It doesn’t take an I.Q in the genius range to see that online video is the up-coming marketing tool for just about any product and service. The rise of YouTube and hundreds of cloned versions has been nothing less than spectacular.

YouTube was launched in 2005 and has since had hundreds of millions of page views. No one questions their “success,” and the recent acquisition by google shows some one values the service. Although, back in 2006, billionaire, Mark Cuban, was quoted as saying, “Anyone who buys YouTube is a moron.”

Regardless, the fact is, everyone and their Grandmother sees YouTube as just another marketing opportunity. Easy uploads, massive exposure and a ready audience panting with anticipation to see the next uploaded video. Or is it? Here’s five questions you should ask yourself before doing so - if you have a luxury property to market.

1. Would you market your property in “Seventeen,” magazine? 

Despite conflicting reports from some sources, Neilsen and Netratings agree, “ Visitors between 12-17 years of age are nearly 1.5 times more likely to visit YouTube than the average Web user."

2. Would you market your luxury property alongside 25,000 other properties?

A search for the term “real estate” at YouTube yielded 25,300 results – many of which are never viewed.

3. Would you wish to have your luxury property associated with some one like this?

Sure, he’s funny, but do you really want the next video a prospective client watches after yours to be this one - on the same page, with the same look and from the same source? 

4. Is it remarkable?

I am a big fan of Seth Godin. Seth Godin’s marketing advice (apart from suggesting that you quit selling real estate) is that for something to warrant attention, it has to be “remarkable,” i.e. some one seeing it should remark upon it.

How remarkable are YouTube videos? I am not sure exactly how many youtube videos there are – in fact, I’m not sure they know, but as of February 2008, there were over 72,000,000. Needle in a haystack anyone? Anyone can upload a video to youtube. My 7-year-old niece can upload videos to youtube. How “remarkable” is that? You need an edge when it comes to marketing something, and youtube is not it.
 

If, as I suspect you did, answered “No” to any or all of the preceding questions, the next logical question is:

5. Where should I market my luxury property video

Here are a few options that offer a far more targeted audience.

Forbes Video Network

Forbes has an extremely high quality, well presented video search facility, which includes luxury real estate. For a good example of the sort of quality available, take a look at this video of one of Donald Trump’s $6 million properties.

Luxury Property

Luxury Property has combined with a number of professional video production services to offer the best possible quality and a peerless venue.

Free. There’s nothing like it. Free works when you market to others, and free can work for your marketing. Use these ten free techniques to bootstrap your Web marketing effort. As you make money from your Web investment, you’ll have the funds for paid advertising and other techniques.

Even if you’re one of those lucky ducks with money, you still need to start here. The first six techniques apply to every Web site. The only difference is whether you hire help or do it yourself.

Put Your URL on All Stationery and Packaging

There’s no added cost to include your URL, on absolutely every public piece of paper that leaves your office: business cards, letterhead, invoices, packing slips, presentation folders, marketing collateral, spec sheets, and press releases.

Don’t forget to include your URL on PowerPoint presentations and in the footer of white papers and proposals. Be sure your URL appears in all advertising, whether promotional items, print, radio, billboard, or TV. And of course, include it on all forms of packaging: cartons, labels, lids, bags, wrapping paper, ribbon, tissue, and any other containers.

Include Your URL in Your E-Mail Signature

E-mail programs allow you to create a signature that appears on every e-mail you send. In addition to your name, company name, address, phone number, include your five-to-seven word marketing tag and a link to your Web site. If you use the format http://www.YourDomain.com, the text automatically becomes a link in outgoing mail.

Use Calls to Action in Your Text

Calls to action are imperative verbs (such as buy now, save, register to win) that encourage your visitors to take a specific action on your Web site. The word free, as well as a textual link, is an implicit call to action. Use links and calls to action to help visitors navigate your site and to let them know what you’d like them to do. If you don’t tell them, they won’t know.

Collect Customer Testimonials

Recommendations from customers are golden! Whenever customers spontaneously offer praise, ask for permission to include their recommendations on your site. You don’t have to identify the individuals in detail, but you need something more than “anonymous” as a source. You can collect testimonials from letters you receive, notes in a guestbook, or comments on a blog.

Submit to Top Search Engines

Submit your Web site to the big three, AKA, Google, Yahoo! & Live Search. It doesn’t cost you a penny, and not even very much time. Submit to:

• Google
• Yahoo!
• Live Search

Conduct a Link Campaign

Inbound links from other Web sites not only bring you targeted traffic from other sites but also can improve your ranking in Google’s search results. This is a time-consuming but free method of bringing high-quality visitors to your site.

For the greatest benefits in Google’s search results, ask for links from other sites that have a Google page rank of 4 or higher. If you make a practice of looking for ten links each week, this won’t seem as difficult a task.

If you are good at creating content, you could try a method of gaining vast amounts of inbound links called link baiting. Checkout Mark’s excellent post on this very subject: Link baiting

Tell a Friend

The simplest of all viral marketing techniques, Tell a Friend, lets a Web visitor e-mail a friend or colleague a link to your site with a personal note of recommendation. There are many web scripts available for free. Ask your web developer for more information.

Take Advantage of Free Local Services

Both Google and Yahoo! now offer free local listings tied to their map sites, allowing users to search for businesses within a specific geographical area. While hospitality, tourism, and entertainment sites are obvious beneficiaries of local search, local listings are valuable for every company. Many consumers like to buy locally because they think it will be easier to obtain post-purchase service or because they want to support local businesses.

Submit Your Shopping Site to Froogle

Most shopping sites are actually either pay per click, or pay per listing, search engines sites. Google’s shopping search engine, called Froogle, is free to merchants. You can upload your inventory monthly or establish an RSS feed to update your online feed whenever your inventory changes. While you’re at it, submit your print catalog to Google, also for free.

Deliver a Newsletter through Yahoo! Groups

If testimonials are gold, e-mail addresses are silver! Start collecting e-mail addresses even before your Web site is live. Be sure you ask permission to e-mail an occasional newsletter. If you can’t afford the low-cost, template based, newsletter services such as ConstantContact.com, start small with Yahoo! Groups.

After setting up your group, e-mail an invitation to your list of addresses to sign up. It’s text-based news, but it’s fast and it’s easy and it’s free.

For more tips on web marketing, checkout a recent post named Online Marketing Methods.

Imagine the Greek deity Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders. Quite the load even for someone with muscles the size of Africa. Now, imagine Youtube, the Atlas of internet videos. It carries the weight of millions of videos and users. Its dominance has continued following its 1.65 billion dollar Google buyout last October. According to Hitwise (a web analytics research firm) traffic data shows the market share of visits to YouTube increased 70% between January and May in the United States. To put this in context, the market share of visits to 64 other video sites only increased by 8% during the same time. While Youtube may be king there are still many innovating competitors in the market. The following is an abbreviated version of a who’s who list of video sites posted by the Mashable team on their Blog.

Google Video - Since Google bought YouTube, Google’s Video player is mainly used for for-pay content like TV shows. There is also a search indexes for all video sharing sites on the internet.

Blip.tv - Blip.tv is designed for video podcast makers. It allows for easy uploads with all types and qualities of media. It then sends them to their feed for the users. Advertising options are also available.

Ourmedia - Where you can upload audio, video, images, and text and share them with the world. The OurMedia community contains over 100,000 members.

Veoh – Allows users to watch high definition quality videos and publish personal videos.

DailyMotion - Video sharing platform with multiple video search options. People join groups based on publishing videos with common interests.

Metacafe - A site that helps you discover the best videos through a community that filters, reviews and rates new videos every day. UnCut - Video uploading and sharing community by AOL. Embeds videos into you blog.

Kewego- A video sharing network where you can upload your own videos and view videos by others.

ClipShack - Video sharing community that allows you to upload video clips, make friends, keep a collection of your favorite videos and comment on clips. 5min- Video sharing site with a particular vision: collect videos that can explain anything in five minutes.

Brightcove - Search, click and watch. Music videos, news, travel, recipes, adventure. Thousands of channels, including the best in online video.

Viddler– Allows you to add tags and comments to video that will show up at specific times. It also has unique features like flickr and twitter integration.

Revver - The first video sharing site that provides users with the possibility to earn revenue from the videos they upload.

Yahoo Video- Yahoo’s version of online video. Similar to Google Video.

Livevideo- Video sharing site that lets you create personal channels. Upload your own videos and share them with the world..

VMIX - Another video sharing website; All content is screened.

Grouper- Video sharing site with a big selection of content; enables you to create playlists and upload videos to MySpace.

Videosift- a Digg-like site which lets you submit, vote, and comment on videos.

Stage6 - A video site that uses the Divx player so you can upload High Definition video, This requires longer upload times, and you need DivX support (usually a browser plugin).

Tube Battle- vote for the best videos, organized by category.

Many of these sites are excellant venues for you to syndicate your videos. However, should a luxury video really be posted all over the web? Should luxury professionals really be marketing a high end property on a mass market website? Do discreet sellers really want their property plastered all over the internet? Of course not. Targeted marketing and distribution is paramont. Forget trying to be Atlas and forget trying to carry all your online marketing on your shoulders. There’s help out there…LuxuryProperty.com

Photo: Astramate