Dealership Marketing

Animoto’s Call to Action feature for Your Dealer Videos

Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you are well aware that video is increasingly important in your digital marketing strategy. Dealers across the country have been dipping their toes in the video pool, and a few have even jumped in head first. Most of us have tried putting together homemade video with Flip Cameras, cell phones, and slide show software. Another great option to creating professional video content is Animoto.

You don’t have to be tech geek to figure this program out. All you need is a few images, videos and some creative text and you have yourself a sexy video that will keep your audience captivated. I would strongly suggest going for the pro version ($249.00 per year). You will be able to churn out 100’s of high quality video to use for:

  • Video SEO (Sales, service, parts, branding)
  • Website specials
  • Blog posts
  • Conversion (Call to Action button at the end of video!!!)

I have played with the free version a few times but the 30 second limits and Animoto branding just doesn’t do it for me. Once I dived into the Pro version I have not looked back.

The call to action button has all kinds of possibilities. You have to remember that once you upload your video to YouTube the code does not work. You must use the embedded code provided by Animoto for this feature to function.

The above video gives you an example of what you can achieve with this great feature.

Have you used Animoto at your dealership?  If so – share your experiences!

Ryan, I too have a pro account with Animoto. I mostly use it for home videos and such. I have used it in the past for dealer videos when the time permitted. It's a great service!

Thanks for the post and for the nice DR Logo in the video!
B
  • B
  • January 12, 2011
I wrote a post talking about this a while back ( <a href="http://www.drivingsales.com/blogs/bruceetzcorn/2010/11/26/another-vehicle-video-option-for-dealers" rel="nofollow">http://www.drivingsales.com/blogs/bruceetzcorn/20...</a> ) and agree, Animoto is a fantastic, cheap alternative to some higher priced video options available for dealerships. We&#039;ve ( Dealer HD) have even integrated Animoto into our admin tool. Dealers can send all vehicle photos right to Animoto with one click of a button.
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Wow - Easy. Professional. And I love the idea of the call to action button at the end.

I can just picture Uncle Joe cranking the volume and dancing in his office!
Bruce, that&#039;s cool that you have integrated Animoto into your services. Though you might have missed the purpose of the article. More importantly, how has the reaction been from your users? Are they using it for other promo videos or just inventory? How about some best practices. What kind of stats can you share with the community... Unique visits to video views, average time videos watched, etc. We are looking for some substance. Sine you have his integrated into our services, you should be able to offer some real advice (other than pimping out your post and product). Thx! Looking forward to it. Sent via BlackBerry by AT&amp;T
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I know Joe was a big fan of that track.
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If any dealers add these &quot;call to action&quot; videos on their website to push traffic to specials, aged inventory, service appt , Please be sure to post the site in the comments.
B
  • B
  • January 12, 2011
Jeff, rereading my post, it does look like I was &quot;pimping&quot; our product and post. I apologize. Please don&#039;t mistake my enthusiasm for Animoto as an attempt to sell a product.

We&#039;ve found that many dealerships don&#039;t have video on their website due to a number of factors, one being cost. We all know the value that video brings to the table and we added support for Animoto as a supplement for dealerships.

To be completely honest and state it in one sentence:
Everyone loves the final product that Animoto delivers but nobody uses it.

Even after we integrated Animoto&#039;s Quick Start API in late November, not one single dealership has utilized this feature to create video of their vehicle. We&#039;ve given them the vessel to create outstanding video and attach it to vehicles on their website and now it comes down to a timing issue (nobody has time to create videos).

So the research/best practices that I can provide at this time is:

1. Most of our dealerships prefer an automated solution as opposed to a toolset and process to create their own videos.

2. Dealers prefer a more personalized video than what Animoto delivers, including a video into helps brand the video and speak to your audience. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL4zQUE9zvg" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL4zQUE9zvg</a> (for example only, not &quot;pimping&quot;)

3. Dealers have asked for cost information and a list of features to be added to the video automatically, which is something that Animoto does not support at this time. So be sure to add the cost/payment information to each of your videos.

4. Dealers have asked for incentive information to be added to each video automatically. While we have access to this information, passing it to Animoto is not supported (their API only accepts video, photos and audio and not text). Be sure to add incentive information to each video. We&#039;ve removed similar shots and the length is around 2 min now. Which seems to be acceptable.

5. Length, we&#039;ve had reports that the length of the video is too long (about 3 minutes) by automatically sending the assets to Animoto. Be sure to remove unwanted photos and photos that are similar to cut the length of the video.

6. Use the call to action button. Link it to something relevant. If this is a vehicle video, use the call to action button to link to a contact form, a search for similar/same vehicles in your inventory or available incentives. Linking to your home page doesn&#039;t really help the visitor.

Points 1 and 2 are fair enough but 3, 4, and 5 require the dealership to do additional work to increase the value of the Animoto videos. To bring us back to topic of this article, the call to action button is great, if it&#039;s used correctly (see point 6). As we receive data, I&#039;ll be happy to share. Just an observation&hellip; the link is a component of Animoto&#039;s player so search engines probably will not see any SEO value from this link. I doubt this will even be counted as a backlink from Animoto&#039;s hosting of the video.

To be fair, we are still in the process of marketing this to promote awareness of this technology and testing video assets so I will keep you posted on statistics with Animoto&#039;s usage as more dealers discover its value. I believe that Animoto&#039;s platform and see the value their product will deliver to the automotive marketplace. I&#039;d be interested hearing other opinions, best practices and stats from dealers/vendors. Is anyone out there also starting to use Animoto in their sites?
J
You&#039;ve come a long way Ryan! I remember when I taught you Jing. Good Job!
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Thanks Jerry!! Jing still is a weekly tool I use. Cheap too.

Jeff can take this down if he wants but here is my affiliate link if you want to purchase Animoto. Same price either way.
<a href="http://animoto.com/?ref=a_uxipgcmo" rel="nofollow">http://animoto.com/?ref=a_uxipgcmo</a>
J
oooo... we&#039;re closing in on Video Conversions Ryan! Good heads up!
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Joe,

I thought you&#039;d like that. The only drawback is that you have to use the Animoto code to get that &quot;Call to Action&quot; feature. I&#039;m sure dealers can get creative on their websites and blogs.
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