Let’s put a box around this: YouTube doesn’t make or break your tradeshow marketing success. Certainly you can find exhibitors that have never been on YouTube that have packed up after a show, ecstatic at the results they got at the show.
Nope – YouTube is essential if you want to delve into new media and touch people you’ve never reached before and have never bothered to see your booth at a show. Because, let’s face it, having a tradeshow booth is great. Tradeshow marketing, if done thoughtfully and effectively, can be one of the most worthwhile places to put your marketing dollars.
With YouTube, though, you’re moving into a whole new realm. If you haven’t added videos to the YouTube mix, here are a number of reasons why you should seriously consider using the platform as part of your tradeshow marketing efforts.
- YouTube is the second largest search engine on the ‘net, right behind Google. Videos on YouTube can show up on the top results for both YouTube and Google.
- Videos are cheap and easy to shoot, unlike the old days of only a few years ago when video editing software was really expensive, good cameras were a king’s ransom, and the whole package was bulky and unwieldy – and expensive. Nowadays, video from small handheld cameras like the Flip or a recent model smartphone are very good quality.
- By adding links to the description of your YouTube video, your viewers are just a click away from your website. If your video is product specific, that link should be to a specific landing page, not to a generic front-page site link.
- YouTube videos are extremely easy to share on YouTube and Twitter, and a simple cut-and-paste embeds them in your blog or website.
- By shooting acres and yards of digital footage at your next tradeshow, you’re gathering material that can be used and posted for months.
- People are easily informed with video, and there are millions of folks who prefer a two-minute video to a two-minute text blog post. Give those types of consumers the choice of video to win them over.
- Video allows you to demonstrate things easily. By showing, your audience is knowing.
- Videos are personal. When you interview a client for a testimonial, it’s easy to see exactly how they feel about your product or service.
- It’s easy to add sub-titles or captions to videos to enhance what’s on-screen.
- By making videos focus on a single idea or concept, you can keep them short – which means more people are willing to take a chance on them. There’s no hard and fast rule length of online videos, other than this: they should be as long as needed to get out the necessary information, but not one second longer.
Video on is hot: YouTube almost half a million unique visitors a month. Together, those users spend 2.9 billion hours on YouTube during the month. That’s 326,294 years. You’ll find everything on YouTube, from business, biting babies and music videos to dancing cats.
By shooting video and posting it before your tradeshow to promote your appearance, you’re giving potential visitors a chance to find out more about you in a way they previously couldn’t.
By shooting video during the show you’re letting prospects and clients see what you’re all about – in living color.
By posting video from the show over the next few months, you’re stretching time to remind people of what you did at the show, and tease them on what they missed, and can likely see at the next show, whetting their appetite for the next go-round.
Video and YouTube may not make or break your tradeshow marketing, but it can exponentially increase your reach and influence. Which puts you miles ahead of your competition.
