digital marketing

Why Face-to-Face Conversations are More Important than Ever

By Timmy James

 

By nature, humans are social creatures. Need more proof? One of the worst punishments our legal system has come up with is solitary confinement. Not only is this dreaded by inmates, but it can also affect their mental health. Whether an introvert or an extrovert, we all crave personal interaction.

Like many of you, I am currently working from home. And, at the end of one day last week I had an impromptu meeting with one of my customers. The meeting started on the phone but, after 15-20 minutes of the call, we decided to switch to a live-stream one-on-one video call. While we continued talking about the business matter, the conversation quickly changed into a personal chat. Just two people who have been working from home for many days now. While we both interact with people throughout the day, most interaction is via the phone or text. When we switched to the live-streaming video call, emotions changed into joy and excitement that we were having a personal, live, face-to-face interaction with an individual outside of our homes.

Even before this health crisis, people wanted to have live interaction. That’s exactly why sales managers are renowned for telling salespeople to “Just get them in.” Of course, at the moment, we have a quandary. Many salespeople are out of work, CRMs are still spitting out the same messages and consumers are still shopping for vehicles… but nobody is answering them.

We’re dealing with a situation unlike anything seen since the measles or polio breakouts decades ago. The entire country is hunkered down, sitting at home with their families. And many are very bored. What do people do when they are bored? They tend to accomplish tasks they’ve been meaning to but have not yet found the time for. And guess what? This could very easily include researching a vehicle purchase. 33 states have either halted or limited vehicle sales forcing salespeople to stay at home. However, in many cases, their CRMs are still receiving leads. OEMs are offering aggressive incentives and interest rates are low.

Car sales are all about emotions. That’s why the standard has always been to get the customer to test drive, kick tires, breathe in that “new car” smell and take mental ownership. However, before any of that can happen, a salesperson or BDC agent needs to create rapport to get that specific customer to choose their dealership.

Customers currently don’t have the luxury of visiting the dealership. But you can approach that level of face-to-face contact with live video chat. It builds the rapport needed for the customer to decide who to buy from and what to buy. Your dealership can interact with these customers in a personal way while building that emotional relationship with the salesperson, the dealership AND the vehicle. And what do those interactions produce when doing this via live-streaming video calls? The same as it produced for me and my customer — Joy and excitement. It helps move that customer down the line to the sale.

Many dealerships are experimenting with virtual test drives and video calling to provide that in-store face-to-face experience right now and having amazing success. But like all sales processes, it must be done right to have the most effective impact. Many of the popular video calling platforms out there require both users to install plugins or download the same apps to assure cross-platform and cross-operating system compatibility. These platforms are great for organized meetings, entertainment, or educational purposes. But when you need to engage a customer or a lead from your website, or for email/texting communications, the best video calling technology to utilize is one that allows a “one-click” audio and video communication to work inside web pages through direct peer-to-peer communication. This eliminates the necessity to install plugins or download apps and ensures an instant video connection; no matter what device or platform the customer or lead is utilizing.  This could alter the entire experience completely and make the difference between a GREAT video experience, and no communication or experience at all (another lost lead).

So, consider using live video chat to have that face-to-face interaction with your customers that is very much desired, especially right now. Combined with good storytelling through strategic vehicle and dealership marketing videos, it could easily slingshot your dealership into a consumer’s first choice. Not just in these times when it is even more crucial to communicate this way, but also when everything goes back to normal. And now is the time to start planning for the future. You don’t want your competition to beat you and take your customers away!  Get that competitive edge and create those loyal customers now!

5 Pre-Production Steps for Better Videos

by Tim James, COO, Flick Fusion

Videos are consumers’ favorite type of content to see from a brand, as evidenced by the fact that 87% of marketing professionals use videos as a marketing tool. But creating a quality video requires more than just picking up a camera and shooting footage. Before you begin shooting your videos, it’s important to go through a pre-production checklist that will ensure that you get the most out of your time and investment.

Step 1: Begin with the end in mind.

What is the purpose of this video? If you’re creating a vehicle inventory video, think about the end goal. If you’re thinking “my goal is to sell the car,” that’s stating things a little too simply.

Of course you want to convert that video viewer into a customer, but not just a one-time sales customer. Your goal is to create a lifetime, loyal customer who will bring the car in for service. What’s the best way to do this?

Even in something as simple as a vehicle inventory video, you want to lay a foundation that will establish your dealership as a trusted expert and build an emotional connection with the consumer. By the end of the video, the customer should not only love the car, they should like the dealership brand.

Step 2: Who is the target audience?

Before you shoot video, understand who your most profitable customers are. This data exists in your DMS and/or CRM. Filter customers by number of visits and money spent at your dealership. Then look at the demographics and create an ideal “persona.”

What zip codes do they live in? What age groups spend the most with your dealership? What is their income level? Are they white collar or blue collar? Which groups are they affiliated with? What problems do they have?

It’s important to identify audience characteristics so you know what videos will appeal to them. Demographics can help you set the tone for your videos; whether they should be professional, humorous or heartfelt.

Step 3: Determine where the video will be displayed.

If you’re going to produce a video, be sure to maximize your investment by leveraging it across all your marketing touchpoints, including your website VDPs, 3rd-party auto shopping sites, Facebook, Google ad campaigns, email and text campaigns and more.

Also make certain that you can capture your viewers’ data, which enables you to personalize the content of the video for every viewer. This provides your customers with the most relevant experience and provides you with maximum conversion. Make sure your video host can provide you real-time notifications when your videos are being viewed by existing customers or leads.

Step 4. Identify your call to action

What is the next step that you want the consumer to take after watching your video? If it’s an inventory video, you might think the next step is to submit a lead or make a phone call. But many people who view inventory videos are still in the early stages of the car shopping process and trying to narrow down which vehicle is right for them.

If a customer is still in this phase, it would be helpful for them to view make/model test drive videos. So, a better call to action might be to encourage the viewer to watch more videos on your site. This is why it’s important that your video host is able to serve up relevant video content based on a customer’s browsing behavior.

Once a car shopper has narrowed down a make and model, the next phase of the shopping cycle is to decide where to purchase the vehicle. After your test drive videos, a good call to action might be to encourage viewers to watch your dealership’s value proposition and customer testimonial videos.

Step 5: What is the Vision?

Last but not least, this is where you plan the actual shots. Plan to shoot a lot of footage that you can use in future video projects.

Video can be re-purposed in dozens of ways for marketing and social media purposes. I recommend planning shots of the vehicles, your facility, service department, sales department and employees. Professional videographers often shoot hours of footage for a 5-minute video. You don’t have to go overboard, but you should plan to shoot dozens of 15-second clips and catalogue them so you can refer back to them easily.

These pre-production steps are an essential part of the video production process and will help you create videos that resonate with your target audience.

How to Take Advantage of the Rising Popularity of Video Marketing, right NOW!

by Tim James, COO, Flick Fusion

You don’t have to look very far to see that Video Marketing is the future of digital marketing. Not only is it cost effective, easy to create and use video online, but consumers favor video on almost every platform.

If you are a dealer, video is too important to overlook. While it is popular now with marketers and consumers, that popularity will be even larger over the next few years.

Here are three things fueling the growth of video marketing over the next five years and beyond. Along with some simple tips you can use to stay ahead of the trends in 2020.

  1. 5G is coming…

The world is on the edge of a communication revolution. 5G networks will be rolling out in the US by the end of 2019. Since most mobile devices are already designed for viewing video and downloading large files, the real innovation for video in a 5G world will be Augmented Reality.

For example, Panera Bread recently launched an AR ad unit for mobile devices. Consumers can project and rotate menu items and share the content across popular social media channels. The idea is to add transparency and increase engagement. For your dealership to be competitive, it makes sense to incorporate AR advertising and image overlays into your 2020 marketing strategy. A consumer can’t really “see” a car by reading a monroney sticker. They can, however, kick its virtual tires online and cruise through and around it via video. Imagine car shoppers interacting with a vehicle walk-around video right in their own homes.

Some other major national brands and games have found success with AR applications. Snapchat filters are wildly popular among younger generations and are a great example of how simple overlaid images can enhance the user experience and help spread brand awareness.

  1. 70% of the workforce will be millennial or younger over the next 5 years

Speaking of younger generations, 70% of the workforce will be millennial or younger over the next 5 years and their purchasing power will continue to rise. Millennials, Gen Y and Gen Z consume video for more than just entertainment. They use it to guide them in everything from fixing their own washing machines, to learning about brands and products. This then influences their purchasing decisions.

According to a consumer study by Animoto, 8 out of 10 millennials find video helpful when researching a product or service. In fact, they are 85% more likely than baby boomers to purchase if they can watch a video explaining it first.

How can your dealership take advantage of this? Include demo videos on product pages as consumers prefer product demo videos over still images. Placing video on your website increases conversion by 80%. Also, having video on a website makes it 53 times more likely to make it on Googles 1st page. In addition, email open rates increase by 7% when the word “video” is in the title. So, it make sense to include video as part of your lead follow up process.

  1. By 2020, most content will be video

In 2016, Facebook predicted that almost all of its content would be video. Since then video consumption has increased by 100% per year. By 2020, 80% of all digital content will be video. 6 out of 10 consumers prefer video over television. Not only is video the consumer’s preference, it can also reinforce your brand because viewers retain 95 percent of a message that they watch through video.

Video continues to dominate every form of content delivery, and somehow manages to break its own records year after year. Video content is here to stay. Not only is it here to stay, but marketers that fail to use it – and fail to have a robust mobile and video strategy – will quickly find themselves left behind eating their competitors’ dust. And, more importantly, left behind by their potential customers.

Decide now to increase your video content production efforts so you are ahead of the competition in 2020. Include video on your website, use it for more effective customer follow up and make it a core part of your overall marketing strategy. It is what consumers want, and your profit margins will probably agree.