If content is King, then video is the Emperor. If your dealership is not yet taking advantage of video marketing to engage with potential buyers, generate more leads for all your dealership’s department and explode your sales and profits; you are missing BIG TIME!
Here’s how you need to see your dealership moving forward to be successful in the new content era. Your dealership needs to become the #1 resource for quality and relevant content regarding the ownership experience of people in your market (buying, maintenance, safety, credit, collision, etc.) whether they purchased their vehicle from you or not.
Instead of picturing your dealership as a place where you sell cars and service them, start picturing it as a massive production studio. It’s much more exciting! Every opportunity to create content should be examined, and every individual within the organisation should be leveraged for their talent and video is an easy place to start deploying your team’s wings!
Here are 10 simple video concepts and ideas you can tackle right now to boost your sales:
Pre-Owned Walkaround Videos: these are great to give your dealership some automotive content and keywords relating to off-make vehicles. Your dealership probably already ranks well for anything relating to your manufacturer but if you want to start selling vehicles to people who aren’t yet considering the models you sell, start making walkaround videos. If you’re a used car dealership, it’s imperative that you do these. The videos don’t have to mention every feature of the vehicles. Use the units in your pre-owned inventory as a pretext to create a video mentioning your dealership’s differentors (CPO programs, your ability to approve special finance customers, etc.) and the reasons why people should consider your store to purchase their next pre-owned vehicle; regardless of the model you are currently presenting. These walkaround videos can be posted on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram stories.
New Model Review Videos: every new model hitting the lot should get an in-depth video review covering its strength, the changes from the previous model year, how it compares to other vehicles in its category and why people should consider buying it from your dealership. These walkaround videos can be posted on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Customer Testimonials/Delivery Videos: customer testimonials and delivery videos are great because they support the social proof that your dealership is a great choice when it comes to buying a new or pre-owned vehicle. They are also great because, if done properly, they can provide a great opportunity for shares and engagement with your customer's social networks. Customer testimonials shouldn’t be limited to sales. The parts, service and body shop departments should also have a strategy to create video testimonials of difficult or specific cases where your dealership has gone above and beyond in their duties to make the customer happy. These testimonial/delivery videos can be posted on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram stories.
Employee Videos: all things being equal, people buy from people they know, like and trust. Take advantage of video and social media to put a human face and add some emotions to your sales and customer support team. These videos can be posted on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram stories.
Sales Event Video: every sales event, organized or impromptu, should have an invitation video (short teaser) and presentation video (long form). These should describe the event, tell people why they should take notice, what’s going to happen, what you want people to do (call to action), and give them a good reason to act during the event (hook). It wouldn’t be a bad idea also to have daily videos posted as short updates describing the progression of the event, the milestones reached, and reminding people that the end of the buying opportunity is coming soon to create some urgency. Remember radio remotes a few years back? Keep people in the loop of your event in an engaging and fun way where people feel they are part of the journey. These videos can be posted on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram stories.
Business Office/Finance Videos: your dealership should have videos on every type of financing available at your dealership explaining the advantages and downsides of each. You should also have videos on each type of credit challenge situation, and how your dealership can help people in these situations overcome the obstacle and still get in a quality vehicle. It would also be recommended to have videos on all the products sold in your business office. These three categories of videos will help your dealership get indexed by Google for keywords most franchise dealers are usually weak for. This will also contribute to giving you an unfair advantage by allowing people who are searching for automotive finance solutions to find your dealership at the top of searches. These videos can be posted on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram stories.
Seasonal Videos: your dealership should create a calendar identifying specific subjects that vehicle owners should have on their radar at the different time of the year. For example, when the outdoor temperature drops in fall, what should vehicle owners know about the specific maintenance needs of their vehicle? What should credit challenge customers do walking in the holidays to avoid bruising their credit even more? Tire Season, summer heat, road trips, etc. If you brainstorm with your team, you will find countless opportunities to create time-sensitive relevant videos for the vehicle owners in your area. Videos like these will rank high on Google for searches relating to these events so be careful when creating the videos not to date the content. Again, these videos can be posted on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram stories.
New Incentives Videos: your dealership should create videos every time your manufacturer comes out with new incentives. That’s a no-brainer! Not only will these help you sell more vehicles during the month of the promotion, but they will also help you get a leg up on other dealers selling your brand in the area. As you know, many programs from manufacturer’s come back annually. If for example, you are diligently creating Ford Employee Pricing videos every year for the next few years every time Ford comes out with the program, it won’t be long before you’re the only dealership on the first page of Google for these keywords even if there are other Ford stores close by. These videos can be posted on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram stories.
Department Specific Videos: every department in your dealership should create a list of videos that should be produced to help people in need of their services: o What to do in case of an accident; o How to recognize your vehicle needs new tires; o Signs your brakes require a checkup o Alignment, suspension, transmission (and others) problems o Car care tips o Maintaining good credit o Maintaining a high resale value o Etc.
These videos can be posted on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Documenting the Journey Videos: if your dealership is involved in any process of change like construction projects, new imaging, adding a brand, moving, adding a department, sponsoring a local athlete, or even the change you’re about to make at your dealership regarding content marketing; make sure to create multiple short videos documenting the journey. These videos don’t have to have big production value. A simple video explaining to your visitors how to navigate some road construction around your dealership can have a big impact on your sales versus losing the frustrated traffic to your competitors.
Don’t make the mistake of worrying too much about your dealership’s voice or content style when you’re making your first videos. Worrying too much about being perfect might just act as an impediment to making your first steps. Your dealership’s unique voice, style and “social swag” will come with practice just like with everything else.
Regarding equipment, you can start with any recent smartphone. I recommend a tripod with a little bracket to hold your phone and a Lavalier microphone (wired or wireless) to avoid wind noise when you film outside.
Remember to hold your phone horizontally for YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn videos if you don’t want to have the two ugly black bars on each side; and to hold it vertically for Instagram stories and Facebook “live.”
If you require help with your Automotive Marketing Videos, don’t hesitate to reach out to the automotive video marketing specialists at Turbo Marketing. We will gladly help you how to use videos to sell more cars to existing and conquest vehicle shoppers!
Sean Cassy is the Digital Marketing Specialist and Co-Owner of Turbo Marketing Solutions. You can contact him by email here or reach him by phone every weekday at Turbo Marketing’s head office