Why is Video so difficult?

[skutchhenks]

It depends. It's really hard to make an absolute statement. Greater good consists of granular details.

We can wax this all day long, but it comes down to either you choose to do walkaround videos or you choose not to do them.

The first time a customer walks into the dealership, asks for you or recognizes you from watching your walkaround videos on youtube, acts like you are a celebrity, buys a car from you, then proceeds to tell all their friends... then the number of views per video becomes irrelevant.

 

[joe.pistell]

Uncle Joe Rule # 87: "Dealers are like snow flakes, no 2 are the same". Because of that alone, ALL dealers should do videos!

In my case, we sold 6,000 cars a year at UsedCarKing.com. I loved walk around videos. I gave them top billing on the VDP, just below the main image...


This is what I learned.

• The more expensive and well equipped the car, the more engagement you'll see (e.g. video CTR & % watched to the end of the video)
• Anything that is "Fleet like" (e.g. base Camry, base Malibu) has poor video engagement. BUT, an expensive top of the line model will get eye balls.
• Miles Matter. Very hi or very low miles makes shoppers want to know the back story.

HTH
Joe

p.s. here's a great video thread from back in the day:
http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/threads/taking-videos-of-your-vehicles.64/

 

[craigh]

Agreed with Joe. We got over 100 views on our walkaround videos when we did them on our off-make cars.

 

[skutchhenks]

Uncle Joe Rule # 87: "Dealers are like snow flakes, no 2 are the same". Because of that alone, ALL dealers should do videos!

In my case, we sold 6,000 cars a year at UsedCarKing.com. I loved walk around videos. I gave them top billing on the VDP, just below the main image...
View attachment 2405

This is what I learned.

• The more expensive and well equipped the car, the more engagement you'll see (e.g. video CTR & % watched to the end of the video)
• Anything that is "Fleet like" (e.g. base Camry, base Malibu) has poor video engagement. BUT, an expensive top of the line model will get eye balls.
• Miles Matter. Very hi or very low miles makes shoppers want to know the back story.

HTH
Joe

p.s. here's a great video thread from back in the day:
http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/threads/taking-videos-of-your-vehicles.64/

Now that's killing it! Incredible work Joe, for that kind of volume it would take some serious talent, strong processes, and solid teamwork! That's NOT impossible, just challenging, plus takes enormous determination to make all that happen.

 

[joe.pistell]

Now that's killing it! Incredible work Joe, for that kind of volume it would take some serious talent, strong processes, and solid teamwork! That's NOT impossible, just challenging, plus takes enormous determination to make all that happen.

That was all possible due to the fearless Dealer, Todd Caputo.

#LeadershipMatters

 

[skutchhenks]

That was all possible due to the fearless Dealer, Todd Caputo.

#LeadershipMatters

True, it all starts at the top. Fortunately I've got carte blanche from ownership at nearly all of the locations I work with, but getting walkaround videos worked into the merchandising process only happens on 1%.

BTW I'm curious Joe, how old is that VDP screenshot? Looks nothing like usedcarking.com now. It should be used as a tutorial, layed out perfectly! Was that a Dealer.com site?

 

[joe.pistell]

http://drivingsalesnews.com/faceboo...13285776&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

"...for people who see a video before it starts playing but don’t actually watch any of it, there is a lift in ad recall, brand awareness and purchase consideration."

Good read. HTH

 

[joe.pistell]

...BTW I'm curious Joe, how old is that VDP screenshot? Looks nothing like usedcarking.com now. It should be used as a tutorial, layed out perfectly! Was that a Dealer.com site?

Thnx Skutch,
it's my DIY site from about 8-10 yrs ago. Homenet took my challenge on when no one else would (and I mean no one!). Homenet's CEO & leadership loved my years of insights in helping their platform, so they supplied me a small crew (shout out to my pals Matt & Mike!). I built mocks in photoshop & they built it. What you see is my mocks brought to life

IMO, no other page is more important than the VDP, so theres a lot of details in there that others will look past. I can tell you the Shoppers didn't I was heatmapping and clicktale-ing and iterating back in 2008. This is a "confetti map" of that ol' VDP.

Video's were embeded and the confetti maps didn't see them. So I used a video host that could track engagement to tell me if the video was played and for how long <---IMPORTANT

 

[skutchhenks]

Very impressive, that's forever ago in internet years. That heat map backs up my insights over the years that it's all about your inventory. So simple but true. Main reason (good) walkaround videos are so popular with shoppers. Agree on the video metrics, that's your gauge of quality which is crucial. Glad Youtube backend reporting has gotten a lot better since 2008, I remember back then their reporting was very basic.

 

[William Bryant]

Getting 1 or only 10 views per video is bologna. Getting views on YouTube is simple if you use keywords effectively. I don't have a ton of time to elaborate here but just google it. One time I had a lady from FL (me in SC) call me excited saying "you don't know me but I feel like I already know you because I watched all your videos! Do you still have that beetle, because I'm booking my plane ticket now to come get it."

It doesn't get much better than that, something only video can do. And that store has continued to produce great videos with plenty of views. They've gotten a little fancier with their video editing, but look at the oldest ones you'll see all we had was a flip video camera.
https://www.youtube.com/user/SteveWhiteVWAudi/videos?sort=p&flow=grid&view=0
This is one of my favorite videos I did... shows just how low-tech videos can gather tons of views and comments. It's really a bad video, but don't be scared! Because customers love it. Almost 65,000 views on this video


We had a routine, with two people and we eventually garnered the help of managers and salespeople, to where they now do all of them. It was difficult at first. But two of us did 5 videos a week, that was our goal. If we did one a day, or all 5 on Friday, we were going to do 5 a week. When we got more help that increased. But plan your work and work your plan, otherwise you'll never do it.