CRM integration elevates video content from marketing tool to active and actionable lead generator

Urbandale, IA--August 8th, 2016--Flick Fusion today announced the integration of its SmartFlicks video marketing platform with DealerHostsTM Technology Management Solution (TMS) 5.0, a hybrid lead management and CRM system. The integration enables car shoppers' video viewing data to be captured from auto dealers' websites, third-party listing sites like AutoTrader or Cars.com, and any touch-point that a video is viewed. The data is then transmitted to the DealerHosts CRM in real-time, where it is matched with customer records.

Sales teams are immediately alerted to customer video viewing behavior as it is occurring, giving them unprecedented and actionable insights and the ability to communicate with a shopper while they are still on a website and looking at a vehicle.

"Millions of people watch videos during the car purchasing process, but until now there hasn't been a way for auto dealers to track and leverage that information in real-time back to existing customer data," said Tim James, COO of Flick Fusion. "This integration adds a new level of visibility for DealerHost's customers that doesn't exist in any other automotive CRM."

The integration of video viewing data with a CRM elevates a dealership's video content from a marketing tool to an active and actionable lead generator. Dealership marketers will be able to directly attribute Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and ROI to their video marketing campaigns.

SmartFlicks provides access to the data and analytics behind dealership engagement videos so dealers can see how a shopper interacts with their video content; if they watched them, if they re-watched any product-specific portions, if they watched a few videos in a row, how long they watched and more. These insights can now be stored right in the CRM contact records, presenting the industry with the most comprehensive analytics tool and giving dealers the most complete picture of their customers, new and old, at their fingertips.

Once video viewing data is matched to existing customer records in the DealerHosts CRM, real-time alerts are triggered and sent to the sales team. If there are no previous customer records to match, a new record is created when a shopper contacts the dealership. The dealership can immediately send that lead a video email, capturing their data and matching them against their database.

"The integration with Flick Fusion's platform provides our dealership customers with a level of actionable intelligence they can use in their lead follow-and marketing processes, greatly increasing the number of lead responses and appointments," said Tony Ray Munson, CEO of DealerHosts.

The integration of video viewing data with a CRM is also a great tool for reviving cold leads. In a typical CRM there may be thousands of leads nobody has contacted in two to ten years. With SmartFlick's advanced behavioral tracking capabilities, the DealerHosts CRM is able to notify its sales team that a cold lead is watching a Flick Fusion vehicle inventory video. The salesperson will instantly know that person is back in the market, what type of vehicles they're interested in, and will be able to contact them with offers designed for their needs.

Based upon the data captured, dealerships can create targeted, behavior-based marketing campaigns. The SmartFlicks advanced video marketing platform allows dealers to create dynamic video banner-ad campaigns that offer specific messages to car shoppers based on their video viewing behavior in real time.

Behavior-based marketing technology uses web analytics, cookies, browsing histories and IP addresses to create user profiles of individual consumers. When matched to customer profiles in a CRM, dealers are able to generate relevant and targeted messages that appeal to individual buyer interests, and to send real-time alerts to the sales team throughout the entire buying cycle.

To see a demo of Flick Fusion's inventory videos and the SmartFlicks video marketing platform, visit Booth #243 at the Digital Dealer Convention and Expo in Las Vegas, NV.

For more information, visit www.flickfusion.com

About DealerHosts

DealerHosts is a complete digital marketing and communication solution designed to simplify the many touchpoints a dealership has to manage with the ever-growing technology required to manage your customers.

We provide custom websites with many industry firsts and a flexible mobile platform that allows customization and ease of use.

Our CRM, or as we like to call it our TMS (Technology Management Solution), is a true mobile designed platform, allowing you to always be connected no matter where you are or what device you are using.

Our marketing packages make your data come to life with vibrant graphics, videos and images that will wow your customers.

Our (We Do It For You) packages are really a turnkey solution and our company attitude from every angle is to provide you with the tools, both software and services, allowing dealers to do what they want to do: sell and service more customers while we do the heavy lifting in the background.

Our goal is to give your customers what they deserve; great communication and an easy way to do business with you. Happy Customers are lifelong customers!

About Flick Fusion

Flick Fusion offers intelligent video marketing solutions to auto dealers, making it easy to create vehicle inventory videos, video emails, dealership branded videos and more. Flick Fusion's innovative SmartFlicks hosting, marketing and distribution platform delivers automated, integrated, rule and behavior-based video content in real-time across multiple channels throughout the entire purchase cycle.

With CRM integration, auto dealers can capture video viewer data from any touchpoint, match that data to customer records in the CRM, and receive real-time alerts when certain viewing parameters are met.

Flick Fusion's mission is to give every consumer a better car shopping experience. Video is proven to capture buyers' attention, build emotional value, increase organic SEO rankings and convert more website visitors into leads. Flick Fusion is the preferred video marketing platform of more than 4,500 dealership brands and partners.

Urbandale, IA--August 1st, 2016--Flick Fusion today introduced 360VR, a groundbreaking product that allows auto dealers to create and showcase virtual reality (VR) customer engagement videos on their websites, in email marketing, on social media, in mobile ads and on third-party auto shopping sites. Flick Fusion is first-to-market with a product designed exclusively for auto dealers that will revolutionize the way auto shoppers experience walk-around inventory videos.

"Virtual reality images are three-dimensional with a sense of depth that gives viewers a feeling of complete immersiveness," said Tim James, COO of Flick Fusion. "Auto shoppers feel like they're actually sitting in a vehicle, giving them a realistic experience and helping to set expectations for that vehicle."

To create a 360VR inventory video, dealerships or their inventory photo and video vendors will need to use a 360-degree camera, which are available to consumers and small businesses in a price range of $200 to $1,000.

Vehicle walk-around videos are filmed just like regular videos, with either a live or post-recorded audio voiceover highlighting features and benefits of the vehicle's interior and exterior. When the videotaping is complete, users can upload the video to Flick Fusion's SmartFlicks advanced video marketing platform, where additional informational and emotional content can be added automatically.

SmartFlicks will then distribute the completed VR inventory videos to the dealership's Vehicle Details Pages (VDPs), as well as to social sharing sites such as YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook, and to third-party auto shopping sites that utilize the Flick Fusion 360VR player. The completed VR videos will be hosted on the video marketing platform so dealers can easily insert them into mobile marketing email campaigns or on mobile ad landing pages.

Flick Fusion's video marketing platform is able to capture viewer data on 360VR videos in the same way it does on its regular videos. Viewing behavior can be tracked across multiple touchpoints, and real-time marketing and re-marketing messages can be delivered to the viewer based upon their viewing habits. Additionally, viewer identity may be matched with an account profile in the dealership's CRM and real-time alerts delivered to the sales team.

Auto manufacturers such as BMW, Volvo and Infiniti have experimented with virtual reality test drive video campaigns, and Cadillac is planning to use VR to create virtual dealerships. These OEM-produced immersive test drives are created with high-end VR camera equipment and CGI editing, but are too cost-prohibitive for auto dealers to emulate.

However, Flick Fusion's 360VR offers an affordable VR production alternative for single and multi-store auto dealers, so they too may benefit from the increased engagement and excitement surrounding the growing virtual reality phenomenon.

Global search interest for virtual reality videos grew by nearly four times on Google in the last year. Results from a Google ad study that was performed with Columbia Sportswear revealed that a VR video ad resulted in a 46% higher view count, as well as higher click-through rates, interaction rates, shares and subscribes. In all, Columbia's VR ad drove 41% more earned actions than their standard video ad.

"Dealerships that are first to offer virtual reality inventory videos will be marketing trail blazers," said James. "VR videos offer an incredibly high level of engagement and are especially appealing to Millennials, who are the fastest-growing consumer segment in the U.S. and who purchased more than 4 million vehicles last year."

Flick Fusion will be offering demos of its 360VR product and virtual reality inventory videos at Booth #243 at the Digital Dealer Convention and Expo in Las Vegas, NV.

Every booth visitor who sees the 360VR demo is entered into Flick Fusion's 360VR giveaway promotion. One winner will be chosen to receive a Ricoh Theta S 360-degree spherical digital camera and a HooToo 3D VR Headset.

For more information, visit www.flickfusion.com.

About Flick Fusion

Flick Fusion offers intelligent video marketing solutions to auto dealers, making it easy to create vehicle inventory videos, video emails, dealership branded videos and more. Flick Fusion's innovative SmartFlicks hosting, marketing and distribution platform delivers automated, integrated, rule and behavior-based video content in real-time across multiple channels throughout the entire purchase cycle.

With CRM integration, auto dealers can capture video viewer data from any touchpoint, match that data to customer records in the CRM, and receive real-time alerts when certain viewing parameters are met.

Flick Fusion's mission is to give every consumer a better car shopping experience. Video is proven to capture buyers' attention, build emotional value, increase organic SEO rankings and convert more website visitors into leads. Flick Fusion is the preferred video marketing platform of more than 4,500 brands and partners.

Urbandale, IA--July 20th, 2016--Flick Fusion announced today that it has been selected by What's Next Media, a leading video content provider for auto dealerships, as their preferred Video Marketing Provider. What's Next Media will leverage Flick Fusion's Smart Flicks marketing platform to host and distribute its customers' videos, providing auto dealers with dynamic videos that offer targeted messaging, as well as automated syndication for increased visibility.

“Andrew and the team at What’s Next Media provide a service that is critical to a dealership’s video marketing success," said Tim James, COO of Flick Fusion. "Their creation of high quality and engaging video content directly impacts the most important Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) a dealership has. We are excited to host their video content."

"As a video content provider, one of our biggest challenges is getting our video content in front of the right shoppers at the right time of the buying cycle," said Andrew Myers, President of What's Next Media. "Integrating our video content into Flick Fusion’s platform makes it extremely easy for us to get our videos where they need to be. This makes a dealer's video marketing strategy extremely relevant and actionable, changing the paradigm from 'I hope they watch this video,' to 'Based on past behavior, I know they'll want to watch this video.'"

Hosting videos on Flick Fusion's Smart Flicks platform automates the distribution of videos, increases the visibility of video content across the internet, provides advanced reporting for all videos from one location, applies a layer of emotional intelligence through the capture and utilization of the viewer data, and increases dealerships' search engine optimization (SEO) rankings, versus hosting videos on YouTube or similar video sharing websites.

Smart Flicks is the industry's most advanced video marketing platform, automating virtually every aspect of video marketing. Smart Flicks makes it easy and affordable for dealerships to engage with their customers with the right video content at the right time of the buying cycle.

"Being able to capture and leverage the video viewer's data is critical if you want to reach today's tech-savvy car shoppers," said James. "Consumers are bombarded with hundreds of marketing messages every day, so it really takes an emotionally engaging video with relevant, targeted messaging to cut through the clutter and get noticed."

What's Next Media produces a variety of high-quality video content for hundreds of dealers, including walk-arounds, branded model reviews, custom dealership videos, "Why Buy" videos and custom Service/Fixed Ops videos. For more information, visit http://www.whatsnext.pro

Live demos of dealership videos hosted on Flick Fusion's Smart Flicks platform will be available for viewing at Booth #243 at the 21st Digital Dealer Convention & Expo, August 8-10 in Las Vegas, NV. Learn more at www.flickfusion.com.

About What's Next Media

What’s Next Media makes message-based video programs exclusively for the auto industry, focusing on the combined effect of many shorter messages about dealerships. This unique combination of brand statements, department statements, testimonials, product presentations and more has proven to be an extremely powerful way for auto dealerships to engage customers!

About Flick Fusion

Flick Fusion offers a full-solution video hosting, marketing and distribution platform to automotive and other inventory-based industries. The platform delivers automated, integrated and rule/behavior-based, including geo-targeted, video content in real-time, across multiple touchpoints and throughout the entire purchase cycle.

Flick Fusion makes it easy for dealers to create desktop and mobile-friendly vehicle inventory videos, video email and customer engagement videos such as testimonials, service department overviews and more. Videos are proven to capture more buyers' attention, advance organic SEO rankings, generate leads and increase conversion rates. The Flick Fusion system builds emotional value and customer loyalty for more than 3,500 dealerships and preferred partners.

Is your dealership creating videos just to have lots of videos? Every video should have a purpose. Tim James explains why it's important to start with the end in mind.

The chances are pretty good that any email lead YOU receive is also sent to competing dealerships. That means the car shopper will get emails and phone calls from other salespeople looking to sell that customer a car. Unless the lead is on a unique used vehicle, your competitors have the same new vehicles in their inventory.

Therefore, reaching that customer quickly and effectively, while at the same time standing out from your competition, is vital in winning that customer’s business. The easiest way to do that is to build a personal relationship quickly – something every successful salesperson learns. While that may be easy in person, it becomes more of a challenge when the customer’s email inbox is barraged by auto-responders and other generic emails.

So, how do you stand out?

Well, personal video email responses are a very effective way to separate yourself and transform your email from just plain old text into a more dynamic, eye-catching and personal introduction.

Something you did on your VDP got their attention, whether that was on your website or a third-party listing site (hint: If you have video included in your listings, you’ll attract more customers). If that customer were in front of you and inquired about a vehicle, you would proceed to sell the dealership, then sell yourself, and then sell the vehicle. You would work to build a trusting relationship with the customer from the beginning. But, how do you sell your vehicle to a customer that’s not present?

The same, exact way!

The great thing about selling cars today is all of the technology that is now available to assist salespeople in facilitating a better online buying experience for the customer. Because of the Internet, customers are visiting less dealerships than ever – it’s now down to just about one dealership visited before the customer purchases, because now the customer can browse inventory in their pajamas at home.

Today, when you receive an Internet lead, video enables you to literally walk the customer around the vehicle explaining its features and benefits in a personalized way .This video can then be delivered to the customer on a landing page that contains your Value Proposition (Why Buy); and testimonial videos to sell the dealership; as well as your own introduction video to simultaneously sell yourself – all while you are selling the vehicle -- just as if they were on your lot.

Dealerships that do take the time to shoot personalized walkaround videos for Internet leads see a 20-40% increase in re-engagement, lead to appointment and lead to show rates. Car shoppers love them. They show a customer, whom you have not yet met in person, that you care about earning their business and will make the effort to get them the information they requested over and above the standard “when can you come in” message that exists in most first responses.  Combining personalized walkaround videos with the value proposition, testimonial, and your personal introduction video, will then multiply the emotional impact of your communication and significantly enhance the “trust relationship” that you so greatly covet. 

Being forthcoming, providing information and doing so in a personalized way with the use of video, allows you to “sell” the vehicle, build rapport and make the customer feel more at ease and amenable to coming into the dealership.

The customer will still want to inspect, touch, feel and drive the car and they can only do that in person at your dealership. Video, however, can whet their appetite and grab their interest and attention in ways that pictures can’t.

It may sound like a lot of work. Perhaps you are thinking you don’t have the right equipment. But hold on a minute – the fact is that you can use your existing inventory videos and personalize the audio -- all from the comforts of your office and without even having to walk out to the vehicle each time you need to shoot a personalized walkaround. You’ll quickly find out that the few minutes it takes you to personalize the audio of your existing video will pay dividends in increased sales and bigger paychecks.

You don’t have to be content with closing rates on Internet leads hovering in the 8-10 percent range. Maximize each and every opportunity you receive, blow your customers away with your responses, and put your competition out of the race by sending Internet leads personalized emails that use the power of video to sell your dealership, sell yourself, and truly sell the vehicle– then sit back and sell cars.

Urbandale, IA--July 5th, 2016--Flick Fusion today announced that its COO Tim James and Director of Marketing Gina Reuscher were both selected to speak at the 21st Digital Dealer Convention and Expo to be held August 8-10, 2016 at the MGM Grand Las Vegas Hotel & Casino. Both speaker presentations will focus on the growing importance of video marketing and how dealerships can incorporate this powerful medium into their marketing strategies.

"Digital Dealer is the premier event for automotive marketers and in recent years there has been a marked increase in interest for video marketing information," said Tim James, COO of Flick Fusion. "It's important for dealership marketers to realize that just because you can shoot and post videos, does not mean that you have an effective video marketing strategy."

In his session Five Videos That are Critical to Your Video Marketing Strategy, James will discuss what a true video marketing strategy is and how dealerships can maximize the informational and emotional value of their videos across all digital touch-points. Scheduled for Monday, August 8th at 9:00 a.m., attendees will learn:

• How to use videos to get more leads from your website and all digital touchpoints.
• How to get more of your leads to “re-engage” after the initial contact and setting an appointment
• How to get more customers to show up for their appointments with a higher percentage of those customers purchasing a vehicle.

Flick Fusion's Director of Marketing Gina Reuscher was also selected to speak at Digital Dealer 21. In her session titled Video Marketing #LikeAGirl, Reuscher will explain how both logic and emotion influence a car buyer's decision-making process, and how video is the #1 medium of choice of both brands and consumers for tapping into purchase-driving emotions. Reuscher's session is scheduled for Tuesday, August 9th at 9:30 a.m.

"The hashtag #LikeAGirl was created to empower girls and change the connotation of the phrase from negative to positive," said Reuscher. "My session is designed to empower both men and women to understand and tap into powerful motivators that make video the leading choice for digital advertising campaigns that drive more sales."

In today’s world, consumers listen with their eyes and think with their emotions. Session attendees will learn:

• The proven data behind why consumers' buying decisions are influenced much more by emotion than by logic
• How to create emotionally appealing videos
• How to use both technology and your own intuition to win the sale

Gina Reuscher is Director of Marketing at Flick Fusion where she oversees branding and marketing initiatives, and manages partner training and communications. Reuscher has over 20 years experience in digital and affiliate marketing, sales, product development, analytics and performance management.

Tim James is a dynamic sales and marketing strategist with more than 20 years of achievement and demonstrated success in driving multi-million dollar revenue growth, while providing visionary leadership. Tim has been a regular speaker at the Digital Dealer conferences and continues to receive rave reviews of his highly educational sessions.

For more information, visit booth #243 at the 21st Digital Dealer Convention or visit www.flickfusion.com.

About Flick Fusion

Flick Fusion offers a full-solution video hosting, marketing and distribution platform to automotive and other inventory-based industries. The platform delivers automated, integrated and rule/behavior-based, including geo-targeted, video content in real-time, across multiple touchpoints and throughout the entire purchase cycle.

Flick Fusion makes it easy for dealers to create desktop and mobile-friendly vehicle inventory videos, video email and customer engagement videos such as testimonials, service department overviews and more. Videos are proven to capture more buyers' attention, advance organic SEO rankings, generate leads and increase conversion rates. The Flick Fusion system builds emotional value and customer loyalty for more than 3,500 brands and preferred partners.

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.

Tim James, COO of Flick Fusion, shares tips on how to maximize the SEO value of your video content.

The first thing most people do when meeting someone new is to introduce themselves. This first meeting can quite easily dictate the future outcome of the relationship. If you come off as insincere or indifferent, the other party will probably not engage you again. However, greet someone with genuine interest and sincerity and you just might make a friend for life.

The same exact principal applies when introducing yourself to a customer that submits a lead or visits your website -- except for one small thing – you can’t see them.

Most dealers nowadays have some sort of value proposition content that they put in front of customers. It typically appears in the form of an e-mail template or written content on the website (your “About Us” page, for example). While this is better than nothing, it is certainly not the most effective way to meet someone. Human beings are driven by their emotions. Heck, oftentimes the simple act of buying a vehicle can be emotional. A value proposition done with video has a distinct advantage over any written message – the customer can see you. Humans communicate in more ways than just speech. We use our eyes and ears and monitor everything from body language to facial expressions. These subtle cues can sway whether we believe someone is sincere, sarcastic, lying or joking. Written content cannot as effectively project any of these on to a customer. And, since you cannot see or even know who you will be meeting with these online leads -- you should strive to create the best value proposition video possible.

What is a value proposition video, really? There’s a very simple answer to that question. A value proposition video is your dealership’s opportunity to convince a customer to choose to do business with you. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase that in any interaction someone is being sold. This is no different. You are trying to convince (sell) the customer of the fact that you are a good choice for them. If, when creating a value proposition video, you approach it as if you were tailoring the perfect elevator pitch, you’ll have a better idea of what you should say.

Here are a few tips about what a value proposition should and should not include, along with some techniques on how to interject a little personalization into these videos.

Make it short. – No customer is going to watch a 5-minute video about how great your dealership is. Plain and simple: If you can’t describe what you do, the problem you can solve for the customer, why you are different and why they should care, in 60 seconds, you should re-evaluate your value proposition.

Stop making it about you! – Most value propositions inevitably include statements such as “We’re the best!”; “We have the lowest price.”; “We’ve been in business for 187 years,” etc. Stop that. The customer is NOT meeting you, they are in the process of deciding whether they WANT to meet you. Do you see the difference? The more you can avoid using the pronouns “We” and “Us” and “Our” the better.

While most value proposition videos try to talk to EVERYONE, make yours more personable as if you were talking to an individual. Use pronouns such as “I” and (even better) “you.” The only person that matters at that specific moment in time is that one single customer. Craft your value proposition as if you were making it for that one person. And then proceed to make your video about them. If the video is going to be displayed on your website, your dealer principal or general manager should deliver the message. If the video is designed to be sent to a customer that submitted a lead online, the message should be delivered by the person sending the e-mail. This transforms the video from a generic, impersonal piece of content to one which will have greater meaning to the person watching.

I’m not saying that you have to make an individual video for each internet lead (although that would be a very powerful tool in your sales process), rather you should have one created for each dealership employee – whether that’s a manager, salesperson, internet manager or BDC rep – that responds to and interacts with customers who submit leads. Remember, this video is NOT a “Why Buy from Me,” that’s another topic. This is a “Why Buy from Us.”

An example of a “Why Buy from Us” word track delivered in a personal way is as follows:

“I can assure you that you’ll have a great buying experience here. You’ll find a great selection of vehicles and knowledgeable sales consultants who can assist you in finding the vehicle that best fits your family’s needs and budget. Just as my other customers have, you’ll want to keep coming back after you buy your vehicle here.”

That’s one great way to deliver a dealership value proposition in a way the customer feels as if you are talking to them, and that it is not all about the dealership.

Quality counts – If you are going to make a single video to be repurposed, ensure that the video is filmed, edited and presented in a high-quality and professional manner. Simply filming a selfie while standing against a wall is like showing up to a job interview dressed in shorts and flip flops. First impressions matter -- and you only get one chance to make one. So, make this one count. These may very well be the most important videos you make. Deliver them in a proper, professional way, and you’ll find that customers watch them and that they make the impact you’re searching for.

In the end, a value proposition video is not a commercial. It’s your first opportunity to convince a prospective customer why they should choose your dealership over your competition. Pulling this off successfully will start to build a relationship and trust in you and your dealership. And, once you have those, the odds of you winning the business increase exponentially.

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.