Know Your Goals

Before you set out to create your business video for YouTube, be
sure you clearly understand the goals you hope to achieve. How can
you possibly address your audience before you fully understand
what it is you hope to accomplish? You also need to think about
what it is you want your customers to do after they have viewed
your video. Do you want them to follow a link to a Web site? Do you

want them to buy something? Like Dr. Yarinsky, do you want them
to call? Do you want them simply to remember you and help you
advertise your business by e-mailing your video to their friends?
The end result you’re aiming for will make a huge difference in the
video you present. (New YouTube tools that allow you to add annotations
to your videos, for example, can help make your video an

even more effective marketing tool for you.

“I already had a marketing plan before I launched,” said Arnel
Ricafranca of Fitness VIP. Arnel, a fitness trainer by trade, is a
Guru on YouTube. His Channel page appears in Figure 2-5. As we
write this, he has more than 20,000 subscribers with a quarter million
views. In addition to his YouTube presence, Arnel has some
free Web sites and a membership-based site where he sells fitness
items including benches and electronic books. Those sites have
now had somewhere between 13 and 15 million views.“The more videos I have the more exposure I get,” he explains.
“So I keep adding them. Some do well and some don’t, but I’m
building keywords, like “six-pack abs” and “workout.” I consistently
upload one video a week. I don’t give up, even when it’s not going
so well.” Arnel’s efforts have worked. When we searched Google
for “six-pack abs” one of his videos appeared on the first page of
search results. It helps that his YouTube videos all include the Web
addresses for his most pertinent Web sites, and that the Web addresses
for his sites are on every YouTube page that has anything
to do with him. YouTube drives thousands and thousands of people
to his Web sites. So Arnel is a shrewd YouTube businessperson,
but he’s also just a good businessperson all around. For example,
Arnel knows his own business well enough to know how seasonality
affects it. He recognizes that summer is a slow time for his industry.
“In the spring I put up a lot, because people want to get into
shape for nice weather,” he noted. “Summer, I slow down, but I still
keep uploading.”