- Dealer Marketing Magazine

Newport Beach, CA — September 10, 2018 — In the six-month period from February through July 2018, Downey Nissan, California’s #1 volume Nissan dealer, experienced a viral lift of 627 percent in their social media marketing program, attributed to videos sent out by Vboost, an automotive viral marketing company.

The viral lift was measured by the amount of interactions, views and shares that Downey Nissan’s social media postings received from their customers, as well as from their customers’ friends and families. “For many people, a vehicle is the most expensive purchase they’re going to make, so what better way to share the memory than a video or photo that you can post online,” said Rebeca Galvan, Downey Nissan’s BDC/Marketing Director.

“Word of mouth from your customers is the best advertising you can get.” Downey Nissan’s salespeople use the social media app to take photos of customers when they take delivery of their vehicle. The technology instantly creates a short video set to upbeat, licensed music that is sent to the customer via text or email. This allows the customer to share the videos from their personal pages on a variety of platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Google and WhatsApp.

The email also encourages customers to write a review and provides links to Downey’s preferred review sites. During the six-month period, videos of Downey Nissan’s customers generated 4,856 video views and 2,894 shares across social media platforms. “This is a great marketing tool that builds customer rapport and interaction, and our salespeople love it because it’s fun and interactive,” said Galvan. Galvan has been working with Vboost for nearly two years since she joined Downey Nissan in late 2016. Her primary marketing challenge is that the dealership is located in a very competitive market.

“There are 11 other Nissan dealers in our area,” she said. She chose to try the technology because she believed it might help differentiate Downey Nissan from the competition. Managing Partner Rinaldi Halim believes it’s a marketing strategy that accomplishes this goal. “Dealerships don’t always have the best reputation, so our job is to educate the customer that we are different, and we care about their experience,” said Halim. “Social media is a great strategy for doing this. When our customers post pictures of themselves with their new cars, it generates a lot of feedback from their online networks, which extends our reach and builds our reputation in the community.” Downey Nissan is currently the number one volume Nissan dealer in California and has won the Global Award of Acceptance from Nissan every year for the last four years.

The dealership has received a 9 out of 10 scores in every single category, which is a huge accomplishment considering only 50 dealerships in the world receive the award. Managing Partner Rinaldi Halim acknowledges, “There are many different factors involved in this award and marketing is just one, but we love what Vboost adds to our marketing program.” Downey Nissan also uses videos in their lead follow-up process. When an Internet lead comes into the CRM, a short video is automatically created with a photo of the vehicle that the customer inquired about, along with a video of a sales manager giving a short introduction to the dealership.

The email is automatically sent out to the prospect and has been very effective at generating responses. “We get a lot of car shoppers calling and thanking us for the video,” said Galvan. “They say some stores don’t even bother to respond to them, and because we send out a video they think we went above and beyond to do something special for them. That opens the door to a conversation.” The videos sent out after customers leave also helps to increase the number of reviews that they write, thanks to the links that are embedded into the emails. “I honestly didn’t realize it would help us with reviews, which are very important to us,” said Galvan. “The communication that goes out gets opened 95% of the time and reminds the customer to review the dealership.” Downey Nissan also shares Vboost videos of their happy customers on large screens that are set up in the showroom and service department.

When customers share their photos and videos on social media platforms and post them with the hashtag #DowneyNissan, the posts and pictures appear on the screens. Galvan recently chose to implement Vboost Live, a new feature that integrates customer photos and videos with Downey Nissan’s website, creating hundreds of new pages of searchable content that helps to increase organic search results. “This has turned out to be a really cool feature that the salespeople love because it helps them to build their personal brands,” said Galvan.

“If you type in a salesperson’s name, all of the photos and videos that salesperson has taken over the years show up in the search results, along with the salesperson’s picture and phone number.” Another side benefit is the number of website visits that the viral videos generate. In the six-month period from February through July, videos shared on social media resulted in 902 website visits. “This is huge for us, because we spend a lot of time and money trying to get eyeballs to our websites, and these videos perform well for that purpose,” said Galvan. For more information, watch this Vboost overview video for additional information and to schedule a demonstration call: 800-799-3130 or visit www.Vboost.com

About Vboost

Based in Newport Beach, CA, Vboost, Inc. is the first proactive process to create positive viral marketing in the retail automotive space. It involves a streamlined process via a mobile application and three unique technologies which collect customer photos at the time of vehicle delivery, convert them to custom music videos and then send them directly to the customer via email or text.

By delivering these branded messages to customers during their emotional highpoint, most customers are compelled to upload and share these videos with family and friends via Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, email and other social media platforms. Best of all, results from each viral marketing campaign are being monitored, quantified and reported back to the dealers.