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Part II: Enhance Your Virtual Showroom with Multimedia and Measure it’s Effectiveness with LESA Stats Reports

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. 

Elevate your Online Sales Strategy with Custom Voiceover and Background Music

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.

Learn more at sales@lesautomotive.com

Video on Your Car Dealership Search Results Page

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.

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.