When you use YouTube marketing to promote your product or business, you have the opportunity to reach literally millions of people without spending any money out of your own pocket. (Unless, of course, you have expenses associated with creating the video itself that you upload to the site.) So how does this work?

Unlike television commercials which people usually use to advertise their products or businesses, YouTube videos serve a lot of entertainment purposes and are not as invasive or as aggressive as other forms of advertisement. When people post a YouTube video, even for marketing purposes, it is generally low-budget and serves some other purpose than to advertise. For instance, it can entertain, educate, or inform. Therefore, people are less likely to look away from it.

You can also use YouTube to reach a large number of people. Millions of people watch videos on the website every month. People from all over the world, too. When you advertise in your local newspaper, or even on your local television channels, you are reaching a limited audience.

In addition, on YouTube, people can search for your particular project using keywords and categories. That way, if you use the right tag words, people who want to purchase something similar to what you are marketing can find you. With commercials, you are appealing to everyone at once, while with YouTube, you can appeal to a niche, or targeted audience.

It is important to remember to keep your video entertaining. People can always move right along to another video, after all. You have to make your video entertaining enough that people not only want to watch it, but also want to find your website afterward and hopefully make a purchase. Think of it as a better kind of infomercial-the kind that people don't want to look away from and actually search for.

Now, many of these issues are specific to YouTube and the type of people who go there looking for videos. You don't need to be as careful when self-hosting videos, but self-hosting is more difficult; though there are a growing set of tools to simplify it. If you are willing to do self-hosting, take a look at this Easy Video Player 2 review for more info on the sorts of tools out there to make it easier. It's only one of many tools available, so be sure to crank up Google and do the research to find out more.

If you create a great marketing video and you can get people to watch it, then word of mouth will take it even further. Some of the greatest YouTube videos weren't professionally market at all-someone just saw them and liked them and spread the word.

Remember your audience when you are making your video. Also, remember why people get onto YouTube in the first place. Gimmicks are okay to use, as long as they are interesting. Above all, don't forget to include contact information so that people can find you when they have finished watching the video.