Many retail and services businesses take advantage of what an SMS marketing campaign can offer. Auto dealers can especially benefit from this cost-effective marketing tool.

Here are some text message marketing ideas for the auto retail industry.

1.     Building an opt-in list

When posting an ad for cars, most dealers would provide an office or a mobile number for prospective buyers to call. Instead of doing this, why not provide an SMS short code for buyers to text in? An example could be to post “text SALE to CARS987 for details.” You can even have separate short codes for each car model you’re selling to make responses easy to track.

2.     Enhance your relationship

Maintain and enhance your relationship with your buyers through your SMS marketing. Let them know when their cars are scheduled for a maintenance check through text. You can go as far as sending them updates about the service status and when the vehicle is ready to be picked up after completing the maintenance check. These are all easy and simple to do, but customers will appreciate this tremendously because it makes car maintenance checks easy and convenient for them.

3.     Offer exclusive promos and discounts

Make your customers feel even more special by giving them exclusive offers. Maybe you’re launching a new car model or new inventory has come. Or perhaps you have a special promo coming up. Let your SMS subscribers be the first to know!

They’ll not only appreciate the heads up, but they may even share the info with some of their friends. That translates to more prospective buyers for you.

4. Don’t forget to track success

Text marketing services provide metric tracking. Take advantage of this feature because it allows you to check how successful your text messages are. You’ll get a feel of what types of messages your subscribers most responds to, which is important for the success of your entire marketing campaign. You want to do away with the messages and promos that garner the least response and concentrate on those that elicit the most reaction.