Free Marketing: 101 Low and No-Cost Ways to Grow Your Business, Online and Off

CHAPTER 21

ONLINE VIDEO AS A LEAD GENERATOR

Here's a quick question for you. Can you name the top four search engines online? Unless you included YouTube.com on your list, you'd be incorrect.

YouTube has now firmly established itself as far more than just a random video hosting site. It is now a viable search engine for an unimaginable amount of topical video-based content. The best part of all is that it's 100 percent free to use, and to upload content to.

If you aren't putting yourself on YouTube, you aren't in the game as much as you should be.

I told you in Chapter 13 about my son, who has been able to gather hundreds of thousands of views and thousands of followers on his YouTube account without any help from me. He didn't set out to accomplish these things; he just turned on a video camera and recorded himself doing what he does. His spelling is atrocious, he doesn't try to use the right keywords, and he has no idea why all of it is getting so big so fast. My point is, if a 10-year-old with a borrowed $100 video camera can create a virtual empire online, why aren't you getting your message out on YouTube?

As with all highly trafficked sites, my advice is typically the same. Be authentic, be creative, and generate leads into your sales funnel by providing valuable content and advice. YouTube is no exception.

In most of the videos that I put on YouTube, I will have a very gentle call to action at some point in the video. This call to action invites the viewer to join my e-mail ...