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22 P a r t I Marketing Your Business Online with YouTube
What Is the Purpose of Your YouTube Videos?
Let’s start with the most basic strategic issues for any marketing professional: What
is the purpose of your YouTube videos? What is your goal? Why do you want to
market via YouTube?
The wrong answer to the last question is “because everyone’s doing it.” Equally
wrong are “because it’s the latest thing,” “because my competitors are doing it,” and
“because it’s neat.” As a marketing professional, you can’t base your marketing strat-
egy on the latest trends and technologies or on the behaviors of other marketers.
You have to pick and choose the media you use based on their strategic importance
to your company and brand; you have to pick media that serves your purpose and
achieves your stated results.
It’s possible that there is no strategic reason for you to market on YouTube. Perhaps
you run a local contracting business and you have a very loyal and satisfied cus-
tomer base, enough to fill your schedule for years to come. In this instance, you
might have nothing to gain by putting up a video on YouTube.
On the other hand, maybe you do have something to gain from producing a series
of YouTube videos. Even if you don’t want or need to attract new customers, you
might be able to serve your existing customers better by incorporating YouTube
into your media mix. Perhaps you can create a video demonstrating some of the
options you have available for your customers, using YouTube as a kind of extended
video catalog. Or maybe you can reinforce your new customers’ choices by upload-
ing testimonials from customers who have been pleased with your company.
Possibly you can use YouTube as after-sale support by showing customers how to
maintain the work you create for them.
The point is that you need to determine up front what you want to achieve and
how YouTube can help you achieve that. Don’t automatically assume that YouTube
is just for attracting new customers or selling individual products—there are a
number of ways that you can use YouTube for both pre-sale promotion and after-
sale support. Figure out your goals ahead of time, and then build your plan around
those goals. And, as I said, if YouTube doesn’t help you achieve those goals, that’s
okay; you should never shoehorn a particular medium into your plans just because
everybody else thinks you ought to.
Who Is Your Customer?
Another factor in determining how YouTube fits into your plans is the customers
you’re trying to reach. Just who do you sell to—and why?
This is Marketing 101 stuff, so forgive me if I’m stating the obvious. But many mar-
keters, especially those working online, either don’t know the basics or somehow
