How to Use YouTube to Market Your Small Business

Have you been sleeping on YouTube marketing? If the answer is yes, you’re not alone. It’s easy to dismiss YouTube as the place where teenagers and young adults make silly content, whether they’re sampling weird fast-food mashups or doing stunts.

The truth is that YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine. Only Google sees more traffic. People who watch videos on YouTube are always looking for new content to watch and there’s a big opportunity for small businesses like yours to find a whole new audience with video marketing.

Show off your products

Do your customers know how to use your products? More importantly, do they know the best ways to use your products? If they don’t and you can help them get the most out of what they buy, then YouTube is the perfect place to do it.

Let’s look at an example. Luxy Hair is a company that sells a full range of hair extensions. They have attracted over three million followers on YouTube thanks to their styling videos that show customers (and potential customers) how to wear their hair extensions and style them. The videos include practical demonstrations plus recommendations of styling products to use with extensions.

You can use this technique to connect with your customers on YouTube. Think about how you can help your customers get the most out of your products and then, produce a series of short videos showing them how to do it.

Film and share customer testimonials

Customer reviews and testimonials provide powerful social proof when a potential customer or client comes looking for the services you provide. Because YouTube gets so much traffic, it makes sense to share your customer testimonials there by filming them.

A video testimonial is more direct and appealing than a written testimonial. Your target audience will get to see your client’s face and hear their voice – and they can see the work you did and why the customer is happy with your company.

A great example of how to use customer testimonials on YouTube comes from a company called Hippie Fertilizing. They have posted a series of video testimonials that they have filmed in their clients’ back yards. In the testimonials, the owner of the company interviews clients about why they called the company, the work that was done, and how the client feels about it. They include before and after shots of the space they treated, so that prospective clients can see the results.

You can use this idea by talking to customers about testimonials when you book a job. To make the process as convenient as possible for your clients, you can copy Hippie Fertilizing and film the tutorial on their schedule and where the work has been done – or whatever works for your clients.

Connect with your customers

If there’s one thing the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us, it’s that technology can help us stay in touch when we can’t get together in person. That lesson is one we can take with us going forward.

How does this relate to YouTube? One way to create a lot of good will with your customers is to share your knowledge with them for free. We’re not talking about giving away your services, but we are talking about making it clear you care about your customers on a personal level.

A great example comes from Georgia’s Cakes, a UK bakery that shared a step-by-step tutorial to help people make a wedding cake at home during the pandemic. Since a lot of people were having small weddings with only a few guests, the owner of this bakery saw an opportunity to connect emotionally with potential customers.

Now, this technique isn’t going to garner you any immediate business but ask yourself a question. If you had to cancel your big wedding and you used this video to make your own cake, would you be inclined to order from this bakery for future birthdays, parties, and events? The answer is almost certainly yes. This marketing technique creates good will and solidifies customer relationships, and those things have a direct impact on your future success.

Use YouTube to demonstrate your expertise

Building authority is essential if you want your customers to trust you. They need to believe that you can deliver on your promises. Testimonials play a role in that, but it’s also important to find ways to visually demonstrate your expertise.

One way to do that is to show people what you do. We like this example from Daisy Duke Landscaping, which demonstrates how to install landscape fabric like a pro. The benefit of a video like this is that it may inspire people to do some landscaping on their own, but it also demonstrates the company’s ability to do great work.

You can copy this technique by thinking about what techniques or experience will overcome potential objections to hire your company and putting it into a video. The video doesn’t need to be long—the one we linked is under seven minutes.

Cross-post your marketing videos

While creating professional-looking videos is easier than it ever has been, you cannot count on your YouTube followers to follow you on other platforms such as Facebook and TikTok. For that reason, we strongly recommend cross-posting your video content from other platforms on YouTube and vice versa.

There are too many examples to list here, but lots of companies create Facebook Live videos, save them, and post them on YouTube. Others create funny TikToks and share them on Facebook or Twitter. You should always be thinking about how to reuse or repurpose your videos to reach the widest possible audience. 

The bottom line—and the thing we hope you’ll take away from this article—is that YouTube marketing is one of the best ways to connect with your audience, share your expertise, and build your brand. You can get more ideas by peeping on your competitors’ activity and finding ways to adapt the things they have done to help you grow your business.