Top 7 Youtube tips for your business
Because it's free, there's a lot of rubbish on Youtube, but there's also the opportunity to market your products or brands to millions, with a small budget: as long as you have your trusty video and some time. Youtube could help you to:
- Build more personal relationships with current clients, potential customers and investors.
- Increase sales conversions and customer satisfaction.
- Expose your products or brands to millions.
Content
Just like any form of marketing:- You need to provide something engaging.
- Make sure you know and aim directly at your target audience.
- Don't hard sell. Instead you need to inform, educate and/or entertain.
- Ideally give something your audience will want to show someone else.
- Keep it shorter than 3 minutes, or break it into separate videos.
- Client testimonials are a powerful way to build credibility and trust with prospects.
- Personal messages (if done well) can build credibility.
- Users will appreciate videos on topics which relate to your business or industry.
- If you have a Youtube channel, organise your videos including titles and descriptions.
- Include a beginning, middle and end.
Show your expertise
- Give tips or demonstrate how to do something (DIY). These can be valuable for current clients and prospects, especially if they answer frequently asked questions.
- Demonstrate your product/s in use. A well-rehearsed spiel by one of your most talented sales staff will demonstrate authority.
- A side-benefit might be reduce your customer support costs or demands.
- The consumer can watch it at their leisure.
- If your service or products are complicated or detailed, you can upload multiple videos to explain each stage or facet.
- Interview an expert.
- Introduce your staff for added authenticity.
Entertain
- Entertain if it relates to your services or products (make sure you know your target audience). These video types can become viral if done well.
Promote
Just like your website, you need to promote your Youtube videos in order for people to find them.
- Link to videos from your own website, Blog and social media (Facebook, Twitter).
- Include printed links to your videos on business cards or printed promotional material.
- Develop your own Youtube channel if you have multiple videos. This can include your logo, colours etc. Users can subscribe to your channel, so when you add new videos you have instant visitors.
- Include call to action in videos.
- Include your contact details (e.g. website and phone number) in videos.
- Add subtitles, captions and (limited) annotations for crawl-ability.
- Ensure that you use keywords, the same as you would perform Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for a website.
Connect
Users have the opportunity to comment on videos, and this can be a great way to respond to consumers or prospects.
- Make sure staff frequently check comments and respond promptly.
- Ensure offensive or spam comments are removed promptly.
Multiple use
- If you already have corporate videos, then use them on Youtube.
- Record (and edit) staff presentations, then upload the best ones to Youtube for those who didn't attend.
- Video important meetings and share with key stakeholders and employees.
Do it yourself (DIY) videos
Depending on your target market, industry and the content, DIY might be an option. Even though consumers will accept a certain level of DIY quality, you still need to pay attention to:
- lighting
- sound quality
- camera steadiness (use a tripod if possible)
Prepare what needs to be said... but don't script word-for-word, unless it's being done by professional voiceover artists.
