Use Video To Showcase Powersports Inventory And Increase Sales

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What if you could impact the purchasing decisions of 90% of your potential customers? Collect 96% more engagement from your online followers? Create a 64% higher chance to sell a product to a customer online? All of these would be great for your business - and according to research from Forbes, Hubspot, and Implix, video is the way to reel those customers in.

It makes sense, right? Wouldn't you, as a customer, be more likely to make a purchase if you can see the item in action? A 2018 Indian Chieftain looks pretty great in a picture, but nothing beats seeing it ride. Hubspot research found that 80% of customers will remember a video they've watched in the last month. While high-quality imagery is great, it's nowhere near as memorable. People tend to have short attention spans, so the ability to capture their attention for an extended amount of time is very valuable.

There's a reason why YouTube has become the second largest search engine after Google - people are visual, and video has a more powerful impact than images alone. Here are some effective ways that you can use video to your advantage and utilize it as a tool to increase sales:

Entice customers who visit your website with 360-degree views and demonstrations of your bikes. When they click on the unit they're interested in, give them the option of watching a video of the unit in addition to photos and unit details. You can also re-purpose the videos later, in e-newsletters and social media posts when advertising a specific unit or promotion. It's proven that click rates and response rates are higher on video content.
Take it a step further by adding a call-to-action link during or at the end of your video. Send clickers to a landing page where they can submit a lead form for the unit featured in the video. You've drawn them in to watch the video, and you've intrigued them enough to click for more information - don't let that hot prospect get away! Have the lead form ready and waiting for them.
According to this article by Hubspot (which has a lot of other great tips and tricks too), you can increase the visibility of your YouTube videos by editing the descriptions and transcripts. These are both valuable pieces of real estate for SEO content, prompting both YouTube and Google to rank your videos higher in search. YouTube automatically generates transcripts for videos, but you can edit it or upload your own written transcript as well. Your video's description is considered more important in ranking factors, so you could even choose to copy and paste your transcript there.
One of the best ways to assure that your hard work doesn't go to waste is to make sure your videos are shareable. "How-To" style videos are wildly popular and likely to drive traffic. Why not create videos demonstrating how to store, clean, or service your units properly? This is something your dealership employees are doing anyway. It's also likely something that future owners will search on Google for when the time comes that they need to do it themselves. If done well, these types of videos have a good chance of being shared among other riders.

Video marketing takes time and effort, but the results are worth it. Consider your own user experience - would you spend more than five seconds looking at a picture or reading a status update? Probably not, but you would likely spend several minutes watching a video that piqued your interest. Would you be more likely to share a picture of your dream bike, or a video of someone popping wheelies on it? It just makes sense - video is the future.