How to Create Emotionally Appealing Inventory Videos

For dealerships that are considering video marketing, or in the early stages of developing their video marketing strategies, we recommend starting with inventory videos. Inventory videos are a great way to attract and emotionally engage car shoppers. According to a recent Gallup study, “businesses that optimize this (emotional) connection outperform competitors by 26% in gross margin and 85% in sales growth.”

Emotion sells because it happens on a very instinctive level. People may not be aware of why they're buying--they just know they feel good about it.

So how do you create emotionally appealing inventory videos? Visually, most inventory videos are pretty straightforward. Typically they're two to four minutes in length and show the interior and exterior of the vehicle. They should also highlight popular features such as infotainment systems, cameras or hands-free tailgate openers.

Although these visual features by themselves do stimulate some emotion, let's face it: there's only so much you can do with lighting or mood effects without getting cheesy. It's an inventory video after all, not a Hollywood movie.

The best way to make your inventory videos emotionally appealing is to create a custom, unique voiceover track for each vehicle. Most inventory videos, including virtually all automated voiceover videos, simply recite the features and data that the consumer can already see on the Vehicle Details Page (VDP).

To differentiate your dealership and generate a powerful emotional response in viewers, create inventory videos with voiceovers that focus on how owning the vehicle will make the buyer feel.

For each video, identify one or two emotional opportunities that you want to tap into. The emotions will be different depending on the type of vehicle. Then, decide on a specific call-to-action that you want the car shopper to perform during or after viewing the video. Include hyperlinks or an audio prompt for the call-to-action in the video along with phrases designed to generate emotion.

In Barry Feig’s book Hot Button Marketing: Push the Emotional Buttons That Get People to Buy, he uncovered 16 emotional opportunities that drive conversion:

Desire for control
I’m better than you
Excitement of discovery
Revaluing
Family values
Desire to belong
Fun is its own reward
Poverty of time
Desire to get the best
Self-achievement
Sex, love, romance
Nurturing response
Reinventing oneself
Make me smarter
Power, dominance and influence
Wish-fulfillment

To get you started, here is a list of emotions and sample phrases that you may want to incorporate into inventory videos.

Emotion	Phrases
Sex Appeal/Desire	Imagine how you're going to look in this car, you're going to look so good driving this car, this is a sexy car and you're going to look sexy in it, you're going to be the envy of your friends/family.
Admiration	Your friends are going to love it, your kids are going to love it, your dog is going to love it! You are going to love yourself in this car.
Family Values	Imagine your entire family on a road trip in this spacious SUV, imagine how much fun you and your family will have trekking in this vehicle, this is the perfect vehicle for creating that special family bonding time.
Discovery/Excitement	Imagine the places you can go in this vehicle. Explore, discover and escape the ordinary, enjoy unparalleled freedom in this adventure ride, imagine escaping into the great outdoors, you'll forget all your worries the moment you get behind the wheel.
Humor	Imagine all the stuff you can fit in here; kids, dogs, hogs, farm animals, circus props, all your wife's/husband's old junk. Lots of stuff, you'll never have to go anywhere without your stuff again.
Smart	Buying this car will be the smartest decision you ever made, with this deal/rebate you'll be walking off the lot feeling like Einstein, buying this vehicle is one decision you'll never regret, this one's a no-brainer folks.
Confidence	Don't worry, worry-free, satisfaction guaranteed, no-hassle buying experience. Imagine all the money you'll save with this fuel-efficient vehicle; imagine all the things you can do with that money! You can go out to dinner, you can go on a trip, you can buy new clothes.
Desire for the best	Rest assured with this vehicle you'll be getting the best in class, highest quality, top of the line, best value, best looking, etc.
Fear of missing out	Isn't she a beauty? We haven't seen a make/model in this primo condition for a long time, this one won't last long folks, this vehicle is going to fly off this lot, this vehicle is in high demand, if you want this, don't delay, this won't be here more than a few days
Pride	You've worked hard, you deserve this car, you know you deserve it, you've earned it and you're going to feel so proud every time you slide behind this wheel.

These phrases are just suggestions. Feel free to brainstorm and come up with your own! It will take some practice to feel comfortable producing custom inventory video audio tracks, but with time it will become second nature.

One thing is certain: creating inventory videos with emotional appeal will be worth the effort. Emotion plus a call-to-action will convert more shoppers into buyers because emotion sells.

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Comment by steven chessin on May 25, 2016 at 5:37pm: Another good book about this subject Gina --- for those of us that read is --- "Why We Buy". It was a best seller. It says for example that some items NEED to be touched and felt ---such as clothing --- especially for women --- which is why the Victoria Secret store has everything available to feel. Men's underwear is not available to feel and the author calls that a marketing mistake which seems to have been grandfathered into our culture. As Patrick said .... HUMANIZING the inventory --- and by inventory I mean each individual cars -- a good sales personal can identify items that will never appear on the spec sheet or the price tag. "This car fits me like my favorite pair of jeans." That's humanizing.

Comment by Patrick Nash on May 20, 2016 at 4:17pm: Good post Gina. When I worked in the dealership world, we focused on humanizing our inventory videos as much as possible. One of the ways we did this was by having one of our employees appear in the video. He was about 6 ft tall and would sit in the backseats to show the legroom. We'd use a prop in the hatch or trunk to show how much space was there. We would then add, "perfect vehicle to pack all your college items and drive home" or "just the right size for your set of golf clubs." He would also sit in the front seat and show how intuitive all the controls were. I can't tell you how many times he would be walking on the lot and a new customer would yell out, "hey, I saw you in the video!" So a combination of using emotional phrases and having an employee in the video to help humanize not only your video but also your dealership is the way to go.