YouTube is a weird place. Skateboarders injuring themselves get more views than most television shows ever will. But the sheer number of eyeballs on YouTube makes it seem like the perfect place for marketers. With such a large audience, there must be a way to use it to drive sales leads…right?
The reality is much different. There are many pluses and minuses to marketing on YouTube, so let’s jump into both.
On the plus side, there are three major benefits to YouTube for home improvement companies. First, YouTube offers strong opportunities for you to brand yourself and your company. It costs nothing to create videos of you or your team. You can shoot videos on any topic you like, but most home improvement companies focus on explaining remodeling problems and solutions, illustrating their expertise at handling such issues. These are strong brand builders.
The next positive for YouTube is that it allows you to humanize your business. You can separate yourself from other faceless competitors by allowing homeowners see you and hear from you directly. You don’t even have to be that charming! You just need to communicate to the homeowner that you’re trustworthy and that you’re an expert.
Finally, YouTube is great for improving organic search results. You have to use keywords properly though. When you upload videos, make sure you’re taking advantage of local terms and tagging and describing your videos as completely as you can. If your organic search results are already strong, then your YouTube videos will complement that. But if you’re struggling with ranking in search engines, YouTube is a good place to try to gain ground.
But with the pluses, also come the minuses. YouTube videos don’t drive many leads. For homeowners, YouTube offers a tremendous resource for DIY or to research a specific home problem. But rarely do you get a lead that’s trackable and directly attributable from YouTube. More often, YouTube visitors will click from your video back to your Web site, where they may then convert to a lead. But that’s not guaranteed – and it’s hard to identify as a YouTube lead.
Then there’s the old bugaboo of the related videos column. Related videos on YouTube can be videos from your rivals, and the last thing you want to do is promote your YouTube video, only to allow homeowners to wander off to your competition. The dreaded DIY videos also appear quite frequently, and as a home improvement company, DIY is a significant competitor.
For example, this Home Hardware video on bathroom renovations links to DIY guides and a video from a rival company. And also delicious cupcakes, for some reason.
Image Credit: YouTube
YouTube also allows for some direct advertising, in the form of banner ads and even video ads on the Web site. But those ads have not set the world on fire, and rarely generate a significant volume of leads.
So YouTube has its pluses and minuses for home improvement companies. And while YouTube’s visitor volume will continue to grow by leaps and bounds, it’s not putting dinner on the table for most home improvement companies.
For a few ideas on what some particularly crazy home improvement videos look like, check out our man, Mr. Bean:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5rkQLXH9p4
