How to Use YouTube to Sell Videos and Market Yourself in 5 Easy Steps
We’ve noticed:
- Lots of AdHack Ad Creators use YouTube to host videos and share them on AdHack.
- Lots of those videos are really great assets that open up great opportunities for their Ad Creators.
This = awesome!
Ad Creators get to participate in the huge YouTube community, have a great video player to use and have one place to manage their public assets. Dandy.
And we focused on launching new features for Ad Creators on AdHack:
- List Ads for sale with a target price
- Sell Ads directly to Ad Buyers
- Get hired directly by Ad Buyers
Together these features create a nice little toolbox to help Ad Creators run their business — to sell work and find new jobs. (And we’re working on more good stuff!)
Then looking at how we worked with YouTube, we started to wonder if we could find another better way to help Ad Creators run their business.
We asked: what if we helped Ad Creators convert the traffic to their videos into leads and sales for their business?
We talked to a few Ad Creators about the idea. They liked it. They had outstanding suggestions. They told us what they wanted to see: an illustrated tutorial to show them how to use YouTube to sell their videos and market their service.
And hot damn, here it is.
5 Steps to Sell Your Videos from YouTube
Below are 5 easy steps to update your current YouTube videos and to turn them into your very own sales pitch.
We recommend you use YouTube’s video Annotations feature. It’s a simple tool built in to YouTube that allows you to create text-box overlays on your videos.
Step 1 — Choose Your Video
While logged into your YouTube account, view one of your videos and click “Annotations Editor” in the top right hand corner of the video player.
Click image for larger version.
Step 2 — Add Annotation
A new annotation navigation box will appear in the bottom left of your video.
Choose the middle option “Add Annotation.”
(Note: If you have multiple annotations in one video you can use the arrow keys to the left and right of this button to jump around for quick editing.)
Click image for larger version.
Step 3 — Style Annotation
Choose your annotation style. You can choose from a Speech Bubble, Note or Highlight.
We chose the “Note” style for this example. Feel free to experiment with the other options if you like.
Click image for larger version.
Step 4 — Write Call to Action
A text box will appear on top of your video.
Resize the text box by hovering over a corner. Drag and place the text box anywhere on your video.
We recommend making the text box a single line high and placing it right at the top.
Now, you may be tempted to use the “Link” icon to point at your AdHack page. But unfortunately YouTube does not allow annotations to point to websites outside of YouTube.
So we’re going to use the annotation as a call to action to show people the link in the Video Information – Description.
For our annotation call to action we wrote: “Need fresh ad creative? Visit AdHack.com or click the link on the right –>”
We’ll explain why we chose this in the next and final step.
Click image for larger version.
Step 5 — Add Link to Video Details
Now choose “Edit Video” on the right of your video.
In the Video Information > Description area, add the address of your video on AdHack, then the address of your AdHack portfolio.
For our example above, we would write:
Learn more about my work and hiring me!
This video available for sale: http://adhack.com/ads/how-adhack-works
My full portfolio of work: http://adhack.com/portfolio/users/corey-rollins
Now view your video to see how your links look in both the default, collapsed view and the expanded, ‘more info’ view.
We strongly encourage you to put the links at the top of the Description area so they appear in the default, collapsed view.
Click image for larger version.
And there you have it — a simple and effective way to make your YouTube ads go to work for you!
Let us know how it works for you and send us any tips (in comments below or by email).
Happy annotating and good luck!
Last Note!
For the whole tutorial above we assume you already have your Ads on AdHack.
You do, right?
Because that’s how you can sell them and get yourself hired.
Here’s the full deal on how AdHack works for Ad Creators.
Here’s the link to sign up for AdHack.
Start to build your portfolio, meet Ad Buyers, sell your Ads and get hired today!
Tags:
ad sales, annotations, call to action, get hired, lead generation, market yourself, sell videos, sell your ads, youtube
More AdHack Goodness? Subscribe!
AdHack Blog by RSS | 
AdHack Blog by Email
AdHack Ad Creative Marketplace
AdHack is the marketplace for ad creative. We connect Ad Buyers and Ad Creators and help them both win.
4 Comments