(E-Centric) A Boston-area Volkswagen dealership is testing a video in the current issue of its e-mail newsletter. If successful, the concept will be rolled out to various dealers and brands nationwide, said David Fish, CEO of IMN, creator of the program.

IMN and Boston Volkswagen did an A/B split in February, sending half of the dealer

A Boston-area Volkswagen dealership is testing a video in the current issue of its e-mail newsletter.

If successful, the concept will be rolled out to various dealers and brands nationwide, says David Fish, CEO of IMN, creator of the program.

IMN and Boston Volkswagen did an A/B split in February, sending half of the dealer’s 10,000 subscribers a text newsletter with an article on the Volkswagen Beetle, and the other half the 3 ½-minute video.

Preliminary results show that the video pulled 58% more hits to the Web site than the text article, according to Brian Epro, director of the automotive services group for Waltham, MA-based IMN.

Produced by Davis Advertising, an automotive ad agency based in Worcester, MA, the video was segmented into 40-second segments on various features of the vehicle. The audio featured background music and a voiceover explaining the car.

In spots, the video had “text highlighting the horsepower of the car and the supports,” Epro adds.

Viewers had to download the video, but text was provided for them to read during the brief period. To do it, they needed broadband access, but Fish calls that and Windows Player a “pretty low threshold.”

National stats show that 60% of all Internet users have broadband. But IMN experienced only a 19% falloff in unique viewers, vs. the 40% it could have expected.

As for cost, Fish notes that “this is still a test, and we have not yet priced it.” Ultimately, though, pricing could take a couple of forms: An increased monthly fee for routine video inclusion, or pay-for-placement, he adds.

The newsletter list consists of current customers, and people who have submitted purchase or price-quote requests. Demographically, they represent “a pretty good cross section of the automotive buying public in the Boston area,” says Fish.

Ken Tenure, general manager of Boston Volkswagen, states that the video program “fits well with our strategy.”

The newsletter itself is produced by IMN as part of its Loyalty Driver program, which now has over 100 dealership clients. IMN provides “a pre-formatted e-zine with a substantial amount of prewritten content,” and dealers are free to add localized material, according to Fish.

Written by a third-party content provider, the pre-formatted material is stored on a content database, as will the videos when the program rolls out, Fish says.

These e-zines can help dealers stay in touch with both customers and leads, says Epro.

Can sales be tracked to e-mail newsletters? Some dealers have systems that will “give us a closed loop in a traditional sense,” Fish says. Others might offer a “near-closed loop.”

IMN is now setting up tests for other dealers. They could go out in a couple of months.

And the future?

Fish expects the video program to go through three phases. At first, dealers may send videos whenever they have a new vehicle to promote, or to do updates. In time, they may include a video in every newsletter.

The final step may be to have an all-video newsletter, Fish continues.