Online Video Marketing: Car Dealers Starting to Get the Value of Web Video Marketing!

In a new study from the Kelsey Group over half of the car dealers that participated in a survey intend to include web video on their websites over the next 12 months.  Currently only 1/3 of car dealers are using video on their websites.  Dealerships are also “rapidly adopting” marketing strategies that include Web 2.0 marketing such as social media and online reviews.  These are “becoming an integral element of the marketing mix” for car dealers.

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The Kelsey Group conducted the survey, online, last month.  Of the dealerships that responded, 59% of them stated that they intend to get involved on video sharing sites over the next 12 months.  That number is a large increase over the current 33%.

This research carries the same basic message that can be increasingly found in other such reports that says traditional local media will continue to lose ground to Internet advertising.

A whopping 62% of car dealers will increase their web marketing spend over the next 12 months.  That compares to only 17% who said they’d increase their traditional marketing spend.  Further, Kelsey reported that 46% of dealers who participated in the survey plan to spend less on traditional media this year, and only 8% will decline their online spend.

Steve Marshall, Research Director with the Kelsey Group reported that about 200 car dealers participated in the survey.  It clearly appears that more dealers will use customer ratings and reviews at 43% up from 29% over the next 12 months.  Marshall reported that only 15% of the car dealers are engaged in social networking sites but twice that number, 33%, plan to give it a try this year.  “A car dealer will set up their own site on MySpace or Facebook or Yahoo Groups,” said Marshall. “Or they will…put up a blog post or link on a relevant site.”

Marshall said that 28% of the car dealers plan to put video ads on sites other than their own, like YouTube or one of the other social sharing sites.  Currently only one out of every five dealerships are doing this.

Dealers also plan to increase their mobile advertising quite a bit. Marshall said only 5 percent currently use mobile but 15 percent said they’ll be involved a year from now.

Most of the video ads for automotive dealerships have a “down-home” quality and are “a little unpolished”, Marshall said that it’s clear the ads aren’t being done in-house.  Dealerships simply don’t have the resources internally to do this type of production.  Marshall also said that car manufacturers are not participating in the cost to do online video and other Web 2.0 strategies.  For the most part these ads don’t support the car brands since most of the videos are clips of display lots and showrooms.