When it comes to video, most dealerships tend to think of it for purely sales department use, and sometimes in service. From communicating with customers via personalized emails, to live video walkarounds, video is certainly an excellent way to engage customers and increase VDP views. It is also a great tool for the service department to better explain and illustrate service recommendations and educate customers on the necessity for any needed repairs.

However, there are a couple of other powerful uses for video that tend to be overlooked when implementing a video strategy.

1. Human Resources – Every time your dealership hires an employee, a typical onboarding process likely involves lots of paperwork and a significant amount of time spent reviewing manuals or other materials that tend to be rather dry, boring and hard to get through. Video can be a highly effective tool in these instances. Use it to pre-record important company policies and other onboarding information in a more engaging manner that new employees will find easier to remember and will tend to pay more attention to.
   
   Video can also be used by your human resources department in recruiting and hiring. Video resumes have become increasingly popular. They are much easier for human resources to review and get a real feel for an applicant. They also offer more insight into the personality of the applicant. This works especially well when considering a salesperson. If you think about it, a video resume is simply a candidate selling themselves to you. In addition, it shows effort on the part of the applicant and weeds out those that may be applying but have no real interest in a career in retail automotive. This saves human resources and management staff time in the selection process and can bring in better potential candidates for interviews.
    
2. General Questions / FAQ – Another great use for video is to identify general questions that customers ask and then create video content for your website. Examples could include: “Why does it take so long to buy a car?” or “Why an extended warranty or service contract should be considered.” These videos provide rich content that engages your customers. It also serves to show those visitors that are on your website – but who have not yet contacted the dealership – that you are helpful and willing to provide information.

This type of information is exactly what customers search for during their journey along the many touchpoints in the car buying process. Ask your salespeople, service advisors, F&I managers and receptionists which questions tend to be asked repeatedly. The customer probably already tried to find the answer on your website and, had you offered the content, it could have swayed that customer towards choosing your dealership over your competitors. By providing this content, it helps keep customers on your website longer, engages them, and has the hidden benefit of increasing search engine optimization.

We live in a society with short attention spans. These days, for the majority of consumers video is THE preferred method of communication. Regardless of generation, most people simply would rather watch a video than read a long article, blog post, or technical description.

Save your dealership time, increase exposure, recruit more efficiently and make the onboarding process more engaging by making your video strategy more comprehensive… I promise you it will soon pay dividends.

Most dealers have spent many years in the car business. They know what it takes to sell cars. They know when a customer walks onto the lot, the salesperson must give a professional presentation while being able to emotionally connect with and excite the customer into making that purchase.

To this end, most dealers are really great at merchandising their vehicle inventory on the lot. The cars are gleaming, the rows are tight and they use balloons, inflatable gorillas and other attention-grabbing devices to create an air of excitement.

And what about their online inventory? With more than 90% of car shoppers beginning their journey on the Internet, is your dealership doing everything it can to merchandise your vehicles online? After all, your inventory is your #1 asset.

Unfortunately, most Vehicle Display Pages (VDPs) on dealership websites look very similar to each other. This is not the fault of the dealers or even the website providers; these page formats must be standardized so the inventory data can be pulled and distributed to third-party sites. But the result is that these pages, their data and photos look static. A dealership’s most important online merchandising presentation, of their #1 asset, and it is unemotional, unappealing, and has nothing unique about it at all.

That's why more dealerships are creating inventory videos. Videos convey information while appealing directly to car shoppers' emotions. In a video, you can include intros that state your dealership's value proposition; what makes you stand out from your competition? You can include custom promotion and incentive information; why should this shopper come to your store today?

In videos, you can include information beyond what just appears in the inventory data. Instead of reading data (the what), your customers listen to custom voiceovers that appeal to their comfort-loving side, or adventurous side, or budget-conscious side (the why).

Inventory videos are a great way to make your VDP pages shine. However if you decide to go this route, make sure your customers are aware that you have these videos! One mistake that some dealers make is that once the videos are created, they get buried somewhere or can only be accessed via a tiny button somewhere that may have a video symbol but no real call to action.

Fortunately many website vendors are realizing that VDPs need to be re-designed (only slightly) so that videos are more visible. If your dealership is creating inventory videos, make sure your videos can be seen! Here are a few tips:

1) Add a video slider or widget featuring inventory videos on the homepage of your website so your online visitors know that you have videos.

2) Make sure your inventory videos are clearly visible on your VDPs

3) Create a landing page for each inventory video. This will make it easy for your shoppers to have access to your value proposition, customer testimonial or additional inventory videos without having to search your site. More importantly, it puts these videos in front of your shopper at a time of the buying cycle where they can have the biggest impact on your sales. Your landing page should also include a call to action and a lead form.

4) Give your videos emotional appeal! Use professional voice over, music, banners and intros to convey your dealership's personality and make the customer want more.

The fact is online merchandising efforts have a greater reach and more impact on potential car buyers than merchandising efforts on your lot. As appealing as that purple inflatable gorilla may be, inventory videos are bound to give you more bang for your buck.

Virtual Reality has been quite a craze recently with video gaming and other consumer electronics. However, the high cost of entry and expensive units limited its reach. Even Google’s cardboard VR glasses required smartphones that cost upwards of $700. The Oculus Rift Goggles were even more expensive and required high-end computers to work.

Now, however, Sony has provided a more cost-effective way for consumers to experience VR with the release of VR glasses designed for use with the Playstation 4 game console. With an installed base of 44 million Playstation 4 owners, the glasses instantly sold out on pre-order and are still hard to acquire, which illustrates the high demand for VR experiences. This release immediately made Virtual Reality readily available for mass consumption.

But if you think 44 million is a lot, what about rolling out Virtual Reality to over 2 billion consumers?

Well, that’s about to happen!

In a recent article, Facebook’s CTO revealed a roadmap for the future of Virtual Reality. As you may or may not know, Facebook owns Oculus Rift. However, according to Facebook, their plans for the future of VR for Facebook users do not include Oculus Rift. Instead, Facebook is working on a standalone product that will make Virtual Reality glasses which are integrated with Facebook “cheaper, easy to use and highly distributed.”

The project, named StandAlone, could instantly thrust Virtual Reality into almost every consumer’s hands, transforming it into common use in all areas including conversations via messaging (both audio and video), marketing and content on Facebook’s platform. Imagine experiencing all of the content posts and marketing messages in a VR setting.

Many automakers are currently implementing or actively working on their own VR experiences. And a few already have VR content in place. Virtual Reality is here and consumers are pursuing and embracing this technology. With the cost of entry decreasing and consumer adoption increasing, Facebook’s VR glasses could instantly change the game.

Dealerships that aren’t prepared or that have not already implemented VR experiences with their inventory merchandizing may find themselves scrambling as this technology is increasingly in the hands of consumers. VR isn’t going away, and it is not a fad. It’s also not the future. It’s the now.

Are you prepared?

Car shoppers still hate to visit dealerships. Ask them why and they'll tell you they don't like pushy salespeople, they're afraid of being ripped off and that buying a car still takes too much time (among other reasons).

In an attempt to banish these customer fears, dealerships come up with marketing slogans like, "No haggle guarantee," and "Your friendly neighborhood dealer." But car shoppers remain skeptical. They take to social media, ask friends for recommendations and read online reviews. And increasingly, they're watching videos.

Video is by far the most powerful communications medium because it taps into our emotion at a sub-conscious level. As human beings we evolved to pay attention to how other humans talk. We interpret their body language. We sense their sincerity. Our very survival can depend upon whether we decide to trust someone--or not.

Instead of telling prospects to trust you, show them they can trust you with videos designed to banish their fears. Create a video showroom on your website that mirrors your sales process and answers your customer's biggest question: "How will I be treated when I visit this dealership?"

Once you have some good video content, your strategy needs to evolve around getting this video content in front of the right shopper at the right time. Just throwing it on the Homepage or About Us pages of your website doesn’t solve the problem.

Think about it: you train your sales team to “sell the dealership, sell themselves, and then sell the car” when taking an up. This should also be your strategy on your website. Your value proposition and testimonial videos need to be on a landing page along with your inventory videos. So when shoppers click to watch your inventory videos, you are selling the dealership and building trust when it matters most. 

What videos should you include on your inventory video landing page?  Here are some great ideas:

Value Proposition Videos. After a car shopper decides which make and model they want, the next question they ask is, "Where should I buy it from?" Your video showroom should contain several value proposition videos that give your customers reasons to buy from you.

These videos may have titles like, "Family owned," "Community involvement," "Huge selection of vehicles," or "Fair and upfront pricing."

Educational Videos. First-time customers and even repeat customers who have not purchased in a while may not know what to expect when they visit your dealership. One of the best ways you can avoid disappointing customers is to set expectations. Create at least one video that takes the customer step-by-step through the process of buying a car. Tell them how much time it will take and explain why each step is necessary.

Customer Testimonials. Today's car shoppers want social proof. It's critical to have several customer testimonials in your video showroom that show ordinary people talking about why they like your dealership. When videotaping your testimonials, ask your customers to share what their biggest fear was, and how it turned out they had nothing to fear at all.

Intro Videos. Introduce your general manager, sales manager, service manager and parts manager with personal profile videos. Ensure that the subject is at ease and comes across as likable and friendly. People want to do business with people they like. Video can immediately create that perception, giving your prospects the feeling that they already know and like your staff.

The more you can remove your prospects' fears and objections, the more you should see an increase in calls, appointments and ups.

What are you customers' greatest fears? Do you have ideas for videos that will banish those fears?

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.

Video content is now the preferred medium for consumers and statistics show that consumer Internet traffic for online video will increase by 80% by the year 2018. That’s not too far away.

And, when both are presented on the same page, consumers would rather watch a video than read text. For that simple reason, video content simply converts better.

There are many types of video content and unless you devote (or outsource) this content, it can be difficult and take some hard work to produce all of the different types of video you need. This can include: Pre-Roll; PPC & Re-Targeting video campaigns; promotional; model comparison; video email campaigns; in-market video display; new model test drive; value proposition; testimonial; inventory lead follow up; delivery; service department; and, finally, life cycle marketing videos. Are you overwhelmed yet?

While all of these are important, I would like to help simplify this for you by focusing on the five types of video content that have the biggest impact on conversions, leads and sales.

Here are the five types of video content you should focus on:

1. New Model Test-Drive – According to Google, the top three types of video content that auto shoppers are searching for are: test-drives, features & options and vehicle walkthroughs. In fact, the time consumers spend watching these kinds of videos has doubled in the past year. For this reason, if you fail to provide this video content for your customers, I guarantee that they will watch it on someone else’s website! If your competitor has New Model Test-Drive videos and you don’t, they may be getting the shopper into their funnel higher in the buying cycle -- and you may lose them before you even get started!
2. Inventory – Your VDP pages on both your website and 3rd party sites are THE most important advertisements your inventory could have. You spend a lot of money trying to get traffic on those pages. However, it’s becoming harder to differentiate your dealership from VDPs by your competition. Most websites are very similar – especially the VDP pages – and you really don’t have much control of the content you can put on them. So how do you create a more compelling VDP page that sets your vehicle apart from all of the other similar ones? Through video. Yes, perhaps you think it’s difficult to take full motion videos of each of your vehicles. But here’s the thing: video is no longer an option. If you can’t do it, have your lot service do it. If neither of these is an option for you, then use automated services that stitch together the phots into a video format. Why? Because they work. Your time on site will increase by 20% or more, videos will have an average completion rate of upwards of 75%, lead form conversions will increase by 20% and engagement by 200%! Inventory videos have a significant impact and are ridiculously inexpensive to create.
3. Value Proposition – As much as shoppers are looking for a vehicle to fall in love with, they are also looking for a dealership and salesperson they can trust. One of the first things you train a new salesperson to do is to sell the dealership, then themselves and then the car, right? Why would you do it any differently when the “salesperson” that the customer first encounters is your website? Consumers simply want a dealership that they can trust to be fair and honest with them. That’s what this type of video content is designed to achieve.
4. Testimonials – These videos reinforce the trust factor and compliment your value proposition videos with a combination of selling both the dealership and the salesperson. Consumers trust other consumers and video testimonials are a powerful way to show potential customers that previous customers had a great car-buying experience with your dealership and/or salesperson. They also show that it was so good that they were willing to broadcast it publicly via a video testimonial. People communicate through tone and body language – something that text cannot fulfill. Video, on the other hand, can. Prospective customers watching your testimonial videos can identify with, understand and be influenced by that testimonial, just as if the person giving the testimonial was standing in front of them.
5. Lead Follow-up – When consumers submit inquiries via third party sites, oftentimes they are contacted by more than one dealership. Even if they convert on your own website, the chances are great that they are also cross-shopping you with your closest brand competitor. Most e-mails coming from dealership CRMs are templates. Consumers can smell these a mile away. They know these weren’t created specifically for them. If you send these, the consumer isn’t going to be impressed. However, sending a personalized video e-mail, makes an impression. In fact, it makes so great an impression that video e-mails see a 200% higher click-through rate and 80% get more replies. They also have a 70% higher conversion rate and 65% of the consumers watch 100 percent of the video!

Starting your video marketing with a focus on these 5 types of video content should immediately increase VDP views, conversions and, ultimately, sales. Keep in mind, however, that simply creating the videos is only the first piece of the puzzle. You can create all of the video content you want but if you aren’t doing it with a strategy in place, you may find less success.

In my next blog, I’ll show you what a strategy looks like, how to implement it and why choosing WHERE your videos are is extremely important.

Ever since reviews have risen in popularity, dealerships have mostly focused on written reviews -- they were the most prominent in search engine results and on third party sites.

This worked pretty well for a while. However, with the rise in the importance of reviews, some companies chose to act unscrupulously and falsely boosted their reputation by posting fake reviews. As word of this spread in the media, consumers became increasingly skeptical of ANY reviews. These days, if a consumer lands on a dealer’s review site and sees all 5-star reviews, they tend to discount those reviews as filtered, or perhaps solicited by the dealership. They feel they are not a true reflection of how the customers really view the dealership.

Well, in today’s digital age, there is a fairly simple solution to this problem. We have found that testimonial videos can help. In fact, they have a very powerful effect. Humans naturally tend to read a person visually. Body language and inflection can go a long way to convince a viewer of the sincerity of the customer giving the testimonial. And, the viewer can SEE that it’s a real live person.

Dealers who work with their customers and film quality video testimonials find that these videos are one of the most powerful influencing factors in convincing potential buyers that they should choose that dealership over any competition.

That being said, there is more to creating an effective and compelling testimonial video than simply pressing the record button.

Here are three tips that should help take your testimonial videos to the next level:

1. First and foremost, remember that stories sell. Simply convincing a customer to allow you to film a testimonial may feel like a win. However, a customer testimonial which shows a monotone, expressionless customer, may not be the most effective. Consider prepping your customer before the video. Help them to get comfortable in front of the camera and ask them to tell a story. Perhaps they can describe a pain point in their car buying or service experience and talk about how your dealership solved it for them. Or they could compare the experience at your dealership to past experiences at other dealerships that may not have gone quite as smoothly.
   
   In some cases, you may want to spoon feed the customer to keep them talking and to get the content that you want. So, an interview format, versus just asking the customer to talk, may work better   Ask the customer what their fears were prior to service and how they feel now, post service.  The questions part of the conversation can then simply be edited out of the video, leaving just the comments.
   
   Also, it can take a 'roll' of perhaps 200 shots to get the one or two that you are looking for!  So remember this when setting up your customer expectations for any interview. To keep it natural, take your time to keep the conversation going - assure the customer that they can take as many takes as needed. Then keep it short. It's okay to edit down to the 45 seconds of gold. You can keep the customer conversation long, to keep them comfortable and talking naturally. But do keep the final clip short.
   
   And a word of caution here: If the customer mentions that they had a better experience at your dealership, ask them not to name the dealership where they had a poor experience. Just as it is bad form to talk negatively about your competition, posting a review in which a customer does so would also be frowned upon by other customers.
    
2. Another option is to have the customer share a concern they had about doing business with your dealership and then share how impressed they were or how you alleviated that concern. For example, statements such as: “I was concerned that the price would be too high but I ended up getting a really good deal.” Or, “I was afraid that bringing my car here for an oil change would take too long, but I was out of here in 30 minutes!”
    
3. Last, but not least: As is true for all great content, make sure that you have a powerful headline for the video. Simply saying “Mary Jones Customer Testimonial,” really isn’t going to compel someone to click the play button. Consider headlines that address the pain point such as, “Mary was concerned that our prices would be too high…” Or, “Concerned that Servicing Your Vehicle Here Will Take Too Long?” These type of headlines will attract attention. Potential customers with similar concerns will be compelled to watch the video.

Customer testimonial videos are definitely something that dealerships should adopt in any video marketing strategy. The videos should be displayed prominently on the website and can be used for all sorts of purposes. Incorporate them into follow up emails for any Internet leads. Or edit into a compelling “Why Buy from Us?” video.

If your customers’ have a great experience, many of them will be willing to share that experience with the world. All you have to do is ask --and have your smartphone or video camera ready when they say “Yes!”

Make a commitment today to begin interacting with your customers and start collecting video testimonials. You won’t regret it.

In my last blog I discussed micro-moments – the critical moments, as defined by Google, in a customer’s car buying journey. I also covered the importance of having a strategy that caters to and attracts a customer’s attention at each touch point.

The 5 moments Google defines as important are: Which car is best? ; Is it right for me? ; Can I afford it? ; Where should I buy it? And, Am I getting a deal?  

In this blog, I’d like to share exactly which types of video you can create to cater to buyers at each of those critical moments. More importantly, I want to share the secret to “mastering the moments” using video content. 

As you know, a successful marketing strategy isn’t about simply providing a car buyer with content, it is using the content that the car buyer is looking for to attract them into your sales funnel while moving them from stage to stage throughout the entire buying cycle. This is no different with Video Marketing.

One of the biggest mistakes I see dealerships make is to satisfy the consumer’s quest for a particular type of information (moment) in a video and then leave it up to the consumer to search and find the information that is now critical to the next moment.

The secret to “mastering the moments” is to make certain to provide the content (or quick access to the content) for the next “moments” at the same time you are satisfying the current moment. In this way, you make it easy for the shopper to move from one moment to the next, become a trusted source of information to the shopper and keep them in your sales funnel.

1. Which car is best? – This phase is typically the beginning of any car buyer’s journey. The moment can be as quick as seeing a car they like and deciding they want it; to as long as knowing they need a new car, but having no idea which will work for them. Of course, consumers have many choices in vehicle brands and your objective at this point is to convince a shopper that your brand is the best decision for them.

This moment is heavily dominated by OEM advertising, as brands compete for return and conquest buyers. Unfortunately, you aren’t just competing against other brands, you are competing against other dealerships that offer the same brands that you offer as well.  This means that you must provide the same (or similar) content as your OEMs so that you will attract the car buyers to your “path to the sale.”  To help the customer make that decision about “which car is best?” be sure to market your own Model Review and Model Comparison videos.

This phase is also heavily influenced by the shopper’s peers and automotive experts, so Review Videos and video content containing “user experience” from “other shoppers” are great types of videos to market at this phase as well. Shoot a couple of quick videos of a new customer talking about their experience with a previous brand and why they chose you (your brand) this time, versus the brand they were driving.

Most importantly, now that you’ve satisfied the shopper’s quest for information at this moment, make it easy for the shopper to move on to the next moments by having your “Is it right for me”; “Can I afford it”; “Where should I buy it”; and “Am I getting a good deal” content available at the same time and from the same location as your “Which car is best” content.  Another important trick at this time is to also ask the shopper if they would like a “personalized walkaround” of any particular Model, Trim, or a specific vehicle from your inventory.

2. Is it right for me? – Now that a shopper is feeling confident about their direction after their research in the previous moment, they need to start looking at specific vehicle features to make certain that they match their wants and needs.  You can easily move the shopper from the “Which car is best” moment to the “Is it right for me” moment by having New Model Test Drive, Trim Specific Features & Options, and VIN Specific Inventory Videos available for the shopper to watch at the same time they are watching their “Which car is best” video content.

This is another great time to utilize the “Request a Personalized Walkaround” call to action, as mentioned above. It is at this moment that the shopper will start having some very real questions that only the dealership can answer. 

3. Can I afford it? – Now that you’ve moved the shopper through the “Is it right for me” moment and they can visualize themselves owning a particular vehicle, you can make it extremely easy to move the shopper to the “Can I afford it” moment by having content such as Rebates, Incentives, and Special Pricing dynamically display on each video that is relevant.  Make certain that this content is able to update in real-time so that it can be continually updated without having to create new video content.

You can include quick access conversion widgets on your videos such as Get Pre-Approved, Receive a Lease Quote, Value Your Trade, etc., so that the shopper doesn’t have to leave the video of the vehicle that they are interested in to go searching for their “Can I afford it” answers.  The easier you make the process for a shopper, the more shoppers will stay in your pipeline, trust you for their information, and will not have to venture off to go looking for the information they are seeking. 
 

4. Where should I buy it? – Now we get into more familiar video marketing territory. This stage is where “Why Buy from Us”; “Why Buy from Me”; and “Why Buy from Them (Testimonial) videos become extremely important. We know that people buy from people they like, and you have the ability at this moment to make a real emotional connection with a customer via video. Rather than simply being a website, or generic dealership, a good video can easily sway a customer into giving you the first crack at their business.

Remember, this moment doesn’t necessarily start at the end of the buying cycle, the shopper is looking for someone to trust throughout the entire buying cycle.  Each of these videos should in fact be included for each moment, along with all of the previously mentioned videos.

Again, don’t make the consumer think about what they want to do next and then have to go find the content. Have the content there and lead the consumer from moment to moment.

Once the shopper does reach out to you with any question throughout the entire buying cycle, the use of Lead Response and Appointment Confirmation videos will have a huge impact on building that trust relationship with the shopper and satisfy the “Where should I buy it” moment  through the relationship that you’ve built. 

5. Am I getting a deal? – If a customer has followed your lead throughout their car buying journey, the answer to this question, while important, almost becomes insignificant. People are willing to pay more for a vehicle if they feel comfortable with the business, like their sales person, and have a great customer experience.

If, at this stage, you have provided the shopper with an excellent experience; and you focus your efforts on reassuring a customer that you will continue to provide them with an excellent experience after their purchase; you should be able to win their business -- even if a competitor is slightly less.

That said, Google states in their study that 50% of shoppers with mobile while standing on a competitor’s lot. So, not only is it important to have your Inventory Videos (as well as Testimonial Value Proposition videos) on your VDP Pages. It is also important to have your competitor’s Geo-Targeted so that you can present a “last chance” offer to a shopper when they watch your videos from one of your competitor’s lots -- and even receive an alert from your CRM if your video data is integrated with your CRM. 

While not all-inclusive, this list should get you off to a good start as far as having content available that helps consumers answer the questions posed in these five moments. And this will help to position your dealership at the top of the food chain for their business.

In video marketing, many people think that to simply start making videos is enough. While it’s certainly a great start, there’s actually a lot more to it. In fact, I’d even go so far to say that simply beginning to make video at your dealership is more like showing up for your first day of football practice. The coach didn’t simply split everyone into two teams and have a game -- chances are good that you did a whole bunch of running, pushups and other physical exercise until you threw up. You may have even done this twice a day -- in the summer -- and who knows how long it was before you actually -- wait for it -- touched a football! Do you think this practice, which happens every year on countless high school, college and professional football fields across the world doesn’t work? Of course it does. The point is that to be effective at the game, you must be in shape AND know the game plan!

I talk all of the time about the importance of having a strategy in your video marketing. That strategy includes multiple pieces -- only one of which is actually picking up a camera and taking video. You have to know the game plan for the video before you can ever make an effective one. Just like you need to know where your wide receiver will be before you throw the football.

An article by ThinkwithGoogle.com perfectly captures this strategy. The article discusses micro-moments and describes them as Want-to-Know moments. Want-to-go moments. Want-to-do moments and Want-to-buy moments. These are the critical opportunities for brands and, according to the article, are the new battleground. In these moments consumers take immediate action, demand quality, relevance and usefulness. And will give their business to the brands that accomplish this the best.

So, what’s the strategy they recommend brands follow to win with consumers?

1. Make a moments map. This means to simply identify the set of moments that your customer’s have in their journey. In a study released earlier this year by Google’s Automotive Division, the magic 5 moments are – which car is best, is it right for me, can I afford it, where should I buy it, and am I getting a deal. Keep in mind that these are only the buying moments. There are plenty of other moments. The buying journey is only one journey that leads them to your dealership. Service is another.
2. Understand customer needs in-the-moment. While this is very basic, it is also one of the most important parts of the strategy. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes at each phase that you identified in your moments map and ask yourself what they want to know or what would be most helpful. Remember that to win the game, you need to provide quality and relevance. And, above all, be useful!
3. Use context to deliver the right experience. Wherever possible, integrate context through geo-location or time of day to deliver experiences that feel as if your message was made just for them.
4. Optimize across the journey. It is important to have a presence at each phase of the customer’s journey. And also ensure that your content is optimized for whatever device they are on. It’s very possible that one moment is visited on a mobile device, while the customer may continue their journey on a desktop. Make sure that wherever they are, your video content is optimized to deliver the best customer experience.
5. Measure every moment that matters. This is one of the most important things in any marketing strategy, not just video. Inability to measure the successes (or failures) in your activities will inhibit you from discovering what actually works and will prevent you from increasing your effectiveness.

Don’t let the term micro-moments distract you. Each of these phases in the customer journey have always existed. The difference is that now almost everyone has the ability to access this information instantly from anywhere. So, the timelines have decreased exponentially. While it could take one customer months to get from the beginning of their journey to your dealership, it could very easily take another customer minutes to navigate through their whole journey.

Once you’ve created a strategy, the two-a-days are over. Now let’s pick up that camera and play some football!

It’s widely known that video walkarounds, email responses and other types of video attract more attention from car buyers and better engage them once they reach out to you. But, one of the biggest mistake I see most dealerships make is to neglect the service department in their video marketing efforts.

Most importantly, utilizing video in your service department is a key part of a complete Video Marketing Strategy, and an easy way to capture your service customer’s viewer profile (data) to match with your CRM records.  In other words, you can know if your service customer is also watching your inventory videos on touch-points such as AutoTrader or Cars.com, in addition to your own website, Facebook pages, Email Campaigns, Blogs, etc.  You can then leverage this knowledge by sending targeted messages to that service customer that include videos with offers specific to their vehicles of interest, while passing that data to your CRM to queue the customer up for Sales Follow Up. Essentially, the targeted messaging occurs via your existing videos in “real-time,” based off the data gathered from your video views. It’s re-marketing just as you would have through a Google Ad Campaign, except you are using your own videos and your own data.

Video can dramatically increase the service department’s footprint on your website and serve as a useful resource for your customers. It is also an excellent way to educate customers and increase service recommendation acceptance.

When customers drop their cars off for a scheduled repair, one of their biggest fears is an unnecessary upsell. Unfortunately this fear can create resistance to any repair recommendations. A short video created by the service adviser can help to alleviate this fear and provide "visual proof" that a repair is really needed.

Videos are far more effective than photos because the service adviser can explain how the old part is worn and compare it visually to the new part, along with an explanation of how important it is to get the repair done now. Additionally, advisers can mention the potential impact and costs of related problems that could be caused by not completing the service now.

Creating an upsell video simply involves two parts: the “why you need it” and the tutorial. The “why you need it” portion of the video plants the seed in the customer’s head that they had better get this taken care of soon or they are likely to end up with a more expensive repair, stranded on the side of the road, or possibly even in an accident.  The tutorial section shows how much work it really is to fix this issue, the cost of the parts, and the time involved with the fix; thus, justifying the cost of the repair. 

Once the upsell video is created, the adviser can text it directly to the customer so they can see the video on their mobile device and make a quick decision. You can remove additional fear and the “oh they’re just trying to up-sell me” mentality from the customer by delivering each video on a landing page that contains your Value Proposition Video, Service Manager Introduction Video, and a couple of Testimonial Videos so that the customer can quickly see that you have their best interest at heart and can be trusted.  

If the customer refuses the additional service, send them a "how to" (on the same landing page) so that they can appreciate how serious you believe this service is, and that it needs to be completed ASAP (even if they prefer to do it themselves).  The more you can help the customer understand that this about “their safety” and that you aren’t just trying to sell repairs that aren’t necessary, the more likely the customer will trust you and approve the additional repairs. 

These type of videos also create content on your website and increase the odds that your dealership will show up in service related searches (VSEO). You never know when someone searching for an answer will stumble across your service video and make the decision to choose your dealership for their service repair.