| Tim Smith: quality video retains visitor interest. |
Car dealers are missing a trick when it comes to attracting buyers and so missing out on potential sales, according to a web management company specialising in the sector.
A mere 7% of leading dealer websites currently use video to promote their businesses, a new survey from GForces has found. This is despite evidence that utilising quality video content can help to attract potential car buyers to a dealer’s website.
GForces, which says it works with more of the UK’s top car dealers than any rival, found that fewer than 10% of the sites analysed – 14 out of the UK’s top 200 – contained any video content. The firm’s commercial director Tim Smith warns that, by ignoring video, dealers are missing out on a highly effective marketing tool.
'If a picture paints a thousand words, then a video is even more impactful,' Smith tells ModernSelling.com.
'It’s far more attractive from a customer's point of view to watch a short clip than it is to wade through text, or even wait for multiple images to download. Videos help make a website ‘sticky' – retaining visitors' interest for as long as possible so the dealer can communicate crucial details about their business and available stock.'
Increased traffic
According to internet search monitor firm Hitwise, UK traffic to online video websites increased by nearly 180% between 2007 and 2008.
'It's clear that the popularity of video as an online medium is growing very rapidly,' adds Smith. 'Some of the dealers with more sophisticated marketing strategies are already using video to reinforce a competitive advantage online.'
Get it right
However, Smith advises that, done incorrectly, a video can potentially do more harm than good.
'If a clip goes on too long or feels fake, then it is likely to taint the impression viewers get of a dealer's business. They should only put something up there if it's going to be of real value or deliver a truthful insight to a potential customer. Look at the Confused.com style – granular home movies shot by actual clients – that's the sort of human interest everyone wants to watch.'
Smith warns businesses to be realistic, however: 'Sticking a video onto your website won't turn a floundering business into a booming concern. However, every little advantage you can eke out over the competition helps, and the right clip might provide just that.'
UPDATE - November 2011 (from May 2010 when this story ran)
Wow! Even I'm getting impressed now (says ModSell Publisher Neil Warren). With thanks to Oliver Webster below here, you can see that what was missing from our "magazine article" of many moons ago was (guessed yet?...) - some video! I just tracked through Tim's Gforces site to find one client (amongst many) and have selected one from Peter Vardy in Edinburgh. Simple, engaging, human, and a shiny new Beamer...
And then, because he's earned it, let's also give Oliver's update a quick run round the block, just to see if the wheels fall off...
Phew! Beam(er) me up Scotty!
Questions & Comments
Mobile video, holograms and the future for car dealerships
I think video is a great way to engage the customer, you see it at the motor shows all the time and people engage the whole message not just the car sat in front of them, yet when it comes to the dealerships its often the same tired old message both on the website and in the dealership itself with static images trying to sell a highly mobile product - perverse?
Id suggest the dealerships need to go even one step further down the line here and start making things move online and offline - eg put video not just next to the cars but in the cars, on the cars, floors, walls or anywhere you wouldnt normally expect to see video so you subliminally push the messages across to everyone who walks across your physical or virtual threshold.
One way to do this is with pocket projectors by to shining images on products like cars or on people, floors etc and it can be great marketing. Hardly anyone is using this type of guerilla marketing.
With a pocket or personal projector you can project images wherever you like - ive even done it on the move in a taxi before now shining directions from my phone onto the whole dashboard. Its like a heads up display and looks cool but in the dealership it could be used to show off the product in action as well as list its key features and benefits.
Other options are holographic images which can be projected that look like real people - they are so realistic people actually come up to them and start talking to them. Take a look at this one I did at the Gadget Show to promote pocket projectors. It could equally be used as a virtual receptionist or turn into a holographic car.
Hologram: http://www.personalprojector.co.uk/blog/2011/04/crowds-wowed-by-lumafire-virtual-hologram-presenter-at-the-gadget-show-live/
Posted by Oliver Webster on
Can you SEE what we did there?...
Hope you enjoy the updates Oliver, and Tim...
http://blog.gforces.co.uk/dealers-are-missing-out-on-web-opportunity/926/comment-page-1#comment-10720
...and any and all passing readers.
Posted by Neil Warren on
My Question / Comment Is...
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