If you write a blog and want to expand your audience, or a business that needs more customers (who doesn’t want that?) you need to create videos for your business and get them online for your customers to see!

Your competition is taking customers from you that have no idea you exist if they are uploading video and you are not. If they aren’t producing video for YouTube or their own sites then you need to make sure you get those customers they are missing.

Compete.com lists YouTube with 85 million unique visits in July of 2009! Imagine for a moment what sort of traffic you would get from a viral video with 100,000 views… 200,000 views…. 1 million views! A certain percentage of those people would visit your site and a percentage of those would sign up for your newsletter or buy something from you.

Now if my math is right, and you get 1 million views for a video and only 3% of those viewers visit your site that is 30 thousand visitors! If 3% of those signed up or bought something, that is 900 signups or sales! Sound good to you?

I know it’s very difficult to get a video with 1 million views, but take a look at YouTube and see what videos are that popular. Why do they become popular? What is great about them? It’s not the production value, it’s not because they have celebrities or cost a large amount of money to create.

These videos are crazy popular because they are extremely funny, or cool, or amazing for some reason. The videos can be planned or spontaneous, but they are NOT selling something, they are NOT outwardly trying to get customers or build their mailing list. If you want to create a viral video you cannot be selling in the video, let the video sell for you!

In door-to-door sales years ago we had a saying that you should “sell the sizzle, not the steak”. What does this mean to you? If I’m selling plant food for gardeners, do I tell them how wonderful the fertilizer is and how many nutrients are in it? NO! I don’t want to sell the customer on the fertilizer, I sell them on the end result my product gives them: BIG tomatoes, and that’s the sizzle!

Give the viewer something in your videos for free. We are a digital camera repair shop and can’t make videos about how to repair every camera, but your customers are looking for something regarding your business, so find out what it is and give it to them!

Teach them something, give them information they are looking for, entertain them. Become an authority on your topic, and they will love you and gladly tell others about you.

You don’t need professional quality videos, but you do need to make them viewable and understandable.

• Make sure your camcorder or digital camera records good quality video, and no it doesn’t have to be HD quality for YouTube!
• Make sure to have a good quality microphone. Poor audio will drive away most viewers, guaranteed.
• Use a solid backdrop, don’t show your cluttered basement or office or bedroom unless this is part of your presentation
• Write a script or at least notes regarding what you want to say
• Practice and view your results before publishing it. Make sure to ask for opinions and feedback from others!
• Everyone hates the sound of their own voice; but that is how we hear you so don’t worry, you sound fine.

Just go for it, things will get better as you go!

Now I’m off to try and figure out what my customers are looking for regarding camera repair for their Sony, Canon and Nikon cameras and then just give it to them.