Dec. 2023 – June 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rapid Chevrolet | 17.19% | 4.29% | 18.17% | 31.29% |
| Rushmore Honda | 20.21% | 5.39% | 21.05% | 16.26% |
| Rapid Toyota | 20.96% | 4.94% | 17.85% | 26.24% |
Are You Ready for Better Email Results?
If you want to nurture high-quality leads and fuel your business growth with email, you’ve come to the right place. With more than ten years in the email game, we’ve got your back when it comes to hitting those email and digital marketing targets.
Request your free marketing assessment to see how you can use a winning email strategy to generate more engagement and revenue.
Get Your Digital Assessment »