YouTube Video Testimonials

We all know that the strongest form of advertising is word of mouth. We teach that to all of our sales staff. Everyone knows it; as a matter of fact mathematically it makes sense. Average closing ratio for a fresh opportunity in your dealership is about 18-20 percent versus a 50 percent closing ratio from a referral or a 65% closing ratio from a prior customer.

Customer testimonials are extremely powerful! You need to create a video library of happy customer testimonials. The best part it’s FREE! Or close to free, you are going to need a video camera. There is a very powerful video camera that is about $150, you can find at Best Buy called a “Video Flip Camera”.  It is very easy to use and comes loaded with YouTube and AOL video software.  It has 1 hour of video hard drive space (more than enough space).  Okay, now that you have the video camera now what?

You want to create a standard operating procedure that when you deliver a vehicle to a special finance customer you capture a video testimonial from the prospect. Like back in the day when salesman would take pictures of the client and their new vehicle and make calendars with them.
Here is EXACTLY what you need to do:

• First create a BASIC script for the testimonials or an outline for questions you want to ask. DO NOT just ask someone to give you a testimonial and let them FREESTYLE! Remember that you want to keep the videos between 30 – 90 seconds.  There are many reasons why people are going to your dealership to get special financing… like Bad Credit, No Credit, Divorce, Late Pays, Overdue Medical Bills, Bankruptcy etc… You should have a testimonial about EACH and EVERY scenario. Don’t try to cover EVERYTHING in one video. Take your time and make each video specific to one scenario.
  
  
• I suggest that you DO NOT fake video testimonials. Make sure you are using real customers. IT is VERY ok to “lead” a customer’s testimonials. Like a good trial lawyer will coach or lead his witness… The key here is to create REAL videos of real people that are sincere. I have dealers that tell me that they have had people in tears at their dealership SO GREATEFUL that they helped them get a car. We all know that there are situations that you truly help someone that has severe credit issues or that has been abused by another dealership.
  
  
• Have your Attorney create a release form that gives your dealership permission to use the testimonials ANYWAY you want… not just the actual video itself. Meaning, if a customer gives you a video testimonial you will have their permission NOT only to post that video wherever you want but you can also publish their quotes of you anywhere you want for example on www.carfolks.com, www.Edmunds.com, www.dealerrater.com etc… 
  
• Make sure that you create quality videos. They DO NOT have to be the quality of George Lucas or Disney but they need to have some basics. For instance make sure you have good quality of light and that there isn’t a lot of background noise. It would be even better if you created a backdrop…maybe your dealership’s logo.
  
  
• Once the video testimonials have been shot. You need to upload them to www.YouTube.com. This is VERY easy to do. Here is an example: go to www.youtube.com and type in “Dealer Synergy Testimonials” You will see several pages of testimonials for Dealer Synergy. The idea is that you want to create a standard operating procedure at delivery that you secure as many video testimonials as possible each and every month. Try to imagine your dealership uploading 20-30 video testimonials each month… In six months you can have almost 200 video testimonials on YouTube! Think about how powerful it can be when you have someone that is interested in your dealership and you can say “Go to YouTube and type in “ABC Motors Testimonials” and 200 videos of happy customers that you helped get financing pop up!! That is POWERFUL.
  
  
• Now they are on YouTube now what? Two great ideas… When a video gets uploaded into YouTube it does a couple of things. It converts it into HTML. When the video is converted into HTML it allows you to “Cut and Paste the HTML wherever you want… into your website, or any website for that matter. For example if you go to www.internetsales20group.com and click on “Testimonials” you will see how there are video testimonials embedded into the site from YouTube. That’s how they got there. Another great resource of YouTube is that EVERYTIME you upload a video to YouTube it creates a URL (a website address). Once it creates a URL you can use that URL for whatever you want. Please go to www.dealersynergy.com and click on “Testimonials” and you will see that the entire page is YouTube Video Testimonials. When you click onto any of the tiles (testimonials) you get forwarded to YouTube for the actual video testimonials. Another great idea you can use the new URL for is to “Cut and Paste” that URL into and email and use it to create FREE Video Emails! Imagine corresponding with a prospect via email, now you can embed video testimonials into your emails for enhanced effect.
  
  
• If you use YouTube it’s FREE. There aren’t a lot of good “Free” ideas running around out there. Jump on this one. Not only is it Free to use but it can save you money. A lot of website companies charge your dealership money to upload videos, manage your video content as well as store the videos because videos can have a lot of bandwidth. Also, remember website companies traditionally DO NOT specialize on housing, storing VIDEO MEDIA… YouTube does. If you use YouTube all of those costs DO NOT exist. As a matter of fact Cobalt and TK Carsites will NOT charge you if you upload video to YouTube and either give them the HTML code or URL. However if you simply send them video content and tell them you want it on your site. Guess what, there is a charge!

If you have any questions about how to use YouTube or how to create your very own Video Testimonials please email me for some free examples and strategies.