According to BBC, video will account for 80% of all Internet traffic by 2019. This means that if you don’t have a video marketing strategy to build your audience online and promote your business, you are missing a huge opportunity over the next few years.
Most entrepreneurs are starting to realize the power of video and are adapting their company’s content and social media strategy accordingly. Other entrepreneurs recognized this trend early and are already way ahead of the curve. Sunny Lenarduzzi, an award-winning video, social media and online business strategist, is just one of many entrepreneurs using video marketing to build her brand and audience online.
I recently caught up with Sunny to learn how she grew her YouTube channel to over 5-million views and over 80,000 subscribers in less than two years while leveraging her exposure to grow a successful consulting and online course business. She shared some incredibly valuable insights with me, including specific tips to help other entrepreneurs maximize the results from their video marketing efforts on YouTube.
Here are Sunny Lenarduzzi’s top three YouTube video marketing tips for entrepreneurs.
1. Content Quality Drumpfs Video Production Quality
Don’t worry about the production quality of your videos—especially when you first start creating video content. The quality of your content is more important than the production quality of your videos. Your first priority should be making videos that are both helpful and entertaining for your target audience.
“People get really hung up—and I was one of them—on having the perfect lighting, and the set, and the audio, and all that stuff”, says Sunny. “But the irony is that I used to shoot videos about a year before I shot my first tutorial, and I would put so much effort into them. The first time I created one of them it was eight hours of filming. It was exhausting, and I’m not even getting views on these because nobody is searching for those topics.”
“The moment I started making tutorials, I actually did it on a whim because I really was only sending it to my clients. When I sat down to make my first tutorial, I hadn’t washed my hair that day. I was basically in my pajamas. I just sat in front of the window in my apartment and had a webcam, and that was it. And that’s the video that took off.”
“So I really do believe that it’s not about the quality of your camera or your equipment. It’s about the value of the content you’re creating and how much you’re actually going to answer people’s questions or solve people’s problems. And that’s true of so many different videos on YouTube. There are videos that have millions of views that were shot on an iPhone.”
2. Include a Short Introduction to Explain What Your Video Is About
The majority of people who find your videos on YouTube will find them by searching for specific topics, not by searching for videos created specifically by you. Therefore, most of the people who watch one of your videos for the first time won’t know who you are.
“A lot of people are going to discover you through search and they won’t know who you are”, Sunny explains. “So when they discover me and they click on my video, if I’m sitting there and spending two minutes explaining who I am and what I do and why they should be watching, people will tune out because there’s a million other people who are answering that question. So it’s really important when you script your videos to have a five to ten second intro, max.”
In the introduction of your videos, introduce yourself quickly and then tell the viewer what they are going to learn in your video.
Giving them the outcome upfront will help encourage them to watch your entire video.
3. Always Have a Call-To-Action (CTA) in Your Video
In order to reap the full benefits of building an audience on YouTube, it is important to give each and every one of your viewers the opportunity to engage with your business outside of YouTube. “Because people are discovering you and they don’t know about you beforehand, it’s important to leverage your traffic”, says Sunny. “You don’t want people watching your video and then going, ‘Okay, that was great, bye,’ and then forget about you.”
In all of your videos—typically at the end of each video—include a Call-To-Action for your viewers. Give them something to do, like subscribe to your channel, visit your website, or sign up for your email newsletter, for example. The idea here is to give your viewers on YouTube a specific way to engage with you or your company outside of YouTube.
“If you’re an offline business, give them your phone number, give them your website, give them your email address, give them information so that they can go from the video to being a potential customer. For an online business, give them a free checklist, guide, cheat sheet, add them to your email list, drive them to your website, give them a free 15 minute consultation”, says Sunny. “Whatever you can do to leverage that traffic and turn it into a potential customer database is vital to the growth of your business.”
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