Taking videos of your vehicles

[Alex Snyder]

We struggle with man-power. I find it difficult to get things done on the store level, with a few exceptions here and there. Doing individual videos is tough - shoot - taking photos of all new cars is damn near impossible with the inventory we have! The answer is to hire more people, but the times don't allow that

But we are also confronted by a brand image protection our dealer principle works very hard to keep. He is not in favor of doing on-the-lot videos for anything unless it is professionally done. Our compromise was to go with the pictures to video solution, and I think Dealer.com does a fantastic job with those.

Right this second we're having some "funkiness" with ours due to changing our inventory aggregator from HomeNet to iMagicLab - iMagicLab was sending stock photos over on every car. We finally got that disabled and are slowly working through some of the lingering cars that have a mixture of dealer photos and stock photos - as you can imagine, that really makes these stitched videos look bad.

Back to the man-power issue. We have to do new things from an executive level and over time the stores start to buy-in as they realize the effectiveness of these "new" things we do. Of course, we can design a payplan or crack a whip to get them to conform, but you're never going to have true success unless someone believes in it. A salesfloor can sabotage anything.

 

[Blake Arbogast]

NOTE: I just bought a Sony Webbi camcorder thinking it would be perfect for my needs...cheap, easily uploads to youtube, takes hd video. After using it for a couple weeks, I'm not impressed. Yeah it was only $200 bucks but the quality of video sucks. I think I'm just going to go all in and buy an expensive camcorder. What do you all think....?



*Alex I feel you on the "brand Image," its hard to find ways to save money and at the same time portray the high-end image we have worked so hard for.

 

[dvxpert]

Looks like the start to a good thing there :thumbup:

Have you had any customer response on these yet?

Alex,

I created the Video Walkaround page on my Dealer.com website so I could partially track my hits on the videos. I have asked Dealer.com to add a way to track video clicks on individual pieces of inventory. The hits on the walkaround page have been pretty impressive, so I am encouraged. As an incentive, I have decided to give the leads generated from a vehicle with a video walkaorund to the salesman who created the video. This is quite new to us, as it is for most dealers, so I am trying new ideas in hopes of finding the ideal mix. If nothing else, adding videos to the website increases stickiness and improves conversion percentage...

-Greg

 

[Alex Snyder]

I have asked Dealer.com to add a way to track video clicks on individual pieces of inventory.

You already have that capability. When you click on reports in Control Center, there are a few to choose from - one is the video report. If you title your videos based on stock numbers (like "VdChrysler300 CX345987") or some type of verbiage that differentiates each video you can track the views, the clicks to play, how many people watched 25%, how many watched 50%, 75% and how many watched the entire video.

If you use Dealer.com's CarFlix solution then they do it all for you in that same report. I love it! Our video spokesperson is a young lady named Christine, so when I export the report to PDF, I rename it the "How famous is Christine report" and send it around the company

 

[Mitch Gallant]

Tim Jennings "The Internet Guy" has it right! Who cares that his tag line smells like cheese, I would bet the farm its working. This is remarkable stuff!

Having a porter take the videos and having no audio at all really doesnt do much, and trying to dub any audio over would be really tough. When it comes to internet quality video you really don't get a great feel for what your seeing (in my head). In my experience, doing these walkarounds, no matter how much is rehersed and scripted before hand, alot comes off the cuff. Having the porter walk around with the camera would eliminate the chance to throw in those little extras on the fly that a car guy would know customers jump at. Why I think the internet guy gets it right is his personality, brings some emotion to the table, but if you dont have a good character, the silent way would be more effective!

I wouldn't opt out for the easy way, get in front of the camera and get your Tom Cruise on.

 

[dvxpert]

You already have that capability. When you click on reports in Control Center, there are a few to choose from - one is the video report. If you title your videos based on stock numbers (like "VdChrysler300 CX345987") or some type of verbiage that differentiates each video you can track the views, the clicks to play, how many people watched 25%, how many watched 50%, 75% and how many watched the entire video.

If you use Dealer.com CarFlix solution then they do it all for you in that same report. I love it! Our video spokesperson is a young lady named Christine, so when I export the report to PDF, I rename if the "How famous is Christine report" and send it around the company

Thanks Alex.

I am looking at the report. Helpful info. I'm a little upset that my dealer.com rep did not seem to know this...

I also see that I need to do a little better job of naming videos now.

-Greg

 

[Alex Snyder]

Thanks Alex.

I am looking at the report. Helpful info. I'm a little upset that my dealer.com rep did not seem to know this...

I also see that I need to do a little better job of naming videos now.

-Greg

Anytime Greg

And that's why we started the DealerRefresh forums. There are things that other dealers know that support reps might not. Nothing against the support reps; they just don't typically come out of dealerships so their knowledge of practical use (in our world) is slightly limited. But they know some things we might not have ever thought about. Use your support reps and these forums - and Driving Sales, Ralph Paglia's ADM site, and Paul Rushing's ISMtraining - to find a fuller picture. There are tons of resources we can all tap into these days! It is a very exciting time to be in the automotive business- it is the Wild West!

 

[dvxpert]

Anytime Greg

It is a very exciting time to be in the automotive business- it is the Wild West!

Located in Montana, we really are the Wild West!

 

[Eric Miltsch]

12Seconds.tv is another simple way to make quick 12-second videos which you can link to and/or embed to your site/bog.

Plus, you can feed your video to other social sites and push to a site widget as well. Just shoot it with your phone and email it.

I did this one just walking through one of our stores - 12 Seconds Video

 

[Jeff Kershner]

NOTE: I just bought a Sony Webbi camcorder thinking it would be perfect for my needs...cheap, easily uploads to youtube, takes hd video. After using it for a couple weeks, I'm not impressed.

Blake, thanks for the heads up on the Sony Webbi. I was considering one even thought I have 3 (YES 3) Flip Video recorders. I have the HD version but at the end of the day..I'm still impressed with the Flip Mino w/o HD. I wonder hos this stacks up against the Flip?