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24 P a r t I Marketing Your Business Online with YouTube

If your customer is a heavy YouTube viewer, and if he’s open to commercial mes-
sages among his entertainment, YouTube holds promise as a marketing vehicle for
your company. On the other hand, if your customer never visits YouTube, or is dia-
metrically opposed to commercial messages intruding on his entertainment, you
really shouldn’t include YouTube in your marketing mix. After all, you don’t want to
advertise in places where your customer isn’t.

What Does Your Customer Want or Need?

Knowing who your customer is makes up just part of the process. Equally impor-
tant is knowing what your customer wants or needs—that is, why the customer is in
the market for a particular product or service.

Perhaps the customer has a problem; most do. Your customer is looking for a solu-
tion to that problem—and that solution is what you want to provide.

Tip

Often times, the customer’s problem has something to do with using your
product—and the solution might be a post-sale video showing just how to
set things up or access key features.

Or perhaps your customer has a basic unfulfilled need, such as food, shelter, or
security. Your goal is to fulfill that basic need; the product or service you offer is
how to fill the need.

What’s key is to identity with your customer so that you share his wants and needs.
Only then can you determine how to best meet those requirements, and communi-
cate that fact in a compelling fashion.

What Are You Promoting?

What exactly is it that you want to promote on YouTube? Is it your overall com-
pany, a brand, or an individual product or service? You need to identify this upfront
because you’ll use different methods to promote different aspects of your business.

And, remember, you’re not always promoting a product. That is, your product
might be only the means to an end. For example, you might be selling bookcases,
but what you’re really promoting is a superior system for displaying your cus-
tomers’ libraries of books. Or maybe you’re selling door locks; what you’re promot-
ing are the security and peace of mind that come from a superior lock solution.

In other words, you’re promoting a solution, not a product or service. Your product
or service is merely a means to accomplish that solution.