Using YouTube to Grow Your Home Inspection Business

Gone are the days when people looked to newspapers or other printed materials to help them promote the right business angle for them. In today’s digital world, the innovative look towards YouTube to get their message out there.

While you might think of YouTube as the source of all cute cat videos and obscure television clips from your youth, many people look to YouTube to help them find useful information on a host of topics. Your home inspection business could be one of them.

By using YouTube, a home inspector is able to not only introduce themselves to their potential clients, but they can add value for existing customers. Allowing for word of mouth to continue to be a constant source of clientele.

This can be easily achieved by creating videos that introduce yourself, your services, and home owner tips.  By making short, easily digestible videos, you can create an endless library of marketing material that sets you apart from other inspectors in your area.

The first thing to do when setting up your business on YouTube is to create a channel that has your unique name and branding. You want your customers and others to be able to find you easily. Once you get your channel created and upload basic information about your business, make sure to use all forms of social media to direct people to your YouTube Channel.

Even if you haven’t created any content for it yet, you want to be sure to make that information known as soon as possible.

Next you will need basic video equipment. If you have the latest and greatest that’s awesome, but today’s cellphones are often equipped with high enough resolution to film quality videos without much distortion. A bigger challenge might be sound quality.

You can spend a good degree of money buying both audio and visual equipment, but a quality wireless mic can be purchased for less than $200 and would make a good investment.

Once you have your channel and equipment, you need to decide what kind of content you will be creating. There are a host of things that a home inspector can discuss that your clientele might find useful. Here are some great starter topics to get the ball rolling

• What do home inspectors look for?
• How can you tell if you have mold in your home or if there are electrical, plumbing, or structural issues?
• Properly painting a house
• The risks of knob and tube wiring
• A crash course in asbestos

Lastly, you need some basic video editing skills, or you can hire someone who can do that kind of work for you. There are several free or very inexpensive video editing and rendering software programs out there both on your phone and on your computer.

Some examples include

• iMovie (iPad, iPhone, Macs)
• Windows Movie Maker
• Adobe Premiere (subscription based)
• Adobe Premiere Clip (android)

If video editing isn’t your strong suit, you can also use Fiverr.com which offers services such as video editing, voice over, and everything in between starting at $5.

The benefit of a YouTube channel is it gives you yet another avenue to connect with your clients in a visual way that is far cheaper than buying television advertising time.

You will want to be real and engaging with your prospective clients as well as produce videos that are interesting and cover topics of importance. You have an open platform to educate, inform, entertain, and promote yourself and your home inspection business for very little financial investment.

We are increasingly entering an age where people know and use YouTube and other Internet channels almost exclusively for their content. Add this tool to your toolbox and watch your business grow.