I hope I have gotten your attention with the title of this article! I have been immersed in video specifically for car dealerships and automotive sales professionals for over 13 years now. (I wrote my first article on video SEO 12 years ago in Dealer Magazine in 2006). And still, dealerships across the country are not embracing Video and respecting it for what it is: is— the most powerful resource for your dealership and sales team. Let me explain.
Google’s Algorithm favors video content that is optimized (correctly) over any other form of content like text, images, audio MP3s, etc. To be specific, a dealership or a sales professional can optimize a professional website the correct way, and optimize a video the correct way, and that video will propagate faster and index more dominantly on a SERP. Additionally, a video that is on a SERP will get clicked on 53 times more than a static link. I didn’t say double or triple or ten times. I said it will get clicked on 53 times more than anything else on that page. That is a tremendous advantage “IF” you have video content that is optimized correctly and indexes on the first page of the search engine.
So, the question is, why aren’t dealers doing this consistently? Why aren’t dealers proactively creating a video content creation strategy and incorporating a video SEO strategy?
People prefer to watch videos more than almost anything else- more than reading, writing, talking on the phone, and texting. If people prefer to consume video, why don’t dealerships and automotive sales consultants create video content for their prospects and clients?
For the dealerships that want to take advantage of the power of video but just don’t know how or where to start, let me break down some ways you should be incorporating video into your overall strategy:
Professional Video Content for Important Dealership and or Sales Professional information
– Using only cell phone video footage or low-quality video content is NOT a good strategy. Because video is widely consumed on a mass level daily, consumer expectations for video quality have increased. You should create or buy high-quality video content that includes motion graphics, animation, special effects, etc. This doesn’t mean that all of your content needs to be super high quality but definitely, some of your content should be, especially if you are going to be creating “Value Package Proposition” videos (Why Buy from Us). Shoot me an email if you would like me to provide you with some specific examples.
Library of Video Email CRM Templates
– Dealers and automotive sales consultants have been using CRMs for over a decade and what’s sad is that many of their email templates have NOT changed for almost that long (if ever). Video is such a powerful communication medium, dealerships should absolutely have a COMPLETE video email template library. For example, if you have a traditional text email library of around 20, 30, or 50 email templates then you should have an additional video email template library with the same amount of video email templates. Video email increases open rates up to 300%.
Video Content for the Dealership or Sales Consultant Website(s) AND for Social Media Platforms
Most dealerships or automotive sales consultants miss the mark when it comes to the dealer website or the sales consultant’s website by NOT having video content all throughout the website.
Basically, most if not all video content that you create and utilize for your dealership website or sales consultant personal website can also be repurposed for social media. There are multiple social media platforms but the top ones that I highly recommend are:
- Organic
- Paid (Facebook Ad Manager)
- Facebook Groups
I purposely only listed Facebook for “paid.” The other platforms also have the ability to have paid options, but you should focus on one first. Maximize that before you start spending money on multiple paid social media platforms. Unless you have a huge social media marketing budget.
Also remember that each social media platform has its own purpose, strategy, and audience. You do not want to cut and paste content across all platforms. There are exceptions to this rule. Social media platforms have different video rules and capability, for example, Instagram only allows you to upload one minute of video so if you have a two-minute video and upload, it will cut off the entire second minute or ask you to condense the video and if you do not know what you are doing, you can make a mess of things. So, just know your different platforms capabilities and each platform’s audience. Think of each social media like a different language. Just like in real languages, some sound the same and even use some of the same words… but they are still completely different languages. Same with social media platforms. The more “fluent” you are the better content you can provide your audience to engage with.
And then there is YouTube! That is an entire article itself. I will cover YouTube next month!
If you liked this article you will love my two-part presentation at Digital Dealer 25 next month in Las Vegas. Make sure that you attend my session and stop by the Dealer Video Production booth in the expo hall.
If you have questions about this article or would like examples, email me at [email protected].
