Online video has exploded on the web scene stimulating more and more users to view them everyday. Selling your car is going where the audience is, yet the number of online car selling resources optimizing the video opportunities is practically non-existent. Despite the rapidly growing technology and the abundance of the car buying audience, online car selling companies and sellers have been hesitant to enter this important car selling feature.
There has also been a major increase in what is called New Traffic of online video viewers in other areas of Internet marketing. To those of us who have been around the Web long enough, referring to New Traffic does seem quite peculiar. Online video has actually been around for over a decade, albeit in poor quality for most of its relatively short history.
However, video technology has now become a viable marketing medium due to several factors such as higher Internet speed access, advanced technology, a larger base of the general user community and online video games. The advancement in video technology, coupled with growing consumer interest, has produced a video revolution in the mainstream of Internet searching. The big 5 search engine companys, Google, Yahoo, AOL, MSN and Ask has created a new opportunity for video marketing potential.
Interestingly enough, the video experience has not yet caught on with the car selling public. It is as if car selling companies and the selling public are still back in the late 1990s trying to accomplish the same things. In todays world that is not enough. There is a potential goldmine for those who recognize the video opportunities and immediately start to take advantage of it.
The first step in overcoming this apprehension is a dose of real time education. Now that you know that you must be where the online audience is, and not just with the big boys of this industry, you have to adjust your marketing approach to contact that audience and make them aware of you car through video presentation. Here is why.
According to comScore Video Metrixs most recent report (November 2007), over 9.2 billion video streams were initiated in the month of September 2007. Roughly 75% of all Americans using the Internet watched video at least once that month. The average video viewer watched a staggering 68 videos per month. These videos averaged 2.7 minutes in duration. This relates to a very high number of unique visitors with a high level of media interest.
These statistics tell us that the American buying public is hungry for more video viewing options. That is educational point #1. Point #2 is, the increase in online video viewing is growing rapidly especially in the demographic age group of 24 to 64 year olds both male and female. That is coincidentally the best demographic of car buyers as well.
Point #3: Higher response rates. More important is what users do in response to viewing a video. Statistics from the Kelsey Group White Paper say that half of the online video users engaged in some sort of response activity. Michael Boland, Senior Research Analyst for the Kelsey Group says -this is due to the natural ability of video to elicit an emotional response.- That is exactly what you want your potential buyer to have, an emotional response to buy your car and not anyone else.
Point #4: Technology. It is estimated that those with broadband (higher speed) connections able to handle video streaming are skewed towards higher incomes and are more likely to reach out to higher end consumer goods.
Point #5: Pro-Active versus re-active. Imagine yourself sitting on your favorite couch watching TV. A commercial comes on and it is something you are interested in. You are very unlikely to immediately respond in any meaningful way beyond making a mental note. On the other hand, users viewing a video online are pro-active and more likely to continue the process of learning more about the product they are looking at on video if it is appealing to them. That is the result you want your potential buyer to have. That is called user interactivity.
Conclusion: Optimize your car selling opportunities by integrating a video in your selling ad.
