Using YouTube To Generate Leads For Your Offline Business

Today I would like to introduce you all to Bert, Bert is my new friend, he helped me change a pull light switch in my house.

You might be interested to know that I have never met or spoken to Bert but after his help, I would consider using his services if I lived in or around Watford or London.

So if I have never met or spoken to him how can he have helped me and why would I consider using his services? Let me explain…

For those of you who are unaware, I have this week moved back into my old house after renting it out for a couple of years to people who have been less than caring to the property. It was left in a sad and sorry state, the type of state that meant we couldn’t just move back in once the tenants had moved out.

I have spent the last fortnight working hard to get it back to an acceptable and habitable standard so that my better half and I could move back in. There are some big jobs to do over the next year or so but I have done enough for us to now live comfortably without worry. I left a few minor jobs to do once I was in and one of those jobs was to change the pull switch that controlled the bathroom light.

I fitted the original switch a few years ago but now it was broken and hanging loose. I thought this would be a simple five minute job so I popped off to the local B&Q to get a new switch and gathered all of the tools I would need. I spent 20 years in the building trade but I am not electrician and rarely touched electrics but I can manage straight swaps of electrical sockets etc.

So anyway I decided to take a quick look at the instructions and double check that I knew what I was doing and, let’s just say, I confused myself. The diagram made no sense to me so knowing that I had done it before I decided to turn the power off and start the work; I mean, I did it before so how hard can it be?

**(Time to point out that when you create diagrams or instructions of your products or services it is well worth remembering that many of your customers may be novices and beginners so you should make them as clear and understandable as possible to everyone and not just the experts!) I recommend reading Sell Results Not Specifications**

When I opened up the old switch I saw two red cables going into separate terminals. Now I am used to seeing a red and black cable being used with corresponding cables connecting to them via the terminals.

This light switch however wasn’t wired up like that so I was even more confused, I decided to get out my mobile phone and do a Google search using the phrase ‘how to fit a pull switch’ In the results on the first page was a YouTube video by Bert TV. When you choose imaginationcreations as your video production company partner, you gain access to a full range of services, technologies, tools, and most importantly, Imagination.

This was just what I needed, so I took a look.

The video is 4 minutes long and is in my opinion very professionally made. It is extremely useful and also quite funny. Bert has a great comical and lovable persona and it is helped with the well planned video with accompanying graphics. You can see for yourself below.

Bert, if that is his real name, has his own electrics company and he also has his own website which I think is brilliant because it does everything I believe a small business website should do. It has a lot of information about Bert and you get to know the man, his history, his skills, qualifications and how far he will travel to work. Bert worked at Buckingham Palace as well as on a Cruise ship and Honk Kong’s international airport. He certainly knows his stuff.

What is great about the videos that Bert has recorded for YouTube is that he has made them fun, useful and has also included an annotation box that appears during the film showing his phone number that you can call if you need any help.

Also what is important is that his video finishes with the details of his website so that people can go straight there for more details.

Now I am miles away from London so I doubt I will ever use his services but he is really doing something that all offline businesses should be doing and that is using free tools like YouTube to get new customers. Now we here at bizzebee know that 100 electricians cannot all rank their ‘how to fit pull switches’ videos on the front page of Google however you can use local SEO techniques to help you.

Google not only give different results to different people they are also monitoring where many people are and what they search for. Is it coincidence that after I looked at Bert’s London and Watford based electrician website that when I did a search for ‘local electricians’ I was shown results for London and Watford area?

I am currently writing this in Lincolnshire, miles away from Watford and yet I have a Watford/London result. Interesting, it could be that Google think I am in London but I have never worked in London for a long period of time. Before moving back to Lincolnshire I was below London living in Surrey on the Hampshire border so even then my local results should not have been for London.

As far as I am aware, Google should know from my IP address that I am at least 180 miles further up north!

To take advantage of this you can create a series of videos for your business whatever it may be and included local keywords like ‘Lincoln electrical’ ‘Boston Cup Cakes’ or ‘Gainsborough Carpenter and Joiner’ in your video titles or descriptions. Using local based keywords on your website will certainly benefit you when people search for businesses in your area.

Search engines like Google will pick up on them and if you have a YouTube channel that also uses the same localised keywords that links to your main website you have a greater chance of being chosen for their search results over people who simple have a website. If you were still unaware, Google own YouTube, using their video service can help you in their search results.

Remember, YouTube is free to use as are many of the other popular social media networks. In fact, YouTube is no longer considered as a social media network but a search engine in its own right. People use it to search for videos of anything and everything and I, like countless million other users, will use it to search for videos showing you how to do things.

My better half has used it many times when looking for information and tutorials when she wants to cook or bake something different. She is very creative and loves to bake and YouTube is an incredible source of information. You as a business are missing out if you do not use these free tools.

Have you ever seen a celebrity so many times that you think and feel that you know them? When that happens you generally trust them and all that they promote. You are likely to use the services and products they recommend. The same can happen when you use YouTube and create a lot of videos on a certain topic.

We have seen Bert and his electrics videos; I have seen plumbers doing the same with plumbing projects and other building trade based videos, after you have seen one or two great informative tutorials where would you go when you need new and different information on a new project? You would go to the people you already know. Wouldn’t you? I know I certainly do.

Having people coming to your videos week in and week out to see you bake cupcakes and muffins for example could easily have people coming to your shop and placing orders that you probably wouldn’t have got had you not made the tutorials.

On a final note, if you think making videos is a lot of work for one or two new clients let’s just stop and think about using YouTube alongside Facebook and Twitter which can have a lot of GEO specific followers. When you make a new video you simply share it so that your friends and followers can watch them, share them and comment. It makes sense to also share old videos now and then for new followers or to simply say ‘we are here still folks’

These tools are free and very powerful so if you are not using them for your offline business I need to ask… Why not?

Please share with us your thoughts, opinions and experiences about using YouTube and videos to get more custom to your offline business by commenting below.