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Tag: merchandising packages for dealerships

Unlock the Power of Automated Social Media to Drive Sales

Written on . Posted in Blog.

Marketing Status Quo

Car dealerships, like most businesses today, allocate at least some of their human and financial resources to maintaining a social media presence. And it’s obvious why. The Pew Research Center reports that today 72% of the public uses some type of social media, with YouTube and Facebook being the most-widely used online platforms.

To manage this must-have marketing strategy, your dealership may rely on the services of a social media company to spread the word about your inventory on these popular platforms and others such as Instagram, which Pew found is used by at least 40% of US adults. Maybe you’ve purchased a marketing program that promises to make a certain number of posts per month on your behalf with various add-on options like “boosts” to enhance visibility. This seemed like a good idea at the time; it took the burden of managing your social media presence off your desk and resulted in one less headache. But is it really working?

The trouble with typical social media marketing packages is that they can appear flat, impersonal, and canned. They come from an outside source, may be limited to static photo images, and lack the more authentic, humanizing experience customers are looking to engage with in today’s marketplace. On top of that, they’re expensive and the ROI may be uncertain.

Enter Savvy Video Merchandising

LESA offers a solution that saves time and money and gives dealers the tools to leverage video to capture the low-funnel sales traffic that abounds on social media. Our tools aren’t intended to replace your social media agency altogether. Rather, for a fraction of what you would have to pay an agency, these tools empower you to:

  • Produce professional-quality video content in-house
  • Put that content to work on three top social media platforms simultaneously
  • Create and control a custom, personalized, multi-media presence
  • Take part in the shift to video merchandising

Video is key at every stage of the marketing funnel, from a customer’s initial Google search to their interactions with your BDC. A 2019 study found that of all the topics on YouTube, vehicle videos was the second most-viewed category, coming in second after video games. And yet, only 1% of the videos on YouTube at the time were about vehicles. This represents an enormous opportunity and illustrates the consumer’s desire for video. If a large portion of the car shopping public is active on social media, and if they’re craving vehicle videos, it just makes sense to get your inventory onto video and put it out there on social media. As fast as you can.

LESA’s Elite and Ultimate video merchandising packages help you get there with our Dealer Video Inventory, Ultra 360 Spin, Feature Videos, and Automated Social Media tools. The inventory walkaround videos you create with the tools in these packages make your dealership website come alive with interactive, engaging content, while also improving your site’s SEO. And with just a few clicks our included Automated Social Media tool lets you post this same video content to the most popular platforms where it can reach that massive audience of active online vehicle shoppers.

With Automated Social Media, your vehicle videos post automatically to Facebook, Instagram, and — best of all – now also to Google My Business. We do this according to the schedule, criteria, and filters you choose using our intuitive dashboard. You can also track your posting history and see how your site views change in response to your posting campaigns.

In no time, you’ll be auto-posting polished videos like the one below on multiple platforms simultaneously with links that take the viewer right to your dealership’s website.

We make it easy and flexible, so you can post what you want, when you want in-house to build your brand, increase purchase interest, and create the emotional connections through social media engagement that will drive your referral business.

Better yet, posting inventory video content you already created in three essential places at once not only gives your campaigns great consistency but also frees up your marketing department to spend time on other tasks.

Change Is Hard Easy

In case you’re still using photos to showcase your inventory, you should know that video continues to gain momentum as a must-have. A 2019 Google/Ipsos study found 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. That was up from 46% in 2017.

To take advantage of our Automated Social Media tool, simply select our Elite or Ultimate video merchandising packages, and we’ll get you set up. Before you know it, you’ll be making your hottest vehicles accessible to the mind-boggling percentage of adults who are on social media every day.

Our Automated Social Media dashboard is clear and straightforward. For example, you just click on the days of the week and the time of day you want your posts to appear. Toggle buttons let you decide if you want to enable/disable Facebook auto-posting, or whether you want to turn on/off posts to Instagram, remove sold vehicles, or create a 30-second montage video. Drop-down menus let you prioritize posts by price or inventory age.

Don’t Be Left Behind

With most social media platforms moving to video content, dealerships need to adapt or be left behind. Today’s customer wants to see your inventory in all dimensions using multi-media, as if they were at your store in person. To stay competitive, you need to give them as much information as possible, as many ways as possible, so they can have a virtual showroom experience. Think about how much you spend on making your physical showroom a selling point, and then think about the fact that your website and social media platforms get far more customer traffic!

Indeed, industry strategist Cox Automotive reports, “Dealers agree that digital retailing is key to a long-term winning strategy – with 75% of dealers acknowledging that they won’t be able to survive without it.”

The takeaway is this: With LESA’s Automated Social Media tool, offered in our Elite and Ultimate video merchandising packages, you can create more effective social media campaigns in-house for a fraction of the cost of relying solely on an agency, and you can measure your success. You can capitalize on the social media networks you have already invested in constructing by leveraging the indisputable powers of video merchandising and content sharing to drive referral business and build the sort of customer interest every business needs to thrive.

LESA merchandising packages

LESA Merchandising Package Add-Ons to Consider

Written on . Posted in News.

LESA recently announced video merchandising packages to simplify its offerings that drive unique value for car dealerships looking to sell their inventory online. In our last blog, “LESA Video Merchandising Packages For Car Dealerships Simple and Drive Value for Websites,” we discussed the three different packages: Pro, Elite and Ultimate which offer different price points for dealerships based on their budget.

In addition to the three packages offered through LESA, there are also optional add-ons that dealerships can add on to their packages based on their unique needs. We break down the a la carte options below to help dealerships understand the value offered by LESA’s numerous video centric products.

Photo Capture in DVI

Today’s mobile phones have excellent photo and video taking capabilities. The cameras are so good that you can shoot high resolution videos and photos from your smartphone that look professional. LESA’s DVI (Dealer Video Inventory) App allows you to not only capture videos, but also photos. Being able to take photos and videos with the same app provides the following benefits:

  1. Don’t have to carry multiple devices. You can use the same app for both on the same device.
  2. The app has the dealerships inventory loaded on it, so you can simply scan the VIN if the vehicle and it will find the car in the inventory list and allow you take photos against it. These photos are then associated with the correct stock number everywhere the car goes, whether it goes to the website or any third-party sites. As a result, the big benefit is that you get photos up on your website much quicker than compared to using a traditional camera. With a traditional camera, you have to take a chip and put it into a computer, then go to an online dashboard and find the car.
  3. The app even allows you to take photos while recording a walk around video. As a result, you get both a video and a full set of photos of the car in one task. This can help save time when having to shoot multiple vehicles.

The bottom line is photo capture in DVI will help get photos to your website quickly and easily. Once you upload the photos to the app, LESA will syndicate the photos within 2 hours onto third-party websites.

Window Stickers

New cars come with window stickers. Used cars typically have to print new window stickers with important information since the original was removed. LESA DVI app allows you to print window stickers from the app which offers dealerships a huge benefit of easy printing.

Once the dealership is setup on the LESA dashboard, you can put together a window sticker template of what information you want to print and the layout. The LESA template tool allows you to easily drop and drag information that goes into the window sticker which can be printed directly through the app through Wi-Fi printing.  Additionally, the app allows for different templates to be created for different vehicles, for example you can create a different window sticker for used vehicles and certifies used vehicles. LESA’s DVI app has the capability of printing QR codes on the window sticks that will take consumers directly to the VDP, helping them learn more about that car

LESA’s app also has capabilities to print a buyer’s guide. For more information, please contact a member of the LESA team.


Photo & Video Cloning

Photo and video cloning is beneficial for dealerships to create a multimedia experience for new vehicles in two different ways:

  • Inventory shortages: Many dealerships across the nation have experienced inventory shortages, which can take away from showcasing new cars on your dealership website. Dealerships often have cars in transit that they want to show on their website, but haven’t received the vehicle to take walk around videos and photos. Photo and video cloning allows you to use photo and videos from vehicles that has the same trim, exterior and interior color and options. from your vehicle inventory and duplicate the content to ensure it’s showing as another option on your website. When you create a duplicate video, LESA ensures to use different custom VoiceOver scripts and background music to make sure that even if the video is of the same car, they are unique and different videos. This benefits car dealerships as they can have a multimedia experience for cars in transit compared to just a stock photo.
  • Multiple of the same cars: As the chip shortage continues to slow down, many car dealerships are no longer facing inventory shortages and have plenty of cars on their lot. Photo and video cloning can be beneficial when dealerships have multiple of the same cars that they don’t want to have to shoot multiple videos. Once you have shot a video and photo for a particular make, model and color, the incoming vehicles will be cloned if there’s a match. Let’s say your dealership has 30 identical new cars, you only have to shoot one video and can put different custom VoiceOver script and background music to make the video unique but save you ample time when it comes to having to record walk around videos.

Photo Background Enhancements

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 or a photo booth. Custom backgrounds are a much more economical alternative to having a professional background.

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.

Seller’s Comments on VDP’s

LESA’s has the ability to autogenerate the sellers’ comments on the vehicle details page based on our professionally written custom VoiceOver scripts. Some dealerships have to hire someone to write the sellers comments, which can be costly and cause delays waiting for someone to write comments for each vehicle. LESA’s scripts are so well written from the vehicle walk around videos, that we can have the description done professionally and quickly while saving the dealership time and money.

Real Offer

As the car shortage continues, dealerships are looking to obtain additional used cars as the production on new vehicles continues to be a problem. Adding Real Offer to your website easily allows consumers to upload and submit vehicle videos to receive offers. Utilizing video technology helps provides more accurate appraisal estimates which attract consumers to trade-in their vehicle with your dealership. Real Offer is easy to use and has other benefits for car dealerships:

  1. Real-Offer button: 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.
  • Web-based app: Real Offer works without the need of downloading an app from the app store. It’s web-based capabilities still allow the consumer to capture photos and videos and send to the dealer.
  • 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 provide an even more accurate offer with the submitted photos and videos.

Photo Slide Insertion

Photo slide insertion allows dealerships to create unique campaigns on the vehicle details page within the photo gallery. Dealerships have the ability to insert a slide within the photo gallery for a particular model and set an end date to the campaign where the slide will automatically be removed after the promotion is over. For example, your dealership can insert a slide such as “$299 lease special, 0% APR financing” on all Honda Accords through Memorial Day weekend, and the promotion will automatically be removed after the expiration date. This saves dealerships time and eliminates the need to hire team members to manage the promotions on the website.

Spanish Voiceover

Spanish is continuing to grow in popularity across the United States, and car dealerships that may have a target audience that include Spanish speaking customers can include Spanish VoiceOver. The Spanish button will be located next to the English video button to give your potential customers the option of which language to listen to when watching the walkaround video.

The Bottom Line:

LESA merchandising packages and add-on options can help engage online car shopper and sell your inventory online. The packages are simple to choose from and help accommodate dealerships with different budgets and goals. To learn more, please contact a LESA representative.

Merchandising Packages for Car Dealerships

LESA Video Merchandising Packages For Car Dealerships Simple and Drive Value for Website

Written on . Posted in News.

LESA has some great news! We have simplified our offerings into three packages which are simplifying the process for car dealerships when it comes to picking the best products to impact your website.

Due to customer demand, dealerships can now easily pick from one of the three packages that provide them with digital merchandising options depending on their goals and budget. Each offering is designed to give the maximum impact when it comes to adding value to your virtual showroom, and offer the best bang for your buck on the market.

Let’s take a look at the three offerings LESA is offering, and the a la carte add-ons available to dealerships that want to customize their packages further.

THE PACKAGES

LESA offers three unique packages at different price points to help dealerships digitally transform. The packages are designed to add value to your website while staying affordable. We break down each of the packages and the benefits below.

Pro: The Pro package includes two essential digital merchandising features, Dealer Video Inventory and Ultra 360 Spin. This is a great starting point for dealerships that want to compliment their existing photos, but are in need of some digital transformation to keep up with the ever-changing automotive industry. Photos aren’t enough to sell cars online in 2023 and adding ultra spin and vehicle walk around videos will help showcase your inventory in interactive and engaging way. Multimedia has proven to be extremely effective when it comes to selling online, and the Pro package is a great way to easily integrate multimedia with little maintenance.

Elite: The elite package takes it one step further by adding Feature Videos and Automated Social media in addition to what is included in the Pro package. This option is great for dealerships looking to increase purchase interest and brand awareness. Feature videos are very educational and make your website a hub for conducting all essential research on specific vehicles. Additionally, all your website content can be leveraged on social media by setting up automated social media posts increasing your reach and brand awareness with your target audience.

Ultimate: Your dealership can take it one step further with the the Ultimate package, which includes all the offerings from the Pro and Elite packages plus an extra tool to help your sales team and the opportunity to increase your visibility though a third party automotive shopping portal. Dealer Video Suite (DVS) allows your sales team to create personalized picture in picture vehicle messages for walk-around, thank you, testimonials, promo and reconditioning videos. In an era where online car shopping is starting to surpass in-person dealership videos, it’s important for your sales team to still have a friendly and personalized approach to turn car shoppers into car buyers.

In addition to DVS, dealerships have the opportunity to put their vehicle walk around videos on Imagine Autos, a new and innovative video-centric car shopping portal which can increase dealerships reach.

Pro Package

The pro package is the entry level package for car dealerships, and includes the following.

Dealer Video Inventory (DVI)- The Dealer Video Inventory (DVI) App allows your in-house photographer or professional lot services company to easily record walk around 360 videos of your car dealership inventory. For used cars, the video can showcase the condition of the vehicle  which builds trust, credibility and customer confidence.  Shopping for new cars has become a very personalized experience. Video can help consumers shop and browse custom features. The DVI app can help showcase all the different new makes and models helping consumers shop without having to go to multiple dealerships.

  • The Benefits: Having vehicle videos on your website can help your audience retain information, increase engagement and time spend on website, it’s extremely cost effective and can help drive organic traffic with video SEO.

Ultra 360 Spin- 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 Benefits: 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.

The Bottom Line: The Pro Package will equip your website with the tools it needs to transform to a multimedia experience. Car dealerships that provide a multimedia experience to online shoppers have seen increased engagement and time spent on website, which ultimately leads to qualified leads interested in your inventory.

Elite Package

The Elite package not only will provide your website with the multimedia experience that the pro package has, but it will also provide educational video content that dives deeper into the specific feature of the car. Plus, your dealerships can increase brand awareness by leveraging all the video content to social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram and Google My Business. This can save significant time and resources for dealerships as they no longer have to hire a marketing professional.

OEM Created Vehicle Feature Videos – Dealerships can easily add model specific feature videos to the LESA multimedia gallery on your website. Automotive manufactures provide featured videos to help shoppers understand the car in more detail. Although walk around videos can help give car shoppers great insight into the desired vehicle, featured videos provide in depth details about numerous elements of the car without having to search the Internet. The number of feature videos available varies by make and model. There are numerous video types including: 

  • How-to videos
  • Vehicle feature highlight
  • Vehicle overview 

• The Benefits: Now your shoppers can find all the vehicle info they need in one place, making you the automotive authority and increasing the likelihood of an in-person visit and sale. By the time they go to test drive the car, they know all the details it has to offer from the feature videos.

Automated Social Media -The new tool has the ability to automatically post walk around video content that is on your website to the social platforms including Facebook, Instagram and Google My Business. 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. LESA tools even have a video montage feature, which allows you to shorten the video to 30 second highlights making perfect content for social media.

  • The Benefits: 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.

The Bottom Line: The Elite package takes the digital transformation process a few steps further by providing even more engaging video content and tools to leverage all your social media content across social media. Not only can your website provide an comprehensive multimedia experience to it’s users, but it can also serve as an educational center to help car shoppers make informed purchase decisions.

Ultimate Package

In addition to what is included in the Pro and Elite packages, the Ultimate package is all encompassing when it comes to totally transformation your car dealership to a multimedia experience.  Here’s what it includes:

Dealer Video Suite- The Dealer Video Suite (DVS) app is a video toolbox for your sales team and BDC (business development center) team, bringing your dealership closer to your clients than ever before via personalized videos. Create personalized picture in picture vehicle messages for walk-around, thank you, testimonials, promo, and reconditioning videos.

  • The Benefits: DVS Provide your sales reps with unlimited marketing possibilities that can differentiate your car dealership from local competition.

Imagine Autos–  The Ultimate package offers syndication to ImagineAutos.com with featured video vehicle listings. Imagine Autos is the premier video centric portal for the car buying experience featuring interactive spotlights and walkaround video with custom VoiceOver. The third party shopping website is similar to AutoTrader and Car.com but offers an elevated car shopping experience focused on video. Imagine Autos multimedia experience is growing in popularity with higher engagement rates compared to competition who only offer traditional methods with photo and spin. Imagine Autos leverages video SEO so your dealership listings can be easily found on Google searches giving your dealership greater visibility to help sell your inventory online.

The Benefits: Imagine Autos is the only video centric car shopping portal giving your car dealership a competitive edge and increased reach and visibility.

The Bottom Line: Not only is customer engagement on your website and social a priority with the ultimate package, but it allows you to leverage the content to create personalized videos for your customers and expand your reach online.  As online car shopping continues to soar, it’s important for car dealerships to find ways to reach their audience and connect with their potential customers in a customized way. Imagine Autos and DVS offer car dealerships a unique competitive advantage over competition.

A La Carte Add-Ons

In addition to the packages LESA offers, dealerships can also choose from a list of add-ons that compliment the packages.

  • Photo Capture in DVI – Capture photos in LESA DVI app. Includes syndication if needed.
  • Window Stickers – Print window stickers and buyers guides for used vehicles.
  • Photo & Video Cloning- Clone vehicle videos and photos to increase photo and video coverage.
  • Photo Background Enhancements- Automated background replacement of the vehicles exterior photos for used vehicles only.
  • Sellers Comments on VDP’s- Automatically generated vehicle descriptions from our detailed voiceover scripts.
  • Real Offer – The most accurate cash offer and trade-in tool. Pairs excellently with KBB Instant Cash Offer Tool.
  • Photo Slide Insertion- Automated photo slide insertion into your vehicle photo sets for special events, promotions, sales, and finance specials etc…
  • Spanish Voiceover- Include a Spanish video button with real Spanish voiceover on your website next to your English video buttons.
  • Imagine Autos- Syndication to ImagineAutos.com with featured video vehicle listings

The Bottom Line:

Multimedia really works. In a competitive environment such as the automotive industry, your dealership can’t afford to fall behind on important digital trends that are transforming the car shopping process. The transparency that video provides in the online car shopping experience is invaluable to consumers as it helps educate and influence purchasing decisions. Video mixed with other multimedia elements such as photos, audio and 360 spin is helping car dealerships convert shoppers into buyers.