- Quick Look at the 2020 Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport | MotorTrend - March 13, 2024
- BMW Design – 2009 BMW Z4 – 2009 Detroit Auto Show - March 11, 2024
- Top 10 Car Features Women Love - October 7, 2023
TikTok videos aren’t just for entertainment anymore. They’re also revenue-generating and brand-building tools, as Madeline Nelson at Prestige Auto, a Kia and Mitsubishi dealership in Eau Claire, Wis., can attest.
Take a recent humorous video filmed by Nelson, digital marketing coordinator and chief TikTok guru for the store, owned by Prestige Auto Corp.
The 16-second video, which promotes a $5 discount on oil changes for female customers on Tuesdays until year end, has attracted about 14,100 viewers as of mid-November.
Furthermore, the number of oil changes jumped 16 percent during the first month the video was posted compared with the prior month, she says.
“That was one of our more effective TikTok videos,” Nelson says of the video, which featured Adam Missfeldt, quick-lube manager and a resident character in the service department, and Annalese Willmarth, a service adviser.
“It didn’t generate game-changing revenue, but it shows our service manager that TikTok videos work.
“It’s a motivator to keep on doing videos,” she says.
From a larger perspective, TikTok videos also enhance the dealership’s brand by featuring both humor and relatable, funny employees.
“We can post inventory videos all day, but they don’t perform as well because they don’t have as much personality and humor, which is what Gen Zers like,” she says. And many young people on TikTok represent the next generation of car buyers and to an extent, they lack brand loyalty. If we can create humorous videos, we’re more likely to stay top of mind for that younger crowd.”
Furthermore, younger people care more about a company’s culture than its products. If they see people in videos they can relate to, and the workers present the store as a fun place, they’re more likely to remember the dealership when they’re old enough to buy a car or need to get one serviced, she says.
It takes Nelson about 10 minutes to shoot a video, using nothing more elaborate than a decent cellphone camera. It takes about another 15 minutes or so to edit it, she says.
Where does she get ideas for video content? She talks to service advisers about upcoming service specials and then “twists it” into a creative concept, perhaps centered on a currently popular song or a quote from a trending TV show or movie.
“I can take just about any of those things and make it service-related to a certain extent,” Nelson says. “I also continually track videos to see which ones do well.”