Web company Feedia has just launched DealerTV which allows car dealers to personally showcase their cars online to prospective clients using video and commentary - for $1200 set-up fee and $430 per month

The DealerTV platform allows sales staff to record countless 2-3 minute video presentations of different vehicles and put them on a custom ‘DealerTV channel’ within minutes, to pro-actively create new prospects.

It offers a personalised landing page for each video where customers are greeted with a personalised message and video from their salesperson along with the dealerships contact details and QuickDeal buttons.

The major benefit is that it tracks the to- and fro-ing between dealer and prospect and reports to a sales manager.

Feedia ceo Paul Ting says the product has been in development for over a year and has been well received by the industry.

“Our first client, Westpoint Autos, has given us a glowing reference. We are currently negotiating with a large list of dealers across a few industries and have been busy with presentations,” he says.

Ting says customers are increasingly turning to the internet to research vehicles before purchasing.

“More than 80% of customers now use the internet to research their prospective car purchase (whether new or used) before speaking to a dealership,” he says.

Internet car sales leads have rocketed over the last decade and with shrinking sales due to the economic crisis, Ting says dealers have to exhaust every available sales opportunity.

Using on-line video to sell cars is becoming more common as customers become more tech-savvy, impatient and time poor.

“At the 2008 AADA conference in the USA, dealers were shown the ability to use video as a presentation tool to prospective customers. Using video meant prospects could gain a greater understanding of the car for sale, plus build a rapport with the salesperson,” Ting says.

“It was proven that the video technique enabled faster, seamless access to all decision makers, enabled the dealership greater reach in the marketplace and broke down the initial barrier of trying to take someone from an email enquiry to a real customer sitting in the dealership,” he adds.

However, Ting says the results also showed that while the dealers found the idea good in theory they struggled with effectively putting it into practice.

He says DealerTV offers a professional, cost-effective and simple video sharing solution for Australian dealers and that the product was built by auto industry professionals who have experience in car sales strategies.

The concept of selling cars online using video presentations offers various benefits for dealers.

These include:

• the ability to access all decision makers right now - busy families and working professionals can now have time, not just on weekends to look at     the car for sale
• dealers can sell to anywhere in the country
• it can help create a faster rapport and make a face to face connection with your customers
• it enables pro-active prospecting to businesses, and
• it allows staff to essentially talk face-to-face with fleet customers without expensive travel.
• DealerTV costs $1200 to setup which includes the first month’s access, hosting and account setup, training material and a high quality Canon     digital video camera.

The ongoing cost is $430 per month which includes 24/7 technical support and free software upgrades and there are discounts available up to 35% for dealers wanting more than one site installation.

For further information visit the DealerTV website.

Source: Autofile