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Been lurking for a while, but here goes... I'm interested on hearing views on dealer email marketing. Just about every other industry likes to collect email addresses for updates etc on their websites but I don’t see this on many dealer websites... I can see that perhaps emails might be more effective for MOT / servicing reminders but what about stock updates? In the spirit of full disclosure, I work in digital marketing but am just trying to get a handle on how the trade uses email. I had a word with James and he gave me the green light to ask. Any thoughts, opinions, tactics? Thanks in advance Bonus feature: up for answering any digital related questions if you have any. Drop me a PM. My way of saying thanks for helping me out.

Interesting and wanting to see what everyone thinks ! David @The_Marques_Man And Duncan @CarDealerDunc recently posted they inquired by email about possibly buying a car - / requesting info - But neither received a reply back from the dealers ! Could it be 1- The dealer didn't get the enquiry 2- why ? if they didnt 3- if they did why not respond? any thoughts - and how much value due to put on an email lead as opposed to a telephone lead?

I'm always interested to know what type's of marketing dealers [business] do ? Is everyone just focused on ' on line' website full stop! I've tried Radio but personally feel that it should work but never produces the desired results - maybe its good for 'branding' but difficult to monitor even with call to action ads. I do mail shots, direct mail, leaflet drops, email marketing, local press, not fully ventured in to sms/ text as yet. Any thoughts out there ? Anything you've tried and thought it was good? or tried something which you thought was great but it failed to deliver any results ?

This is the percentage of Car Dealers that DID NOT even bother themselves to follow up a car enquiry sent via e-mail, which was actually a Mystery Shop by one of the team at Car Dealer Magazines as part of their shortlisting to find out who was going to become Used Car Dealership of the Year 2013. Why am I telling you this, you may ask? The reason is, we won, Jim Reid Vehicle Sales won the Car Dealer Magazine's Used Car Dealership of the Year Award for (51-100cars stock) Yes we were shocked to win a National Award, but we were more shocked at the fact that only 70% of dealers actually called or even replied by email to what certainly looked like a genuine enquiry. That is a shocking fact especially considering that someone within the dealership thought their sales team was at least good enough to get a nomination, shocking! So what causes this? Mismanaged? Lack of motivation? "Too busy !"? On the day in question I was actually on the sales floor myself, as my sales manager was taking a well earned holiday and my salesman had his day off! So you could say I mismanaged the sales floor but still managed to get back to that sales enquiry quicker and more professionally than any of the other nominations. I just find it amazing, what are your thoughts, does this come as a surprise to you?