Guide to Effective Dealership Advertising on YouTube

There are so many possibilities when it comes to advertising your dealership on the internet. With search engines, social media, and customer reviews, it can be hard to create an advertising campaign, and it can be even harder to ensure that it is reaching the right audience at the right time.

One place that consumers often turn to for purchase advice is YouTube, yet many dealerships do not utilize the influence that this platform can have on their market. With over than 2.5 billion users, advertising your business on YouTube has become an essential aspect of almost any marketing plan. In fact, 78.8% of marketers say that YouTube is the most effective video marketing platform. While video advertising may seem a little complex at first, it just may be the next great opportunity for your dealership.

Create a Game Plan

Before putting lots of time (and money) into a YouTube campaign for your dealership, it’s important to know what your options are and what goal (or goals) you hope to accomplish. Advertising services are available to help you determine a strategy and keep track of any progress throughout your campaigns, but having an overview of what you want out of your investment is a good place to start.

Your dealership’s campaign can be formed from any combination of different ad types, so it can also be helpful to familiarize yourself with a few of the more common ones:

• Instream ads- these ads play in the middle of a video and can either be skippable (meaning you don’t have to watch the whole thing) or unskippable depending on what you choose for your specific goals
• Bumper ads- these short ads are not able to be skipped and are shown before or after a video
• In-feed ads- these ads appear on discover pages, search results, and next to recommended videos on an individual basis

Understanding your options can be extremely beneficial when it comes to producing the content you plan to use, and it can even save you from spending the time and money making something unusable.

Start Strong

Grabbing your audience’s attention from the get-go is vital when it comes to advertising on YouTube. If you don’t give viewers a reason to continue watching your ad within the first few seconds, they will press the skip button or zone out. Establishing a good hook will ensure that when your ad appears, consumers will be drawn into your offer. 90% of shoppers have discovered a new product or service through YouTube, and a good hook can be the reason someone remembers your name when they need a new car or service.

If done right, your YouTube campaign can do much more than just increase brand awareness—it will inspire audience engagement. Having a clear call to action that directly supports your dealership’s goals can help convince viewers to take that next step. You can prompt visitors to your site, invite them to sign up for a newsletter, or even guide them to your own YouTube channel through well placed and compelling calls to action.

Have Supplementary Content

While advertising on YouTube is a powerful tool, creating a YouTube channel for your business and uploading useful content there can also improve your online visibility and reach. People turn to YouTube to watch videos about all sorts of things, and having content that caters to both current and potential customers can boost the success of your advertising.

YouTube users are 3 times more likely to watch a video tutorial than read instructions, so providing videos that work in tandem with your goals can increase your rate of success. For example, if you are looking to encourage your current customers to get their car serviced with you, it can be helpful to provide supplemental videos that work towards this goal. For example, you could work to create and post videos like:

“what does this warning light on my dash mean” or

“how to schedule a service appointment with us online”

These videos can provide useful information for a segment of your audience while supporting your business’ overall goal.

This concept isn’t limited to just tutorials either—depending on your specific goals, it can be useful to post videos discussing safe driving practices, explaining the different services that your business provides, and many other things.

Forming a successful YouTube campaign on your own can be extremely difficult, but there are services that can help you get the most of your marketing efforts. When posting video ad content, it is important to have a game plan for what you want to accomplish and to hook viewers as quickly as possible. Your YouTube plan should also include supplemental videos that work towards achieving your business’s specific goals. These videos can be self-created, or you can look to services that create professional quality videos for you.

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