Car Count Daily
Hey everybody, Captain Car Count here, but you can call me Ron Ipach. Welcome to Car Count Daily. Now, today’s episode as you’ve probably seen is titled Email Sucks. That’s right, Email Sucks. Now, you’re probably wondering how come I sent you an email to get you to watch this video to tell you all about how bad email sucks.
Well, that’s a really good question. Let me kind of clarify this a little bit more. The reason why I say email sucks is because far too many auto repair shop owners are using email as their primary way of staying in contact with their current customers. When the reality is it’s not doing the job that you really think it is. Okay?
Let’s roll back a little bit. The only way that you can use email to send out, is if somebody gave you their email. Let’s not talk about spamming. We’re not talking about buying a list and just bulk emailing everybody that’s in your city. No, we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about marketing to your own clientele. The people already know, love and trust you. A lot of people feel that just simply sending them an email every month is good enough.
I’m gonna tell you that’s where the problem is. That’s why I’m going to say email sucks, because you’re not gonna get the results that you’re really looking for out of emails, because no, a lot of different factors come in play. The number one biggest thing is nobody’s seeing it. You know, you’re sending a message out, you think you’re contacting everybody, and the reality is you’re only touching a teeny tiny fraction of the people that you already have in your email database.
Want proof? Okay, let’s go through some numbers here, okay? Let’s just say you have an email database of 1000 customers, okay? You maybe have more, maybe you have a little bit less, but let’s just use 1000, okay? If you have 1000 people in your database, chances are, if you’re normal, you’re probably gonna have about 50% of them have an email address associated with the name.
Now, I’ve come across shops to have been as good as 85% of everybody in their database, they actually have their email addresses, which is phenomenal. I’ve also seen the other side, where they only have a handful of email addresses. We’re gonna kinda go right in between. What I found is the average is probably about 50% of your database you have an email address for.
Now, sending out a marketing message to 100% of your database simply isn’t possible if you only 50% of them with an email address, right? Okay. Now that list of 1000 is down to 500, okay? We’ve already cut that in half, so you’re not marketing to your entire database, you’re only marketing to half of it. It doesn’t stop there, okay? That’s just assuming that you have 50% of your database that actually has a valid email address associated with that name.
Now, what do I mean by that? Well, it’s been shown that 30% of the people change their email address every single year, okay? You may have collected an email address a year or two ago, and it’s not a valid email address. If it’s not valid, it’s never gonna get delivered, right? Actually, if you try sending out emails to non valid email addresses and you do that often enough, the number of your emails getting delivered is going to do down, and down, and down, ’cause they’re gonna think that you’re spamming, okay? That’s a big problem.
Let’s again, give you the benefit of the doubt that you’ve been keeping up on your emails, so every time somebody comes in you’re making sure that most of those email addresses are valid. That list of 500 is gonna shrink to let’s say 300, okay? I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here. If you have not been updating email addresses, over the years, chances are maybe only 20 or 30% is actually good, okay? I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt that 60% of them are good.
Now we only have 300 email addresses that are actually valid in your database, okay? That means 70% of your list is not being marketed to. Again, this is for the shop owners that are using this as their primary source of marketing to their own customers, okay? 70% of your database is never getting your message, but it’s actually bigger than that, okay?
Again, 1000 people in your database, 50% of them you got emails for, but you haven’t been keeping it super clean, so now we’re down to 300. Now, just before I started this video, I did a long exhaustive search online to find out the most accurate up to date open rate percentages. In other words, how many emails that you send out actually get delivered. I’m finding, for a retail location, and that’s what you are, you’re in retail, only between 16 and 20% of them actually even get opened, okay?
That list of 300 now only, let’s say, I’m gonna say 20%, ’cause of course your customers love you a lot more, so 20% of them are gonna open up your emails. That means only 60 of your emails that you sent out are actually getting opened. Now remember we’re trying to market to all of our customers. Now we’re down 60 out of 1000.
It doesn’t stop there. There’s one more dagger in the heart of the email marketing. The reason why I say it sucks so bad, is ’cause these numbers keep dropping, and dropping, and dropping. If 60 of them are supposedly getting opened, I’m gonna give you something you probably haven’t thought of before. If you’re like me, you know, when you clean out your inbox of your email, if you put your finger on that delete button, and you hit delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, and if that’s you, you know who you are, when I speak live by the way, I usually ask, and it’s over 50% of the room actually just presses the delete button.
Well did you know that technically you’re opening up every one of those emails? That’s right, in order for you to delete it, it has to open right? You hit delete, and you wait a fraction of a second, delete, your opening each one of those emails. That 20% that’s actually getting opened, let’s say half of them never intended to open it, they were just trying to delete it out of their inbox.
Again, I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt, I’m gonna say only 50% of the people are doing that. That means of the universe of your database, of 1000 people, we only got your message to 30 people. That means 970 people in your database, that you’re sending a service reminder to, a special coupon, a reminder that you’re alive, they’re not seeing your message at all.
If email is the only way that you’re staying in contact with your current customers, you’re not staying in contact with your current customers at all. Just a teeny tiny percentage are actually even seeing your message. Remember, just because somebody opened it, of those 30 people that actually opened it, how many of them need service right now?
You get the gist here, and reason why I’m saying email sucks. Look, I’m not saying don’t send out emails, heck I just sent you an email to get you to watch this video. It does work, but you have to understand, it’s severely limited, okay? You’re not contacting everybody. You need to do as much as you can to contact people using various other media, direct mail, text message, the good old phone, other things that they’re gonna be able to actually see your message, because only a teeny tiny portion right now, if email is the only way you’re staying in contact with them, are actually seeing your message, okay?
Just wanted to point that out to so you understand what it really takes to have a really good solid marketing plan together. Email’s great, you can’t beat the price. You can’t beat how easy it is, but understand it’s severely limited. It should be just one spoke in the wheel of all the different things that you’re doing to market to your own customers, or to get new business, okay?
That’s gonna do it for today, I really hope you enjoyed this episode, and if you did, and heck, if you didn’t, go down below this video and tell me what you think. Tell me what you like, what you don’t like, give me suggestions for some future episodes, and I’ll be sure to respond just like I do to everybody else that is already given me comments below,
Ken says
So email sucks, direct mail sucks, what works or is the answer nothing works great so you have to do it all. because that seems to be what I’m seeing.
Ron Ipach says
You must have missed my point Ken. Email sucks if it is the ONLY way that you are trying to market your services because you’re missing the majority of the folks in your database because you either don’t have a valid email address on file, your emails aren’t getting delivered, or they aren’t getting opened. Of course it works because I sent you and email that got delivered and you opened it. I wish I could say the same for all the thousands of others on my list that I sent the same email to.
By the way, I have never said direct mail sucks. I personally think it’s one of the BEST ways to communicate with your customers.
I hope this clarifies things for you.
Roberto Severino says
Great video
Ron Ipach says
Thanks Roberto!