Taking videos of your vehicles

[mattwatson81]

Anyone have any good tips for taking videos of your cars? What success have you had with your videos?

You can now post your vehicle videos to AutoTrader.com, Cars.com, most dealer website providers, and even YouTube.

Here are some example walk around videos for those of you out there who are thinking about doing it.

YouTube - MillerAutoPlaza's Channel

YouTube - SparksBuick's Channel

YouTube - ValleyImportsInc's Channel

[dvxpert]

We recently upgraded from a Flip camera to a decent Canon memory stick camcorder and a wireless mic. It made a world of difference mainly in the audio quality. I shoot the videos for my salesmen, so we use a 2 man crew. I also do a little editing on the video to add an opening and closing as well as some titles. With a little practice these videos can be cranked out in short order. I insist that the salesmen do the videos without cuts and without notes. We are improving everyday and having fun doing the videos. I want the videos to look better than your average home video, but not like they came from a production company.

Take a look at:

Vehicle Video Walkarounds - Taylor's Auto Max - Great Falls, Montana

YouTube - TaylorsAutoMax's Channel

[mattwatson81]

We recently upgraded from a Flip camera to a decent Canon memory stick camcorder and a wireless mic. It made a world of difference mainly in the audio quality. I shoot the videos for my salesmen, so we use a 2 man crew. I also do a little editing on the video to add an opening and closing as well as some titles. With a little practice these videos can be cranked out in short order. I insist that the salesmen do the videos without cuts and without notes. We are improving everyday and having fun doing the videos. I want the videos to look better than your average home video, but not like they came from a production company.

Take a look at:

Vehicle Video Walkarounds - Taylor's Auto Max - Great Falls, Montana

YouTube - TaylorsAutoMax's Channel

Your videos look great!

[Alex Snyder]

We recently upgraded from a Flip camera to a decent Canon memory stick camcorder and a wireless mic. It made a world of difference mainly in the audio quality. I shoot the videos for my salesmen, so we use a 2 man crew. I also do a little editing on the video to add an opening and closing as well as some titles. With a little practice these videos can be cranked out in short order. I insist that the salesmen do the videos without cuts and without notes. We are improving everyday and having fun doing the videos. I want the videos to look better than your average home video, but not like they came from a production company.

Take a look at:

Vehicle Video Walkarounds - Taylor's Auto Max - Great Falls, Montana

YouTube - TaylorsAutoMax's Channel

Looks like the start to a good thing there

Have you had any customer response on these yet?

[emiltsch]

If you haven't made the decision to add video yet, I recommend it...

More online shoppers are looking for it, its fairy simple to shoot/upload and its always nice to have extra content to distribute to other sites such as YouTube....

Cheers to the other the other dealers listed above who are shooting them and posting elsewhere. (the flip is such a smart way to go about it)

We've used the CDM Motion Capture solution for a long time; the technology has progressed nicely and its very efficient for our photographers. Here's a sample...

Looking into some new technology - similar to the 360 degree cameras used by real estate agents.

Anyone have experience w/those? Interested in hearing...

Eric

[andwrig]

I was using videos on cars.com but I bailed on it. I don't think the pictures set to music and motion really add any value or enhance conversion but that is just a hunch. I haven't seen any drop off in lead quantity since eliminating videos. However, if the videos are actually custom video camera'd footage, then that might be something. The problem is that its time consuming and its hard to tell if it really drives traffic and ROI. I guess one won't until one tries it.

I'm definitely interested in ideas in this arena. Look forward to hearing suggestions.

Andy

[JoePistell]

Tim Jennings gets my vote for the best "one man show" YouTube - SparksBuick's Channel All I can fault him for is being too close on the outside walk around and too close on his interior pans.

This ain't easy!
Folks don't realize how dificult it is to work thru feeling nervous.

[mattwatson81]

We've used the CDM Motion Capture solution for a long time; the technology has progressed nicely and its very efficient for our photographers. Here's a sample...

Your video looks great. Unity Works does a great job on their videos. They are very professional and the voice overs are nice.

Taking pictures and panning and zooming them to make a video creates a nice presentation, but isn't the same as a real walk around video. I guess I am kind of on the fence because the picture based ones are usually automated and create professional looking videos. But on the other hand, you can show and tell way more about the vehicle by recording your own videos. I guess they both have their place and you just have decide which makes the most sense for your store.

We have a lot of dealers that use our VinCamera to take their own videos if you are looking for a simple way to record your own video walk arounds. Otherwise I would probably recommend a Flip camera. Does the Flip save the files as big AVI files or does it save them in a smaller compressed format? Those big AVI files can be tough to deal with.

[JoePistell]

Tim Jennings, he understands how its done!

Ck out the power windows on this silverado! YouTube - #8317 2007 Chevy Silvarado 1500 W/T 24K $13500 Dekalb Illinois Tom Sparks Buick

hahahaa... now I'd buy a car from this guy!

[mattwatson81]

I was using videos on cars.com but I bailed on it. I don't think the pictures set to music and motion really add any value or enhance conversion but that is just a hunch. I haven't seen any drop off in lead quantity since eliminating videos. However, if the videos are actually custom video camera'd footage, then that might be something. The problem is that its time consuming and its hard to tell if it really drives traffic and ROI. I guess one won't until one tries it.

I'm definitely interested in ideas in this arena. Look forward to hearing suggestions.

Andy

I kind of agree with you on the pictures to video ones. But a compromise might be doing videos with no voice so they aren't as hard to do, and you can have a porter probably even do a simple walk around video.

Check out what this dealership does. They are a customer of ours and their silent walk arounds are pretty good:
YouTube - 2005 Chevrolet Tahoe Des Moines IA Wilson of Ames
YouTube - 204610's Channel