digital marketing

Five Critical Micro-Moments for a Successful Video Marketing Strategy

In a recent study titled “Winning the Moments Before Your Dealership,” Google outlined five critical moments buyers encounter on their online journey to your dealership. For any marketing strategy, ensuring that you are in front of potential customers is imperative to maximizing its effectiveness. The same goes for video marketing. In video marketing you have to ensure that you don’t fall into the trap of simply creating videos that are ineffective, which nobody will ever watch, or which are irrelevant to what you do. Knowing the type of video, along with the correct message that will attract customers and continue to guide them along the path which ends at your dealership, is what matters and will bring sales.

Google’s five critical micro-moments are decision-based and centered on where that buyer is in the car buying funnel.

They are:

  1. Which car is best?
  2. Is it right for me?
  3. Can I afford it?
  4. Where should I buy it?
  5. Am I getting a deal?

Understanding these micro-moments and applying them to broadcast video content so it engages customers, is something every dealership should do — not just for your video marketing, but for every digital marketing channel you participate in.

If you can tailor video to those moments you’re much more likely to guide customers down the “yellow brick road” that ends at your dealership, avoiding any encounters with the Wicked Witch (your competition), which could end badly for you (meaning your customer ends up at your competition).

For those of you that haven’t yet taken the plunge into video marketing, knowing HOW and WHAT TYPE of video content to produce, along with WHERE to put it, and WHY it’s important, will get you dealership off to a great start.

Of course, you won’t know what’s working and what’s not without the data to show you. We’re in an era of data-driven marketing and now have the information to make decisions based on real-time actions — to then take that data and entice and convince customers that, in each micro-moment, your dealership is the one they should choose.

And believe me, folks… it works.

Consumers today are far more likely to watch a video than they are to read or look at the 40 or more pictures a dealership has on its VDPs, whether that’s a vehicle walk-around, dealership introduction, or a personal branding video message. By simply HAVING video, you are ahead of the game. Through learning and embracing these micro-moments, along with producing relevant videos that are part of a larger video strategy designed to capitalize on these decision-making moments, you’ll be leaps and bounds in front of your competition.

Join me at the 22nd Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition on Wednesday, April 12th from 2:30-3:20 pm for my session, “Mastering Google’s Five Critical Micro-Moments with Video – Creating a “Video Marketing Strategy to Maximize the Effectiveness of ALL of Your Video Content and Deliver Measurable ROI through an Increase in Leads, Appointments, Shows and Sales.” I will show you how easy and inexpensive it is to enter the realm of video marketing. You will learn how to create a strategy and how to measure the results through accurate data while being relevant and engaging by incorporating Google’s five critical micro-moments. I look forward to seeing you in Tampa, FL.

Should You DIY or Outsource Your Video Marketing?

By: Tim James

So you’ve decided it’s time to differentiate your dealership from the competition, and that video is the way to do it. Your next probable question is, do you produce, distribute and market the videos yourself, or outsource some, if not all of these functions?

The answer to this question is, it depends. We’ve got dealers who are successfully doing both. In my experience there are three factors to consider when making this decision.

1) Motivation

If your decision to implement video marketing was arrived at rather reluctantly, then you should probably outsource. Motivation requires passion. It requires an understanding of the rewards that will be reaped from putting your time and effort towards this undertaking. It requires buy-in and excitement from your staff. It requires commitment.

I’ve talked to many dealers who spend time waffling over whether they should go the DIY video route. Here’s what I ask them: If not you, who? If not now, when?

Video is not a trend. Remember the music video, “Video Killed the Radio Star?” The actual song was released nearly two years before the music video debuted on MTV in 1981. Hardly anyone heard of the song, but once the video aired, the song became a huge hit. That was 35 years ago. Online marketing video is here to stay, and it’s just a matter of time before it kills the static Vehicle Details Page (VDP).

2) Internal Resources

The second factor to consider is what your internal resources are. Even if you’re highly motivated to launch a video marketing program, someone has to take responsibility. Someone has to take ownership to make sure it’s successful. Someone has to learn how to shoot videos, how to get the videos on the right touch-points and how to measure whether the program is successful or not.

The ‘pros’ of producing videos internally are that you already have staff at your disposal. With an established process, inventory videos should take less than 24 hours to upload.

In addition to inventory videos, it’s important to create value proposition videos, customer testimonial videos and service videos. Internal employees are in a better position to spontaneously capture a glowing customer testimonial video, and may have a better handle on how to sell your dealership’s unique value proposition than an outside entity.

However, when analyzing internal resources, be brutally honest. Are your current employees already struggling to keep up with what’s on their plate? If they are, adding new processes may be too much of a burden.

It’s possible to split the responsibilities between internal and external resources. If your in-house staff is currently tasked with taking inventory photos, it’s not much of a stretch to task them instead with shooting a walk around video. Photos can be easily extracted from video, so there is no need to do both. If you use a lot services company to take your photos, task them with shooting a video in addition to taking your photos.

If you decide to use internal resources, distribution and marketing are two important areas to be addressed. Who will be tasked with ensuring that your videos appear not just on your website, but distributed to as many touch points as possible; including third-party auto shopping sites and social media channels?

Who will be in charge of incorporating video into your digital ad and/or email marketing campaigns? Who will be in charge of collecting viewer data and using that data to increase the relevancy of your videos? Meaning, it’s important to ensure that the right video is shown to the right car shopper at the right time.

Another question to ask when evaluating internal resources is what the turnover rate is in your dealership. Are you confident that your Internet Manager or the staff in that department will be with your dealership for a long time? A potential pitfall of producing videos internally is that you’ll have to constantly train new staff.

3) Dealership Volume

Last but not least, volume is another factor to consider. How many units does your dealership move per month? The greater inventory turnover there is, the greater time investment involved and the greater commitment there must be to the video marketing process.

The good news is, a successful video marketing program will increase your overall sales volume, but for some dealers this can present its own challenges. Kia of Puyallup in Washington saw a nine percent uptick in sales after implementing a video marketing program. How many more units can you handle moving per month?

Now, is everything as clear as mud? Good! The fact is, only you can decide what’s best for your dealership. It’s easy to get excited about the idea of video marketing and want to do it yourself. But it’s important to be able to objectively analyze your motivation level, internal resources and overall volume.

I’ve seen too many instances where dealership salespeople will produce a few videos, upload them to YouTube and don’t see any increase in leads or sales. The dealer points to these paltry efforts and claims that videos don’t work.

Well, of course that level of effort doesn’t work! Producing a few videos is nowhere near the same thing as having a comprehensive video marketing program. It’s like deciding that you want to go into space so you build a shuttle in your backyard. Without an actual space program, with testing, logistics, a launch pad and experts to tell you when and where to go, you’re not likely to get very far.

Outsourcing some (or all) of your video process may involve investing a little more in your merchandising budget than you currently spend, but the end results will be well worth the investment.

No matter which direction you choose to go, the important thing is that you start now — Not next week or even tomorrow. You can start slowly if you need to, but you must start in order to find the process that works best for you and your dealership. The end will justify the means.

Winning the Marketing Game Is About Being Consistent

by Tim James

Baseball players are famous for their superstitions and rituals when performing. Some will refuse to shave. Some will wear their hat backwards. Some will wear the same pair of underwear every game. Do they know if those superstitions or rituals affected the outcome of the game? No. Does it matter? No. Why? Because the players are doing the same thing, in every game, the same way, every time. When asked if he had any superstitions, legendary baseball player Babe Ruth replied, “Whenever I hit a home run, I make sure that I touch all four bases.”

Why is that statement so significant?

Because Babe Ruth understood that it’s not the home run that matters, but consistently applying the fundamentals of baseball. He could hit a zillion home runs, but if he didn’t touch all four bases, he would be called out every time and that home run wouldn’t matter. In other words, if he was not so consistent in his game, we would not know him as one of the greatest baseball players of all times, but rather as one of the most famous failures.

Consistency in your inventory marketing is the same. While a baseball field may only have four bases which players need to touch to ultimately score, the digital world we live in has grown into a field with many, many bases a consumer can use to ultimately end up at home plate and buy a vehicle. If you’re not diligently consistent in your marketing, and fail to ensure that you have a strong presence regardless of which base a consumer steps on, you may just find that they end up on someone else’s field.

But it’s not just having a presence there that makes a consumer continue around the bases on YOUR field, it’s connecting with them – giving them a reason to continue to round those bases. Emotion is what drives a consumer to lust for, desire and want to come touch, feel and drive that vehicle at your dealership. Video creates an emotional impact over and above pictures or the written word. Video builds trust in the brand, in the dealership in the salesperson and, most importantly, the individual vehicle.

You can’t capture a car shopper’s emotion unless you’re present AND have the most engaging content at each and every touchpoint. There is no better way to capture the emotions of your consumers than video content of your vehicle, dealership and salespeople, consistently – over every touchpoint – every time.

Engaging content will motivate the customer to continue past first base, then second, third and, ultimately all the way to your dealership. By doing so, you’ll ensure that every time the ball goes over the wall, it actually ends up as a homerun… and not an out.

Video Marketing: The Death of Boring

by Tim James

While I often talk about “basics”, that’s simply because many dealers are still not reaping the benefits of video marketing. But let’s say your dealership is doing video marketing. Perhaps you’ve made a commitment to conduct live video walkarounds for every vehicle. Maybe you’re engaging your customers via personal video e-mail. And perhaps it’s working well. Most people would advise a marketer that is having success to follow the old saying “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.” Well, sometimes that may not be the right answer.

Consider the “Red Bull” brand. They are widely known for producing some of the most successful viral video marketing pieces ever – including setting a record for the most live concurrent video views, with 9.5 million users watching their space diving video. The brand focused on creating video content that illustrated daring and astonishing feats of athleticism. As a result, it earned the respect and attention of many major brands across the country. But then… they changed their strategy. And everyone gasped.

Why would any company change a video marketing strategy that is considered (and measured) as the bar to achieve? Why change something that is working so well?

We may never know why Red Bull decided to change their strategy away from big time, exciting event videos that consistently went viral. What we do know is what they changed it to: Consistency.

Red Bull decided that producing regular, consistent video content (more quantity) would pay off over producing less video content — even if the videos as a group are not as “epic.” And what did this achieve? In the last year, Red Bull has created 639 videos that each have more than a million views, with a combined total of 1.7 BILLION views, and almost 33 million engagements.

While each individual video itself gets less engagement than one of the EPIC videos, overall the brand is achieving more views and engagement at less expense. Red Bull’s gamble on a consistent stream of video content, over occasional highly produced epic videos payed off.

What does that mean for your dealership?

Creating consistent content – walkaround videos, creative commercials, etc. – will absolutely engage consumers. But it’s not all about following some straight line on the road to your destination. Creativity will pay dividends – it’s a matter of regular content but also doing something to catch attention and set you dealership apart from the competition.

Take a step off the line and be a little adventurous.

Take for example a dealership in Minnesota, White Bear Mitsubishi. They adopted a white bear as their mascot and have created countless commercials and content including a person dressed in a giant white bear outfit. (If you’ve never seen them, they’re great!) But it isn’t the commercial that shot them to stardom, it is the OUTTAKES from the commercial. On their Facebook page alone, these commercial outtakes have had 6.9 million views, over 35,000 likes and over 100,000 shares!

It’s also been syndicated, made into memes and featured on television news reports! Did they expect this kind of exposure by simply posting some silly outtakes from a commercial they did to support their local hockey team? No!

The point is that they continued to produce content. They stepped outside the box. And because of that, the world is now talking about them. Had they never tried, they’d never have succeeded.

Wouldn’t you like to have those kind of results and exposure for your dealership? The only way that’s ever going to happen is to go out and start making video – and never stop.

Video Marketing: Sell, Don’t Tell.

by Tim James

Why are we obsessed with television and movies? Because, just like books, they have the ability to capture our attention and transport us into fictional situations and universes.

Regardless of whether the movie or television show is fiction or non-fiction, this is an engaging way to tell a story that we’re interested in hearing and also seeing. TV, movies and video make stories come alive in ways that connect with our emotions – whether through fear, sympathy, action or drama.

But what if you went to a movie and rather than watching the story of a young farm boy transforming into a hero by blowing up a huge space station, you were presented with only the facts. Just an outline or bullet-points. That wouldn’t be very engaging, would it?

Video marketing is no different. It’s really easy to forget that in order to engage the viewer, you need to connect with them. Telling them how great your product is with facts alone would be like doing a walkaround for a customer, simply reading the information on the window sticker.

That is certainly not very interesting, engaging or creative.

In car sales, salespeople are trained to do vehicle walkarounds by first identifying any attributes of importance to that particular customer. The salesperson then shows and explains any features and benefits in the vehicle which fulfill that individual customer’s interest. To put it plainly, great salespeople tell stories about their products that put their audience “in the story.” They don’t just present facts, they generate a desired emotional response by focusing on “why” a product is needed, not just what the product is, (sell “why,” not “what”).

Effective video marketing – including walkarounds, personal video messages and any other kind of video you can think of – is no different. That’s why so many consumers love Super Bowl commercials. It is also why some commercials make us smile, laugh out loud, or even bring a tear to our eyes. They are effective because, in most cases, they manipulate our emotions to connect those products and services with us on a personal level and make us want to engage.

You can do the same thing with your video marketing efforts and, by so doing, establish more of a bond with the customer. Show your customers that you are interested in helping them with THEIR needs (not just selling them a car) and it will increase the likelihood they will engage with you, or reach out to you, should they simply come across a video on a VDP.

Video marketing isn’t rocket science. BUT you still need to have a strategy to do it effectively. Try changing your focus from trying to talk to everyone, to talking to a single person. Tell your story, the vehicle’s story, or whatever story you wish to relay with your video, as if that person is standing right in front of you. These types of videos resonate with individuals more than any other tactic. Why? Because the viewer feels as if you’re talking directly to them, rather than to some generic mass audience. And those are the types of videos that both engage and connect with the viewer.

Most advertising attempts to connect with as many people as possible. Sure, it may be segmented so that the message is demographically or geographically targeted. But, in the end, people can tell the difference between if you are speaking to them directly, or to a generic, random group of people. Yes, they may intuitively know that some video on some random VDP page wasn’t made specifically for them. But, EMOTIONALLY those videos will have a more impactful influence on them. And that’s the whole point of video marketing. Facts may provide details about your product, but an emotional story will sell it.

Don’t Use a Band-Aid When What You Really Need Are Stitches!

by Tim James

There is a lot of talk and buzz building about the importance of video marketing – as there should be. Video is quickly becoming the preferred medium for consumers. Don’t believe me? Literally thousands of articles exist on the Internet illustrating the benefits of using video in your marketing.

But for this blog I would like to take a step back for a minute. I’ve talked about using video in emails, virtual reality, etc. However, it’s time to get back to basics, because, despite the power of video, there are still some dealers who don’t even have videos of their vehicles on their websites.

Let’s get real here. You spend tons of money on your website. That website has one major purpose – to show off your inventory so that a car shopper can get emotionally attached to a vehicle and call you. And I am sure you also spend quite a bit of money driving traffic to your website and vehicle display pages. As well as a considerable chunk of change to get your vehicles on third party listing sites in order to influence and engage with car buyers there. Seeing as all this money is spent to market inventory and drive traffic to it in order to do the only thing that matters – sell a car – then it makes sense to ensure the greatest return on your investment by having the very best advertisement for your vehicle on that vehicle display page!

If you aren’t actually taking full-motion videos to merchandize your vehicles, the next best thing is stitched photo videos. Yeah, I have heard the naysayers that don’t see the value of stitched photo videos but, at the same time, are not doing any video whatsoever. Those dealers are missing out on customers. You don’t have to listen to me… but you should be listening to your customers – and here’s a nugget of data for you:

According to data, stitched photo videos on vehicle display pages have an average 75 percent completion rate.

Now let me ask you a question. Would stitched photo videos have a 75 percent completion rate if customers DIDN’T like them? Of course not. Most dealers have about 40 or so pictures of each vehicle along with a written vehicle description designed to provide information while simultaneously creating an emotional attachment to the vehicle. By presenting this same information with a video (even a stitched photo video), you increase both the informational and emotional value of the content, which means you get more leads.

Look, let’s remove our “opinions” from the equation and just focus on the data, which clearly shows that consumers like and are influenced by stitched photo inventory videos. Time and time again we see dealers go from NO video whatsoever to stitched photo videos — and very quickly realize a significant increase in some of their most important KPIs. We have seen122% increases in unique VDP views, 110% increase in total VDP views, 75% increase in return website visitors and lead form conversions of 95% or more. These are actual increases realized by your peers, just by adding stitched photo inventory videos!

If you’re NOT using video, don’t you want these performance increases from your website? And these are results from dealers that simply flipped a switch with their video provider and turned on stitched photo videos. This took no extra effort on their part whatsoever. The pictures are already being taken. The software does the rest.

Nobody ever said video marketing needs to be overwhelming. Sometimes you have to crawl before you can run. But what really matters is that the mere act of crawling will get you farther than doing nothing whatsoever.

There are many other reasons that inventory videos are critical to your Video Marketing Strategy, even if you only use stitched photo videos — particularly when it comes to the data capture and utilization power of inventory videos. The bottom line is that customers want to watch inventory videos and they will have a significant impact on your sales. If you don’t provide it for them, you may find them watching another dealership’s videos. And that probably won’t work out in your favor.

YouWho? Why YouTube May Not Be Your Most Effective Video Marketing Option

As consumer touch-points in the car buying journey continue to increase, it’s ever more important to ensure that your video content is available at each and every one of those pit stops the car buyer takes. Your digital touchpoints are in essence your brand’s points of customer contact, from start to finish. For example, customers may find your business online in an ad, see ratings and reviews, visit your website, or receive an email, to name a few. Often, the problem is getting your videos on all these touch-points.  It may be very time consuming to upload each of your videos to each touch-point.  For that reason, many choose to “host” their videos with a hosting service and then hyperlink or embed their video URL’s to get additional exposure and visibility.

YouTube has long been the king of video hosting platforms and may seem to be the obvious choice. However, there are some things that you should consider when developing your video marketing strategy that may or may not make YouTube the best option for you and your marketing partners. “Self-hosting” or using a “3rd party host” that specializes in the automotive marketplace may be a better option for you.

If you are spending a lot of money to rank your website, certain pages of your website, landing pages, etc., then embedding a YouTube video on those pages may not be your best option.  You see, when you upload a video to YouTube, YouTube claims the metadata and SEO value of your video. So, if a consumer were to find that content via a Google search, they will most likely be taken to your video on YouTube, versus to the page of your website that your video resides on.

However, if you self-host, or utilize a third party host that allows you to claim the SEO value of your videos, then you can apply a meta tag and video sitemap strategy on your web pages that can create the same (or better) visibility for your video on Google, but bring shoppers, when engaged, back to YOUR website, or the webpage that the video resides on.

One of the most powerful advantages of self-hosting or utilizing a hosting platform within the auto industry is that you now have real-time access to your data. You can also integrate that data into your CRM. For example, you can follow the customer along their path as they watch your video on a third party listing site; and again, as they view a video email you sent them; and later, when they start viewing inventory videos on your own website. All of this behavioral data provides clues as to where in the funnel – and what vehicles specifically – these customers are considering. This enables the delivery of precise messages that are extremely relevant to the consumer, at the exact right moment in their buying process. Because this video content is hyper-relevant, consumers will engage with it more. In addition, the ability to follow the customer on their path (and see the vehicles they are interested in and where they are watching your videos from), enables video remarketing opportunities in real-time via the video the consumer is watching, such as geo-targeted messages for shoppers who are showrooming from your competitor’s lot.

Utilizing a hosting service that specializes in the automotive industry could also open up tons of advantages such as automating the process of getting your video content on many of your most valuable touch-points. Now you can control how and where the video is delivered. Industry-specific companies also allow you to integrate third party conversion widgets straight into your video. Because you have this level of control, you can generate dynamic rule and behavior-based content in real time. This transforms all of your videos into content that has greater informational and emotional value.

Don’t misunderstand me — YouTube and other video platforms are also touch-points on a consumer’s journey and can provide video search engine optimization benefits. You can absolutely upload your video content to YouTube as well, to maximize your exposure on their network.

Chances are your automotive specific host could automate that part of your strategy for you as well. That being said, those VSEO benefits from YouTube, while valuable, cannot trump the level of personalization and customizability that an industry hosting service can provide. So, rather than relying on YouTube to host your video, take your content back under your control by leveraging all of the benefits an industry specific hosting platform. You’ll find out very quickly that you can implement a more effective video marketing strategy.

Six NADA Takeaways

by Gina Reuscher, Director of Marketing, Flick Fusion

What happens in Vegas will not stay in Vegas! It was great to connect with friends and partners at this year’s NADA conference. I would like to share six takeaways that resonated with me from this year’s exposition:

1) The importance of third-party integrations. Partnerships are the lifeblood of this industry, making new technologies more available and affordable for auto dealers. We couldn’t agree more! At Flick Fusion we value our partners and look forward to developing new relationships in this area; specifically with website providers and CRMs.

2) Big data is not a new topic, but it feels like we’re just learning how to best disseminate, organize and analyze the data we have been collecting to use in an efficient way for both car dealers and customers along the car-buying journey. Flick Fusion is a key component in closing the loop between online and offline ‘big data’ throughout the car buying journey. Our platform collects data from pre-, during and post-sale video views, then develops rule and behavior-based responses, allowing car dealers to leverage their data without having to think about it.

3) Going global. Many vendors made announcements or have plans to make announcements to expand their markets beyond the United States. The automotive economy has been an upswing in the U.S. so it’s a great time to be thinking of expanding reach into new areas.

4) Kitty Van Bortel winning the 2016 Time Dealer of the Year award. Not only is this is a huge win for women in the automotive industry, but it’s an example of true leadership and legacy. On a personal note, Kitty’s story about being a breast cancer survivor really hit home. At the show I received some bad news about a close friend of mine who has been battling the disease. It makes me realize that business and personal causes can go hand in hand, and we all have a responsibility to give back in some way, if we have the ability.

5) Peyton Manning. Who knew this guy was so inspirational? Two quotes stood out in my mind: “When looking back to analyze my game, I ask myself three things: What did I notice that was different, valuable and when mastered, can move me towards my goal.” Another great quote from Peyton was, “Leading from example is not the main tool to influence others, it’s the ONLY tool.” For automotive vendors, this comes down to walking the talk, both in business and personally.

6) In closing, I want to bring up another observation that surprised me. I couldn’t help but notice a huge gap in video advertising at this year’s show. NADA 2016 hosted 25+ OEM meetings, 64+ NEW workshops and over 130 total workshop sessions. Yet, not one of these sessions featured video marketing as a topic.

Bill Fox, last year’s chairman of NADA, made a compelling call to dealers to recognize, confront and adapt to change. Nothing has changed the marketing landscape in recent years like video, so at Flick Fusion we hear Fox’s call as both a challenge and opportunity.

Video marketing allows car dealers to take their #1 asset: their vehicle inventory, and create hundreds of advertisements that can be simulcast across dozens of Internet channels. Video is the #1 searched media in the world, so it’s a perfect complement to dealers’ current advertising programs at a fraction of the cost of traditional media.

Flick Fusion is a pioneer in video marketing with a superior platform, so we’re excited to take up this challenge and make 2016 the year of video marketing for the automotive industry.

We’re looking forward to January 2017 and the 100th anniversary of NADA in New Orleans. But before that, we hope to see you in Las Vegas once again, for the Digital Dealer Conference & Expo in August!

What do you think the most important themes were to come out of NADA?

For Car Buyers, 5 Is the Magic Number

While the consumer’s car buying journey can include upwards of 24 touchpoints, there are some particular milestone moments in that journey that can define and direct their actions. These moments are covered in a report recently released by Google’s Automotive division, “The 5 Auto Shopping Moments Every Brand Must Own.” The report states that the key moments within a car buyer’s path that every brand must be aware of and present for are:

  1. Which car is best?
  2. Is it right for me?
  3. Can I afford it?
  4. Where should I buy it?
  5. Am I getting a deal?

To truly make an impact on these shoppers throughout each stage of the car buying process, dealers need to have content which appeals to buyers, that makes those buyers desire to take action, and that helps lead them down the road to their dealership. At each stage in the process, dealerships compete for consumer eyeballs. While some dealers will rely on stock information for their vehicle descriptions, others may actually take the time to write custom comments. Some will have a limited number of photos of a vehicle, while others may include 40 or more. The problem is that, to the consumer, every vehicle is almost always one of many in a list that’s typically sorted by price.

So, you can you differentiate your Honda Civic from the thousand others for sale in a market?

Through storytelling.

Statistics show that we remember 20 percent of what we hear; 30 percent of what we see; but a whopping 70 percent of what we both see AND hear. The more of a customer’s attention you can grab, the more likely that YOUR vehicle will catch and hold their attention. Descriptions alone can’t achieve this. You’ll be lucky if they even read the whole thing. And forget about a customer flipping through 40 photos. Chances are that they will browse through a few before abandoning that VDP and moving on to the next one. And the next one may or may not be yours. The only way to maximize your shot at attracting and keeping interest is through a combination of sight and sound – and that’s where video comes in.

Video has the unique power to tell stories. Whether those stories are about the vehicle, the salesperson, the dealership, or a plethora of other topics, no other medium is as powerful.

With video, you can tailor your story to a specific person. Few marketing tools have more influence on a car shopper than a vehicle video walkaround, specifically made for that customer. Think of how much more effective an e-mail response is that contains a personalized video greeting, over the multiple canned email responses they probably receive from your competition.  Consumers aren’t stupid. They realize that these type of e-mails are not authentic responses to their inquiries. Chances are that just about every one they receive from multiple dealers contain very similar messages. Video will give your dealership the edge. The consumer can very quickly see that they have received an authentic response. And that the salesperson, or BDC rep, took the time to make a video specifically for them!

It’s time to up your game. Make an impression that is meaningful, authentic and personalized.

In my session at the 20th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition, “The Four Best Ways to Use Video: Learn a Video Marketing Strategy that Sells,” I explain just how crucial video marketing is to a dealership’s success. I will also talk about the importance of having an identified, measurable and scalable video marketing strategy. While video content doesn’t have to be difficult to produce, there is certainly more to it than simply running out and buying a camera. Join me in my session and you’ll leave knowing how to leverage the power of video to sell more cars.