I see many articles written by industry professionals about some of the biggest perceived issues of video marketing. These misconceptions are:
• Videos are time consuming to produce and get displayed.
• Videos are expensive to produce.
• There’s no attribution.
The reality is, if your dealership has a true video marketing strategy, these are not issues at all.
The real problem with a majority of dealerships’ video marketing strategies is that they use multiple video products from multiple vendors, all used for a single purpose and hosted on several different platforms, with no communication or integration between those hosting platforms.
For example, a dealership will purchase inventory videos from one vendor that are displayed on their website only. Then the dealer will create a special video ad campaign with another vendor. Then another video will be created for an email campaign, from yet a different vendor. Then they have a video production company come in and create a handful of value proposition (why buy) style videos that are uploaded to YouTube and embedded on a couple of website pages.
This “single purpose” video strategy results in the aforementioned misconceptions. If this is your strategy, you are absolutely spending too much time and money, and you have no way to track your ROI other than number of views.
A more cost-effective approach is to use a “multi-purpose” video marketing strategy. With this strategy, all your video content is hosted on a single platform that can automatically create a large amount of your video content, while simultaneously utilizing your video content, CRM/DMS data, sales and marketing data and viewer data to enhance the informational and emotional content of each video based upon each individual viewer’s behaviors and associated data.
To maximize your video content’s value, your strategy must utilize technology to get the right message in front of the right shopper at the right time of the buying cycle. This is what a “multi-purpose” video marketing strategy will accomplish for you.
The advantage of data integration is huge. Videos can be served up to car shoppers in real-time, offering a customized experience because they’re based upon many variables such as:
• Each individual viewer’s previous shopping behaviors
• The touch-point the video is being viewed on
• Geo-location of the viewer
• CRM and DMS data
• Relevant sales and marketing data
• Monthly incentives and promotional data
With data integration, the video host can even push real-time notifications to your CRM, letting you know when one of your customers or a new lead is watching one of your videos, regardless of which touch-point it’s being viewed on.
For example, you’ll get notified when one of your past customers shows back up “in market” and is viewing a video whether it’s on your Facebook page, website or on a third-party site such as Autotrader.com or Cars.com. This allows your sales team to reach out to that customer or lead in a timely manner with relevant information, days, weeks or even months before you would have ever known they are back “in market” without it.
This ability to know when car shoppers are viewing videos is a benefit that cannot be underestimated; especially when 75% of auto shoppers say that video has influenced their purchase decision and 40% of auto shoppers say that video helped them discover a vehicle they weren’t previously aware of or considering.
If you have bi-directional API integration with your video host, you can also update the content of your video for individual leads and/or customers, providing them with personalized viewing experiences.
For example, CRM and DMS data can be used to enhance the video experience with targeted messages such as an equity offer or service recommendations. These messages pop up in the video in the form of banners or other text features, along with a call to action. The best thing is, you don’t have to do anything to make this happen; this can all happen automatically.
No other merchandising media provides your dealership with this kind of information or control over the customer experience, along with complete attribution throughout the entire buying cycle. Yet, for some odd reason, most dealerships continue to utilize a single-purpose strategy.
Utilizing data to enhance the viewer experience is the future of video marketing in the automotive industry. Video marketing doesn’t have to be time consuming and expensive, with uncertain ROI.
To modernize your video marketing strategy, begin with the end in mind. What do you want to accomplish? What are your specific goals?
Create a series of videos that guide the car shopper toward your goal. Use these videos over and over again, across all channels and on every touch-point, in a multi-purpose video marketing strategy.
Make sure all your videos are hosted on a single platform that has data integration with your CRM and/or DMS. The sooner you take this step, the sooner you’ll develop a clear strategic advantage over your competitors.
Click here to view more solutions from Tim James and FlickFusion.
