YouTube and Business

Credit YouTube and most people describe cats playing piano. But among a certain sort of person small business, the name evokes a different image: Dollar signs.

For example, Scott Imbrie, YouTube Skate original owner, a brand that has been built largely to its presence on YouTube, said the platform is best for merchants that even Facebook.

Another proselyte YouTube is Jeffrey Harmon, chief marketing officer of Orabrush, an oral care brand based in Utah, Provo, who recently became a series of YouTube videos successfully in a national distribution agreement with Walmart. Skateboards origin, who joined YouTube in 2005 and Orabrush, which dropped its first video on YouTube in 2009, were clearly ahead of the curve, but YouTube is still a great place to start or develop a brand.

Here are some tips for entrepreneurs who thrived on YouTube, and some of Shackleton track, YouTube product manager (and, yes, a distant relative of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton).

Buying ads

Since your video will probably not go viral on their own (or at all), you should consider buying ads on YouTube. Harmon said now search ads on YouTube are from 50 cents per click to $ 1.50 per click on Google AdWords. In the early days of Orabrush, the company spent $ 30 a day on YouTube search ads. Although Orabrush a lot more for your money at the time, Harmon said that you can still do very well today to buy ads that appear when you search on YouTube "videos, promoted". However, no matter what you spend on ads, make sure the content is relevant to the search term. Google will base the ad position on relevance.

Harmon usefully points out that 48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, so you're probably better play Powerball waiting for your video to take off.

"Who do you think will go crazy video on YouTube is the dream," said Harmon. "Think basic strokes, not home runs." raw numbers are not as important as reaching the right customers, so do not panic if you are away from a million times.

Use comments, hot spots and A / B testing his Focus Group

If you hire a Madison Avenue advertising agency to launch a television spot, they'll probably want to submit the ad to focus group testing. But if you are a small DIY advertiser, your best approach to setting a withdrawal group to his wife and the Rotary Club of friends, are the comments below the video. The main hot spots is a technology that allows you to see when people are listening and outside of your video.

Another option is the Test / B ad major companies do the same, but you can do it on a smaller scale, running two different versions of your clip as an unlisted video supported by search ads, then , look to see what is the best response. Shackleton says, on average, people coming to your site from YouTube spend more time than if they came from elsewhere.

Watch a lot of YouTube

If you are serious about using YouTube as a marketing platform, then do your research. Forget watching TV commercials, and spend a few hours to find out what's hot on YouTube. The fact that people have clicked on your ads is great, but the novelty will wear off quickly if they do not buy anything.

Now here's the amazing part: Despite the fact that Google owns YouTube and YouTube marketing is by definition digital 21 century cutting edge and you should always rely on a rather improvised analog form of ROI surveillance.

"We expect the number of views, of course, the combined total videos on our YouTube channel was close to one million last time I have added them, and we monitor traffic to our sites the videos, but about all we have, in terms of concrete data, "said Ed Davis, president of Ceilume, a company based in California Graton, which makes ceiling tiles and has over a million views on your channel Youtube. "We rely heavily on our people in customer service tell us that listening to the phones every day and what they mean is that customers are watching videos, and videos to help."

Find your niche

If you followed the steps 4 and large amounts of programs viewed on YouTube, you should get an idea of ​​what will and will not fly on YouTube. Guess what? "Choose an interesting part of your brand and focus on it," said Shackleton.

But what if you sell something very boring, like plumbing supplies? Get inside your head and make a video addressed to their likely concerns. Whatever you do, do not think like a traditional advertising.

"The key is to create materials that helps people, people to connect, and allows them to explore," said Imbrie. "This does not advertise."