If this is ‘state of the art’, I think we can all do better…

For a long time we have been saying that video will soon become the dominant medium online for just about everything – from getting a date to selling your car.

Well, now it’s official.

The New York Times says “Selling Your Car? Try Making a Video”.

Of course, I could not agree more.

However…I think, as with everything else, you have to make a much more ‘compelling’ video.

You have to do more than just show up with your video camera (I was going to say Flipcam, but that is now so 2011), and turn it on.

In the piece above, there is not even an edit.

As more and more people start posting their cars with video  – as with everything else, there will be a subconscious correlation between the ‘value’ of the video and the ‘value’ of the car.

The slicker the video, the more you can get for the car.

Go figure.

It’s like ‘staging’ a house before you sell it.

It’s all in the imagination of the buyer.

Philip Reed, Senior Consumer Advice Editor on Edmunds.com has a good list of suggestions.

They’re a starting point, but I think you can go much deeper and do much better.

First, edit the thing.  The video above has no cuts at all.

Second, music and graphics – you can include a lot of information with graphics – condition, mileage, past care etc.

Third, show me what I would look at (and the way I would see things) if I were looking at the car myself. How many of us would sit in the driver’s seat?  Push a few buttons? Maybe take it for a test drive? You can do all that in video. And it’s so simple

Finally, slick the thing up.

We’re working (over here in the skunkworks) on a few instructional videos on this right now (not to be outdone by The New York Times!!)

Meanwhile, if you want to take a crack at what you think at great video to sell a car would be, I am offering a $200 bounty to the best video submitted.

(You don’t have to be really selling your car, by the way!)

No longer than 2 minutes, please.