Book Review: YouTube for Business

The most overarching statement I can make about YouTube for Business, Online Video Marketing For Any Business (Copyright 2009, by Michael Miller), is that it is a simple book. And I mean that in a positive way.

Although, personally, I cannot say I derived much new knowledge from the book – since I’ve been creating videos for a few years now – I can say that it is a good overview of the subject. I recommend it to anyone who is getting started as a video producer for the Web.

In fact, since the above encapsulates my review of the book, and since I get asked questions about video production in general, and specifically for YouTube, I decided to write a few notes from the book so that this may serve as a resource to cover some rudimentary points.

Of course the following will not be a substitute for reading the book, and the points I selected are arbitrarily chosen for general interest.  Further, I also included page numbers in case you want to learn more about a particular point. In other words, buy the book and go right to the page of interest.

Notes from the Book, YouTube for Business

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Scientific Advertising

You’ve read a few marketing books. Which has been the most valuable to you?

I’ve gobbled up a bunch over the years and continue to do so as much as possible. And although I have a few favorites, in my opinion, the most important one is not a new one. In fact, it may very well be the oldest:

Scientific Advertising was written by Claude C. Hopkins in 1923 and is truly a seminal book for the world of direct response marketing. The principles of testing and measuring that Hopkins established are as important today as back then. The difference being that what took months to test back then, can be tested with extraordinary lightning speed nowadays.

The uninformed would be staggered to know the amount of work involved in a single ad. Weeks of work sometimes. The ad seems so simple, and it must be simple to appeal to simple people. But back of that ad may lie reams of data, volumes of information, months of research.

So this is no lazy man’s field. (1923)

The mantra of 21st century marketing is the same as back then: Test, Test and More Testing!

Almost any question can be answered, cheaply, quickly and finally, by a test campaign. And that’s the way to answer them—not by arguments around a table. Go to the court of last resort—the buyers of your product. (1923)

For more info, click on “Testing” Your Way To Internet Marketing Success.

“Offer Service” (For Free?)

The concept of giving away something valuable for free, to gain business attention, has been ongoing grist for argument, within Internet marketing circles for a while. The obvious point of contention is that giving away something free, to get your product or service into the hands of potential paying customers (who would not otherwise know or care about you), does not make money.

Of course, the point of “why” one is giving away anything for free is completely missed if one is not also selling a product or service.

Low Cost Advertising

The notion of giving something away “free” as a low-cost advertising media to garner attention for your product or service has been so heightened via the Internet, that it’s now an expectation for many web users that they should be able to find any information they are seeking for no cost. Regardless of whether one can find “any” information for free, or not, the notion of “free” is certainly not new.  And I’m sure anyone who would argue “against” the merits of giving away freebies could also cite examples of when they, themselves, received free product samples, or free consultations, or free trial offers, before they every used the Internet. (Well, I guess that would depend upon one’s age….)

Scientific Advertising, by Claude Hopkins

Regardless, the point of this post is to simply draw some attention to “how long” freebies have been in existence. Although I would bet free samples and free trial services goes back to the beginning of commercial enterprise, what I can cite as a reference goes back to 1923, in the book Scientific Advertising, by Claude Hopkins.

Chapter 3, “Offer Service,” is all about offering something for free. In fact, in the first sentence of the second paragraph Mr. Hopkins states, “The best ads ask no one to buy.” He further goes on to say, “The ads are based entirely on service.” He offers real-world examples of giving away hair brushes, coffee, cigars and sewing machine trials, and refers to a consumer “…anxious to reciprocate the gift. So the salesman gets an order.”

Of course not every free gift or free service will result in a sale for one’s paid product or service, but the opportunity to make sales based on giving something away can be easier (and more economical) than repetitiously telling people, who don’t know you, to buy from you.

For more info, click What Are YOU Giving Away For FREE?

The New Rules of Marketing and PR

Although I’ve read many useful books on marketing and public relations, this one, by David Meerman Scott, is very relevant to anyone interested in leveraging the Internet to get their message out to a broader audience.

The New Rules of Marketing and PR (copyright 2007 and 2009), highlights that marketing and public relations is significantly different on the Web than in mainstream media. Scott writes that the “old rules” of traditional media are about “controlling a message.” He states that the only ways to get your message out using conventional media channels is to buy expensive advertising or beg the media to write about you.

Instead of buying or begging your way in, Scott says anybody can “publish their way in” using the tools of social media such as, blogs, podcasts, online news releases, online video, viral marketing, and online media.

Internet Technologies Facilitate Communication

Seth Godin is a prolific author of business books, a renown blogger and a celebrated speaker. His latest book (11th) is titled Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us.

Godin defines the title in this way: “A tribe is a group of people connected to a leader, and connected to an idea.”

Here’s why I recommend reading this:

1) It’s a great book on 21st century leadership
2) It’s inspiring
3) It’s short

There are a number of practical quotes from the book that I might include in the future, by here is a simple one that is pertinent to this website:

“The Internet is just a tool, an easy way to enable some tactics. The real power of tribes has nothing to do with the Internet and everything to do with people.”

It’s easy to get lost in how technology works and lose sight of its purpose. If we consider technology as a way to facilitate communication, that simplifies the varied ways it can serve us.