You invest a lot to make your store’s physical showroom inviting. Are you making the same effort for your online showroom -AKA your website?
Both need to elevate the customer experience and encourage longer visits.
Many physical showrooms offer a host of engaging amenities:
Balloons
Comfy sofas
Free coffee and soda
Refreshing greenery
New vehicles to see and touch
Friendly salespeople offering tours of cars on display
Yet most dealership websites—where today’s shoppers browse and where you invest heavily to drive traffic—still rely on static photos and pricing to capture attention.
Ask yourself:
Why should customers want to stay and browse? Where’s the equivalent of free coffee and comfy furniture?
Your website can become an engaging, inviting place for shoppers to spend time browsing by taking cues from social media.
Facebook and Instagram are great examples.
Their content is full of VIDEO.
Why? Because VIDEO makes visitors stay on the platform longer.
From 2019 to 2023, the average amount of time Instagram users in the U.S. spent on the platform increased by over 24%, largely due to the introduction of features like Reels, which enhanced user engagement. – Bizzbuzz.news
Having a video-centric website is the secret to attracting more visitors, keeping them in your virtual showroom longer, and increasing your conversion rate.
Engaging with multimedia on VDP results in:
Ready, set, go video!
With LESA’s automated video capture tools, dealerships can easily create and display video content right on VDPs and SRPs.
We put our capture app in the hands of your photographer so that a full walk-around video and merchandising photos can be taken at the same time in less than 5 minutes.
Our solutions make it easier than you ever thought possible to make your website come alive with:
Walk-around videos
Interactive 360 spin with AI spotlights
A full gallery of professional quality merchandising photos
AI photo backgrounding
Building an engaging, interactive virtual showroom that gives visitors a reason to stay and browse was never simpler or faster.
LESA is a certified digital merchandising partner for Honda, Hyundai, and Acura and co-op eligible for Ford, Mazda, Volkswagen, Subaru, and Nissan.
Video merchandising is EASY and POWERFUL! Let us show you how it works.
Part 2: How to make GA4 tell a story about interest in your inventory
When we left off, Google’s scary-exciting new analytics platform, GA4, had launched and was still somewhat shrouded in mystery. It promised to provide deeper insights into customer behavior than its predecessor, Universal Analytics, and tell the story of what takes place on your dealership’s website based on specific events rather than simply measuring users’ session time.
Since then, we’ve had a chance to explore the GA4 landscape and figure out how to help our customers navigate it to their best advantage. In this blog, we’ll introduce you to a new industry standard that is rapidly becoming mandatory and fill you in on specific need-to-know details about setting up GA4 so you can see and interpret your data.
The Automotive Standards Council for GA4
In response to the new GA4 event-based reporting challenges (and there have been many!), industry leaders have come together to form the Automotive Standards Council. Its objective: to set “a universal groundwork for implementing Google Analytics 4 into the industry.” By creating standard reporting categories, the ASC aims to promote transparency, enable an even statistical playing field within the automotive industry, and make it easier for dealers to understand the meaning of their data.
LESA is proud to be a founding member of the ASC, and as such has already taken a leadership role in shaping the standards for auto industry analytics. We are among a distinguished group of major players making up the Council that meet and discuss strategy, ultimately determining how stats will be delivered to Google Analytics.
The Council has identified six main ways in which its work will benefit the industry:
Achieve greater data integrity
Major web platform support
Enabling vendors to add their own unique event categories to GA4
Reliable roll-up reporting
Improved performance of Google Ads campaigns
Pin-pointed conversions by department and conversion outcomes
You can check out these benefits in greater detail by clicking here.
What does this have to do with seeing your data in GA4?
One of the first questions dealers ask now is whether a potential vendor complies with ASC standards. LESA not only complies with ASC, but we are also part of the organization itself, actively participating in creating the new standard that is taking root and becoming an expectation of any media entity that does business with a dealership. In fact, we are leading the charge; to date, none of our competitors have stepped up to take part in the ASC.
LESA’s status as a founding member of the ASC enables dealers and web providers to have complete confidence in our ability to assist with setting up GA4 parameters and educating our customers about how to use the new platform. In short, dealers want and need to work with vendors that comply with ASC standards, and LESA is uniquely qualified to satisfy this requirement.
Disappointingly, GA4 has proven to be quite user-unfriendly. Receiving ASC events is definitely not turn-key and absolutely requires configuration. As an expert on ASC standards, we’ll walk you through setting up the GA4 dashboard events that matter to you. Data must be sent to GA4 using the ASC standardized event structure, as this enables the channeling of stats, so it’s critical that you are set up correctly to receive data from LESA.
What you need to know right now
Two things: Custom Definitions, and ASC Media Interaction Events.
First, ASC standards must be set up by creating Custom Definitions. If these parameters are not set up, you will be unable to see any ASC data coming in from any vendor. Your LESA rep can check to see if this has been done, and assist you as needed.
Next, you need to become familiar with the ASC Media Interaction Events category. This is LESA’s category, and it’s where you’ll see your stats about photos, video, and 360 spin.
Media Interaction Events contains the sub-category Event Action Result, where specific LESA events are clearly identified. Take a look at this ASC specification table that breaks out a portion of the ASC Media Interaction event sub-categories, including specific vehicle identification.
When you drill down into the Event Action Result sub-category in GA4, you’ll see “lesa_” in front of our event actions. For example, the played_video event action will be listed in GA4 as “lesa_played_video”.
Here’s a partial screenshot:
This is where GA4 begins to shine! You’ll see data broken down into distinct events, such as whether a video was played, how long it was played, whether the Carfax button was pressed, and so on, as it relates to a vin-specific vehicle identified by its stock number, AKA “item_number.”
For instance, let’s say you just added a 2023 Ford Bronco to your website. You’ll be able to see how many people looked at the vehicle on your website, where they came from – for example, Facebook — how many times the Bronco’s video was played, how many VDP views it received, etc.
The benefit of the new ASC standard is that now you can track all activities related to interest in a specific vehicle. Rather than simply tracking website user traffic, you can now see where the web traffic is coming from, identify trends (e.g., How much interest is there in sedans vs SUVs this month?), and track which actions shoppers take with respect to specific vehicles once they land on your site. All of this new information will help with monitoring ad spend efficacy and enable you to balance your vehicle inventory according to measurable consumer interest.
ASC Media Interaction Events are sent to GA4 when a shopper views a vehicle on any page, and the types of media tracked include video, photos, and 360 spin. You’ll even be able to track which type of media was viewed on which page.
Here’s a current list of the LESA events you’ll be able to track:
You’ll also be able to track the general amount of interest in specific vehicles, identified by their item number, by viewing the number of ASC events each vehicle accrues and the number of users engaging with its content. Here’s a sample screenshot:
Lots of granular parameters have been standardized via the ASC that show relatable values and user interactions in fine detail. Together, these data illustrate a flow of events that tell a captivating story about your website activity and, most importantly, the level of interest around each specific vehicle.
One and done!
If you’re not loving all this talk of categories and sub-categories, there is a little good news. You only need to set up your ASC standards once. ASC is not part of native GA4, but rather a package of custom stats that dealers care about and that must be installed by someone. Your ad agency or website provider may already have taken care of it if they are part of ASC. But if you’re not sure, or you know that you still need to install ASC standards, we’re here to help.
Is that it?
We’re really just at the beginning of the beginning with GA4. Together with our ASC industry allies, we’re going to be working on shaping the standards to enable the data we collect to tell us as much as it can about buyer interest in individual vehicles. We fully expect these insights to inform a host of improved marketing strategies and inspire developments in new media tools.
Feeling just a bit nostalgic for session time stats? Although GA4 is event-based in its approach to data, LESA is working with our ASC colleagues to see if we can create a category for time measurement so that we can see how this value fits into the data story.
Session times as we knew them may or may not return, but a new way of thinking about time as a factor of engagement is a glimmer on the horizon. And as GA4’s novel approach to measuring engagement brings us closer to correlating events and sales, and farther from merely tracking time spent on a site, we are learning how to coax from it the story we want it to tell.
Q: What’s new in Facebook Marketplace listings? A: Vehicle videos!
Ready for some good news? Facebook Marketplace has begun allowing the addition of video to its wildly popular Marketplace ad listings.
As the #1 merchandising and video lead response app creator, LESA is thrilled! This change means that we will now be able to help our customers leverage their vehicle videos more effectively than ever before by tapping into the audience of approximately 3 billion active monthly Facebook users.
Why is this important?
The data is clear. Video is where it’s at when it comes to attracting shoppers, holding their attention, and ultimately providing them with the information they need to feel it’s worth their time to visit your store.
You need to grab a potential buyer’s interest before you will ever see them in person for a test drive. Nowadays, the car shopping process happens almost entirely online.
More than 80% of car buyers search for a new vehicle online before they ever even set foot in a dealership. And they visit only 1.2 dealerships before making a purchase.
And video plays a starring role!
60% of auto shoppers who used online video during the research process reported visiting a dealership or dealer website after watching a video of the vehicle they were considering.
Now, factor in the platform.
Facebook Marketplace has overtaken Craigslist as the premier social commerce platform among social media consumers.
CapitalOne Shopping Research reports that more than 51.2% of all social media consumers made their most recent social media purchase from Facebook Marketplace.
Next, consider the power of video to hold a buyer’s attention and keep them focused on your vehicles.
Google Analytics shows that consumers who engage with videos on a website will spend three times more time on that site compared to those viewing a site without video. Not only that, but the goal conversion rate is also three times higher for customers engaging with video.
Video is simply an integral part of the modern merchandising process. Over a billion shoppers visit Facebook Marketplace monthly. So, to have listings on Marketplace that also include video is hugely advantageous.
Here’s how it looks:
Facebook Marketplace looks and feels the same as before, except now desktop users can see which listings have video before clicking on a post, and mobile users are treated to more of a pleasantly engaging surprise.
The desktop version of Marketplace shows a video icon on ad thumbnails for listings that include video.
These video-enhanced ads stand out from the ads that have photos only. (The mobile version of Marketplace doesn’t use the video icon…yet! But if a mobile listing has video, it begins playing the instant the post is tapped.)
When users click on an ad with video, the video begins playing immediately. A row of photo thumbnails appears below the playing video, so users can jump to those if they like, or back to the first thumbnail to restart the video.
Both desktop and mobile versions have prominent Messenger buttons for contacting the seller, along with seller details, vehicle description, filters for vehicle type, condition, price min-max, and a customizable local search radius.
Users will notice some minor differences in filters between the desktop and mobile versions of Marketplace, but both enable search results to be narrowed efficiently.
We’re here to help you add video to your Marketplace posts!
Video has become an indispensable part of dealerships’ vehicle merchandising. The addition of video to Facebook Marketplace listings takes car dealers closer to the sort of comprehensive, multimedia experience that the data show is most effective at engaging shoppers online and ultimately converting them into buyers.
LESA has the expertise to help you take full advantage of the new ability to add vehicle videos to your Facebook Marketplace listings. Armed with our tools and knowledge of the process, your vehicles will stand out from the competition, and your sales team will be in the best possible position to capture qualified Marketplace leads.
Contact us to find out more and get the ball rolling.
You may have noticed the doomsday clock that was counting down to Google’s migration to its new analytics property, GA4, and wondered, “What the heck is this? Will I lose my data? Do I have to do something before time runs out…or else?” Great news! It happened, and you didn’t lose anything. In fact, you’ve just entered the next generation of analytics that will help your business make better use of your data.
LESA has been tracking the migration. Once you provide us with your new GA4 ID, we can start sending your engagement data to the GA4 platform where they will be processed to offer new, more relevant insights into your website’s effectiveness and your customers’ behavior.
And if you also grant us view access to your GA4 property, we can collaborate with you to help you look at the video effectiveness stats and generate reports down the road. If you have any questions about how to set up view access, contact us at support@lesautomotive.com for instructions.
What do you really need to know about GA4?
GA4 is Google’s new web analytics platform that collects event-based data from both websites and apps. It replaced the former Universal Analytics (UA) property effective July 1, 2023. You may still be able to see your old UA reports for a while, but any data collected starting July 1st will be processed by GA4.
The shutdown of UA is being rolled out in stages, however all UA properties are now in a queue to be terminated, and you will be required to set up GA4 to access website measurements of any data collected on or after July 1st.
Here are some quick facts that may make the migration to GA4 feel a bit less stressful:
Your old data is not lost. Existing UA data can be imported into the new GA4 platform to help maintain continuity and preserve your historical data.
Some of the reporting metrics and terminology will look familiar, which should smooth the transition to GA4.
GA4 allows for more customization than UA offered, so once you’ve configured your GA4 property, you’ll have the ability to tailor your analytics to meet your business’s specific needs.
You are not alone! There are plenty of supportive, how-to resources out there to help you transition to GA4 and use its capabilities to your best advantage.
Why did Google switch from UA to GA4 – What’s the advantage?
GA4 offers a number of improvements over UA, including new privacy controls, simplified reporting, and direct integration to media platforms. It also collects both website and app data to provide a better understanding of the customer journey. Perhaps most significantly, it focuses on event-based data, so instead of giving you a count of the number of times customers arrive at your site, like a traffic meter, it lets you see what customers actually do while they are there.
Now you’ll be able to see just how customers are responding to your content. Understanding the cause-and-effect aspect of your online marketing campaigns, including your video merchandising campaigns, will help you understand which of your site’s features are resulting in direct actions such as clicks, shares, or other tangible forms of engagement. You’ll have a better idea of how to attribute conversions, so you’ll know what’s driving sales and be able to do more of what’s measurably effective.
The future of measuring your video merchandising campaigns
We’re especially excited about the potential of GA4 to measure and track your customers’ actions when they engage with video inventory content on your website. GA4 may reveal patterns in customer behavior that led to conversions, which could allow you to pivot to customize your video merchandising strategy to emphasize more of what’s working.
We know that 60% of auto shoppers who used online video during the research process reported visiting a dealership or dealer website after watching a video of the vehicle they were considering. Leveraging your video content library has never been more important. To understand why, check out our Why Video page. You’ll be glad you did!
Stay calm and … complete your GA4 set-up!
GA4 analytics is ready to start processing your data in new and beneficial ways. You can start taking advantage of all this new platform has to offer once you configure your new GA4 property. LESA is ready to start sending your video merchandising data to GA4, and we have every expectation that the new property will help us create winning video strategies for your dealership.
In the weeks ahead, we’ll take a closer look at how LESA’s data is displayed in GA4 and offer tips on how to navigate this new analytics landscape. Stay tuned for Part 2!
In Part I, we discussed the importance of having a great virtual showroom as online car shopping continues to soar in popularity. Static photos won’t be enough to engage online car shoppers, and a multimedia website experience continues to be dynamic and beneficial for car dealerships.
LESA’s overall stats portal helps offers a comprehensive view to how your vehicle videos are performing on your website. Part II of the LESA stats report has numerous other statistics that continue to prove the effectiveness of multimedia and give dealerships insight into viewer behavior.
Let’s take a look at the type of insights your dealership can get with our custom report. Below is a stats report from one LESA dealership, but we see similar patterns across our thousands of dealership analytics.
Part II : Multimedia Results in Higher Website Engagement
By Viewer
Completion Chart: How much of the video watched was completed before moving on to the next video or leaving the website. 0-24%, 25-49%, 50-74%, and 75+ %.
If a customer watched 75% of a vehicle video, one count would be added to the 75-100% column. Across our data from thousands of LESA dealerships, the completion chart is typically U-shaped with 0-24% being high, and 75%+ being high.
Viewer Makeup Chart: This chart represents the number of times a video was watched per unique viewer. If a unique viewer watched 4 videos they would be counted as a four-time viewer.
What does this mean? Very few people watch half the video. People either quickly determine they are not interested in the car, or they will watch the entire video. In this dealership, we see that slightly more than 20% of people watched 6 or more videos. This is very common across the board from the data we have analyzed from all of LESA dealerships. Videos are very engaging and can help consumers stay focused on your website
By Time Period
View Engagements by days of the week: The total number of Video View Engagements that occurred on each Monday – Sunday for that month of reporting. This may help car dealership understand which days they have the most engagement each week, prompting them to post new content on these days.
View Engagements by days of the month: The total number of Video View Engagements that occurred on each day of the month. If you see a spike, it could be due to a holiday such as July 4th. Usually, there is a spike on the weekends when people have time to shop for cars. This is common and can help you tailor promotions around peak days and hours.
What Does This Mean? Spikes can happen due to holidays or weekends which helps car dealerships determine which days they should publish content and promotions.
Video Engagement By Vehicle Characteristics
Top 6 Vehicle Years: The top 6 Vehicle Years measured by view engagements. This should continue to trend upward over time as video continues to gain popularity. Our data continues to show that new vehicle videos are very popular! The data trending over time as shown that new vehicle videos are actually some of the most popular.
Top 6 Makes Viewed: The top 6 vehicle makes measured by views engagements. This can help car dealerships determine which cars are the most popular on their website.
Top 6 Models Viewed: The top 6 Models, and all other models shown as ‘Other’, measured as percentages on a pie chart. The totals are from by view engagements for that Model. This can help car dealerships determine which models are the most popular on their car dealership website.
What Does This Mean? It allows the dealership to do direct measurement of vehicles. For example, if the dealership has any doubt that showcasing new cars is necessary, the data will show you that new models are the most viewed (see below) and shooting new car videos is necessary. It can also help show which models were most viewed helping dealerships properly merchandise and stock cars that people want.
Top 6 Vehicles: The top 6 Year/Make/Model measured in view engagements. Also included is the ‘other’ category which includes the number of engagements for the rest of the year/make/ models outside of the top 6. This can help car dealerships gauge which vehicles were the most viewed and popular on their website which could signal which cars are in highest demand.
Top 6 Stock Numbers: The top 6 Stock Numbers measured in view engagements. Also included is the ‘other’ category which includes the number of engagements for the rest of the models outside of the top 6.
What Does This Mean?. Dealerships can clearly see if having vehicle videos helped certain cars sell faster compared to those, they did not feature video for (based on hundreds of reports from LESA dealerships- the answer is yes! It does help.)
By Interactivity
Spotlight Activity: Tracks the total number of times each spotlight category was hit. This can be helpful to car dealerships in understanding which features of the vehicle are most important to the car shoppers.
Ultra Spin
Ultra- Spin 360 Engagements- # of swipes tracked when a user is spinning through Ultra- Spin.
Time on Ultra-Spin 360- The total time users spent interacting with Ultra-Spin in the LESA video player on the dealership’s website(s), Cars.com, and anywhere else our LESA video player is interacted with, for that dealer.
What Does This Mean? Based on the data from a dealership below, there were over 10 hours of Ultra Spin views on their website. Not only are consumers engaging on video, but they are also spending a lot of time engaging with Ultra Spin. This highlights that multimedia is an important element of any successful website. It means that your dealership needs a multimedia experience with videos, photos and ultra-spin. They want to learn as much about the car in a multimedia experience.
The Bottom Line:
LESA stats report helps you track engagements and user behavior and measure which vehicles have more views, which models shoppers are more interested in, and which days/hours vehicles are more likely to sell. Stats help dealerships understand which vehicles the consumers are more drawn towards leading to more effective merchandising.
Most importantly, LESA stats portal shows that a multimedia experience is what helps engage consumers, which results in increased time on your dealership website. Video, photos, and ultra-spin are all important elements in helping consumers get a full sense of the vehicle they want to buy. The stats from LESA’s reports and across thousands of dealerships prove that multimedia is what gives your digital showroom a competitive advantage to selling vehicles online.
Get Started With Video Today
In the competitive automotive industry, your car dealership is falling behind if you don’t integrate multimedia throughout your website. Connect with a representative today to get started.
As online car shopping continues to evolve, car dealerships are constantly looking for ways to create a more emotional and visual experience for online shoppers. Dealerships can help create a desire to buy their cars with walk around videos with custom voiceover that help build an emotional connection while car shopping online. Adding custom voiceover and background music can help grab the attention of consumers, showcase features of the car, and make the experience more emotionally engaging resulting in important purchase decisions to be made.
What is automotive Voiceover?
Automotive Voiceover encompasses promotional media intended to promote a particular make and model of a car and all the features that make the car unique. It’s essential to have high quality Voiceover, and LESAs team of award-winning voiceover artists can develop well written scripts that evoke an emotional connection with the consumer. Not only is the voiceover creating an emotional connection, but it is also helping conveniently educating the potential buyer on the top features and options that may be important to make a purchase decision.
How Does LESA Voiceover and Background Music work?
Imagine shopping for a Honda Civic online and hearing the same voiceover script over and over again as you search for different colors of the car. This is likely to result in lost emotional connection and value for the car dealership in trying to showcase their cars and features to an online audience. This is exactly what makes LESA voiceover so unique, as it offers a variety of scripts to ensure that video voiceover is diverse and drawing upon the consumer emotion to educate and stay engaged. LESA has a unique script for every single make and model
Not only does LESA use a real person for the scripts, but they also use professional script writers to ensure the content is interesting and engaging. Compared to competitors, LESA voiceover is unique in the fact they have difference voiceover for different colors of the same model.
Voiceover Structure:
Intro sentences: For every model, there are 4 different intros so car shoppers can learn about the car without hearing repetitive Voiceover when watching videos of the same model.
Feature highlight: the custom Voiceover will highlight the top 20 feature options that are specific to that car giving car shoppers a good idea of what makes the car unique. Every feature highlight allows the consumer to learn what options are available with that vehicle.
Outro sentences: For every model, there are also 4 different concluding sentences for the same model to help encourage the car shoppers to make a purchase decision.
Voiceover and Background Music Can Help Your Car Dealership Stand Out.
In a competitive environment such as the automotive industry, your vehicle walk around videos must connect with car shoppers on an emotional level to encourage purchase decisions. Custom voiceover is memorable, educational, and tells a story about each unique car. Background music can help the consumer relax and enjoy the process of learning about your inventory.
LESA background music has been selected to compliment the voiceover and offer a very memorable and personalized car shopping experience online.
Ensure Your Walk Around Videos Create an Emotional Experience with Custom Voiceover and Background Music
Stand out from local competition and sell more vehicles online by adding custom voiceover and background music to your walk around videos on your car dealership website. Let’s capture the imagination of potential car shoppers, together.
Video is an important element to any website in 2022. Especially for car dealerships looking to sell cars online, it’s essential to have information in the right place. Studies have shown that shoppers prefer to engage with dealerships off of the search results page compared to the vehicles details page. Your car dealership can increase engagement and incoming leads by adding a video button to the search results page when browsing for vehicles.
What are the Benefits of Vehicle Walk Around Videos on Your Website?
Videos are an essential part of any website where consumers are trying to learn and shop. Here are just some of the benefits of employing video on your car dealership website:
Walk around Videos can help shoppers make buying decisions leading to increased sales.
Videos engages the consumers more and results in increased time spent on site.
Walk around videos along with their accompanying text and photos provide the consumer with a better sense of the vehicle than just photos alone especially when they prefer to shop online.
Videos are ideal content to promote in most social media venues.
Most Car Dealerships Currently Aren’t Implementing Video on The Search Results Page
For years, dealerships have wanted car shoppers to go to the vehicles details page (VDP) on their websites. In fact, website providers would be incentivized for getting consumers to the VDP as they would measure how much traffic was being driven there.
A recent study conducted by Dealer-E-Process, who has over 2500 dealership websites, showed that this common website tactic actually does not align with consumer shopping behavior. Although numerous leaders in the automotive industry don’t implement video on the search results page, they SHOULD be based on new data. Here’s why…
How Can Video on the Search Results Page Increase Engagement?
When shopping for a car on a website, you typically are browsing through multiple listings of cars. Car shoppers need to click through to a vehicle details page for more information. However, recently, websites have allowed car shoppers to gather more detail from the search results page, so shoppers don’t have to click back and forth between pages when they want more information. This simplifies the shopping process while still providing shoppers with the information they need.
In fact, the study conducted by Dealer-E-Process showed that 64% of shoppers prefer to engage off the search results page compared to the vehicle details page. This resulted in increased time spent on website and increased conversions. Having the right information in the right place is key.
Dealerships should not incentivize website providers based on traffic sent to the vehicle details page, as engagement increases when you keep consumers on the search results page giving them access to the information they need to learn about the car.
Adding a video button on the search results page that allows the consumer to click for a lightbox to appear showing a walk around video of the vehicle is proven to increase engagement on the search results page.
What is Driving This Major Change in Website Layout?
Consumer behavior is making dealerships rethink the strategic layout of their website. The data proves that consumers prefer browsing from the search results page rather than click in and out of the vehicle details page. Car dealerships need to tailor their strategies to the methods that consumers prefer, not what the traditional standard has been in the past. Shopping behaviors continue to evolve and its essential your car dealership can stay on top of new trends to convert car shoppers into car buyers.
LESA Can Help Implement Videos on the Search Results Page
LESA is the largest dealer video inventory provider and help dealerships nationwide implement video tools throughout their website. Adding simple video tools to your website can help empower consumers in making purchasing decisions without multiple trips to the dealership.
In fact, LESA analyzed Google Analytics data from car dealerships to evaluate the effectiveness of video on the car dealership websites to discover if it was helping car dealerships sell cars. The quick answer is YES, websites with video capabilities were increasing the website conversion rate drastically. Check out our study here.
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.
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:
People trust video testimonials
People remember video more than text
People prefer to watch videos compared to reading text
People share videos more than text
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.
Select: easily select a full-motion video from your library, shoot one with the app camera, or select from your device gallery
Sign Release Form: Customers must sign a release form for video testimonial to be used
Target: Choose which social media platforms you would like the video to posted to
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
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.
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.
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:
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.
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
