The question most pondered by businesses when advertising is perhaps the most important:

“What is my ROI?”

It doesn’t matter whether we’re discussing television ads, radio, 3^rd party leads,

that gorilla on top of your building, or the contest you’re running on social media; all roads lead back to the ability to answer that one simple question. Dealers and their vendors use call tracking numbers, unique landing pages, and a plethora of reports to justify the monthly expense of any given marketing campaign. Some dealers swear that a product or service works, while others might complain that it does not.

In the case of video marketing, if you don’t believe or are unsure about its effectiveness, there’s one simple metric that you should take a look at:

Inventory turn.

You’re already keeping track of this. You know the average length of time a new or used car sits on your lot. You might even hold your used car manager accountable for this. This isn’t something that sits in the pile with all of the other reports. It’s something that is vital to the dealership’s profitability and, more importantly, the bottom line. Flooring costs can get quite expensive. The longer a car is kept in stock, the less profit it’ll make. In terms of time alone, that vehicle is depreciating daily. That’s where video marketing comes in. It can make your vehicle stand out and engage online shoppers better than any other form of media.

If you have a comprehensive video marketing strategy in place and are executing on that strategy (taking the videos, making them engaging, getting them on all of the key touchpoints), take a look at your inventory turn to gauge its effectiveness. What was it before video marketing? What is it now?

The bottom line is that any dealership marketing strategy has one simple goal: selling more cars. Video marketing done right will speed up your average inventory turn. And the ONLY way it can accomplish that is by bringing in more customers who are buying your vehicles more quickly. And that’s the only answer that matters.