POWAY, Calif. – Mitchell 1 announced this week that its eCRM e-mail marketing service for small- to medium-sized automotive repair shops has been updated to include a new target market promotions feature. Automotive repair shops will now be able to send e-mails to connect with their customers more often and with more precision than ever before – and it’s free, the company says.

“With the addition of the target market promotions into our Mitchell 1 eCRM program, repair shops will work with a support agent to create a targeted promotion that will go to a specific list of customers that is based on selection options that the shop chooses,” said Brian Warfield, Mitchell 1 product manager. “This is a simple and effective way for repair shops to boost their service traffic through repeat customers, which increases their profitable maintenance business.”

Selection options to reach customers include:  
• All customers
• Specific zip codes
• Time since last visit
• Number of visits the past 12 months
• Average amount of money spent per visit
• Vehicle miles

The process of creating a targeted promotion matched to a specific customer through the system is simple, according to Mitchell 1:

Step 1: Call or e-mail a Mitchell 1 agent
Step 2: Agent creates a list and a promotional e-mail
Step 3: After the user reviews and approves the e-mail, the message is sent

With eCRM, Mitchell 1’s marketing support center creates professionally designed, customizable e-mails that are automatically sent to remind customers when they are due for scheduled maintenance. Shops choose which offers they’d like to run, and Mitchell 1 measures the results and provides comprehensive reports including ROI monthly measurements, response rates and retention metrics.

eCRM is completely integrated with Mitchell 1’s OnDemand5 Manager product, so it automatically pulls customer information over a secure Internet service. The daily extraction service and proprietary Mitchell 1 business rules ensure that the right message is being sent at the right time to reach the target customers, the company states. This process is designed to make sure shops gain the most out of every dollar spent on marketing.