If you have some time on your hands, you might brush up on your digital business card. What is a digital business card? YouTube. Every dealer should have a library of about 20 YouTube videos that can be easily emailed to customers as a follow up “sales call,” and digital business card, says Dean Beyett of 5 Star Car Stereo.
Beyett is an expert at marketing through videos to the point where 5 Star Car Stereo in Clearwater, FL has a customer who has twice driven from Iowa, “because he’s seen a video of what we’ve done.” ‘He’s seen it so he doesn’t have to guess at what will be done to his car,’ said Beyett.
YouTube is bigger than Facebook and Instagram. 37 percent of adults use Instagram but 73 percent use YouTube (which tops Facebook at 69 percent). Plus, 81 percent of 15-25 year olds in the US use YouTube. The site has 30 million logged in monthly US users, according to Hootsuite. Then again, TikTok has 60 million monthly US users…. but that will be a different article.
Beyett explained how to use YouTube for the many stages of the sale.
Start with directions to your store, which is especially important if your shop can’t be seen from the road. Get behind the wheel with someone else in the car filming on a phone or camera. Start at a landmark that everyone knows, like a Walmart, and drive to your shop.
Next, you will want a video introducing the installer and giving his name. And have your salesmen in most of the videos. People will feel they know them when they walk in. “They already like you because you’ve talked to them in the video,” he said.
Beyett suggests every store create a video on sound treatment. And the video should show the installer that will be working on the customer’s car.
There should be an amp install video. Show how you zip tie all the wires. “Show them the hidden stuff. Braided loom tape and shrink wrap. Point it out yourself. Then show the finished products and walk them through it” in a simple, short video, he said.
This is where videos come back into the sales process. A guy comes into the shop and he’s got 15 minutes to spare on his lunch hour. “Question one is ‘what kind of car do you have.’ You sit in the car with him. Get an overview of what he’s trying to do….”
You come back in the shop he gives you his email address and leaves.
“What if you can say to him, ‘Here are some of the things we talked about. We have a bunch of videos that show the work we do. We use dash kits from so and so. We don’t cut the factory harness, we retain the steering wheel controls, retain the backup cameras, the USB still works great. Today we had the honor of working on a Toyota Camry but we can do this on all makes and models.'”
Based on YouTube’s algorithms if they watch one video, others pop up and so you are effectively selling your shop for a second and third time.
Again, the result is the customer feels he knows your shop, knows your work, and knows your staff. It builds trust.
“The videos have definitely helped our store financially, however, that was not the initial goal. The first videos we made were radio feature videos. The thought was to make videos showing our customers how to set their clocks….it was to save us time to do other work…That, of course, snowballed into something completely different…The videos take all the guess work out of if we are going to do a good job. They get to see it all first hand…”
5 Star Car Stereo is not a custom fabrication shop, but the Florida shop gets customers from Michigan, Louisiana, the Carolinas, Texas, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, Oklahoma, DC, Arkansas, Illinois, and Tennessee.
Here are some additional tips:
Always thank people for watching at the end of the video.
Prerecord all your video. “Don’t do it live. You want them to see the best example of who you are. Live makes you look silly with ‘uhs’ and ‘umms,'” Beyett said. Spend some time to learn how to use a simple “timeline” video editor.
Every one minute of video requires 10 minutes of editing.
“No dead time. Play music if there’s a dead spot or cut. But be careful of music; play it at the lowest volume…not so loud they can’t hear what you are saying. You want music that is unoffensive. YouTube offers some.”
Some good video editing programs include Apple iMovie, Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premier Pro.
Don’t bother with 4K, it takes longer for the video to load. 1080p is just fine.
Beyett admits, constant video filming is a lot of work, but a shop need only keep a library of 20 videos. Beyett, however, is filming every week and editing videos 5 nights a week. For him, it’s a hobby he loves.
Photo: Fernando Lopez (left) and Dean Beyett of 5 Star Car Stereo
