Detroit, MI– August 10, 2020 - Marcom Technologies Inc., the only phone training company to listen to, critique and score every incoming sales and service opportunity call in automotive, is excited to announce their newest telephony solution, Total Call Results, powered by InteractiveTel.

By combining Marcom’s award-winning training and process with InteractiveTel’s real time business intelligence, Marcom Total Call Results users will have access to the only solution that combines leading technology with real-time training to increase client engagement across the board.

“This business partnership with InteractiveTel is one both Jack and I have been excited to announce for quite a while now. InteractiveTel’s platform gives us the data we need to effectively coach on all aspects of the phone, from the receptionist to the parts counter and all departments in between,” said Chuck McGraw, Marcom’s CEO.  “With Marcom Total Call Results, we can analyze inbound and outbound calls to drive performance change. That’s why we call it Total Call Results - a hybrid, the best of both worlds!”

Using Total Call Results, dealership management will have access to all recorded inbound and outbound calls across every department. Fully tracked lines will measure the effectiveness of a dealership’s advertising, as well as sales and service opportunities, with each call listened to, analyzed and reported upon for performance. Afterward, coaching notes for employees and on-site dealership coaching will be made available to capitalize on every call coming in or out of the dealership.

 “Imagine accurate data in the hands of people who can make a difference and drive true, long-term behavior change of employees. That’s a formula that can’t help but drive ROI for the business,” says Jack Behar, CEO of InteractiveTel. “We have had clients using this solution for over a year now to ensure we got everything right, and let me tell you, it was worth the wait. We are extremely excited with the results and we know our future clients will be as well.”

“For data to be useful you need to act on it. InteractiveTel provides us the information on what is happening during our calls, while Marcom assists us with the process and training support needed to sell more cars and write more service,” said Bryan Koser, director of marketing at Germain Florida BMW, Lexus, Honda. “The Total Call Results solution has had a tremendous impact on our business.”

For more information on Marcom Total Call Results and how it can help your dealership sell more cars and write more service business, please visit https://marcomtechnologies.com/.

#     #    #

About InteractiveTel:

 InteractiveTel offers custom communication applications that provides dealers an end-to-end telephony solution. Total Track is the only telephony system in the automotive space that provides full accountability of every phone call and text traversing the dealership. Through the use of the system, managers have a bird's eye view of what campaigns are working, how their customers are treated, and how their employee interactions are impacting their bottom line. For more information, please visit InteractiveTel.com.\

About ​Marcom:

Marcom, founded originally in 1986 and then again in 2014, is a 33-year-old company that focuses on changing the behavior of sales and service teams. Marcom's training approach is an adult learning model that focuses each training event on the best way people learn. Calls are scored from baseline each and every day to track performance increases. Daily coaching notes are sent to front line dealership employees and regular in-house training is provided by Marcom’s experienced team from around the country. The “Club” is provided to clients so they may listen to their own calls, as well as access a library of best practices. For more information on Marcom Technologies please visit marcomtechnologies.com

Media Inquiries:

Laurie Halter

Charisma!
503-816-2474

Somers, NY (March 19, 2018) – DealerDNA, the only platform on the market that dynamically calculates the best possible vehicle payment, populates your website, and automatically updates your digital marketing assets, today announced the launch of their DealerDNA Synergie™ marketing engine. DealerDNA Synergie plugs into a dealer’s existing website and changes the way consumers engage and interact to bring in top quality leads and increase month over month profits.

The ad engine offers dealers everything from high-performance inventory data mining, to a customizable specials engine with full control over lease and finance options, fully engineered ad campaigns dynamically linked to Google and Bing, and automated lead generators; like model specific landing pages and payment calculators. The result is a full-scale lead generation solution that offers transparent transactions with higher quality leads and a better overall experience for the dealership and the buyer.

These platform features provide:

• 65% increase in site traffic and page views
• 30% average click-spend savings over competitors
• An SEM management fee of 7%, the lowest in the industry

“For the first time dealers will be able to push trim-level pricing to consumers across their digital marketing assets and offer the lowest price on the vehicle in real time.  Best part? It’s all automated, so it provides a “set it and forget it” mentality to best pricing marketing. It’s going to be a game-changer,” said DealerDNA CEO Steven Couture.

All text, banner and landing page ads are automatically updated across a dealership’s marketing assets without additional agency cost. With dynamic number insertion, phone numbers are changed on the website based on a specific ad or campaign. Performance reporting enables dealerships to analyze the productivity and lead generation activities of each campaign.

“Coming from the automotive side of the business myself, it was important to me to provide a customizable resource for those who want it, but also an automated solution for those dealers who don’t want to take further resources away from the business of selling,” said Doug Foss, CMO of DealerDNA. “With Synergie, you get the best of both worlds.”

DealerDNA Synergie is available now. To find out more or schedule a demonstration, please visit www.dealerdna.com.                                                                ###

About DealerDNA:

DealerDNA wants to make automotive digital marketing relevant and easy to use again. From the soaring cost of delivered digital media, to missing ROI, to the overall effort being too expensive, time consuming, and broken, the Founders of DealerDNA set out to deliver something to the automotive space that was simple, easy to use, and most importantly, effective. The resulting product is the Synergie Platform, a proprietary marketing engine that plugs into a dealer’s existing website and changes the way consumers engage and interact. You can find out more at www.dealerdna.com.

Groton, MASS (March 17, 2017) - String Automotive, provider of the auto retail industry’s first and only Dealer Positioning System® (DPS), is proud to debut their ground-breaking competitive intelligence mobile app for dealerships, StringDPS Pulse. StringDPS Pulse is being offered after a wildly successful beta period with requests for the app quadrupling the original goal set for the time period. 

The first of its kind in automotive, the free app not only helps dealerships track their competitors based on geo-targeting, but it also compares market share by zip and area, provides model by model comparisons, and serves up detailed new inventory pricing and turn information down to trim level. In addition, a “competitor feed” feature enables dealers to track changes in pricing and marketing from competitors and adjust accordingly. The result is a mobile game plan with pinpoint accuracy of competitors and opportunities to win in the dealer’s own market.

 “We rolled out this app in beta to a select group of key clients and influencers and everyone was blown away by the precise level of competitive market share information and detailed comparisons it provides,” said Ken Kolodziej, String’s CEO. “One of our beta testers told me DPS Pulse allowed him to walk into his sales meeting, look at his phone, and tell his team their number one competitor and top sales zip code in real-time.”

StringDPS Pulse is currently free to any dealer who owns an iPhone, with plans for Android models coming soon. Interested dealers can find and download DPS Pulse in the app store on their phone.

“This is a secret weapon for dealerships that will not only analyze market share, but also strategically help outperform competitors,” said Kolodziej. “It’s the only mobile solution on the market that gives dealers this information in an easy, accessible format, and best of all, we’re giving it away for free.”

String Automotive is in the middle of a tremendous growth period, with more than 130% year-over-year growth in 2016 alone. In addition to a rapid expansion in dealer rooftop numbers, String has also increased its ad agency partners, brought on multiple technology integration partners, and completed three product introductions in the last year.

String Automotive’s Dealer Positioning System is the only marketing intelligence platform that combines multiple sources of data from inside and outside the dealership to provide a rich, actionable plan to dominate market share in each geographic area. By showing dealership personnel where they can lift market share, which channel will be most effective in doing that, and what message will resonate best with those target customers, String helps dealerships make the most of their marketing budgets.

To download StringDPS Pulse on your iPhone, please visit the Apple App Store or http://dpspulse.com.

#    #    #

About String Auto:

Founded in 2005 and based in Groton, MA, String Automotive delivers transparency, insights and innovation to forward-thinking dealers. String’s dealership intelligence platform, the Dealer Positioning System (or DPS), takes the pulse of each dealership’s local market and guides dealers to make the most profitable, proactive decisions for every store and unique situation. When used in concert with vendors and agency partners, this powerful analytics solution simplifies choices like how to spend marketing dollars, what inventory to stock and where to conquest by letting a dealer’s data drive decisions.

izmoVR solution was included in the “What Was Hot at NADA” cover issue of Dealer Marketing Magazine, out March 2017. With more than 500 exhibitors with products at NADA this year, izmoVR was one of only a handful of solutions to be selected by the magazine as a “hot” product at the show.  izmoVR is our new content-rich virtual reality (VR) platform that significantly shortens the development lifecycle of VR products for automotive companies. The platform helps rapidly deliver virtual reality products for OEMs, dealers, advertising agencies, and others at a lower cost than any other provider in the market today.

Here’s what Dealer Marketing Magazine wrote about their demo with izmoVR at NADA this year – “The result of izmoVR is a low-funnel sales tool that helps engage automotive customers in the service bays, accessories and parts department, F&I office, and new car showroom. By enabling customers to feel, touch and experience the car in virtual reality, dealers have a greater chance of making the sale.”  

We could not have said it better ourselves. If you’d like a demo of the most content-rich VR experience in the auto industry, please reach out to us at Brian.Wiklem@izmocars.com.

DealerTeamwork Announces Partnership with InteractiveTel

New collaboration aims to improve car dealer customer interaction tracking and data reporting.

Houston, TX — (March 6, 2017) InteractiveTel (www.interactivetel.com), a system that tracks, monitors, and reports each interaction by phone or text to give dealers comprehensive knowledge of their customers, today announced a new partnership with DealerTeamwork focused on improving Launch Control's ability to capture and analyze customer interactions in real-time. Integrating these new features will provide a better understanding of a car dealer's marketing activity and performance.

The alliance between DealerTeamwork's Launch Control platform and InteractiveTel's customer interaction analysis platform will help create a new standard for measuring user activity. The goal is to show car dealers different methods of tracking quality website engagement and hard conversions.

"InteractiveTel has the best turnkey solution for measuring user interactions in the industry, and we're excited for the opportunity to partner with such a leader," said Sean Stapleton, CEO of DealerTeamwork. "Launch Control will be able to give dealers the power to track deeper on-page actions using InteractiveTel's keyword and key phrase spotting, live call monitoring, and their powerful customer interaction analysis. This level of analytics and reporting will help educate dealers more on the results of their Launch Control marketing campaigns."

InteractiveTel is a leading provider of interactive communications solutions for an extensive range of organizations and industries – Automotive, Marine, Real Estate, Action Sports, Advertising Agencies and Enterprise clients. They offer their partners and customers a wide choice of solutions from hosted telephony solutions, inbound and outbound calling recording and tracking, call center applications, and interactive services to let businesses communicate with web visitors instantly.

"We are excited to partner with a company such as DealerTeamwork. Their Launch Control platform is a real game-changer when it comes to creating and managing effective marketing campaigns. Including elements of our custom telephony solutions will help improve call tracking and provide a new layer of ROI reporting," said Jack Behar, CEO/President of InteractiveTel.

For more information, please visit www.dealerteamwork.com.
 

About DealerTeamwork LLC: 

DealerTeamwork is a SaaS company creating first-class solutions for the retail automotive industry. Launch Control is the industry's first MPOP, a patent-pending, merchandising and personalization optimization platform. The platform creates a significant competitive advantage for dealers by distributing their transactional data to more in-market shoppers effectively and efficiently. For more information, please visit DealerTeamwork.com or contact us at sales@dealerteamwork.com.

About InteractiveTel:

 InteractiveTel is the only telephony system in the automotive space that provides full accountability of every phone call and text traversing the dealership. Through the use of the system, managers have a bird's eye view of what campaigns are working, how their customers are treated, and how their employee interactions are impacting their bottom line. For more information, please visit InteractiveTel.com.

Half of the world’s citizens are visual learners. They would rather be shown how to do something, than read about it. Yet for years, marketing was stuck in the printing press era. Slowly churning out text after text and leaving the visual learners with few options but to click out. But technology is a fast moving train and in a very short time not only has video become accessible, it’s become standard.

But that fast moving train is still chugging down those tracks. Video is getting cheaper to produce and more importantly more avenues are opening up that you can use it in. So what are the Top 3 things you should know to get the most for your money?

1) Respect The Video

Think about the credits of any movie you’ve seen. Is there just one name? Quality video requires knowledge in writing, graphic design, audio engineering, lighting, cinematography, directing, producing and tens of thousands of dollars in equipment that doesn’t just fall off of trees. In my lifetime I’ve never had a career that fits the adage “You Get What You Pay For” more than video. If you skimp, it will be reflected in your brand.  Take your time to find the right production house. In the long run you will save money and your brand’s good name will be enhanced.

2) Storytelling Will Never Die

While the industry is constantly popping with new flashy technology such as Virtual Reality and 3D video, in the end the one thing that will never go out of style is a good story. Stories keep the viewers attention and engagement and can literally make a customer out of a skeptic. Every business, every product, every employee has a story. Take the time on the front end to define that story. For example, one of my bread and butter clients for years was a Ford dealership. We produced 3-4 TV commercials a month. Rather than just spouting SALE! SALE! SALE! for :30 seconds, we would use an actress to show the vehicle being used in every day situations, like her dropping her kids off at school, or taking the family to the river. This gave the viewer a “hey, I do that too!” moment and they begin creating videos in their mind of the times they’ve done the same thing. The engagement goes up, as do the sales sheets at the end of the month.

3) Three Words: Leverage, Leverage, Leverage.

Quality video is still not cheap to produce. So make the most out of it! Anticipate your video needs down the line and shoot everything you can, while you can because every time your producer has to set up and tear down a set, the price of your video goes up substantially.  Then, once that video has been shot, leverage it for more than just one purpose. Again I’ll use the Ford dealership as an example:

About twice a year we’d take 3-4 of the vehicles that were anticipated to be the dealerships sales priorities and take them out on the road and get driving footage of them going through well known parts of town that people could identify and say “hey, that’s where I drive too!”.

We then had an archive of stock footage that could be used in a myriad of different ways. Social media has opened up a laundry list of new avenues to leverage and present videos. Facebook takes videos that are directly uploaded (as opposed to providing a YouTube link) that auto-start in a viewer’s newsfeed and instantly sets it apart from other content. But it doesn’t stop there. Instagram allows videos up to :60 seconds now. Twitter allows up to :30 seconds of video. 

So now you have video social media posts! Specials, featured items, announcements, etc. can now all feature moving pictures to grab the eye of the viewer. And since you invested in a good archive, you can now produce them for pennies on the dollar, and what would have been a 2 minute web video can be leveraged into a TV commercial, an Instagram post about a sale item, a Facebook feature about a service you want your customers to know about, and a Tweet that is far more than just 140 characters.

Marketing projects are viewed as a “campaign” not as a “one off”. Do the same with video and you will open up a brave new world and save thousands of dollars while doing it. The lights are set; the camera is speeding…so take action!

Scott Elnes is a former TV weatherman who went on to be a video producer at Xbox (Microsoft) and produced content with the likes of Disney and Lucas Arts that aired in 11 different countries. He works as the Video Production Director at Charisma! Communications.

The need for companies to produce content is growing at an exponential rate; probably faster than ever before. 

The reason why is clear: in the digital age, you’re not even in the customer conversation if you’re not publishing high-quality content. And being a part of the conversation is crucial. That’s how you engage customers, cultivate brand devotees, and generate leads. According to the Content Marketing Institute, over 85% of brands use content marketing, but less than half believe they’re good at it. If your company falls into the half with doubts, things may not be as bad as you think. The fact is, public relations, marketing, digital marketing, videos – everything you produce and push out – is really just content creation. So if you have the content, the pressing question becomes: how do you repurpose, manage, and publish content to cut through the clutter? The most successful brands have a strategy in place based on a consistent approach that revolves around quality and variety. Here are some tips to follow their lead:

Be Consistent

In our always-on digital world, consistent creation is the key. The more you push out, the louder your voice. You’re probably already publishing press releases, tweets, Facebook updates, white papers, and blog articles. But how often are you doing it? The top brands aren’t pushing content just a few times a month; depending on the platform, they’re publishing a few times a day! Yes, it’s fast-paced. But it’s manageable with a few tactics and tools in place. One of the best is to create monthly content calendars based on a theme or topic. And remember it shouldn’t be purely promotional. Slot in Best Practices articles or other expert articles that would be valuable to your target audience. From one idea you can generate an article, a few blog posts, numerous tweets and Facebook updates, and even a video. And to make publishing easier, check out tools that automate postings according to the schedule you set. Your month of content is done!

Focus on Quality

While you want to continually push out content, it won’t be read if it’s not high-quality and valuable to your target audience. The best brands identify what needs or questions their products answer, and then create content around those topics. The most successful also inject entertaining tidbits, humor, rewards, and/or customer interaction into their content. And going back to the previous point, many create one piece of content and then find creative ways to re-use it across channels. One point of caution here: remember that simply reposting a blog to Facebook is not re-purposing, it’s promotion. For the most part, promotion is not engaging. Let’s take a speaking engagement as an example of how to repurpose one piece into loads of engaging content. First, post a press release announcing your participation. Then make sure you record the event and post it to YouTube (either the entire presentation or interesting tidbits). Then pull out those juicy tidbits for a series of Tweets and Facebook updates. Alternate those with interesting audience questions and answers. For more ideas, check out an excellent Hubspot blog post about how to repurpose content without wasting the leftovers.

Prioritize Variety

You’ve probably noticed that I keep encouraging you to use different engagement channels. There’s a reason for that: search engines and people demand variety in content channels. That’s how you achieve the biggest reach. Think about mobile: experts predict there will be more than 196 million smartphones users in the U.S. by 2016. They want content that is easy to read on the fly. Or consider video: YouTube draws in more than 1 billion unique visitors every month. They want to ingest information in video form. Twitter has over 236 million monthly active users. Tweeting pithy snippets is the way to get their attention. These channels are an effective way to create engagement and draw readers to your website, where whitepapers, blog posts, and sales sheets deliver more in-depth information about your offerings.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you hear people talk about “content marketing” or see content popping up all over the place. But when you remember that everything you’re already producing is content, you may see you’re further along in the game than you initially thought. If you are feeling overwhelmed, consider pulling in a partner to review the content you already have and help you organize and amplify it across channels. A few tweaks and you’ll be on the road to content marketing success.

Laurie Halter is the President of Charisma! Communications, a boutique communications agency that specializes in the needs of the automotive industry. You can reach her at Laurie@charismacommunications.com. 

The need for companies to produce content is growing at an exponential rate; probably faster than ever before. 

The reason why is clear: in the digital age, you’re not even in the customer conversation if you’re not publishing high-quality content. And being a part of the conversation is crucial. That’s how you engage customers, cultivate brand devotees, and generate leads. According to the Content Marketing Institute, over 85% of brands use content marketing, but less than half believe they’re good at it. If your company falls into the half with doubts, things may not be as bad as you think. The fact is, public relations, marketing, digital marketing, videos – everything you produce and push out – is really just content creation. So if you have the content, the pressing question becomes: how do you repurpose, manage, and publish content to cut through the clutter? The most successful brands have a strategy in place based on a consistent approach that revolves around quality and variety. Here are some tips to follow their lead:

Be Consistent

In our always-on digital world, consistent creation is the key. The more you push out, the louder your voice. You’re probably already publishing press releases, tweets, Facebook updates, white papers, and blog articles. But how often are you doing it? The top brands aren’t pushing content just a few times a month; depending on the platform, they’re publishing a few times a day! Yes, it’s fast-paced. But it’s manageable with a few tactics and tools in place. One of the best is to create monthly content calendars based on a theme or topic. And remember it shouldn’t be purely promotional. Slot in Best Practices articles or other expert articles that would be valuable to your target audience. From one idea you can generate an article, a few blog posts, numerous tweets and Facebook updates, and even a video. And to make publishing easier, check out tools that automate postings according to the schedule you set. Your month of content is done!

Focus on Quality

While you want to continually push out content, it won’t be read if it’s not high-quality and valuable to your target audience. The best brands identify what needs or questions their products answer, and then create content around those topics. The most successful also inject entertaining tidbits, humor, rewards, and/or customer interaction into their content. And going back to the previous point, many create one piece of content and then find creative ways to re-use it across channels. One point of caution here: remember that simply reposting a blog to Facebook is not re-purposing, it’s promotion. For the most part, promotion is not engaging. Let’s take a speaking engagement as an example of how to repurpose one piece into loads of engaging content. First, post a press release announcing your participation. Then make sure you record the event and post it to YouTube (either the entire presentation or interesting tidbits). Then pull out those juicy tidbits for a series of Tweets and Facebook updates. Alternate those with interesting audience questions and answers. For more ideas, check out an excellent Hubspot blog post about how to repurpose content without wasting the leftovers.

Prioritize Variety

You’ve probably noticed that I keep encouraging you to use different engagement channels. There’s a reason for that: search engines and people demand variety in content channels. That’s how you achieve the biggest reach. Think about mobile: experts predict there will be more than 196 million smartphones users in the U.S. by 2016. They want content that is easy to read on the fly. Or consider video: YouTube draws in more than 1 billion unique visitors every month. They want to ingest information in video form. Twitter has over 236 million monthly active users. Tweeting pithy snippets is the way to get their attention. These channels are an effective way to create engagement and draw readers to your website, where whitepapers, blog posts, and sales sheets deliver more in-depth information about your offerings.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you hear people talk about “content marketing” or see content popping up all over the place. But when you remember that everything you’re already producing is content, you may see you’re further along in the game than you initially thought. If you are feeling overwhelmed, consider pulling in a partner to review the content you already have and help you organize and amplify it across channels. A few tweaks and you’ll be on the road to content marketing success.

Laurie Halter is the President of Charisma! Communications, a boutique communications agency that specializes in the needs of the automotive industry. You can reach her at Laurie@charismacommunications.com. 

The influence of YouTube is massive, and its presence is only growing. It is the second biggest search engine behind Google, ranks number one among cable networks in the U.S. for the highly coveted 18-34 demographic, and boasts more than 1 billion unique visitors every month. So you want in, right? Of course you do! But you can’t just shoot a few videos, throw them up on the site and then sit back and hope viewers will flock to watch what you’ve created. The top brands have a consistent and methodical YouTube marketing strategy that creates wild brand devotees for maximum ROI.

What top brands are doing right

A new study from Pixibility reveals what top brands are doing right when it comes to YouTube. Key among the insights is that top brands are consistent about publishing high volumes of content, with 50 percent more videos per channel than less successful brands. They also use different videos to engage with different fans. These brands use short form content to target consumers closer to the top of the sales funnel, and longer form content to maintain engagement with consumers further along in the buying process. 

The best example of doing it right is the GoPro camera company, YouTube’s top brand with more than 2 million subscribers. They involve fans in video creation, releasing multiple videos every day with consistent branding and calls to action, and creating a new “bonus program,” which rewards users who’s videos are licensed by GoPro and go on to reach 1 million views, with $1,000. I know you’re probably saying, “Heck, if I was marketing video cameras I’d be at the top too.” The fact is, any company can achieve this success with the right video marketing strategy. LotLinx is a perfect example of this strategy in automotive with their Year of the Dealer campaign.

The importance of paid search

The best brands have put in the time, work, and money to create a strategy that cultivates fans. They have a consistent video marketing plan designed to get the biggest ROI from the YouTube platform. A major component of this strategy is paid search, or YouTube Ads. This is the best way to immediately drive qualified traffic to your videos. Valuable tips for creating effective YouTube ads include targeting videos to your audience, and always including a strong call to action. The post points out that it will take some testing to hit on the right content for your audience, but that valuable feedback will allow you to make adjustments to maximize your ROI and conversion rate.

How to hit it out of the park

If you’re ready to create a strong YouTube presence, there are best practices that will help you hit it out of the park. From creating a subscriber trailer and video intros, to always adding a call to action and branded hashtag, these methods will help viewers easily recognize and differentiate your brand from others.

You too can have wild brand devotees who eagerly follow your YouTube channel and convert into paying customers. The key is to craft a digital marketing strategy that takes into account YouTube best practices and unique characteristics. So, get out there and familiarize yourself with successful YouTube brands. Billions of visitors are waiting to greet you!

Laurie Halter is the CEO of Charisma! Communications, a content agency focused on the needs of the automotive industry with an emphasis on PR, video and eLearning. She can be reached at Laurie@charismacommunications.com.

The influence of YouTube is massive, and its presence is only growing. It is the second biggest search engine behind Google, ranks number one among cable networks in the U.S. for the highly coveted 18-34 demographic, and boasts more than 1 billion unique visitors every month. So you want in, right? Of course you do! But you can’t just shoot a few videos, throw them up on the site and then sit back and hope viewers will flock to watch what you’ve created. The top brands have a consistent and methodical YouTube marketing strategy that creates wild brand devotees for maximum ROI.

What top brands are doing right

A new study from Pixibility reveals what top brands are doing right when it comes to YouTube. Key among the insights is that top brands are consistent about publishing high volumes of content, with 50 percent more videos per channel than less successful brands. They also use different videos to engage with different fans. These brands use short form content to target consumers closer to the top of the sales funnel, and longer form content to maintain engagement with consumers further along in the buying process. 

The best example of doing it right is the GoPro camera company, YouTube’s top brand with more than 2 million subscribers. They involve fans in video creation, releasing multiple videos every day with consistent branding and calls to action, and creating a new “bonus program,” which rewards users who’s videos are licensed by GoPro and go on to reach 1 million views, with $1,000. I know you’re probably saying, “Heck, if I was marketing video cameras I’d be at the top too.” The fact is, any company can achieve this success with the right video marketing strategy. LotLinx is a perfect example of this strategy in automotive with their Year of the Dealer campaign.

The importance of paid search

The best brands have put in the time, work, and money to create a strategy that cultivates fans. They have a consistent video marketing plan designed to get the biggest ROI from the YouTube platform. A major component of this strategy is paid search, or YouTube Ads. This is the best way to immediately drive qualified traffic to your videos. Valuable tips for creating effective YouTube ads include targeting videos to your audience, and always including a strong call to action. The post points out that it will take some testing to hit on the right content for your audience, but that valuable feedback will allow you to make adjustments to maximize your ROI and conversion rate.

How to hit it out of the park

If you’re ready to create a strong YouTube presence, there are best practices that will help you hit it out of the park. From creating a subscriber trailer and video intros, to always adding a call to action and branded hashtag, these methods will help viewers easily recognize and differentiate your brand from others.

You too can have wild brand devotees who eagerly follow your YouTube channel and convert into paying customers. The key is to craft a digital marketing strategy that takes into account YouTube best practices and unique characteristics. So, get out there and familiarize yourself with successful YouTube brands. Billions of visitors are waiting to greet you!

Laurie Halter is the CEO of Charisma! Communications, a content agency focused on the needs of the automotive industry with an emphasis on PR, video and eLearning. She can be reached at Laurie@charismacommunications.com.