Urbandale, IA – August 14, 2017 – Flick Fusion today announced that VehiclesTEST, a content creator of independent test-drive videos, has selected Flick Fusion's SMARTFLICKS as its new video hosting and marketing platform. VehiclesTEST conducts independent road tests on the new Honda and Toyota models and creates broadcast-quality test-drive videos. Dealerships subscribe to the VehiclesTEST-SMARFLICKS feed and display the videos on website home pages, inventory pages, social media pages and more.

"We have admired the professionalism and high-quality content of VehiclesTEST’s videos for a long time, and we're very excited to be selected as its video host moving forward," said Tim James, COO of Flick Fusion. "We're even more excited for VehiclesTEST’s customers and the extra benefits they'll receive now that VehiclesTEST is utilizing SMARTFLICKS to help them get their video content in front of the right shoppers at the right time in the buying cycle."

"We selected Flick Fusion SMARTFLICKS because viewing a VehiclesTEST video on a mobile phone is as good—or better—as it is on a desktop," said Doug Thompson, Publisher of VehiclesTEST. "In addition to hosting, VehiclesTEST-SMARTFLICKS offers advanced marketing and distribution features that will help to increase organic SEO rankings, conversion rates and generate more leads for our dealership subscribers."

According to the Google report "The 5 Auto Shopping Moments Every Brand Must Own," test-drive videos are one of the top three types of video content that car shoppers search for, along with videos that show features and options and vehicle walkthroughs.

VehiclesTEST's test-drive videos include highway and city footage with commentary on the actual use of the vehicle, objective performance data on speed and acceleration, fuel economy results and highlights of new and improved features designed to help buyers make an informed purchase decision right on the dealer's website.

Watch the VehiclesTEST Honda Odyssey video road test: https://www.yonkershonda.com/new-honda-odyssey

Watch the VehiclesTEST Toyota C-HR video road test: http://www.dwtoyotalasvegas.com/new-inventory/index.htm?search=&model=C-HR&year=2018&gvBodyStyle=SUV

Flick Fusion's SMARTFLICKS is the industry's most advanced video marketing platform. SMARTFLICKS makes it easy and affordable for resellers to engage with their dealership clients' customers by offering up the right video content at the right time in the buying cycle. All VehiclesTEST test-drive videos hosted on SMARTFLICKS are viewable on mobile devices.

For more information visit www.flickfusion.com

About VehiclesTEST

VehiclesTEST.com traces its roots back to 1999, when co-founder Chris Kelly revolutionized the marine industry with online test videos by creating the award-winning BoatTEST.com. Since 2007, VehiclesTEST.com has produced high-energy performance-oriented video test reviews on cars, trucks and SUVs. VehiclesTEST.com shoots all of its own Honda and Toyota B-roll footage, fully fuel and speed tests all vehicles, and publishes those reports so the prospective buyer can review objective information from a third-party source.

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 4,500 auto dealerships through a network of 80 to 100 resellers.

22-Page Report Summarizes Market Potential and Provides In-Depth Evaluation of Flick Fusion's Smart Flicks Video Marketing Platform

Urbandale, IA--July 17, 2017--Flick Fusion today announced that PCG Research, a premier product research provider for retail automotive companies, released an in-depth evaluation of Flick Fusion's Smart Flicks video marketing platform. The 22-page report concludes that video marketing presents a 'massive opportunity' for auto dealerships as the popularity and consumption of videos by car shoppers rise.

"If your dealership is considering a video marketing solution, or if you are a reseller and your dealers are asking for videos, this report will answer all of your questions about what a video marketing solution can do and whether Smart Flicks is right for you," said Tim James, COO of Flick Fusion.

The report offers a detailed explanation of how Smart Flicks works and where to get it. It includes a sample case study of how a dealership has used videos to increase business, shares insight and opinions of resellers and gives an in-depth review of Smart Flicks' reporting tools.

The report also summarizes best practices for how auto dealerships can best utilize a video library, and makes recommendations for marketing, service, sales, and general branding.

Additionally, a complete list of Smart Flick's video marketing platform components is provided along with summaries of each. Flick Fusion designed Smart Flicks so it would be easy for dealers to start with the basics, such as inventory videos, then add different components as they grow comfortable with scaling up their video marketing campaigns and trying new strategies.

Components reviewed in the report include:

• Automated inventory stitched videos
• Full motion video
• Personalized walk arounds
• Vid2Pic
• Live Video Upload (LVU)
• Vidmail (video emails)
• Vidmagnet (SEO tool)
• Geo-targeting tool
• Retargeting tool
• Video equity offers
• Facebook app
• New model test-drive videos
• Human voiceover videos
• InstaVid

PCG Research provides comprehensive product research for the automotive community. The PCG Research evaluation of Smart Flicks is available free to auto dealerships and resellers including chat companies, website developers, email marketing agencies, lot service providers, video production companies and more.

For more information and to download the report, visit http://flickfusion.com/case-study-pcg-research-smart-flicks/

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 5,000 auto dealerships through a network of 80 to 100 resellers.

Those of you with spouses have probably heard this at least once: "It's not what you say, it's how you say it!" Whether at home or at work, miscommunication can cause plenty of problems.

Have you ever misinterpreted the tone of an email that a colleague wrote to you? Perhaps you thought a tersely written email meant that person was angry, but in fact, they were just rushed. Or someone joked about something in an email, but you took offense because you thought they were serious?

Miscommunication is so common that it's one of the main reasons why some dealerships require BDC staff and salespeople to use templates for customer communications. And it's why some CEOs are issuing video recommendations to employees, instead of email memos.

Videos allow people to see how you're saying something, leaving little room for error in the interpretation of what you're saying. In fact, videos are so effective at expressing personality and tone that it's become trendy for job seekers to send video resumes to prospective employers.

Let's face it: a public perception still exists that in general, car dealers are not humble, caring or honest. One bad experience with an overeager or aggressive salesperson is all it takes to forever sour the car-buying experience for a consumer.

As a dealer, how do you change this perception? You could try creating marketing slogans and post them on your website, in ads and in emails, but words by themselves don't have much impact. Online consumers are very adept at scanning information to find out what's important to them; which isn't necessarily what the dealership thinks is important. We all have the ability to ignore or visually 'tune out' messages right before our eyes.

When a consumer watches a video, however, it's not as easy to tune out the message. Videos offer a multimedia experience with live action, sounds and sights, so the entire message is absorbed. Retention rises too. Video viewers retain 80% of what they hear and see in videos, versus just 10% of what they hear and 20% of what they see.

This is partly due to the fact that so much of our communication is non-verbal. Think about your own experiences. Have you ever had a customer service experience and were put off by the customer service rep, even though they were saying all the right things? Perhaps you believed the person wasn't truly sincere. Or perhaps their tone started getting defensive, leaving you with the impression that they didn't care about your problem.

When we communicate, we pick up multiple cues from facial expressions, gestures and tone. This happens largely on a sub-conscious level, but the end result--the emotion we feel--is very conscious.

If you're looking for ways to improve customer perception and communications at your dealership, try creating the following videos.

• A value proposition video that features a dealer or other company spokesperson showing, not telling, what your dealership has to offer

• Vehicle walk around videos that generate emotion and excitement about your inventory

• Customer testimonial videos that feature real customers saying nice things about your staff; these do a lot to alleviate car shoppers' fears about a bad experience

• Lead follow up videos from salespeople that engage car shoppers; if the salesperson comes across as likeable, these greatly increase the probability of response

• Service videos that feature service staff help to build trust and the perception of honesty

Of course, you have to make sure that your videos are conveying not just the right message, but the right tone. When you first start to create videos, ask as many people as you can for their objective and true opinions. Don't get emotionally attached to the videos you've created, and don't get defensive if the feedback from others isn't what you want to hear. The last thing you want to do it spend time and money creating videos that turn prospective customers off.

Video communication is powerful, so use it wisely. More than two million years of evolution has equipped most humans with the ability to accurately sense insincerity, arrogance and plain old hogwash. So say what you mean, and if you don't truly mean it, don't say it.

Urbandale, IA--April 3rd, 2017--Flick Fusion, the auto industry's leading video marketing services provider, today announced that Advantage Dealer Services (ADS) has significantly boosted key metrics in email marketing campaigns with the addition of Flick Fusion videos. Compared to email marketing campaigns sent without video, video emails increase open rates by 20 to 30 percent, click through rates by 20 percent, and time on site by 25 to 35 percent.

Based in Suwanee, GA, ADS is a digital marketing agency specializing in email conquest campaigns. ADS serves nearly 400 auto dealerships nationwide and sends out 10 million emails weekly. Three years ago they began utilizing video emails and today incorporate video into approximately 35 percent of their email campaigns.

"It's pretty clear that most consumers today would rather watch a video as a way to get information, versus looking at a static landing page," said Michael Jaber, owner of ADS. "Leveraging video is such a natural for auto dealers because videos give a dealership's inventory so much more appeal with action, sights and sounds."

ADS selected Flick Fusion as its video marketing platform of choice because Flick Fusion is an industry leader and their overall value proposition was the most attractive. "They're one of the best in the business with turnaround time and responsiveness as far as I'm concerned," said Jaber. He adds that the Flick Fusion platform makes setting up video landing pages quick and easy, which is helpful in the fast-paced business of email marketing.

One of the most watched metrics in email marketing is the open rate. Adding videos to email marketing campaigns has increased the open rate approximately 20 percent. ADS' average email campaign open rate without videos ranges from 10 to 12 percent; but with the addition of videos, that average increases to 12 to 15 percent. "Most dealers get an average 10 percent open rate from their own database, so the fact these are conquest campaigns delivering those open rates is quite exceptional," said Jaber.

Video emails deliver a similar boost in the click-through-rate (CTR), another closely measured metric. To increase CTRs, ADS overlays a big 'play' button on top of a picture from the video, which is the universally recognized symbol for 'this is a video.' When a customer clicks on the picture, it immediately takes them to a video landing page on the dealership's website where the video begins to play. ADS also includes incentives in emails that encourage prospects to click on the video, such as "Smart Trade, Guaranteed Offer on Their Trade-In," or "Watch this video to see the latest cash-back offers."

Another way to increase the CTR is to include multiple links in every email, all of which lead to the dealership's website. "We typically have dozens of links in every email," said Jaber. ADS' video emails often include stacked banners featuring photos of vehicles, and if a prospect clicks anywhere on the banner they will be taken to the video landing page.

One of the most important metrics to many dealers is time spent on site. Video emails that link to video landing pages have increased time on site by 25 to 35 percent. "This is a huge number when you're getting quality visitors, and dealers really like to see this kind of increase," said Jaber.

To increase time on site, Jaber ensures that the offer made in each email matches the offer on the video landing page. "Some email marketing companies will send out emails that make an offer, but when the customer clicks on it, they are taken to the dealership's home page or another section of the site and the offer is not there," said Jaber. If the email is promoting an offer on a particular Toyota, then the landing page needs to mirror that exact same offer.

Another best practice that ADS finds effective for increasing time on site is to ensure that navigation links are clearly visible on video landing pages. "You want to make it easy for the consumer to be able to navigate out of the video landing page to other parts of the dealership's website," said Jaber.

For ADS, video emails have significantly increased key metrics and email campaign results when compared to email marketing campaigns sent without videos. "Many dealers in hypercompetitive areas are trying to leverage technology to differentiate themselves, and videos are definitely an effective method for doing that," said Jaber.

For more information, stop by Booth #104 at the Digital Dealer Conference or call Flick Fusion at (800) 247-2502 or 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--March 30th, 2017--Flick Fusion today announced that COO Tim James will be speaking at the 22nd Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition in Tampa, FL. On Wednesday, April 12th at 2:30 p.m. James will present "Mastering Google's Five Critical Micro Moments with Video -- Creating a Video Marketing Strategy to Maximize the Effectiveness of ALL of Your Video Content and Deliver Measurable ROI through an Increase in Leads, Appointments, Shows, and Sales."

"Google has identified five critical micro moments in the automotive buying cycle that are critical for dealerships to master," said Tim James, COO of Flick Fusion. "In this session I'm going to share how to use video to reach car shoppers during each of these moments and also how to effectively use video to walk shoppers down funnel, to get them off the Internet and into your store."

In this session, James will break the micro moments down and identify how your dealership can effectively utilize video to drive more traffic to your website, get more of your website visitors to engage with your VDP Pages, contact your dealership, get more of your leads to set appointments, and get more of your appointments to show.

Session attendees will learn:

• How to establish a video marketing strategy that targets Google's five critical micro moments in the automotive buying cycle
• How to to maximize the effectiveness of ALL your video content to drive additional website traffic, increase conversion, increase lead/appointment ratios, increase appointment show rates, and increase sales. 
• How to start and scale your video marketing strategy so you receive measurable results without having to spend a lot of money

Tim James is a dynamic sales and video marketing strategist with more than 20 years of achievement and success in driving multi-million dollar revenue growth. 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 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.

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

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

1) Motivation

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

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

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

2) Internal Resources

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3) Dealership Volume

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Urbandale, IA--December 19th, 2016--Flick Fusion announced today a new partnership with AutoBase (www.autobase.com), a leading provider of inventory merchandising solutions for auto dealerships. AutoBase selected Flick Fusion's Smart Flicks video marketing platform to provide its customers with a full-service solution for implementing video marketing strategies. AutoBase customers can now easily create and distribute inventory videos, personalized walkaround videos, dealership value proposition videos, customer testimonial videos and more.

"The quality of a dealership’s online merchandising is more important now than it has ever been, and AutoBase does a great job providing dealerships with the tools needed to merchandise inventory across the Internet," said Tim James, COO of Flick Fusion. "The Smart Flicks platform gives AutoBase customers a turnkey solution that maximizes the effectiveness of their websites and other online marketing strategies."

"In the last year we have received many requests for video solutions from our dealers," said Steve Johnston, CEO of AutoBase. "The Smart Flicks platform automates much of the video production and distribution process, as well as strategies that target and engage car shoppers throughout the entire buying cycle. Relevant messaging is key to attracting buyers at the right time and Flick Fusion simplifies the entire process while making it affordable for auto dealers." 

Flick Fusion's video marketing platform provides marketing companies with a complete, turnkey solution for creating and distributing dealership videos online. Marketing reps can use their mobile devices or camera of choice to capture live video walkarounds of vehicles, then instantly upload the videos from their mobile device to the Smart Flicks platform.

Once the videos are uploaded, Smart Flicks automatically completes the post-production work and distributes the videos to dealerships' websites, third-party inventory sites, social media channels and more. Smart Flicks automatically adds custom branding, promotional offers and banners, certifications and Carfax details to completed videos.  

AutoBase helps hundreds of auto dealerships effectively merchandise their vehicle inventory online, increasing exposure and resulting in more website visitors, inbound leads and sales.

For more information, call Flick Fusion at (800) 247-2502 or visit www.flickfusion.com

About AutoBase

AutoBase is a premier provider of online inventory merchandising solutions for auto dealerships in the U.S. For more information visit www.autobase.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--November 15th, 2016--Kia of Puyallup has increased the volume of its website visitors by 23 percent, video views by 500 percent, new car sales by six percent and used car sales by three percent since implementing a new video marketing strategy using Flick Fusion's SmartFlicks platform.

In June 2016 the Kia dealership went live with more than a dozen content-rich value proposition, customer testimonial videos and a video showroom. The store also upgraded the quality and visibility of its vehicle inventory videos, and integrated them onto video landing pages. The improvement in metrics was immediately noticeable.

"From June until now there has been a steady increase of website visitors every month," said Ryan Sawyer, President of Kia of Puyallup. "Our website used to average 13,000 visitors per month and now we are averaging 16,000 visitors per month. Prior to June, our inventory videos averaged 300 views per month and now they average 1,800 views per month."

Located in the competitive Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area, Kia of Puyallup is one of Washington state's largest volume Kia dealers and a multi-year recipient of Kia's prestigious Kia Dealer Excellence award. Sawyer's primary goal for the store's digital marketing strategy is to give the online customer a sense of what it's like to do business with the dealership. Sawyer believes video is the ideal medium to accomplish that goal.

"I've been interested in video marketing for a long time," said Sawyer. In fact he has been using Flick Fusion's SmartFlicks platform to produce stitched-photo inventory videos for several years. However, prior to June the videos had not performed as well as Sawyer had originally hoped for.

"The inventory videos were buried within the Vehicle Details Pages (VDPs), so a person would have to click on the pictures and then on the last picture there would be a link to the video," said Sawyer. "In some cases the videos were hidden behind a tab. This year I wanted to take a different approach and give the videos a more prominent position on our website."

In January of 2016 Sawyer partnered with What's Next Media, a video production company that specializes in auto retailing, as well as a Flick Fusion partner. Andrew Myers, one of the founders of What's Next Media, is very familiar with the SmartFlicks platform.

"What I like about SmartFlicks is that it's all automated," said Myers. "We create the videos and load them into the back end, and Flick Fusion does the rest. The pages are created automatically, the videos are pushed out to Autotrader and other sites, and the videos are immediately accessible from the dealership's CRM. We used to do all this manually but with Flick Fusion we can focus purely on creating great videos."

What's Next Media and Flick Fusion both worked with Kia of Puyallup to develop a video marketing strategy that included the following steps:

• Upgrade quality of existing inventory videos by switching from Text-to-Speech videos to Human Voiceover videos
• Ensure video links are clearly visible on every VDP page
• Feature every video on its own landing page with a lead form and four other videos to keep viewers engaged
• Create more than a dozen value proposition, service department and customer testimonial videos
• Create a video showroom on Kia of Puyallup's website featuring all videos including Autoflicks, Flick Fusion's educational model-level videos that showcase new model releases

The new videos and marketing strategy went live in June 2016. In the five months since, Sawyer has noticed a steady increase in the number of website visitors, video views, phone leads, showroom visitors and sales.

"What's interesting is the overall number of website leads has not increased, but we have noticed a pretty sharp spike in the number of people who are calling and coming into our showroom," said Sawyer. "Many customers come in with a specific car in mind, especially in used. They are fairly educated about the car they want and the closing rate on these customers is well north of 50 percent."

Andrew Myers with What's Next Media emphasizes how Kia of Puyallup's video marketing strategy matches the store's sales process. "The measurement I would use is not hits and views, but how well the videos reflect the process and personality of the store," he said. "The goal is to attract customers with videos of vehicles they're interested in, then bring them down funnel. Once they're in that video showroom it's about flooding them with information about the dealership; how the dealership is part of the community, why you should do business with them, what other customers have to say, etc."

Sawyer is enthusiastic about the results. "The video landscape is competitive and we're not the only dealership that's finding video is important," he said. "Upgrading the quality of our inventory videos has proven to be a win-win."

The next step for Kia of Puyallup is to further expand their video marketing strategy. "We're fine tuning the process of how we can get these videos out and visible in more places," said Sawyer. "We're just starting to get them integrated into our email marketing, social media and every day lead follow up. We're excited about all the opportunities."

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.

Flick Fusion COO Tim James explains why dealers should incorporate video into their lead follow up process.

Great leaders and organizations inspire people because they are good at explaining why they do what they do. Their why gets people motivated. Their why makes people want to work for that company. Their why makes people want to buy their products.

For auto dealerships, your purpose is your “why buy” or “value proposition” message. The goal of this message is inspire, motivate and make people want to buy your cars.

Dealers, if you don't know your why, I highly recommend finding it. Author Simon Sinek has a book called "Start With Why" and a course on how to find your why. There are dozens of articles on the Internet that can help you find your why. I won't go into that here because the purpose of this blog is not to help you find your why.  

The purpose of this blog is to help you communicate your why.

Chances are you have some “About Us” content already on your website, and you may even share your “story” during your onboarding process for new employees. But what happens then? The most successful companies throughout history, and the most successful automotive dealerships, are passionate about their “why”.  But having a “why” and communicating your “why” are two very different things.

Once you have your why, you've got to get that message out there. You've got to be excited about it so your employees are excited about it and your customers are excited about it.

And the best way to communicate your why? Video.

People remember 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see and 70% of what they see and hear. Video is the ideal medium to communicate your why. The emotion that video conveys can inspire both your employees and your customers.

To illustrate my point, read the following paragraph:

"You can write everything down if you want to. Be brave enough to write every one of your goals down, but I'm gonna tell you something. Life's gonna hit you in the mouth and you gotta do me a huge favor. Your why has to be greater than that knockdown."

What do those words make you feel? Anything? Now, if you watch a video and listen to those same words narrated to visual effects, you'll get an instant chill down your spine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNQhuFL6CWg

See how the same words in a video have a much bigger emotional impact than simple text? Your videos can have a similar effect. If you're going to make the effort to create videos, you must take advantage of the emotional impact that videos can convey. Otherwise you're not using the medium to full effect.

Once you have created a powerful “why video," put it to work for you and you will be amazed at the impact it can have on your business. There are a lot of places to share your “why video”, but for now I’m going to focus on a place where it can have an immediate impact on your sales: your website. I often see dealerships hosting their “why videos” on YouTube, embedding them on the homepage of their website, and that’s it. This is wrong for a couple of reasons. First, if the video that you have embedded on your website is hosted on YouTube, then YouTube is claiming your SEO value for that video. You should either self-host your “why video” or utilize a 3rd party host who will let your website claim the SEO value. This way, when the video is found on Google and engaged by the shopper, they are directed to your website and not YouTube. 

Next is where your “why video” should be displayed on your website. Your homepage is a great start; however, the goal is to get it in front of the shoppers where it is more likely to be seen and have an immediate emotional impact. One of the best places to display your “why video” is on your VDP Pages, alongside your inventory video for a vehicle. Not as a pre-roll on your inventory video, but as a standalone video that is visible and can be easily engaged by the shopper as they are browsing your inventory and watching your inventory videos. This is also a great place to have a testimonial video or two as well. And don’t forget the "About Us" pages of your website. This is another relevant page of your website that should include both your “why video” and your testimonial videos as well. 

Why wait? Communicate your why to create an emotional connection, inspire and motivate your customers. Video is the most effective medium for doing so.