5–Reasons to Use YouTube Videos to Market Your Business

If you think videos are just glitz and won’t resonate with your customers and prospects, you might want to reconsider. Videos are an engaging – and powerful -- way to communicate. Many people prefer to watch a quick video versus trying to process printed information, which is one reason the popularity of browsing videos online has skyrocketed. (These days the average Internet user watches a staggering 186 videos a month!) Multimedia content also boosts retention rates and can help explain ideas more quickly and effectively.

You can use video content to highlight your brand, showcase your products or services, and deliver high-value “how-to” or “thought leadership” content that showcases your expertise and helps you define the agenda for prospects’ purchasing decisions. Check out these examples of highly effective videos on the HubSpot blog.

In short, leveraging videos through your blog, email marketing campaigns or on your homepage can help attract visitors to your website, keep them engaged and help drive conversions.



Here are five reasons why you should consider adding video to your content mix:

#1: Video can improve your SEO ranking
Today’s search engines give added weight to video content, One reason this is so is that videos are popular for sharing via social sites or through e-mail. Hosting original videos also engages visitors more, so they stay longer. Plus, more than other forms of content, video has the potential to “go viral” and connect you to thousands of prospects. 



All these factors add up to one thing: sites that make use of video can rank higher in search engine results than those that don’t. Here’s guidance from HubSpot on how to search optimize video for b2b marketing.

#2: Video plays nice on mobile devices
It’s no secret that more and more web content is being served up on smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices. These devices are universally optimized to play video content. So catering to the mobile crowd not only increases the number of times and ways your video content can be viewed, but also differentiates your brand from competitors who haven’t stepped up to video yet.

#3: Video can increase conversion rates
A good video with a powerful message can engage visitors like nothing else. Hosting original videos on your site also enhances your brand’s credibility, and improves visitors’ impressions of your brand and website even if they don’t view any videos. Plus, the latest technology from vendors like Mixpo and SundaySky enables you to modify video content on-the-fly to tell prospects about new offers, pricing changes, just-announced deals and more – with no need to go back and manually create a whole new video. This richer, more compelling online experience can keep more prospects in your sales pipeline and drive higher conversion rates… whatever you’re selling.



#4: Videos are great for customer service

We’ve all heard the missives about how much more it costs to get a new customer than to keep a current customer. And keeping customers is about keeping them happy with high-quality service that meets their needs. Video can help by serving as the perfect platform for product demos, program explanations, installation guidelines, how-to tips and much more. Plus the better-informed your customers are, the fewer of them will be grumpily contacting your call center, which means reduced support costs as well as greater customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.

#5: Video is fast, inexpensive and easy to produce
Contrary to popular belief, video isn’t costly and problematic to produce. You’ve undoubtedly seen wildly popular “viral” video content that was shot with a home movie camera or even a camera phone. This piece on Entrepreneur.com offers tips and a good example of an engaging, effective, low-budget video.

You don’t need a big budget… but you might need more than a cute puppy standing next to your product. Hiring an inbound marketing specialist firm to help with the concept and execution can be the lowest-cost approach to creating engaging video content that visitors find valuable and want to view and share.

Have you tried video yet, or are you still waiting to get your feet wet? Either way we’d appreciate hearing from you.

About Murray Sye – Hi there. I’m an inbound marketing evangelist, a blogger, and a social media enthusiast. I specialize in helping businesses grow and thrive by leveraging the power of the internet.