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262 Part IV Promotion and Monetization

Create a Video with Value

Not to flog a deceased Equus caballus, but the first step in any marketing-related
activity on YouTube is to create a video that viewers actually want to watch. As I
hope you’ve already learned, there are three ways to do this:

• Create an entertaining video: People love to laugh.

• Create an informative video: People like to get the latest news.

• Create an educational video: People need to learn how to do certain
things.

If your video neither entertains, informs, nor educates, people won’t watch it. That’s
the bottom line.

In all three instances, note that your video is not an overt advertisement for what
you’re selling. That’s something else YouTubers won’t watch: blatant commercials.
They get enough commercials on regular television; they don’t want to waste their
Internet bandwidth watching more of the same. This is why your video has to
attract attention through its subject matter; a commercial message doesn’t have that
type of valuable content.

So, work hard to produce a video that interests potential buyers of your product or
service. Get inside your customers’ heads and find out what they want to see. It
might be something entertaining, it might be a bit of valuable information, or it
might be a useful step-by-step how-to. In any case, you have to start with com-
pelling content; anything less and your entire marketing plan falls apart.

Direct Viewers to Your Website

When you produce a video designed to directly sell a product, you need to incorpo-
rate selling pointers throughout the video. Think of your video as one of those late-
night infomercials; yes, they’re (sporadically) entertaining, but they also make it
very easy for you to place an order.

How do you including selling pointers in your video? Here are some of the most
common approaches:

• Include the URL of your website (or toll-free telephone number)
upfront, in the title card for the video. The title card could also include
the price of the product, any special offers, and other ordering instruc-
tions.

• Add a credits card at the end of the video, also with complete ordering
instructions.