The Perfect E-Mail Response

By Bob McCann, Director of Client Education

Channel Blade has been preaching about your dealership¿s rapid response to leads for years now. While a timely response is a good start, a quick and quality response is required to reach the goal of your e-mail, which is getting the prospect on the phone. The three areas covered will help you create the perfect response.

The three areas covered below will help you create a perfect response:

1. Content-The first response to your leads should be simple, quick, and should contain the following:

a. Thank the prospect for their interest ¿ Simply begin your e-mail with a ¿Thank you for inquiring about the Boat/RV¿¿

b. Answer the prospects question(s) ¿ Directly answering the prospect¿s question(s) will substantially increase your chances of getting this prospect on the phone.

c. Set the stage for a phone call ¿ If the lead arrives with a phone number, end your e-mail by telling them you are going to call them. If the lead arrives without a phone number, ask them to call you or reply with a phone number and the best time to call.

2. Dealership Branding -Include your logo in the top left hand corner of the e-mail. Use the top left to ensure visibility in the prospect¿s preview pane. Recent research proves that preview panes are the new subject line; you need more than just the subject line to grab the prospect¿s attention. Include as many impressions of your dealership¿s logo and branding as possible.

3. Speed-Excellent response time today can be measured in minutes, in fact less than thirty minutes. Currently, your dealership might not respond as quickly as thirty minutes, but with little effort, you can cut your response time in half when your dealership is aware of the benefits of responding quickly. Your dealership can also begin to measure your response times.

Since Footsteps, Channel Blade¿s lead management tool, knows the time the lead arrives and knows when the salesperson responds, Footsteps measures and displays response time for each lead tied to each salesperson, and reports the location and the roll-up report for the entire dealership. Note your response time for this year, create some response time requirements at your dealership, and watch your average response time decrease and your salesfrom online leads increase.

In order to accomplish the above and create perfect e-mail responses, use e-mail templates. E-mail templates make it easy to cover all these areas and offer consistent responses from ALL of your salespeople. Utilizing pre-written e-mails will help your sales staff avoid the pitfalls of e-mailing, such as ALL CAPS, spelling and grammatical errors.

Let¿s face it-your sales reps were not hired to be copywriters! When your dealership provides easier methods to respond to leads, it will naturally reduce the sales reps¿ response time. Login to Footseps and add or edit Templates under the Mail Management section on the homepage dashboard. Note: e-mails created under an Enterprise Users and Shared login will be visible for all users at the dealership.

Setting up proper Footsteps e-mail templates is a simple process and Channel Blade has included standard templates in your Footsteps account. However, your dealership must assign someone to edit each template for your dealership. The person initiating the templates must ensure proper language, upload your dealership¿s logo, and save the e-mail templates. If you do not have the time to create your own templates, Channel Blade can help! Contact us to have the process done by an experienced Footsteps consultant, and/or sign up for the Footsteps Customized Quick Start Program. The program begins with a conference call to review your current Internet sales process. Once we know how Footsteps needs to be setup for your dealership, we will do the heavy lifting and fully setup Footsteps, including the e-mail templates. For more information on setting up the Perfect E-mail Response or the Footsteps Customized

Quick Start Program call 877-242-5233 or e-mail marketing@channelblade.com!

About Channel Blade:

Headquartered in Virginia Beach, Va., Channel Blade is the leading provider of award-winning Web sites, lead generation, lead management and sales education solutions that drive more leads and sales to manufacturers and dealers in the Marine, RV and power sports industries.

Channel Blade supports more than 60 leading manufacturers and 2,000 dealer locations worldwide with its easy-to-use, cost-efficient solutions and hands-on education programs. Its clients include more than 75 of Boating Industry¿s 2007 Top 100 Dealers.

For more information on Channel Blade, please visit www.channelblade.com or call us at (877) 242-5233.

Media contact: Lindsay Rapoport, (757) 222-6723; lindsay.rapoport@channelblade; or Salima Benchoukroun, (312) 242-1837; mailsalima@yahoo.com