I have had a local product website since 2006 and I spend about $300 a month on paid search advertising but I have found that certain products on my site sell much better when using Youtube videos. The TylerTXDirectory creates YouTube videos on occasion for local businesses in Tyler to get the word out about a new business in town, event, or attraction. We often encourage businesses to create their own YouTube channel so they can have control of their own videos and what they choose to produce and show the public.
“I was extremely surprised to find that YouTube brought me more customers in a certain niche that hundreds of dollars in search advertising wasn’t even able to do.” – Donny
Youtube is actually the 2nd largest search engine next to Google and of course Google owns both of these but when you think about the potential of local business advertising it really makes sense. How many local Tyler businesses actively produce videos about their business? I have found that most Tyler TX businesses don’t create videos and the ones that do really don’t take the time to truly add value in the videos they produce. For instance, a video about real estate in Tyler should offer quite a bit more than just stating the obvious. If a potential customer takes the time to listen to a Realtor in Tyler tell you that a fresh coat of paint will really improve the ability to sell their house you will likely be disappointed. Most people know this point and so it is important to really go above and beyond to help those trying to sell a house by offering several tips in your video that maybe people are likely not aware of already.
To begin your business intelligence for advertising through video on YouTube start out by searching for businesses like yours on YouTube. If you are a local Tyler pet grooming company you could search on YouTube for “pet grooming Tyler Texas”. Watch some competitors who have already created videos in your niche and then come up with your own creative idea. From my experience the videos you will find will be pretty bad so you should be able to plan and come up with something that offers quite a bit more value. Below are 7 tips to YouTube video creation we believe will help you in creating the perfect YouTube video:
- Watch your competition. Jot down what you like and don’t like in your competitions videos. You may find that your competition has not even tried advertising using YouTube yet so you may have to start from scratch. Does the screen shot picture you see tempt you to click and play the video? Is their sales pitch too aggressive without offering any other value beyond a pitch? Is the background music and graphics over the top and distracting? If you find something specific you don’t like in a competitors video be sure to avoid that in your own.
- Don’t try to be a videographer. You can likely find a skilled videographer from a local news station that is willing to video and produce something off the clock and possibly save you a lot of money. These video experts will know how to correctly light an area and setup things like the microphone, and selection of video camera. The expert will know how to zoom in when it makes sense, and tastefully add in soundtrack and images. The final production will appear more professional and polished than what you, coworker, or family member could do on your own.
- Set a budget. You can hire a videographer for around $75 an hour and around $1,000 a day but you can get someone off the clock for about half those rates. The price also depends on their experience level, talent, and work history. The cost will also be calculated based on how many days it takes to shoot, length of the video, and final editing time of video. Try bartering with the videographer with your own services and products to get the cost down.
- Create a script. You only have a couple of minutes to make your pitch. Concentrate on offering real value in the video in the form of advice and leave your call to action for the end of the video. Make sure you offer a real clear call to action at the end of the video and even consider placing your phone number and address as text in the video as well.
- Offer tremendous value. How-to videos are a great way to offer value to those watching your video. Go beyond the obvious and provide enough advice that gets people past the learning curve and provides them a sense of trust in your expert ability. Offer some really good trade secrets that your willing to give up for free as this free value makes the customer much more willing to reciprocate and call you back to buy your services. Be sure to put your best self out there when creating the video and show your passion for what you do. Because it is a how to video you may even get people to naturally share the video with others because it isn’t just a sales pitch.
- Do your technical research. Put the best part of your content at the front of your video to keep people interested and watching. Find the keywords in your industry that people are most likely to type in their search engines. If you are a mobile pet grooming service like Tyler’s “Kritter Kutz” consider having “Tyler TX pet grooming” key terms in the title of your video, description, tag your video with these key terms, and categorize your video under “how to”.
- Keep your good will up. Good will among YouTube watchers is your currency in this online video world. Make sure that you offer them enough value in the video so that they leave with a good impression of you. These Youtuber’s will be more likely to watch more of your videos in the future, see you as the authority in your industry, ignore your competition, and reciprocate the favor because you truly helped them and offered them value.
