Business Marketing. There can be no question that we are living in the age of the Internet. This invention which recently celebrated its 26th anniversary has changed the way that we live our lives forever. Whether it is communicating with friends in faraway places, shopping, conducting teleseminars or simply reading about things that interest us, the Internet has made so many daily activities easier.
One of the most popular websites is YouTube. There is much more to this site than videos featuring cute babies and cats walking on pianos. It has now become the second most popular social networking site, trailing only Facebook. Make no mistake about it, YouTube has become a powerful tool when it comes to the marketing of products and businesses as well. Knowing how to properly use YouTube to your advantage can drastically increase your profits. Let’s take a look at some ways that YouTube can be used in the Business Marketing.
Brand awareness
You can have the best and most innovative product in the history of mankind, but if nobody knows it exists, you are not going to sell anything. Therefore, you ce top 10 most visited sites in the world, so there is not a better way to let people living in dozens of countries know about your company and what it can do for them.
Business Marketing. The idea here is not to focus on individual services or videos. This is more of an overall chain effort to promote your brand that is similar to the way many companies use TV commercials. The reason for focusing on your brand instead of an individual video is the fact that individual videos can easily get lost in the vast amount of videos on YouTube.
However, brand videos are not lost so easily. Brand awareness videos focus on entertaining the audience, rather than trying to pitch them something. The brand is put front and center instead of the product. These types of videos are usually produced as part of a continuing series, making viewers want to check back and watch more videos if the campaign is compelling enough.
Advertising products
Getting your brand out there is good, but the eventual endgame is to sell your product or service. One of the c for commercials to watch. This is the complete opposite of TV, where viewers will use their DVRs to skip over commercials without giving them a second thought. For example, have you seen the Jeff Gordon “Test Drive” ad on YouTube? If not, then you’re in the minority, because so far the video has generated over 41 million views. You can check it out here:
Retail promotion
Retail stores are heavily promoted in YouTube videos. These videos can be general, targeting a specific audience or for a promotion that is short-term. Promoting savings of 40 to 50 percent off in the title of a video is one way to get people to view your video for Business Marketing. After all, everyone loves a deal.
Customer/Product support
Customer support is now a bigger issue than ever before. If people are going to do business with you and pay money for your product or service, they will want to know that you will be there to help them if something goes wrong. Likewise, they will want to know that the help you provide will be done so in a timely and courteous manner. Produce videos that highlight the excellence of your customer support. Explain in detail how you solve problems to ensure customer retention and satisfaction.
Original ideas and good production
Advertising always comes down to originality. If you are the 30th company to make a certain type of video, don’t be surprised if it gets lost in the shuffle. Instead, focus on doing something that hasn’t been done before, or on doing it better and more memorably than anyone else.
For example, how many ads for soap have you seen in your lifetime? How many have really had an impact on you as a person? For many people, the only one that comes to mind is an advertisement for Dove which featured a forensic sketch artist. If you haven’t already seen the commercial, we don’t want to ruin it for you. You can see the video here:
In addition to coming up with angles that haven’t been done a thousand times before, you can also go the extra mile in terms of production. Put time and effort into the videos you produce. If your video looks like a 6th grader made it, you will be turning off your audience. If your audio is terrible and the video is bouncing all over the place, many people will give up after a few seconds and move on to something better. Quality content and production are both key to YouTube success.
About the author: Cameron Johnson is a business consultant and social media expert. Over the course of his career he has conducted case studies on both social media optimization and non-profit marketing. Cameron has also had the opportunity to speak at international marketing conferences and was recently recognized as one of the world’s top 100 advertising experts to follow on social media.