Posted by The following excerpt is from Jason Rich’s book Ultimate Guide to YouTube for Business. Buy it now fromAmazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | IndieBound
Take a look at the following six ideas for using YouTube as part of your overall online business and marketing strategy.
1. Showcase Customer Testimonials
If you’ve been in business for a while and have earned the respect of many loyal customers or clients, using a YouTube video to showcase some of these people or companies providing real testimonials for your products/service can be a highly effective and low-cost promotional and sales tool.
2. Present a Call to Action
Because YouTube allows you to speak directly to your audience, you can use your videos to encourage viewers to take a specific action after watching your video. A video’s call to action is a request for people to take an immediate action—such as visit your website, “like” the video, subscribe to your YouTube channel, call a toll-free phone number, send someone an email, share the video’s link with their friends, make a donation, or make a purchase.
For a business selling a product, one potential call to action is to embed a link within your video to a website that offers a money-saving coupon or special offer for what you’re selling. This might be 20 percent off the purchase price (for a limited time), free shipping, a buy-one-get-one-free offer, or some other incentive to encourage someone to make an immediate purchase. Make it clear within the video that it’s an exclusive offer for people watching the video, and make the “special offer” available immediately at the end of the video.
3. Create Mindless Entertainment, but Use Product Placement
Many people turn to YouTube for entertainment because the service is chock full of funny, whimsical, and outrageous videos. You or your company can jump on this bandwagon and produce videos that offer mindless entertainment but, at the same time, include subtle product placements or marketing messages about your company or its products within the videos. For this type of video, creativity is essential, as what you post needs to be unique, engaging, funny, and entertaining. Again, taking a soft-sell approach is key.
4. Promote or Share Highlights from an Event
By default, any type of event in the real world that you or your organization participates in is held at some geographic location and will draw crowds from the surrounding area. However, by sharing videos shot at recently held events, you have the opportunity to share it with the world. Showcasing edited-down (shortened) footage or highlights from a previous event can also generate interest in and help boost attendance for future events.
5. Broadcast (Stream) a Live Event via YouTube
In addition to filming an event, editing and shortening the video, and then publishing it on YouTube via your company’s branded YouTube channel, it’s possible to broadcast live via YouTube Live or on other social media platforms like Facebook, YouNow, Twitch.TV, or Instagram Live. When you broadcast live, your video feed steams directly to your audience in real time. In other words, there’s no editing, no retakes, and no margin for error. As events happen, your audience sees it live.
Businesses can use live steaming to broadcast a special event, product launch, or press conference.
6. Pay to Have Your Product(s) Featured in Videos Produced by Popular YouTubers
Instead of producing your own video content, promoting that content, and using the time, manpower, and financial resources required to promote your videos and build an audience, one option that’s becoming increasingly popular is to pay an established YouTuber with a large following to incorporate product placements (for your products/services) into their video content. What you’ll discover is that the subscribers to popular YouTubers are extremely loyal. So, when one of these YouTubers endorses a product, their subscribers are often very willing to try it out.
Most YouTubers appeal to a specific demographic. So, if you’re about to launch a new line of lipstick or nail polish, for example, paying an established YouTuber, who is a beauty guru with a large following, for a product placement is a quick and easy way to promote your product and have it seen by many targeted viewers.