Boost Sales with Instructional Videos

Producing brief inexpensive instructional videos can be a great way to generate traffic for your website.

With over 16 million visitors a day, no business, big or small, can afford to ignore YouTube. Behind only Google and Facebook, YouTube is third most popular site in the world. And, it’s a goldmine for the marketing savvy. Creating a quality instructional video is a simple and effective way to generate traffic and increase your brand awareness.

Getting Started

The first step in building a brand presence on YouTube is signing up for an account. Make sure you use your company name as your username. Your YouTube username will become your “channel” name (forever) and the anchor for your brand. Signing up is simple and once you’ve completed the process you’re ready to start marketing.

Creating Content

The soft-sell is by far the best technique for YouTube videos. People don’t want to watch just another commercial, they want to be entertained or educated. A quality how-to instructional video is a great way to attract attention and market your brand without hitting people over the head with an advertising frying pan.

A good instructional video doesn’t have to be a James Cameron production to be effective. It just has to be informative, clear, short and, a little entertaining doesn’t hurt either.

Look at your brand and product line. What are some things (even very basic things) that people do with your items?

If you sell clothing, consider a brief instructional video about how to organize a closet or how to know your “real” size. If you sell biking equipment, create a video explaining how to clean and lubricate a chain or how to true a wheel. If you sell collectibles, create a video explaining how to spot fakes or how to identify makers.

Make your video short and clean. It shouldn’t be more than two-three minutes long. Use title cards. They’re a simple way to work your company/brand into the presentation.

Uploading a Video

When you upload your video, be sure you pay attention to your keyword choices and SEO. You might have shot the most informative video ever, but without good SEO no one will find it.

• Title: Write a clear descriptive title that uses quality keywords
• Description: You can go into more depth here about the video, but be sure to incorporate your Web site address into the first sentence so that it will display even if the user doesn’t click on “view more.” Make good and generous use of keywords here too.
• Tags: Put your most relevant keywords here.

Creating a great instructional video can be a great marketing tool. Keep adding more content to your channel, and you can even slip in a few special promotions from time to time. Get involved in the community and comment and engage with other users.

You can also use YouTube Insight (their version of analytics) to see how people found your videos. Keep refining your keywords and adding content.

Like any social media it takes a while to get some traction, but once you do, the benefits can be enormous.