We all know about YouTube — music videos, epic fails, and some pretty good original stuff. But is it good for promoting your business?
Yes, if you go about it in the right way.
What do I mean?
To begin with, any activity on YouTube has to be a specific part of an overall promotion plan. Random videos are as effective as random cold-calls. Not focused, poor timing, wrong market, and the like will spell doom to your video forays.
Assuming you have an overall plan, then your YouTube plan should embrace these sorts of topics.
- Introducing your business and key employees – the people with customer-facing jobs.
- Describing your products and services – in ways that customers can see the “What’s in it for me?”
- Giving simple tips and advice on how to use or preserve their whatever.
- Offering your specials and upgrade bundles.
- And so on…
I can picture some of you appearing like one of those used car lot guys hawking their iron. You can do better.
Taking the Videos
You don’t need a fancy camera or a sound-stage to take your videos. If you have an iPhone or Android smartphone, the video there is perfectly adequate for YouTube. Certainly, if you have a good video camera, go ahead and use it.
Just be sure to get an adapter for your phone for a tripod (available on Amazon with my affiliate link here: ) and clear out your background.
The tripod lets you set the camera up and let it run while you follow your script.
Yes, you need a script. Winging it on air with your um’s and like’s while you try to come up with cinematic gold will get your video a thumbs-down in a hurry.
Your script should always include a call to action. What do you want your viewer to do once the video ends? Call you for an appointment? Sign up for your newsletter? Order the featured item? Visit your website? Make it ONE action, and ask them to take it.
Processing your video.
YouTube has perfectly adequate editing tools online. Start with the Title, Description, and Tags.
For the Title, think “What will a prospective customer want to see so they will click to see it?” Write down 5 or 6 different titles. Choose what you think is the right one. (You can test titles by duplicating the video, but with an alternate title. The one with the most views “wins”, )
Write your description to describe the video, but also include some alternate keywords for searching variety.
Tags are the keywords. Add in any here that you weren’t able to work into your Title or Description.
Finally, using the Annotation tool, give your web address, or phone number, or call to action.
That’s it!
Make several videos about your business and industry. Make them great. Make money.
John L