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LESA’s New Technology, Ultra 360 spin, Offers Important Advantages Over Traditional 360 Spin

Online car shopping has grown exponentially during the last two years pushing car dealerships to create a stronger online presence. This trend does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon as car shoppers prefer to visit the car dealership less and to use online tools when looking for a new car.

So how can a car dealership display it’s inventory on their website? Buying a car is a huge purchase for most consumers, and it is important dealerships equip shoppers with all the information they need to make such a large purchasing decision. LESA’s new feature, Ultra 360 spin, is an innovative technology compared to traditional 360 spin that is helping consumers view the car as if they were there in person thanks to the use of video.

Let’s take a look at traditional 360 spin vs. Ultra 360 spin and the advantages Ultra 360 spin has in helping consumers make important purchasing decisions. 

What is Traditional 360 spin and How Does It Work?

Although traditional360 spin is not technically video, numerous car dealerships have added it to their websites. Traditional 360 spin offers interactive images that allow your customers to view the exterior of a vehicle from every angle.

Traditional 360 spin works similar to a flip book, and is a collection of consecutive photos that creates the illusion of a spin allowing you to view multiple angles of the car. If a consumer views a traditional 360° spin image on their computer, they can drag their mouse to rotate the vehicle. If the image is viewed on a tablet or mobile device, all it takes is a swipe of the finger to rotate the image.

What Is Ultra 360 spin and How Does It Work?

Ultra 360 spin uses video technology to provide seamless and smooth visibility into the condition of the vehicle on the outside and the inside of the car. Ultra 360 spin technology scrubs video footage back and forth giving the car shopper the ability to view numerous angels of the vehicle with the swipe of a finger or click of a mouse. 

The AI spotlight technology allows shoppers to easily zoom on important car details such as cup holders, buttons, tires, steering wheel, navigation and more. Ultra 360 spin technology offers a completely different and more transparent view of the vehicle making it easier than ever to successfully shop for a car from the comfort of your home, without missing any important details. 

For Ultra 360 spin to be implemented, walk around videos must be recorded of each vehicle. Once the walk around vehicle videos are recorded, your dealership can benefit from both vehicle videos and Ultra 360 spin. 

The Advantages of Ultra 360 spin over Traditional 360 Spin?

Traditional 360 spin is broken down into exterior and interior photos. The exterior photos can be rough or smooth depending on the exterior spin is constructed, which could lack the detail needed to view the car. With regards to the interior traditional 360 spin, it is just a 360 photo that is fixed on the arm rest, which allows for minimal detail to be seen since you are spinning from a fixed location. The consumers then must rely on hotspot photos, which they have likely already viewed in the photo gallery. 

Ultra spin, on the other hand, uses video technology to provide a new smooth and seamless view of the car almost as if you were viewing the car in person with the swipe of a finger. Spotlight features allow the consumer to easily view features that matter most in detail. compared to just a photo gallery or a fixed location. The visibility into the interior allows the consumers to see different angles as if you were shopping in person. Hot spots in traditional 360 spin are nothing more than photos that the consumer has already looked at, therefore providing no additional value to help them making important purchasing decision. 

Why Multimedia Features Are Important for Dealerships in 2022?

In 2022, it is time for car dealerships to elevate and innovate with multimedia. Multimedia combines text, graphics, audio, 360 spin and video that let the user navigate, interact, create, and communicate. LESA multimedia player takes on a custom and innovative approach to having multimedia on a car dealership website. The LESA player allows the dealership to have numerous different features for each vehicle, with little effort. The simple tool can help empower consumers to make purchasing decisions without numerous trips to the dealership.

Data from a LESA study which analyzed dozens of car dealerships showed users that interacted with multimedia spent 3x the amount of time on a website then users that did not. Additionally, data from the study showed that car dealerships that implemented video features on their website saw an 400% increase in conversions on their website. Implementing video really can be the difference in turning car shoppers into car buyers. 

The Bottom Line

In 2022, photos won’t be enough to sell cars online. In a competitive environment such as the automotive industry, it is essential car dealerships tailor an online strategy to the preferences of the consumers they serve. Consumers continue to prove that multimedia is the most effective medium to learning and digesting information making Ultra 360 spin an attractive option for car dealerships looking to sell cars online.

Speak with a LESA Representative Today!

Interested in learning more about LESA Video Technology for Car Dealerships? Get Started and talk to a representative today! sales@lesautomotive.com

How Multimedia is Helping Car Dealerships Sell Vehicles

What Is The LESA Multimedia Player?

LESA multimedia player takes on a custom and innovative approach to having multimedia on a car dealership website. The LESA player allows the dealership to have numerous different features for each vehicle, with little effort. The simple tool can help empower consumers to make purchasing decisions without numerous trips to the dealership. 

We talk more in depth about the player in our previous blog post, “Having a Great Website Includes Multimedia.”

How Will the Multimedia Player Help Sell Cars?

LESA analyzed Google Analytics data from car dealerships to evaluate the effectiveness of the multimedia player to really discover if it was helping car dealerships sell cars. The quick answer is YES, video is absolutely helping car dealerships sell their inventory. There are four ways that video and multimedia is improving the effectiveness of your website: 

  • Increasing session duration
  • Increasing pages/session
  • Increasing events/session
  • Increasing conversions 

Let’s take a deeper look as to how and why video is helping car dealerships sell vehicles. 

Increase Session Duration

We compared a user’s time spent on website when interacting with a multimedia player vs. not interacting with it. The results are astounding. A user that interacted with multimedia spent 3x the amount of time than a user that did not interact with video, increasing session duration by 300%. 

In our sample data of a car dealership we analyzed, the average session duration for a user that interacted with multimedia was 10:35 compared to only 3:02 for users that did not interact with multimedia. We saw similar numbers across a dozen other dealerships.

Why does the multimedia player increase the time spent on the website so drastically? Multimedia provides an engaging and educational experience for car shoppers. It gives them the transparency and the information they need to successfully shop for a car online. 

A good session duration across industry standard ranges anywhere from 2-3 minutes. As you may already know, there are a mountain of evidence that proves the more time a consumer spends on a website the more likely they’re likely to convert to a buyer.  

Increase Pages/ Session Duration

LESA also compared data of the average pages per session of a user that interacted with multimedia compared to a user that did not interact with video and found that video increased the number of pages viewed by 170% compared to no video. What does this mean? The dealership we observed showed that users that interacted with multimedia viewed almost 8 pages (7.92) compared to only 3.13 pages before leaving the website. This could be a huge difference for your dealership, meaning a user could potentially view 8 cars instead of 3 before leaving. 

Why does the multimedia player increase pages/session? The information that video presents to car shoppers keeps them engaged and confident that they are truly getting a great preview of the car. It heightens their curiosity and results in them viewing more makes and models the dealership has to offer.

Increase Events/Session 

An event is considered any activity that a user takes on your page. This could include button clicks, video plays, form submissions, looking at the description section of the vehicles, viewing the window sticker, scrolling down the page, and more. 

The multimedia player also had a substantial impact on increasing events/session compared to a user experience without interacting with video. In our analysis, we found that users that interacted with video saw a 150% increase in events taken on the webpage compared to users that did not interact with video. The average number of events per session in the dealership observed was 30 compared to 12. This 2.5X increase could help your car dealership convert shoppers into buyers.

Why do videos increase events? Videos interactive and educational nature help keep users engaged on your website, resulting in a user wanting to see and explore more of the website. Empowering users to take action on your website is the goal, and videos can help users take meaningful options resulting in converting car shoppers into car buyers.

Increase Goal Conversion Rate

Finally, and most importantly, video is proven to increase goal conversion rate. Many dealerships have already set up goal conversions in Google Analytics. Goal conversions could include submitting a check availability form, engaging in chat, clicking on the phone number to call, and more. In order to track how many consumers are converting. We are looking at the same consumers who interacted with the multimedia player if they also converted through the goal conversion tracking. This  allowed us to see there was a 400% increase conversion compared to consumers that did not interact with the multimedia player in the dealership we observed. The numbers were similar across over a dozen dealerships that were analyzed. 

An industry standard conversion rate is between 2-4%, however,  certain car dealerships using the LESA multimedia player with video on average are seeing a 14% conversion rate. This means that car shoppers really are turning into car buyers, and contacting car dealerships to take action. 

Take Action: Improve Your Website So Car Shoppers Become Car Buyers

LESA encourages each car dealership to review their Google Analytics and compare the session duration, pages per session, events per session, and goal conversion rates to the rates with the multimedia player analytics we shared above. Multimedia can without a doubt improve your website, and convert car shoppers into car buyers.

The Bottom Line: 

Using Google Analytics LESA proved that video is truly making an impact! Having a multimedia player such as the LESA multimedia can really help your car dealerships sell cars. It’s an easy and affordable way to convert car shoppers into car buyers. 

LES Automotive Multimedia: How Do I Get started?

Reach out to a representative today at https://www.lesautomotive.com/contact/

We’ll help you setup a custom report in Google Analytics that you can use to compare your key GA analytics before and after adding video to your site.   

Having A Great Website Includes Multimedia.

Car shopping habits have changed significantly as shoppers are spending less time at the dealership and more time online. In fact, the average car shopper visits just 1.2 dealerships before making a purchasing decision. What does this mean for car dealerships? They need a strong online presence with multimedia features to help sell their cars.

Along with enjoying increased engagement and shares that multimedia provides, there is one powerful reason for including multimedia on your website- it is helping dealerships sell cars. Multimedia increases the time spent on your website which is aiding consumers in purchasing decisions and leading to the purchase of cars.

As online car shopping continues to soar, car dealerships need to be aware of the important benefits multimedia provides. LESA is helping car dealerships integrate multimedia options onto their car dealership website very easily with their LESA multimedia player.

What Does Multimedia mean to LESA?

Photos have been popular one the internet since the 1990s. In 2022, it is time for car dealerships to elevate and innovate with multimedia. Multimedia combines text, graphics, audio, 360 spin and video that let the user navigate, interact, create, and communicate.

LESA multimedia player takes on a custom and innovative approach to having multimedia on a car dealership website. The LESA player allows the dealership to have numerous different features for each vehicle, with little effort. The simple tool can help empower consumers to make purchasing decisions without numerous trips to the dealership. The bottom line: LESA’s multimedia player is helping car dealerships sell cars.

Why Does Your Car Dealership Need Multimedia?

1) Multimedia increases time spent on website: Studies conducted by LESA have shown that having a multimedia player on their website can increase time spent on website by 50%. Increasing time spent on website is directly correlated to increased conversions. Your dealership will increase its ability to sell vehicles online with a multimedia player.

2) Multimedia can boost SEO: Search engines notice multimedia content more than anything else since it has greater impact on overall content. This is why it is important to add alt text to all elements you upload. Additionally,  it is important to ensure  your video is being streamed from a content video network so the video can stream without hesitation and quickly boosting your SEO.

3) Multimedia is better for branding: Since people these days have become tremendously visual; video is one of the most popular multimedia types you can see everywhere. Without these channels like audio, video and supporting images it is difficult to build brand recognition. Make it simple: online brand building requires utilizing every multimedia asset available these days.

Using LESA to Integrate Multimedia Features On Your Car Dealership Website

Over the past few years Americans have shifted from content readers to content viewers.

LESA is partnering with car dealerships around the United States to integrate multimedia content during the car shopping experience. The LESA multimedia player allows car dealerships to display photos, video, 360 spin, and featured videos to help educate and give transparency into the vehicle they are shopping for. 

Not only is online video consumption at an all time high, but video content is also proven to influence purchase decisions of consumers. The pandemic has accelerated this process as shoppers want to research, shop and buy cars online rather than going down to the dealership.

The transparency that video provides in the online car shopping experience is invaluable to consumers as it helps educate and influence purchasing decisions. Video mixed with other multimedia elements such as photos, audio and 360 spin is helping car dealerships convert shoppers into buyers. 

What Does LESA Multimedia Player Include?

Vehicle Video

Car dealerships can easily record and upload a video to their website.  The app allows you do easily add VoiceOver listing options specific to that vehicle, background music and more to enhance the videos to increase user engagement. The more time a viewer spends on a shopping page, the more likely they are to buy. People spend on average 2.6x more time on pages with video than without. Our full-motion walk-around videos have an 80% completion ratio average for a 2-minute video.

Photos & 360 Spin

Although consumers prefer video, sometimes they want to browse through photos or 360 spin. These features along with video can help aid consumers in the car shopping experience. 

Spotlight Feature

The vehicle videos have spotlight features so shoppers can easily view the features of the vehicles that matter most. Easily view the headlights, steering wheel, tires, navigation and more.

Featured Videos

Featured videos help aid consumers in the purchasing decisions necessary to online shop such as gaining a deeper look into the interior design, all-wheel drive, safety and driver assist technologies, and numerous other vehicle features. 

CARFAX Integration

LESA’s multimedia player integrates with Carfax for those that have a Carfax subscription so shoppers can easily browse vehicle history reports to gain a better understanding of the car. 

Contact Form & Chat Function

One of the main benefits of a multimedia player is getting online shoppers engaged. LESA’s multimedia player allows car shoppers to submit contact forms on vehicles they are interested in and even chat with the team at the car dealership in just minutes online. 

The Bottom Line: Multimedia is Powerful

Engaging users via the power of multimedia allows site owners to interact with their visitors more. Car dealerships should consider adding a multimedia player to their car dealership website as photos may prove to be insufficient in 2022 and beyond. 

In our next blog, we will discuss how video content increases engagement and time spent on website with samples from some LESA customers. 

Elevate Your Car Dealership Brand with Promo Videos

43% of marketers say they’d create more video content if there were no obstacles like time, resources and budget. After all, more than half of shoppers say online video has helped them decide which specific brand or product to buy. There’s no doubt that videos will continue to play an important role in the online car, so how can car dealerships create video content more easily? LESA’s Dealer Video Suite is an excellent tool for creating easy and affordable promo videos. 

What is the Dealer Video Suite App?

The Dealer Video Suite app

The Dealer Video Suite app is a video toolbox for your sales team, bringing your dealership closer to your clients than ever before via personalized and custom videos. LESA Video Suite helps the sales team at a car dealership easily create, record and publish videos without having to get video creators and website professionals involved, which can be extremely time consuming and expensive. 

Your sales team can use the Dealer Video Suite App in the following ways:

  • Vehicle videos to customers 
  • Thank you videos to new customers
  • Testimonial videos to showcase happy customers and enhance dealership reputation
  • Promotional videos

How Can Promo Videos Benefit Your Dealerships?

Promo Videos

Recording and uploading promotional videos has traditionally not been an easy process for car dealerships. The Dealer Video Suite App was designed to alleviate the pain and frustration that can come along with recording and uploading videos. The promo videos are so easy to upload, it removes the need to involve a website provider which can cost extra time and money. Additionally, you don’t have to hire a professional videographer, the promo video can be shot entirely from a cell phone. by eliminating professional videographers and website providers. A General Manager can record a promo video in 2 minutes highlighting the promo video for the week. It is the ultimate promotional video tool. 

For example, if your car dealership is running a Labor Day Special, you can create a custom promo video and tailor it to any make or model applicable to show up the vehicle details page. The app even allows you to select an end date, so the promo video will automatically disappear off your website without having to go in and manually remove. The promo videos are so easy to upload, it removes the need to involve a website provider which can cost extra time and money. Additionally, you don’t have to hire a professional videographer, the promo video can be shot entirely from a cell phone.

How It Works: 

Creating a promo video and distributing to your dealership website can be completed in three simple steps.

1.Select: easily select a full-motion video from your library, shoot one with the app camera, or select from your device gallery

2. Filter: Use custom filters to select when the video should expire, and if it applies to only particular makes/ manufacturers.

3.Upload: Choose wear to upload your promo video, either to your website, social media platforms or both!

Promo Video Ideas

We’ve removed the obstacles so you can get creative! There are numerous ways that promo videos can be used. 

  • Staff Intro
  • Manufacturer’s video
  • Vehicle feature
  • Make and model-specific promotion
  • Classic vehicles
  • Third-party reviews
  • Why buy here?
  • CPO benefits
  • Showroom re-model
  • Service center intro

Here is an example of a promotional video created by Honda of New Rochelle. It quickly offers the viewer the opportunity to give feedback, introduces them to a salesperson they can contact, and brands the video. In addition, a dealership can create a promo video for a particular model that they’d like to promote. You can also set an expiration date and have the video auto-removed once the promotion is over

LESA : The Ultimate Promotional Video Tool

In a digitally competitive environment, your car dealership needs every tool it can to covert car shoppers into customers. The promo video tool on the dealer video app easily allows car dealerships to record and upload videos in just minutes to their website. 

Talk to a representative to get started today!

The Benefits of Customer Testimonial Videos

When it comes to car shopping, consumers have plenty of options in 2021. The new generation of tech-savvy customers typically perform a lot of research before making a purchase decision. In fact, 81% of consumers age 18-34 say they seek opinions through online reviews before purchasing any product or service, according to a recent report from Mintel.

As car shoppers do more online research and engage with social peers before making a decision to head into your dealership, online reviews can be extremely important to enhance your online reputation.

What Are Video Testimonials?

Video testimonials have become popular recently compared to written testimonials. In fact, 89% of marketers say video testimonials are the most effective content marketing tactic.

In short, a video testimonial is a video of a customer or client praising a company. In most cases, customer’s will talk about how the car dealership helped them purchase their vehicle, the process, the team, and their positive experience of doing business.

Testimonial videos allow your clients to see other people talk about your products, giving an honest, unscripted opinion. It puts a face to your business and gives your brand the credibility it needs within your target group.

Why Are Video Testimonials Better Than Text?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, than a video is worth about 1.8 million. Videos offer numerous advantages over text, especially when it comes to testimonials. Although text testimonials can help your business, too, video has the ability to really make your car dealership stand out. Here’s five reasons why:

  1. People trust video testimonials
  2. People remember video more than text
  3. People prefer to watch videos compared to reading text
  4. People share videos more than text
  5. Videos help create an emotional connection compared to text

LESA Video Testimonial

LESA Video Suite helps the sales team at a car dealership easily create, record and publish videos without having to get video creators and website professionals involved, which can be extremely time consuming and expensive. Not only can the app create vehicle walk around videos, but it also can help dealerships create vehicle testimonial videos.

The Vehicle Testimonial feature allows you to capture positive customer reviews during the delivery of the vehicle and before they drive off the lot.  The Dealer Video Suite App allows sales reps to shoot positive customer review videos and send them to potential leads or share them on your dealership’s social media channels.

Why can’t you record vehicle testimonial videos just on your smartphone? Well you can, however, there is much manual work that is required if you don’t use the LES Automotive app. The LESA app allows you to easily create and publish the video through many different channels, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and any other social media channels. The LESA app is easy to use, will eliminate manual work in publishing and can save you time.

Important Benefits of LESA Video Testimonial Software

SEO

In a competitive environment, reviews are very important. Numerous consumers search for dealership reviews before committing to purchasing a vehicle, to ensure other consumers had a positive experience. LESA video suite uses proprietary SEO video techniques once the testimonial video is uploaded to your car dealership website to ensure your reviews are being found on Google. If a potential customer searches “your dealership name” and “reviews”, the testimonial videos will come up at the top of the first page of Google, helping your dealership build it’s online reputation and bring in new customers.

Help Bury Bad Reviews

Let’s face it, every business gets a bad review here or there. It’s extremely important handle these reviews as a priority, and respond to their negative feedback. Unfortunately, sometimes these negative reviews can stay at the top of the review results, making it difficult for your business to get new customers. LESA video testimonial can help, as video sometimes has the power to bury text results on the first page of Google, as Google continues to prioritize video results over text.

Power of Video

Video testimonials are very powerful as they show raw emotion and the real experience of other people. Text is not as influential as a personal video from a happy customer.

Only Need a Few

Many customers might be reluctant to hop on a video testimonial due to being camera shy, however, even if your car dealership can get video testimonials from 10% of your customers every month, this has outstanding impact on building trust and boosting SEO for your car dealership.

How Does LESA Video Testimonial Work?

LESA Video Suite helps the sales team at a car dealership easily create, record and publish videos without having to get video creators and website professionals involved, which can be extremely time consuming and expensive. Creating a testimonial video and distributing to your social media can be completed in four simple steps. Using a dedicated iPad is recommended.

  1. Select: easily select a full-motion video from your library, shoot one with the app camera, or select from your device gallery
  2. Sign Release Form:  Customers must sign a release form for video testimonial to be used
  3. Target: Choose which social media platforms you would like the video to posted to
  4. Send: Push send, and the video will automatically be distributed to the selected social channels.

Get Started With Video Customer Testimonials For Your Car Dealership Today

Get started with video testimonials today and contact: sales@lesautomotive.com

Introducing Real Offer: The Most Accurate Cash Offer and Trade In Tool

LESA automotive has announced the release of a new feature, Real Offer, to help tackle the issues of low inventory due to the the chip shortage. Although most of them are a little smaller than a coin the size of a quarter, the tiny semiconductor chips are bringing production of vehicles across the nation to a halt. Car dealers have barren parking lots, resulting in limited options for consumers in the market for a new vehicle as well as driving up used car prices.

How is Real Offer helping consumers? Let’s take a deeper look into the car shortage, how it started, and how Real Offer is helping car dealerships around the nation.

A Look Into the Chip Shortage

The chip shortage was caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which increased demand for the personal electronics such as cell phones and laptops that the chips are used in to the point where production could not keep pace with demand. 

In the past when automakers experienced recessions, they were quickly able to cancel ordered parts with computer chips thinking autosaves would plummet. Although the sales of new cars did initially plummet, it quickly rebounded with pent-up demand and 0% financing offers. Also, car dealerships turned to the internet and figured out how to sell cars online and offer at home pickup and delivery.

So, when workers returned and factories reopened, the stronger-than-expected demand for new vehicles outpaced production and has yet to catch up.

As more Americans than ever continue to move away from cities into the suburbs, it has been hard for many to find or afford a vehicle. Since there is a shortage of new cars, many consumers are considering purchasing a used vehicle, however, we are starting to see a shortage of used cars as well. Let’s take a deeper look at how trade-ins and traditional sources of used cars has been affected by COVID-19, and how LESA’s new product is helping ease problems of the inventory shortage.

Traditional Way Car Dealerships Acquire Used Vehicles.

Dealerships traditionally get used cars two ways, through trade-ins and auctions.

  1. Trade-Ins: Trading in your current vehicle at a car dealership  may not be the best option for everyone, but it can be an easy way to part with it, especially when you want to buy or lease a new or used car. Essentially, what you do is sell your used car to the dealer, and the amount they pay gets taken off the value of whichever vehicle you want to buy. To start the process, all you have to do is go to the dealership you plan to buy or lease a new vehicle from and tell the car salesperson that you want to trade your old car in. After giving it a test drive and appraising its value, the dealership employee will make you an offer.
  2. Auctions: Dealerships also acquire new vehicles through auctions. For example, Honda dealers may want to attend auctions to purchase used Honda’s for sale from other car dealerships. This is typically how dealerships around the nation would acquire used cars to sell on their lot, however, as used cars have sky rocketed in demand, the big players are purchasing all the used cars at premiums, making it harder for smaller dealerships to compete for additional inventory.

The Problem with Traditional Trade-In Methods

The internet based dealership such as Carmax and Caravana have been aggressive in trying to buy cars from consumers for their website. They are doing this by offering cash for cars. Consumers enter some basic information and these websites are able to provide a cash offer in just minutes based off some generic information. The problem is that none of these tools request the consumer to submit photos or videos of the car resulting in a false sense of the value of your vehicle.

Typically, a consumer will bring the car into the dealership for review and they are disappointed to find that the value is much less than the number they received online. This can be extremely frustrating and disappointing for consumers. Not to mention, it can waste a lot of time if the consumer is not receiving accurate numbers the first time. LESA has launched a new tool helping the trade-in process become as accurate and seamless as possible as well as helping car dealerships compete for acquiring used vehicles.

The New Way to Trade In Your Vehicle

LESA announced the release of a new product, Real Offer. Real Offers provides the most accurate cash and trade-in offers by utilizing photos and video. Consumers have the ability to take detailed photos and videos of their cars in just minutes on their smartphones, which can be sent to car dealerships to receive the most accurate trade-in and cash offer.

Once you submit your videos and photos, the used car manager will get a notification on their smartphone that someone has requested an offer. They can review the vehicle photos and video, such as the tires, steering wheel, seats, etc. and can respond back with an offer. It gives the dealership the ability to make an offer as if they inspected the vehicle in person. Consumers don’t have to waste time receiving inaccurate quotes and spending hours at the dealership during inspections.

The Benefit of Real Offer for Car Dealerships

As the car shortage continues, dealerships are looking to obtain new cars as the production on new vehicles has greatly slowed. Adding Real Offer to your website as a tool easily allows consumers to upload and submit vehicle videos to receive offers. Making the process as easy and accurate as possible may attract consumers to trade-in their vehicle with your car dealership. Real Offer is easy to use and has other benefits for car dealerships:

  1. Web-based app: it works really fast and is simply a link that can be embedded on your website, Facebook ad campaign, and Google Ad words campaign. The more places you are able to embed the link, the more opportunities for consumers to submit offers.
  2. Pair with Other Tools: Real offer works great with Kelley Blue Book instant cash offer tool. Kelley Blue Book is able to provide a basic range of value for the car, and then the car dealership is able to further assist with photos and video. Mr. David Stern from Michael Holh GM is using it in conjunction with the KBB cash offer tool.

The Bottom Line

Real Offer is helping car dealerships tackle the issue of the chip shortage, by giving consumers an easier way to trade in their vehicle with an accurate offer. Car dealerships are in the market for used cars, so adding an easy and seamless tool to your website to help facilitate trade-ins may attract new customers to your car dealership website and help car dealerships compete in the used car market.

Get Started with Real Offer

Get started with real offer today and contact: sales@lesautomotive.com

How Vehicle Walk Around Videos can Enhance Your Car Dealership Website

In 2021, customers will be searching online for the most accessible, accurate information about the vehicles they are interested in. By levering live video on your website in the process, you can help transform the customer journey by simplifying the research process and making it more likely they will purchase a vehicle from your car dealership.

Let’s take a look at how vehicle walk around videos can enhance your car dealership website, and how to get started with video.

What are Vehicle Walk Around Videos?

A vehicle walk around video is when a sales rep records a 360 ̊ video of a vehicle, highlighting distinguishing features, color and condition. Personalized videos helps car dealerships develop a one-to-one connection with potential customers, in contrast to an impersonal email.

These videos can be can help potential car shoppers whether they are looking at a used or new car. For new cars, the video can showcase the latest model and what improvements were made to a previous version. For used cars, the video can showcase the condition of the vehicle  which builds trust, credibility and customer confidence.

In a competitive environment such as the automotive industry, your car dealership website really can’t afford to miss out on the benefits of vehicle walk around videos.

The Benefits of Vehicle Walk Around Videos

Recording Videos Has Never Been Easier: Your sales team can easily record vehicle walk around videos in just a few minutes. All you have to do is record the video on your cell phone, and upload it to the LESA dealer video suite app.

Videos Help Your Audience Retain Information: Viewers retain 95% of a video’s message as compared to 10% if reading it in text. Video conveys visual cues like body language, tone of voice, and eye contact which are essential for drawing emotions and reactions. Emotions play a significant role in retaining information

Increase Engagement and Time Spent on Website: The more time a viewer spends on a shopping page, the more likely they are to buy. People spend on average 2.6x more time on pages with video than without. Our full-motion walk-around videos have an 80% completion ratio average for a 2-minute video. This shows consumers are engaged and recognize the value that video provides.

Easily Personalize Videos: LESA’s dealer video suite allows for custom VoiceOver and background music to help keep the potential customer engaged. Custom Voiceover helps provide the shoppers with information that is essential in their purchasing decision such as detailed information on the features and technology of the vehicle.

It’s Extremely Cost Effective: Video production can be extremely time consuming and expensive. Many car dealerships think that having vehicle walk around videos requires hiring a videographer which can cost thousands of dollars. LESA video inventory vehicles has changed that, making it easier than ever for your in-house photographer to shoot vehicle walk around videos. Not only can your photographer use the app to shoot videos, but they can also take all photos on the app as well, merging both photographs and video into one simple solution. The photos and videos taken from each car are saved in the app and can be easily uploaded to your car dealership website in just two hours. You don’t have to hire an IT person to add videos to the website, eliminating another expensive cost of video production.

Interact with Features That Matter Most to Customers: LESA spotlight features allows consumers to view key highlights in the video and interact with features that matter most. Spotlight easily helps car shoppers identify the wheel, headlight, steering wheel, odometeter/speedometer, navigation system and the video.

How Do LESA Walk Around Vehicle Videos Work?

Creating and uploading professional videos doesn’t have to take hours or cost thousands of dollars. Through the use of the dealer video inventory app, recording and uploading videos has never been easier. You can get started in three simple steps.

  1. Scan the VIN: Find or add a vehicle instantly. Use the camera to easily scan the VIN. The app will automatically find the vehicle or you can add it to the inventory.
  2. Capture: Record an HD full-motion walk around video and capture photos simultaneously. Add optional VoiceOver, background music and more.
  3. Upload: Wirelessly upload and syndicate your videos to your dealer website, social media channels and third-party lead providers like cars.com and AutoTrader.

The Bottom Line: It’s Time to Elevate Your Car Sales Strategy

In 2019, 72% of car buyers said they would visit dealerships more often if there was a better car buying process. Allowing car shoppers to stay engaged while learning on your website is a great way to convert car shoppers into car buyers. Video improves the car buying experience for customers and is the driving force behind getting the customer in the store to purchase the vehicle.

How Can My Car Dealership Get Started with Videos?

Incorporating vehicle videos on your car dealership website has never been easier with LESA video technology. LESA is the largest dealer video inventory provider with 100K+ vehicle video views daily on our dealers’ internet destinations — Dealer Sites, YouTube, Facebook, Cars.com, AutoTrader and more. Their video inventory, video suite and other video apps have been proven to increase traffic and conversions to car dealership websites. If you are looking to grow your business, look no further, LESA technology is right for you.

Interested in learning more about LESA Video Technology for Car Dealerships? Get Started and talk to a representative today!

The Importance of Facebook Ads for Car Dealerships

While online car shopping is at an all time high in 2021, car dealerships must find a way to communicate with potential shoppers.

More than 6 million companies are currently advertising on Facebook, with 67% of marketers claiming it to be their most important social channel.

Facebook ads is no longer an optional tool for businesses, especially businesses that are consumer facing. On average, roughly 75% of US adults spend at least 50 minutes per day on Facebook – it’s certainly one platform that you cannot afford to overlook. Facebook is a great opportunity to get your car dealership in front of the eyes of millions of car shoppers.

What Can Facebook Ads Do For My Car Dealership?

  1. Lead Generation

Facebook Ads can be used to generate leads for car dealerships. In fact, Facebook is extremely data rich, and the advertising platform allows you to micro-target the audiences that are best for your dealership. You can narrow down the demographic for every ad you run with segments that include:

  • Gender
  • Age
  • Location
  • Interests
  • Education
  • Job title
  • Income
  • Recent purchases
  • Major life events

Instead of using outdated cold calling and other failed marketing techniques, you can tap into the power of target Facebook ads to bring qualified leads to your dealership.

2. Won’t Break the Bank

Like many other pay-per-click style advertising platforms, Facebook Ads are freely available to all businesses- and the Ads Manager tool is free as well. The only cost to the business is running the ads. The cost of running ads on Facebook is determined by numerous factors, but generally marketers should expect to pay anywhere from a few cents to a couple dollars per click.

The bottom line is you can set your own budget. Running ads will help you reach a significantly larger audience than your car dealership page would organically. If some months your marketing budget has to be adjusted, you can easily increase of decrease based on your situation.

3. Improve Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is an important part of any car dealerships long term marketing plan. Whether you are a new or established dealership, it is important to ensure you are constantly improving your brand awareness. Facebooks advanced targeting capabilities and brand awareness ad objectives, you can reach potential customers that are in the market for a new or used car. By continuing to improve their recognition of your brand through ads, you are actively working to ensure they choose your dealership over the competition.

What Type of Ads Does Facebook Offer?

Knowing where to start with Facebook ads can be difficult. After all there are many different types of ads that Facebook provides to its businesses. We have listed some of the ad types below:

  • Photo – These are static single images, plus a caption.
  • Video – Video ads range in terms of length and can be set to appear in-stream, in user feeds, or in Stories.
  • Stories – Stories are customizable ads that take up the whole screen. They can be videos or static images and tapping on Stories ads brings the user to your site (or whatever page you set).
  • Messenger – These ads appear between conversations on the Facebook Messenger App.
  • Carousel – Carousel ads are comprised of up to ten static images that the user can scroll through.
  • Slideshow – These ads show short video-like clips made with motion, sound, and text.
  • Collection – Collection ads showcase multiple products in a single ad, all of which can be individually interacted with by a user.
  • Playables – These are interactive demo games that users can preview before they download the app or game.

What Type of Ad is Best for My Car Dealership?

Static photo ads do not help educate and engage the consumer as well as videos. Facebook data has continued to show that video ads are becoming increasingly popular. They are better for engaging your audience and sharing valuable information, which is critical in the car shopping process.

Especially in a competitive environment such as the auto industry, it is important you tailor your content to the consumers you are trying reach. Most car shoppers are trying to learn something through their searches online, so video content is a great way to engage and educate potential shoppers.

How Do I Get Started With Dynamic Video Content for Facebook Ads?

With LESA dynamic Facebook ads, HD full-motion video ad content is tailored specifically to your inventory, changes based on a visitor’s behavior, and leads a customer directly to a vehicle description page. 

LESA video suites allows ads to be created based on any video in your vehicle inventory. Car dealerships can easily create multiple different ads for multiple target audiences based on their interests, age, location, etc.

When a viewer clicks on your video ad, they are transported directly to a video on the vehicle details page on your website so they can review the vehicle they are interested in learning more about. LESA video suite helps create these video pages to ensure your users are engaged and learning useful information about the vehicle which can aid in purchasing decisions.

LESA dynamic Facebook ads are automated, which can save your team time and effort as videos are automatically uploaded from inventory each day.

Getting started with Facebook ads doesn’t have to be difficult, and although it may seem unfamiliar to your car dealership, LESA can help automate and streamline the process while delivering dynamic and engaging Facebook ads.

The Bottom Line

Facebook is an excellent social media platform to connect with potential car buyers. With 302 million US Facebook users, your business is missing out if you aren’t using Facebook as a means to communicate with your target audience.

Facebook ads can be a lot to manage for car dealerships, but LESA video suite and dynamic Facebook ads is helping car dealerships streamline the ad process. In fact, car dealership around the nation are seeing the benefits of using LESA for dynamic Facebook ads, as their engagement is rising, clicks are coming through to the website increase, and qualified leads come in.

Let’s Get Started: Dynamic Facebook ads with LESA

Video is what we do best. LESA is the largest dealer video inventory provider with 100K+ vehicle video views daily on our dealers’ internet destinations — Dealer Sites, YouTube, Facebook, Cars.com, AutoTrader and more. We’d love to team up with your car dealership, please contact a representative for more information.

Importance of a Video Sitemap for SEO

The automotive industry is rapidly changing, having video on your car dealership website in 2021 is a must to stay competitive. The benefits of video are endless, as it increases consumer engagement, helps consumers learn and retain information, and boosts SEO and online visibility for car dealerships.

Creating a video sitemap is an important step in helping boost your websites SEO and online visibility. Video sitemaps can be easily interpreted by search engines automating crawling bots, helping them to understand the content on your website and prevent crawling errors.

But the real benefits of video SEO is driving potential car buyers to your website. In 2021, millions of Americans are looking to buy vehicles online. It is extremely important car dealerships have a strategy to drive active car buyers to their website, which can be achieved through the use of online vehicle videos and video sitemap.

Traditionally, many dealerships have relied on keyword and text results to drive traffic. However, in a highly competitive environment, videos have a better chance at ranking on page one of Google under the Video tab and the All tab.

Let’s take a deeper dive into how videos and video sitemaps can drive car buyers to your website.

What is a Video Sitemap?

A video sitemap is a document with additional information about the video hosted on your pages. Providing extra details to Google about the videos you have on your website helps Google index them correctly. Because video content inherently has no keywords  or text content bundled with it, video sitemaps are very effective of getting your videos included in search results.

If your website is using a video sitemap, your videos will also appear in Google Video, a dedicated video section on the Google website. However, the real benefit of using a video sitemap is to boost your website SEO and direct traffic from potential car buyers to your website.

What Information Is in a Video Sitemap?

A video sitemap can help owners inform Google of the category, title, description, running time and intended audience for each video contained on the website. The following information is recommended so that it can be displayed properly in the search results:

  • <video: video>: includes all information about the video
  • <video: title>: title of the video; should match the title tag of the page
  • <video: description>: description; should match the page’s meta description
  • <loc>: URL of the page on which the video is played
  • <video: thumbnail_loc>: URL of the image for the thumbnail (a high-resolution image with up to 1920 × 1080 pixels)
  • URL with the raw data of the video (<video: content_loc>) or the URL to the Flash Player for the video (<video: player_loc>)

The following information is also possible and useful:

  • <video: duration>: Duration of the video in seconds
  • <video: expiration_date>: Date from which the video is no longer available.

Here is an example of a video sitemap from a car dealership website:

What are the Benefits?

The benefits of creating a video sitemap is primarily becoming highly visible through the Google search engine. If you videos are properly mapped, your website will shop on in the search results, which can help your dealership in two ways:

#1. Save Money- The real benefit of driving traffic to your website organically is saving money. Your car dealership won’t have to pay as much in Google ad words to put your dealership website at the top. Over time, this could add up to a lot of extra savings that can be used elsewhere in your business.

#2. Drive Traffic From Potential Car Buyers- In 2021, millions of Americans are shopping for cars online.If your videos are properly mapped, your car dealership website will be able to draw traffic to your website from actual car buyers. This gives you the ability to showcase your vehicle inventory through educational videos, and convert online shoppers into buyers.

Additionally, if your videos show up in the Google Videos section of the search results, a thumbnail will be displayed. Videos with thumbnails are proven to have higher click through rates than videos without thumbnails.

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How to Setup a Video Sitemap

Setting up a video sitemap may sound complicated, but there are numerous ways to get the job done.

#1. Create Your Own

You can create a video sitemap manually by typing up the details of the video in a predefined format.

#2. Using a Plugin

Although many don’t like paying for plugins, this is a situation that it may be worthwhile if you are not comfortable setting up a sitemap. There are numerous plugin options on a WordPress website for generating video sitemaps.

Once the video sitemap is created, you need to upload it to the root level of your website to take advantage of the benefit and get that rich snippet. But keep in mind that part of this strategy involves having a site that Google will bother to crawl. If you’re managing your own site, you could use Google Webmaster Tools to do this.

#3. Ask your website provider to create sitemap

The best option is to talk to your website provider to create a video sitemap for you. Although it may cost extra to create, they should know how to implement. Your website can reap the longterm benefits of ranking higher on Google and directing car buyers to your website.

How Does Google Crawl the Video Sitemap?

Unlike text and web pages, Google’s search engine bots can’t “crawl” a video to determine its subject matter. That’s why a video sitemap is so important. A video sitemap enables the bots to understand the video contents and enable features like video previews and key moments. There are two way to get google to crawl your video sitemaps:

Option #1: Create the sitemap and leave it on your website and google bot will crawl. Although it varies, it seems to take as little as 4 days and up to 6 months for a site to be crawled by Google and attribute authority to the domain.

Option #2:  You can submit your video sitemap to Google Webmaster tool. Google Webmaster tools is a free tool provided by Google that tells you what Google thinks about your website. If you are utilizing video sitemaps to help create an online presence, then you should definitely tell Google about them to speed up the process of getting them indexed. You can submit your sitemap in the Google Webmaster tool at no cost.

How Should Businesses Leverage Video Content?

The future is video, and numerous trends continue to prove that. Numerous of the social giants including Instagram, TikTok and Facebook are converting into video sharing platforms which is a key indicator that video is the type of content consumers prefer. Many businesses around the globe are also starting to use video marketing to convey messages to consumers. In a competitive business environment, your business is missing out if you are not utilizing the power of video.

How Can My Car Dealership Get Started with Video and Creating Video Sitemaps?

LESA video solutions is the #1 provider of full-motion video in the automotive industry with over 100k+ vehicle video views daily. The expert team at LESA can help car dealerships navigate the video suite app to easily create numerous types of videos that are relevant to your car dealerships. Additionally, the software automatically generates video sitemaps so your videos can stay competitive and rank on the Google to create visibility for your dealership.

If you are interested in speaking with a representative to learn more, please contact us today.

How Online Video Consumption Has Grown

Watching online videos is one of the most popular internet activities worldwide. Improvements in technology such as cell phones and access to WiFi have helped make watching videos a significant part of the online experience. In fact, as of 2021,  an average person is predicted to spend 100 minutes per day watching online videos.

We take a deeper look at why videos have grown astronomically in the last few years.

Why Video?

Video is a versatile and engaging form of content that not only gives us a real-life picture of what is going on, but also is easy to share across multiple platforms. Consumers prefer video content due to it’s digestibility, entertainment and engaging nature. With the combination of video and sounds, there is nothing videos can’t do.

Additionally, video is now very accessible to anyone with internet access, both to watch and to produce. Although there is a trend towards higher quality video, anyone can hop onto their mobile device or laptop and create their own video in just minutes. Almost all of the major social networks worldwide have made videos a huge part of their platforms, making it easier to upload, view and share video content on their respective websites and apps. One video content creation app, TikTok,  has taken the world by storm in just a few years

The Story of TikTok: How It Took the World By Storm

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn have been the dominating forces in the social media space for quite some time. Although many thought that these would be the popular choices, a new form of social media emerged that took the world by storm: TikTok.

What is Tik-Tok? It is a shot-form video-sharing app that allows users to create and share 15 second videos on any topic. It is a fundamentally different app than American’s have used before, as video is the only type of content that is shared on the platform. As of February 2021, TikTok had 1.1 billion active users worldwide, proving that video popularity is only set to grow in the future. To put in perspective, Facebook has been around for about 17 years, with 2.89 billion monthly users. TikTok has grown enormously in a short period of time making it one of the hottest apps on the planet.

In fact, not only has it grown tremendously in a short period of time, but the apps statistics continue to prove why video is so effective and engaging. The average TikTok user spends 52 minutes a day watching videos. This even surpasses the average time spent on YouTube, which is 40 minutes per day.

The Benefits of Online Videos

Videos and growing in popularity each year, and seem to be what consumers prefer online. We have highlighted the numerous benefits of videos below:

  1. Videos Entertain and Inspire: People enjoy watching videos! Video content is invigorating and helps consumers feel connected and inspired.
  2. People Watch Online Videos To Relax: Many people are able to escape from their day-to-day lives by watching video. In fact, a 2018 study reported that videos have helped viewers feel more calm, less stressed and less sad.
  3. People Watch Online Videos to Learn: Videos not only simplifies concepts by visualizing them, but it shows learners how something works in the real world. The ability to show products or services through a video is a great way to improve learning outcomes. In fact, viewers retain 95% of a video’s message as compared to 10% if reading it in text.
  4. Videos help display nonverbal communication: Body language and tone play a huge role in converting messages. Videos have the ability to extend beyond verbal and nonverbal communication, by including visual aids like images and footage, which help strengthen the mood. The simple aspect of a speaker being visible makes video all the more accurate and effective.
  5. Videos Prompt Sharing: Internet users are naturally more inclined to share videos. They are quick, concise and relatable- all key components of being share worthy. The data shows it too, as social video generates 1200% shares then text and images combined.

How Should Businesses Leverage Video Content?

The future is video, and numerous trends continue to prove that. The rise of Tiktok and other social giants converting into video sharing platforms is one key indicator that consumers prefer video. As well as many businesses around the globe are starting to use video marketing to convey messages to consumers. In a competitive business environment, your business is missing out if you are not utilizing the power of video.

Why Car Dealerships Need To Consider Video in 2021

Video is a highly effective form of content and its popularity has gone hand-in-hand with the rise of social media. Despite the fact that so many of us consume online videos on a daily basis, many car dealerships  still aren’t using video as part of their digital marketing strategy or aren’t seeing the best results.

The automotive industry is shifting rapidly, as many consumers are researching cars online opposed to visiting the car dealerships in person. Videos are an excellent way to capture attention while educating and engaging with your audience. Numerous car dealerships are shifting to video tactics to capture online traffic, so if your car dealership is not using video, you are likely missing out on converting leads into customers.

LESA Video Solutions: Video App for Car Dealerships

We know video. LESA is the #1 provider of full-motion video in the automotive dealer industry.

LESA is the largest dealer video inventory provider with 85K+ vehicle video views daily on our dealers’ internet destinations — Dealer Sites, YouTube, Facebook, Cars.com, AutoTrader and more.