Generating word of mouth for small business

If you are a business owner of any size, you can use videos and sites like YouTube to promote your business online.  Yes, that is right.  Businesses of all sizes can benefit from using such online tools to market and generate buzz about their business…and you do not have to spend a fortune to do so.

Benefits of Videos and YouTube for Small Business Owners

• Videos are much more powerful than words (wouldn’t you rather watch a short 1 minute video than try reading pages of copy on a website?)
• Videos are great tools for educating your current and prospective customers about the value of your business
• Videos that can be easily shared can become great viral marketing tools
• Videos are very cost-effective today (creating your own videos is extremely simple today with the new low-cost video editing tools and posting videos to sites like YouTube is free)

 Real-life example:  Your Chess Coach

Your Chess Coach is a small business based in Clearwater, Florida, that is dedicated to teaching young children chess.  The owners, Dan and Laura Sherman, are professional chess players that met and married while on the competitive chess circuit, and they have turned their passion for chess into a very successful business.

How?  Mostly through the use of a variety of online and email marketing tools.  They have also produced several videos that they have posted on their website to educate the current and prospective customers about the benefits of chess for children. 

How To Get Your Customers To Share Your Videos?

Simple!  Give them a great video that they will WANT to share and make it easy for them to do so.

Making Videos People Will Share

So the first, and probably most important, thing to remember is that people will not simply share your video with their friends because you ask them to.  Okay, maybe some will.  But if you create a video that has more “mass appeal”, people will share this whether you ask them or not.

And yes, you can create a video that has both “mass appeal” and demonstrates the value of your business.  Please see this sample video from Your Chess Coach to see what I mean.  (Don’t you just want to share this with a few people you know?)

Click Image To Watch Video - Your Chess Coach

Making It Easy For People To Share Your Videos

Of course, the real value to you in creating these videos occurs when people start sharing these videos with their friends (i.e., become your marketing team for you).  There are several ways to do this, but one of the most popular methods is to upload your video to a site like YouTube or Facebook, which gives their video a unique URL or website address.  When your video has its very own website address, it is simple for people to forward your video.  For example, Your Chess Coach created a video and posted it to YouTube.  They then shared their video with their current customers by including it in their email marketing campaigns, and the customers in turn began sharing this video with their friends.

Summary

Today’s small business owners have so much more opportunity than even just five years ago in terms of access to free or very cost-effective tools to market their business online.  To get the most buzz from your efforts, you have to keep in mind that you have to give your customers the reason and simple tools to spread the word for you.  Videos are just one of these very effective tools that many small business owners can or should use.