We all know that Google is the most-used search engine in the world, as well as the most-used website of any others in the world. Do you know what the second most-used search engine is? Bing? Nope. Yahoo!? Nope. It’s YouTube, which is also the second-most used website of any others in the world, and it’s owned by Google.

Here are some staggering statistics about YouTube:

  • 1.3 billion people use YouTube
  • 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every single minute
  • 1 million YouTube views on mobile devices every day
  • The average mobile session on YouTube is 40 minutes
  • 70% of all visitors to YouTube come from outside the United States

And while it’s not YouTube, Facebook gets 4 billion video views per day, and 75% of that traffic is from mobile devices. Video is huge, and yet you’re probably not using it to market your own business.

What Type of Videos Should You Create?

Sometimes it can be a little difficult to try to imagine what type of videos you can create, and this is probably the most common question we get. After all, you’re not a movie producer, so how do you use it without coming off as a complete idiot?

Fortunately, it’s really not that difficult, and you don’t have to have a lot of expensive equipment. A simple camcorder (cost = a couple hundred bucks) or even your smart phone can produce decent videos without much work.

You have at least three categories of videos that you can create that will help market your business:

Trust-building Videos

  • Office staff introductions – Have your staff (or you!) do a short intro video by asking them open-ended questions. This helps your potential customers to get to know you. Here are a couple examples from a local church: asburylive.org/about-us/our-pastors. They’re short (under 60 seconds) and it gives a potential visitor a sense of who the people are at that business.
  • Tour of your facilities/office – Maybe you’re proud of your facility, but people may want to see what your space is about before they visit. Give them a little virtual tour so they can check it out before coming in.
  • Testimonials – These are very important! Ask your customers to record a short testimonial that tells a story or helps put people at ease. Here’s an example that a friend has at her acupuncture clinic: easternmedicalcenter.com/about-dr-teresa-shen-l-a-c. You can make them very simple too, and just use your cell phone to record a simple 60-second testimonial. Your smart phone will let you send it directly to your YouTube account too, so no editing required! These spontaneously-produced videos tend to look much more authentic than those done in a studio or those that are “polished up” afterwards.
  • Before and After (Transformations) – Do you help people overcome something? Show the problem before, and how the person or situation has improved since your work.

Instructional Videos

  • Vlog (video blog) – Maybe you don’t like to write, but you’re a talker. Use video to communicate with your customers about what’s going on in the markeplace or your business. Here’s my friend Nicole, a real estate professional, who loves to use her videos in her marketing material: youtube.com/watch?v=75sSoqJIkCQ
  • How to videos or tutorials – These can be short or long. My friend Stephanie from fLO Content likes to create little shorts that give people some tips on something specific, like this one that’s how to be effective at a convention or trade show to promote your business with the media: youtube.com/watch?v=vtMtiMvcDgU. Of course, look through this site, and you’ll find more examples too.
  • Product or service information or demo – This can demonstrate your product or services to your potential customers to show how it works in real life.

Marketing Videos

  • Talking head for PR, blog post or landing page – If you do any type of online PR, you can also include a short intro video which can be included with the press release or used on a landing page. People will watch these videos and “get it” before reading through all the text. Here’s a press release I did a year ago with a little marketing video to go with it: prweb.com/releases/seo-certification/training-class/prweb13131566.htm
  • Lessons or recorded webinars – Get people to attend your free webinar, which gets recorded and sent out to your list of course, and at the end you can invite people to purchase or attend something cool.

These are just some ideas, and of course, these can be promoted in your blog, social media, email newsletters, and any other type of marketing that you’re putting together.

What Video Tools Do I Need?

You’ll need a couple basic tools too. I use Camtasia from TechSmith which costs under $200, and is a very good video editing tool so you can take out the “oops” moments or splice pieces together, plus a bunch more.

Depending upon your needs, you may need a paid video-hosting account. YouTube is good, but has some drawbacks which I outline in my article Best Video Hosting Platform for Your Marketing Videos.

So go ahead and jump into the deep end and start using video wherever you can. With Google and YouTube being joined at the hip, it can make for a great, low-cost marketing tool for your business!

(This original article was written by Thomas Petty, appeared here and was re-published with permission.)