The piece everyone is missing is the delivery of the content (streaming video) through the network of servers. The dealer must have their media files properly managed within their website, and have a quality CDN providing them a solution that will deliver the videos quickly, clearly and consistently. If the video lags, and jumps and basically looks amateur, then it isn't worth the dealers time and money. Think of the early days when dealers had websites built by their cousin who dabbled in HTML coding...bad news. The dealers who spend money to do all the things listed above (essentially, video production) and dont have a quality content delivery network set up (not done on their own website servers) for the delivery of these streaming videos,will be wasting their money...period.

Then there are some other important factors...

First, people dont care about the dealer story or anything else. If they got video, it needs to be about the specific car they are looking at on that page. The only video should be car video.

Second, lets make this part pretty clear. There is a TON of research supporting this fact...anytime you have a streaming video clearly explaining a product, like a car, a home, or any consumer good, that video will improve the conversion of users to leads and leads into sales. People would much rather find what they want and watch and listen, VERSUS having to read and click through pictures. (even though quality pictures are ESSENTIAL in todays current environment.)

BUT....

Third, it all depends on the value the solution brings the dealership, just like with anything in internet marketing. So if the dealership is selling into a market that has solid broadband penetration, then it probably is worth the time looking into these types of solutions, because the investment will improve conversions, and improve sales, while generating a positive profit ROI.

Hope this provides a different piece of info that is critical to this piece... A solid CDN needs to be taken into account... doing it on your web servers won't do.

Hotswap ReviewParty

I’m late to the Hotswap review party, I know. Frankly, after reading about them on TechCrunch I was surprised they raised 2 million dollars. 2 million? For sales videos of cars? That must have been a great presentation. I think most dealers are sligh...

Clients learn more about a car by seeing it in a video, particularly if the video is well narrated by a person with a clear pleasant voice and if the video does close ups and shots of the interior, which all helps to streamline the grinding search for a used car.

The video should only be 30-60 seconds depending on the uniqueness of the vehicle, interior and exterior footage. The image does not have to be professional, just well done. With the quality of digital cameras with electronic stabilization today priced at $5-600.00, software available at affordable prices and computers that can take the download from the camera who can say no to the technology?

There are even site providers today that offer the dealer ISM a notice to know when the client opens the email and will notify the dealer ISM when it happens so you can call the client while they view the vehicle and do your sales presentation. How cool is this? If you’re not at your PC it will notify your smart phone.

Video search is the choice of the smart dealers who are wary of, traditional, antiquated advertising. “The Boutique Dealers” will embrace this new way of using technology and increase their margins at the same time.

The majors will continue to use the “cookie cutter” systems and pound away at the margins, pushing more metal at lower prices.

Hi Everyone,

A comment on Steve's experiences during the video test. It would surely seem that a 90 day test would be enough to provide a gut feeling as to whether or not there was any benefit to using video. Dividing the inventory randomly seems to be a good idea, but I wonder if a more effective test would be to have a pair of identical or almost identical cars and video one and not the other and see which one moved the fastest. Just a thought.

Another thought, I think there would be some benefit in having a nicely done video presentation available for specific cars that might be hard to keep in stock. For example, in our dealership we are sold out of the new BMW 328 Hardtop Convertible until November and have none to show an interested prospect. I think it might be a good idea to film a walk around and post it to be able so show interested prospects. Anyway, that's my theory and as soon as the camera gets here next week that I've ordered, I'll be testing it to see how it works. I'll keep you posted.

I agree 100% with Sean that video can be incredibly effective, but the way it's used is the determining factor, at least at this point in time. Sean's examples are more of a branding use: customer testimonials, commercials, owner messages. I can see these being extremely valuable today and even more so down the road, especially as video search becomes more and more mainstream.

My previous post (and I think Jeff's, for the most part) was with regard to videos of individual vehicles. I think Steve's experiment over a 3-month period is a good indicator that customers can get as much information as they want with traditional photos of vehicles. Sure, video could be a good supplement to specialty pieces, but in general, is it any better than having 20 or 30 photos of the car? You can cram more content into a video but I think for the purpose of generating web leads, just having photos is equally as effective.

Hi all,

I would like to throw in my two cents, based on experience, of course.

About six months ago a company singing the praises of this very same concept approached my dealer group. They absolutely had great technology, but would it work as advertised and drive incremental leads/customers to my store...

I decided to run a test.

I chose two stores from my group who typically did a very good job when it came to their eCommerce initiatives. So as not to appear biased, we randomly chose half of the used inventory at each store and created quality videos with good audio walk-arounds and posted them to our site marked with easy to see and understand icons denoting that a video was attached.

I ran the test for 90 days.

Conclusion...

At the end of the day its all about moving metal.

We found that customers were looking at the videos, some through to finish and some for only a few seconds, however, we saw absolutely no increase in the turn rate of the vehicles with video vs. the vehicles that simply had multiple pictures, and no overall significant increase in number of units sold in the internet department or the store as a whole.

My personal opinion, and it's just that, is that the consumer will respond just as favorably to quality pictures and good, relevent text descriptions of a vehicle as they will to video...

Just my opinion.

Best regards and happy selling to all,

Steve

I am going to give one example and I would love your feedback...

Lets say someone is searching for a "Toyota Dealership" in "Limerick Pennsylvania" and There is a video of a testimonial for Peruzzi Toyota. A video of customers saying how wonderful their experience was at Peruzzi. How strong is that?

Just so you know... Google is still in Beta mode with You Tube and Yahoo Video. but in less than 2 months, you won't have to click the video button on the top left on Google to find videos. You will simply have to just log on to "Google" and if there are videos posted you will find them.

Try this:

Go to Google, click "Video" in the top left hand corner and type in the search field "Toyota Baltimore" and you will see that Mile 1 owns that search. But if we took that to the next level... If we had videos other than just product videos, like testimonials, or videos from the Owner or GM... videos that from people of authority stating their value package proposition. How strong would it be if someone was just researching the net, types in a few key words and the next thing they know, they are looking at the owner of ABC Honda telling them that he promises them an amazing experience and a great deal... but wait there is more... Free delivery to their home or office, free oil change, car wash... or whatever else you or your store does.

One last point. The average dealership spends over $50,000 per month in advertising and there are over 20,000 franchise dealerships in the country...

They spent all of that money and most of it goes to intrusive advertising... spent on ads WHEN PEOPLE DO NOT WANT TO BE BOTHERED... but hoping they will succumb.

But, Dealers do VERY little when people are actually interested in them. When someone goes to an engine and is seriously looking for information that is the time you blow them away, and exceed their expectations.

Harvard communications 101... the "Science of Communications”-

55% of communication is visual perception and body language
38% of Communication is auditory inflection of tone (sound)
7% of Communication is simply the words we use (text)

All I know is that it is VERY difficult to sell a $20, $30, $50,000+ automobile over a 7% communication medium.

It is just hard to build that value, plus you have to understand that people learn in different ways... there a visual thinkers, auditory thinkers as well as kinesthetic thinkers. Video is a powerful medium to sell, brand and simply build value.

I just watched the Presidential Democratic debates the other day on You Tube… That tells me that video is a powerful way to communicate.

I would like it for just once… just ONCE that the automotive industry does something at the same time and level as normal corporate America. We traditionally are years behind, resistance to change.

I wish you all the success in the world… My Cleo the psychic prediction… Video and Video search is going to blow away other forms of antiquated advertising and soon there will be vendors rushing to meet the need. I suggest you all that are wise and progressive start to do your research and stay ahead of the curve-

One of the largest problems with video ads is policing spam.

Click to expand...

Agreed, which is why Universal Search for Google irks me.

One of the largest problems with video ads is policing spam. For example, search for "acura tl" on HotSwap:


The first video is for a '97 in Dublin, OH. Watch it. Let me know if you see an Acura.

Without a human review, there's practically no content guarantee.

Video inventory as a valid lead generating, traffic generating tool is not far off. It doesn't work now because few (if any) have put the effort and thought into making it work.

To truly be effective, it would have to be something that is done all out or not at all. Could a dealer do it? Absolutely, but not likely.

A company will need to emerge that offers a full video solution. Just as Dealer Specialties key selling point is their ability to take, manage, and push inventory and photos across the internet, so to would this hypothetical service need to be. Full service and profesional.

High quality vehicles. Visits once every two weeks. "Inventory" pushed to YouTube and everywhere else that takes videos. A partnership with a classified site. A full setup that includes video walk-thrus of the dealership, the process, everything.

Most importantly, they would have to help market it.

If (when) a company emerges that is able to do all this in a way that is high quality while low in cost, dealers will jump on board. Not a ton, mind you, but with a product like that, all you would need is 1 new client every other week to get the steam rolling as the company grew.

Dreams and speculation, I know. But it COULD happen.

Being a vendor on the production side of providing dealerships websites and Internet-based marketing innovations I'm in Sean's court on his opinion of the coming importance of video for a wide range of commercial purposes on the web. But, I think video can be applied in a broad sprectrum of short tactical and strategic video pieces that each have their place in a website and all serve to help the dealership.

Some wisdom has been conveyed here - individual vehicle presentations done in video are great for special inventory and not worth it for others.

Consider the opportunities, though, as consumers' computers and connectivity increasingly allows rich media presentations of high quality that can be used to hype this weekend's sale, tell a of dealership's legacy in it's community, introduce the professionals who make the buying experience a surprisingly pleasant event, present, in video, the good reasons for an absent service customer to come in.

There are endless possibilities in bringing the presentation power of Internet multimedia into the dealership website equation, all of them with the upbeat "call to action" that asks potential customers to put their name in so you can segue them to the next step in your sales process, with individual vehicle presentations getting ho-hum status among the cornocopea of video marketing opportunities. The keys for the inclusion of video in a dealership website are: ease of production, cost, traditional advertising coordination, inclusion logistics, and post video metrics.

The online used car classified companies will jump on, and package video because it is beginning to get hyped and dealers are talking about it (how many seo companies are out there now?) But they are in the classified advertising business so their focus is obviously - on vehicle presentations.

There are many more online video opportunties around the bend.

Personally, I feel videos don't make enough of a difference to warrant the extra costs, time spent, etc. In my eyes it's an example of something that CAN be done but not something that necessarily SHOULD be done. You pointed out an important issue or two with the current video quality and time spent to shoot videos. These can be overcome with time. I really just don't think a video is necessary when 10, 20, or even 30 photos of a vehicle do just fine in showing the highlights of that vehicle. The purpose of most online marketing is to generate leads, not to actually sell the cars. Closing the deal still takes place on the lot, and I don't see that changing any time soon. So, will videos generate more leads? In my opinion, no. It's not surprising to me that Pacific Honda "found video to have an adverse effect at times". Sometimes certain dealers do things just to have something their competitors don't have, but the ROI has to make sense, otherwise it's just an ego buy.

On the other hand, one could make the argument that the online classified sites were in the same situation years ago. Cars were selling by magazine and newspaper ads, and although they could be listed on the internet, was it worth the trouble? We all know how that turned out. After all, none of us would be here on this blog if it didn't work. It took time to perfect the process of merchandising vehicles on the web, and maybe the same will happen with videos. Until that time, I'm not buying into it.

I'm obviously speaking from more of a consumer point of view Jeff; but I agree with you on the point that there is no way I am going to spend 10 minutes watching someone give me an online video tour of a car. Now, if I am interested in a hyped up "fast and furious...oo fast too furious" ride; maybe I will want to see a video displaying the NOS canisters in the trunk (or wherever they go). But for the average car buyer, it just does not seem like they will want to sit and watch an online video showing off the cars' features. Even if there is some demand, I can't see how demand will become strong enough to warrant the investment it will take to do this effectively.

However, I think there is great potential in utilizing video in order to increase your brand and customer loyalty, which it seems the Internet has had an adverse effect on in some cases...but I don't think that was what this post was meant to push discussion on.

Thank you for the comment...

I have to tell you that I can appreciate where you are coming from though... Whenever you read about this company or that company you really have to wonder exactly what is real and what is media spin. Anyone that knows me or my company will tell you that we are as real as it gets.

As a matter of fact I just completed a preliminary interview with Harlene from Auto Dealer Monthly. Another one of our dealers made the cover of another magazine. Peruzzi Toyota went from 30 units online to 107 units a month... in about 6 months. Please remember that out of the 20,000 dealerships in the US, they average about 100 units the entire floor. That means this dealer in PA sells more out of their Internet department than the average full dealership in the country. I can go on over and over with example just like these. This system really works.

if you haven't seen the cover of Dealer Principal last month yet, go to www.dealerprincipalmagazine.com there will be a comprehensive break down of our system and how it works.

Or if you have any questions please feel free to ask me.

Thank you-

I wonder what AutoTrader and Cars.com going to charge for videos... add-on... $1500 a month...

I once sent a lead to the Tulsa Mazda dealer mentioned in the write-up for Dealer Synergy. I wanted to see if they would really, truly call every day and leave a message if I didn't answer.

The article I read about them said they call every working day for a full month. I not only received a call every day and at least one email every other day as promised, I got the unexpected surprises of multiple times for the calls ranging from 10am to 8pm, plus I received calls from multiple voices and job positions.

Most importantly, the calls continued for 44 straight working days.

If I was really in the market, I would definitely have tried to buy from them, depending on inventory.

If Dealer Synergy is the reason for this, I can say from the other side of the coin as a "potential customer" that their tactics and trainings probably work.

This does not really have much to do with any one particular posting, but I want to say that this is definitely one of the most informative sites I have come across in the short time I have worked in the automotive/internet space. I spent several years after college at Deloitte as a consultant and thought I knew almost all things IT. Little did I know that being IT savvy does not automatically make you "Internet" savvy. Jeff and all contributors, thanks for all the great information. It is definitely playing a part in increasing my knowledge concerning the Internet and its affect on the auto industry.

Sean - I am excite for you and I love how your enthusiasm shows in everything you do.

JK - Just yesterday I set up a twitter account for my self. Here is link. Let's follow - http://twitter.com/yhurg.

-Ryan G

First off Paul, thank you for that feedback. It is always great to hear awesome stuff like that from Industry leaders.

I want to let everyone know that I am so excited for this event in LA on August 22nd. This is a little different from some workshops that turn out to be like a time share commercial. NONE of the people at the event are there to talk about their products or services at all. They are there as experts in their fields. As for me, I am humbled by the all star cast of speakers... ALL senior executives, no amateurs at this event. We have CEOs, Founders / GMS as well as some serious Vice Presidents as well. But, what I am the most excited about is the dealers that attend, Last year we had the top dealerships in the world. Towbin Dodge, Norm Reeves, Longo Toyota, Motor City GMC, Fred Beans, Nelson Mazda MAZDA OEM just to name a few. So besides the power point presentations, the break out interactive sessions, the role playing etc... we have SYNERGY. The best feedback was from the dealers in the room. We brainstormed, we learned and we practiced. Last year there were OVER 110 dealers that showed up and this year we are looking for a bigger turn out. I enlisted Mark Dubis, the former Editor of Digital Dealer Magazine and the Interim Director of the AAISP. Mark was responsible for organizing the last AAISP event in Nashville that brought in over 400 registered people... All thirsty for knowledge for Internet Sales and BDC.

I have to tell you, I have been doing this for almost 9 years... Automotive Internet Sales and BDC. I started selling cars on the floor and have over 5 and 1/2 years on the front lines, I am very grateful for where I am in life and the people that I am surrounded by on a daily basis. I am looking forward to giving back to the community. I am not charging very much for the event at all. Its priced at $695 but for all Dealer Refresh readers it is ONLY $295... Includes: Breakfast, lunch and a cocktail networking event with a couple of drink tickets and food! Not bad for $295!

I will be speaking at for 1/2 the day and the other 1/2 will be my expert speakers. It will be truly another amazing event. I hope you all don't miss it.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask.

Thanks-

I am the National Account Manager with one of the big 3rd party lead aggregators and I deal with dealer groups all over the country. one thing that I have heard time and time again from dealers that I speak to is how much they get from attending the sessions that are put on by Dealer Synergy. I have witnessed dealerships change thier entire way of doing business after attending one of Sean V. Bradley's seminars. I have never posted on here before but When I saw Jeff's Monday refresh I needed to let the dealer communtiy know that Dealer Synergy is the best there is for training in this industry and I would highly reccomend attendng this next one in L.A. I believe the last one they did was in Atlanta and while I was unable to attend, I heard nothing but extreamly positive feedback from those that did attend, many of whom told me that it was the most insightful and informative session that they have ever attended. Just my 2 cents for what its worth.

J.D.--

I can't believe it took me several months to revisit this thread and read your post. While this is old news that won't be viewed by too many, I still wanted to respond to your thoughts and maybe shed a little more light on my own (translation: I need a hobby).

From your last post: --"Indexed pages have nothing to do with true SEO. It's a smoke and mirrors ploy."

I'm not sure you intended this to be taken literally, but since a page has to be indexed before it can turn up in search results, it would be more accurate to say this has everything to do with true SEO. The more pages you have indexed, the better the chances that one page or another will be determined relevant enough to a particular search to be displayed highly and subsequently visited by the searcher.

--"That's great, except that nobody searches for individual cars."

This doesn't seem to be the case in my market. Your post also seems to imply that site relevance to searched keywords is an either/or proposition: either you are deemed relevant to searches for "brand in city" or you are deemed relevant for searches for "brand model city", but not both. We can (and do) have it both ways -- we rank highly for both styles of searches, and I rather enjoy having my cake and eating it, too.

--"In fact, most of the inventory pages are considered "duplicate content" by Google and can be viewed as spam, thus downgrading a websites rankings for important keywords."

The consensus seems to be that Google (and other engines??) handle duplicate content by displaying what it deems to be the most relevant of the pages containing the duplicated content. We seem to have won that battle, as searches like these turn up many of our individual pages, and in many cases where the searched-for model is one we are not even a franchised dealer for. The dupe-content argument may not even apply, as the geographical information in the pages seems to distinguish them from those of other dealers on the same inventory page platform, even if they rep the same brand.

--"When someone in Minneapolis is searching for a used Camry, they type in "toyota minneapolis" or "used cars minneapolis"."

"Real people" don't just search one way with regard to keyword structure, they search in an amazing variety of ways (this is why our SEM campaigns account for roughly 10,000 keywords/phrases), including the 2 we are discussing. I just can't agree that being ranked highly for a variety of keyword possibilities is a negative. And in order to do this, we need many pages indexed, as each page would need to be optimized for a few select keywords at most.

The point of my previous post wasn't to badmouth your company or any other--I'm sure you guys are good at what you do--but to applaud the performance Dealer.com has help me to achieve (the thread's original subject). I'm sure they haven't cornered the market on proficiency in Web design and that many other companies would perform similarly, just none of those I have also tried.

Thanks for the feedback & good luck.

Jeff -- Many repeated kudos to you on the site...keep up the good work!

Kevin

In Reference to Ryan's comment about the dealer with 5 websites through Reynolds and the hub page through AutoOne Media. I read the comment some days ago and go to thinking about this again.

I was the Internet Manager at this dealership he's talking about at the time when Autoone was brought on. Reynolds' dated design and aging look was getting to me at the time, although the conversions in the back of the site once customers searched for something were still good. The problem was too many customers would visit the hub site and then disappear. So in an effort to capitalize on those visitors, I elicited AutoOne's services in redesigning a hub site. They had already done the SEO for the site and the results were pouring in.

In turn, we talked about a design, call to actions, things I wanted in the site and things they thought would produce good results. The result, a hub site that within a 30 day period of time was producing more leads than the other 5 sites altogether. Combined with the PPC campaigns, we were seeing close to a 1000 leads a month.

The problems with Reynolds continue to plague this dealer. The internet manager I trained to put in my place talks to me often about the issues he still has with reynolds. I mean if Eric is hitting the road, what the heck. That speaks volumes about what is going on over there. To read RAC makes one think that facism is making a comeback.

Anyway, I wanted to give a little more substance to the comment by Ryan. With the issues that Reynolds has, its all to easy to make everyone seem to be a part of the problem. Autoone does a super job. My experiences with Chris and everyone else over there have been 1st class.

Cheers –

Hi Joe,

In the past, one of the focus points at TK has been to go after the long tail search. In the two months since I got here, I've been changing this. It isn't that we don't want to rank for the long tail, but as Jeff posted in a reply to another article, you make sure you are on the searches with high volume, high conversion first, then you go after the long tail.

Are the conversion rates higher when people find you through a specific car? Absolutely! But getting a 10% conversion on 28 searches a month, like with "used toyota camry minneapolis," is still just 3 leads (if you round up). Converting a tenth of a percentage point (0.1%, or 0.001) of 32,000 searches a month, like with "minneapolis toyota," is 32 leads.

All I'm saying is that so many companies brag about getting the individual car search rankings but can't deliver on the keywords that the vast majority of real buyers are searching for.

I've been posting on this forum since before I joined TK and I will always post from the perspective of assisting dealers. Please note that I have never even linked to TK on this site, nor have I promoted them or their products, other than one comment (on the TK thread itself) saying that I enjoy working with them.

BUT, since you brought it up, yes I work for them, and no, I do not post my thoughts based upon what they have to offer. If I say it here, it's because I believe in it based upon experience, not because of their policies.

Joe, please feel free to call me to discuss it - 714-937-1239, ext 242. I enjoy networking with people who have insight into the industry and I'm always open to sharing ideas.

JD WRITES:

>>>...nobody searches for individual cars...

Kevin,

Indexed pages have nothing to do with true SEO. It's a smoke and mirrors ploy. A few providers are saying this, pointing out that their clients can be found for individual cars. That's great, except that nobody searches for individual cars. The "long tail search" concept is great for 3rd party companies, but for a dealership, getting listed #1 for "used toyota camry minneapolis" is meaningless when it's searched for 20 times a month.

As long as there are at least 15-20 pages indexed, you're fine in the seach engines. In fact, most of the inventory pages are considered "duplicate content" by Google and can be viewed as spam, thus downgrading a websites rankings for important keywords.

When someone in Minneapolis is searching for a used Camry, they type in "toyota minneapolis" or "used cars minneapolis". Those search terms get tens of thousands of searches a month.

Don't fall for the smoke and mirrors. If someone shows you high rankings for particular keywords, use the keyword tool link on this website. Anyone can get ranked for "2004 honda accord in shreveport lousiana", but real people are searching for "honda shreveport".