I’d just like to take a quick moment to highlight a great example of how companies can use online marketing to create demand for their products and services.

I receive a lot of emails from Bertucci’s. They often contain coupons and news about special events. I appreciate all of them, but because I live in an area where I have a lot of dining choices, it’s tough for any restaurant to command my loyalty with only those tactics.

Humanizing Your Brand to Stand Out

But I received a different email from Bertucci’s recently that absolutely caught my attention. It highlighted the fact that they are now using YouTube to demonstrate how one of their Chefs puts together some of their most popular dishes.

Here’s a screenshot from the email:

The email led me to a page on the Bertuccis.com website where I could watch a few fairly entertaining videos featuring Chef Jeff.

Inspiration from this Example

I think that businesses of all shapes and sizes could benefit by paying attention to this effort from Bertucci’s.

• Not everyone will reply to the same offer: They might have a lot of people on their mailing list that love and take action on the coupons that they send out. But Bertucci’s would not have won my business with those alone. It took a different type of promotion to catch my attention.
• Your brand can be humanized — whether it’s big or small: Whether you are in the B-to-B or B-to-C play, in the end, you are still selling to people. And your prospects and customers may want to feel comfortable and closer to your brand, before they decided to make an investment. Online video can be a great way to make that happen.
• When it comes to social media efforts, your website should be the hub: I expected the link inside the email to drive me directly to a YouTube.com address. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I instead was brought to a page on the Bertuccis.com website, where the videos were embedded. This created the opportunity for me to not just enjoy the video, but also connect with the company in additional ways.

Tags: humanizing, pizza, promotion, Video, website, YouTube