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Tag: 360 spin

Increase Your Reach on Social Media by Leveraging Video Content with Automation Tools

Car dealerships can utilize their website content to add various types of content to their social media pages. Having dynamic video content on social media is an excellent way to attract car shoppers. Especially for Instagram, video content has recently soared in popularity.

LESA has created new automation technology that easily allows car dealerships to post their video inventory to Facebook and Instagram. The tool allows you to schedule posts for any time which will automatically post to Facebook and Instagram. This can help save your car dealership time while reaching a larger audience and sharing your inventory with more people.

How to Leverage Your Website Content for Social Media

Not only can your dealership have video content on your website, but you can also leverage that content and use it for social media. Many car dealerships are hesitant to get involved with social media posting as it seems confusing and time consuming. However, LESA’s Facebook automation tool can allow you to easily populate content from your website across both Facebook and Instagram.

Although dealerships still utilize tools like 360 spin, 360 spin is not shareable content to social media. LESA walk around videos are the perfect content for both your car dealership website, and for your social media. If you don’t have video on your website and are utilizing photos or 360 spin, we recommend starting with LESA walk around videos.

Why Should Your Car Dealership Use Social Media?

It’s a no brainer that car dealerships should create a presence on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Simply having a presence on social media can increase traffic to your website, build trust, and improve brand awareness. Social media can be especially useful when trying to target a local audience.

In fact, research has shown that social media influences 71% of consumer buying decisions, which is another major reasons that car dealerships can’t miss out on the big opportunities Facebook and Instagram hold.

LESA Facebook Automation Software

LESA social media automation tool is helping car dealership leverage their vehicle video content and automatically post to Facebook and Instagram. The new tool has the ability to automatically post walk around video content that is on your website to the social platforms. Car dealerships have the ability to create custom filters, such as new cars, old cars, etc which help them choose which vehicle video content will be sent to social media. For example, if you only want to post new 2022 Honda Accords at 9am every day, the tool has the capability to do that.

Facebook social media posting example

Our Tool Is FREE For LESA Customers

Without having an automation tool like LESA’s, your car dealership would have to hire someone to help manage your social media pages, such as a marketing employee or relying on an ad agency. Our tool is currently FREE to car dealerships that utilize any of our LESA packages.

What Are the Benefits of Facebook Automation for Car Dealerships?

There are many benefits of using Facebook automation software for car dealerships. Especially dealerships that are

  • It can help you save time by automating repetitive tasks.
  • It can help you reach a larger audience by sharing your content with more people.
  • It can help you manage your Facebook page more effectively by saving time and allowing your team to comments and posts quickly.
  • It can increase your following as you leverage more dynamic and engaging content on your social media pages

Get Started With Social Media Automation

The team at LESA is ready to implement social media automation and share your website content today! Get started by contacting sales@lesautomotive.com

Increase Uniformity & Professionalism on Your Car Dealership Website With Custom Backgrounds

Online car shopping has grown tremendously in popularity since the pandemic started. Most car dealerships are able to equip their shoppers with the information they need on their website  to make important purchasing decisions.

However, certain obstacles don’t always make it easy to showcase your cars online. Seasonal changes such as rain and snow can make it tough to showcase your inventory online. LESA is helping car dealerships create professional photo library that stand out compared to competition with custom backgrounds.

Why Do I Need Custom Backgrounds?

Not all car dealerships have the perfect staging area to shoot inventory photos and videos. Especially dealerships in the city environment aren’t able to take professional photos of their inventory to showcase online. In fact, numerous dealerships pay tens of thousands of dollars for a proper staging area. Custom backgrounds is a much more economical alternative to having a professional background.

 Additionally, as mentioned above, seasonal obstacles such as rain or snow can create challenges while shooting vehicle inventory photos and videos. With cars selling as fast as they are, your dealership doesn’t have days to wait until the weather clears to put your cars online.

Custom backgrounds can help your website have a professional feel, which can also help build trust with potential car shoppers. Custom backgrounds can improve the car shopping experience on your website in numerous ways:

  • Shorten Time to Market: Don’t worry about exact vehicle placement when shooting your photos. Shoot as-is and leave the background to us.
  • Increase Uniformity: Bring consistency to your site for a clean, professional look. This is especially helpful to have consistency across your search results page.
  • Increase Brand Recognition: Make a lasting brand impression with every photo with an added logo.
  • Shift Focus: Take attention away from surrounding elements and let the viewer focus on what matters: your inventory
  • Maintain authenticity and stand out: So many car dealerships use images that look alike. Your dealership has the chance to stand out by creating custom backgrounds.

Two Types of Custom Backgrounds for Your Car Dealership Website

LESA offers two types of custom backgrounds for your car dealership website.

Option 1- Hybrid Background: A hybrid background has the ability to remove the background of the image while keeping the floor. This provides a consistent look and feel across your website to help car shoppers focus on the vehicles opposed to background distractions.

Background replacement before/after

Option 2- Full Background Replacement: A full background replacement completely removes the car from the original environment and uses different floors and a different background image. To do this, the LESA team adds shadows and professional shading to ensure the car does not look fake in it’s new environment.

Background replacement before/after

Custom Backgrounds: Make Your Dealership Website Stand Out

Having a great car dealership website is essential in today’s environment, as numerous car shoppers are pivoting from researching and buying cars online from traditional visits to the dealership. Custom backgrounds can make a huge difference, and ensure a professional look and feel across your entire website. Contact a LESA representative today.

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

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

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

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

What is Traditional 360 spin and How Does It Work?

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

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

What Is Ultra 360 spin and How Does It Work?

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

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

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

The Advantages of Ultra 360 spin over Traditional 360 Spin?

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

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

Why Multimedia Features Are Important for Dealerships in 2022?

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

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

The Bottom Line

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

Speak with a LESA Representative Today!

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

How Multimedia is Helping Car Dealerships Sell Vehicles

What Is The LESA Multimedia Player?

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

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

How Will the Multimedia Player Help Sell Cars?

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

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

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

Increase Session Duration

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

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

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

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

Graph showing 275 increase of views over VDP without video

Increase Pages/ Session Duration

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

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

Graph showing 164% increase over VDPs without video

Increase Events/Session 

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

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

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

Graph showing 144% increase over VDPs without video

Increase Goal Conversion Rate

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

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

Graph showing 97% increase over VDPs without video

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

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

The Bottom Line: 

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

LES Automotive Multimedia: How Do I Get started?

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

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