How Your YouTube Video Earns My Business

Have you used YouTube to promote your business yet? What the heck are you waiting for?

I started this site to share my story and to help business owners learn how to use social media for no cost (bottom up) promotional purposes. Truly, I could sit here and tell you to use Twitter, relevant forums, and YouTube until I am blue in the face.

However, today I have a personal example of why I think YouTube is such an amazing small business tool for you.

To get us started, here are three reasons why:

• it’s simple
• it’s cost effective
• it works

Backstory – I Need a Vacation
My wife and I work our tails off seven days a week, for 10-15 hours a day, in arguably one of the nicest locations in the world.

Surely, I am not complaining but lately I have been thinking about a quick trip to help us recharge our batteries. We are not really picky about the destination; however, the location has to meet three criteria:

· Close to Puerto Rico
· Cheap flights from San Juan airport
· Good surf

Since I am the one tasked with our online business promotion, I am also the one who researches our travel destinations. (How this fits in with Maslow’s hierarchy, I am not exactly sure?) After some discussion amongst my wife and I, the north coast of the Dominican Republic has been mentioned, so I thought I would do some further research.

The first thing I did was to do a Google search on “Dominican Republic surfing” (or something like that) and up came the following video:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxmHuFpk4Pg&NR=1

(Please note, even though I own a tourism related business and I am looking to take a trip, the YouTube search could have been for anything – – new shoes, a plumber, real estate agent, Bikram yoga studio, etc.)

And here’s the kicker, the above video never went viral and it’s not spammy or arrogant. But it does a fantastic job of promoting his business by telling a story and it also begins to gain my trust.

The Business in it for the YouTube Guy
I don’t need surf lessons, but I do need a place to stay, a rental car, and I might even want to investigate some real estate. After inspecting his website, which I got led to from the video, I learned that he has been living in the area for over 15 years! As such, I have emailed an inquiry and he stands to gain roughly $3,000 worth of business (which doesn’t include my friends and word of mouth).

How well would this strategy work if you owned a dry cleaning establishment in New York…..?

I am not sure, nevertheless, if I “Googled” it and you had a compelling video story about your dry cleaning process or how you came to be in the business, then two VERY important things happen:

1. I now know you exist!

2. You have my attention for at least a minute, which is more than enough time to gain my initial trust.

Here’s the thing: I constantly hear the following sentence regarding social media, “Oh, anybody can do that.”

And the folks saying this are correct, but really what they should be saying is;

“Anybody can do it, but not everybody does it!”

All things considered, I would rather give my business to someone I feel like I know and whose story I am sympathetic to.

How about you?

(To continue the discussion follow me on Twitter @mark_hayward.)

image source:  Route79