• Stop being a LURKER - join our dealer community and get involved. Sign up and start a conversation.

Vehicle Video Solutions

Jump to latest Follow Reply
wweidendorf

wweidendorf

Push Start
Mar 10, 2010
10
0
First Name
William
#1
Been stalking these forums for awhile, but I finally found a valid reason to post here!

Currently, we have several dealership that we are assisting in their marketing and branding processes, and one thing keeps coming up in our discussions - vehicle video walkarounds. They know that they need to get them done, but they currently do not have the time (or training in some cases) with their current staff to accommodate shooting custom video for their vehicles.

Does anyone have a service that they recommend for shooting vehicle video walkarounds? If so, what do they offer in terms of videos/month, length, editing, etc.

Thanks!
 
#2
William,

I know of no vendor that does this. Dealers need do it, but It's VERY personality & knowledge sensitive, making it VERY hard to replicate.

In my findings, only 20% of the VDP* videos get watched so view counts are lower than one might assume. Of the videos that are seen, "100% Play thru's" are very very common. IMO, the real problem is there is no call to action tied to the video (form to fill out, button to push, etc), making it tough to gauge it's impact to buyer.

IMO, the weak link is not the time or talent, it's the lack of revenue generating visibility from this time consuming effort. Fix that problem and now you have the catalyst needed to fund this.

*Vehicle Detail Page
 
#4
It seems many dealerships need in house video services, but that's really not an option. From what I've heard/seen, it's not really the shooting of the footage that's the problem (you can get a decent flip cam for like $200), but moreso the editing and final delivery, as it's time consuming and requires a bit of technical know how. I don't know the budget for walk arounds ($0 I'm sure), but if someone was able to shoot the footage on a flip cam and upload footage to a professional via FTP, it wouldn't be too crazy expensive.

As a guide, my company would charge roughly $25-$30 to cut together footage, add transitions, a logo stamp and music if needed, and deliver final product. Probably still out of some's budget, but I'd bet most video companies would give a discount on consistent bulk work.

Otherwise, maybe paying a one time consult to a video professional to streamline the process for an in house person????

I guess it really all just depends on how valuable the walk arounds are.

As an alternative, maybe having walkarounds done on just the most popular models you sell. Here's a recent one we did.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
#5
As a side note....the above video is a great example of what happens when you let the actor direct the video. Our best videos have been a team effort. This is how we've structured most of our videos at Checkered Flag:

1. Single person in the video:
Christine writes the script
I go over the script with her and make any necessary changes
*If it is a hot topic (Toyota Recall for example) we will get input from other people
Kevin (VaBeachVideoGuy) shoots and edits the video and adds B-Roll footage

Here is an example of that type of video:



2. More than one person:
Christine writes the script with a "suggested" dialogue for the second person
I work with Christine to edit the script when necessary
Christine directs the second person before the camera rolls
Kevin (VaBeachVideoGuy) shoots and edits the video and adds B-Roll footage

Here is an example of that type of video:



3. Quick Videos
We are working on new format that allows us to get videos done quicker. It is done with a flip cam where Christine does the shooting, then we zip the footage up and use YouSendit.com to send it over to Kevin. Kevin still does the editing which is definitely the hardest part to do well.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
#7
Actually, there are quite a few of her "bosses" in Audi's right now. Almost our entire Executive Center is currently driving an Audi. That is unusual because there is typically a good mix of the brands we carry being driven by the Executive staff. Says a lot for the current Audi line-up. But we're getting off topic here. To answer your question: yes.

So, to get back on topic I'll add that one thing we try to do in each video is make it somewhat personal. Only downside to that is the hateful YouTube-commenting crowd doesn't like anything personal from a business so we get slammed in ratings. Funny part is they always finish up with some sort of immature message about what they'd like to do with the hot blonde girl :rolleyes: so I don't approve many comments.
 
#8
I wasn't going to post this when the thread first popped up. This was recreational and doesn't hold a candle to what Alex posted, but hopefully it will give someone the confidence they need to try it out. I think that a lot of dealerships have the tools available to market better, they just need to get excited about trying it. I'll let the smart guys talk about tubemogul and brightcove and other ways to blast the media out and more importantly the effect it will have on SERP content.

I was trying to convince a dealer of mine to start playing around with video marketing over a year ago. I'm no VSEO expert, but even then my personal use of Google was returning a ton of video content on the first page. These guys were more than customers, they were friends and I wanted to see them succeed. I shot this with a Cannon handheld, wrote the copy and recorded it, and edited the whole thing using a cheap software program I bought on Newegg.com. This is the first one I did, it isn't great and it admittedly took several hours to get through the learning curve. I did a couple more for them that took significantly less time to produce and the quality improved with each one as I figured out what I could do better during filming and editing. Some of the shots in this are way too distant. I was the cameraman and driver and didn't get things framed well on the first pass. Again, just trying to encourage somebody to take a stab at it. I did this over a year ago and would do it very differently today.

Everything is about ROI. A dealership with a process and limited resources could produce VIN specific marketing videos like this with very little time invested for the customer perception and seo impact achieved. Outsourcing the editing makes it that much more achievable. Does it make sense to do every pre-owned car on your lot? If your process includes using "Video-to Pictures" technology it might make a lot of sense. If not, how many of these style videos could you load on that "Specials" page that gets a lot of clicks and often has no content?

I'm happy to talk about this offline if anyone is interested. I don't have anything to sell you. I'm out of the marketing side of the business but still very passionate about it and would love to help brainstorm.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply
Jump to latest Follow Reply
Menu