In this installment of our 5 Questions With… series, we sat down with Huckabones Equipment’s Dealer-Principal Chris Huckabone to discuss the company’s growing YouTube channel, Huckabones Equipment. Huckabone explains how the channel got started, how he runs it and what it brings to his business.
How did your YouTube channel get started?
Huckabone: Our video editor, Kyle, was a customer first and has his own YouTube channel. It was his idea. I think he’s got 6-8 million views and been doing it since 2017. He was well known in our area for reviewing equipment. We lent him some Kubota equipment for reviews, and it even came back to us. People would say, “You lent him a side by side. I loved his video. I want the exact same.” The eye opener was that video got 200,000 or 300,000 views now.
The video editor is the big part of it, so we are very lucky with Kyle. He’s been awesome to deal with and, without him, I wouldn't have known where to start or how to do it. He set up the channel and makes it look like I know what I'm doing.
Have you ever had a video lead to a wholegoods sale?
Huckabone: Definitely. I’d say once a week we have somebody either call or email and say, “I watch you on YouTube. I feel like I already know you.” I’ve heard that dozens of times. It was never started with that intention, but it’s definitely helped. It’s kept the channel cost neutral and growing.
Getting a lot of views on our videos may not directly help us. But it’s going to help somebody who is looking at Kubota. Whether they’re in Florida, California or right in our backyard, if it helps them make a decision, it’s great. And eventually what it’ll lead to is somebody thinking, “I’m going to pick up the phone and call them.”
It definitely leads to something for someone. I’ve had other dealers call, whether it be from the states or even in our own territory and say, “I saw your video, and it led to a conversation about something.”
We’ve chose not to run ads on our videos so far. I think you have to have a 1,000 subscribers and, we’re well north of that and have been for almost a year now, but it’s just not something we need to do at this point. For the revenue it would bring us, we’d be at pennies a day. You need a pretty big subscriber base and views to really make it worthwhile.
What’s your recording process like?
Huckabone: Once you get good at it, you can fire off a video within an hour, and it ends up being 10-15 minutes long. It’s just a matter of making the time to do it, because there are times where you’re like, “I don’t want to do this. I’ve got other things to do.” You’ve got kids and a wife, and you’re giving up a Saturday afternoon to do record videos.
Source: Huckabones Equipment
Whenever there’s good days, and you can do 2-3 videos, that helps make up for the bad weeks where you don’t want to do it. It’s a never ending animal. We always aim for 3-4 videos a week. Usually it boils down to 1-2 with time and weather.
How do you pick your video ideas?
Huckabone: We watch that all the time. But the beautiful thing with YouTube is you don’t know what’s going be the big hit and what isn’t. We had one video that was about snow tracks on SVL skidsteers. We thought it was a great video. We had it posted to Instagram, and it had 500,000 views in a week. We thought, “Oh, perfect. The YouTube one’s coming out next week, it’ll build on that.”
And it was a flop. We might be at 3,000 views on the video so far. You just don’t know which one is going be the popular one. I haven't found the magic trick anyway.
What advice do you have for a dealer looking to start their own YouTube channel?
Huckabone: You’re going to fail a lot before you succeed. Keeping at it is the big thing, stay consistent and keep working hard. Whether it’s a video that has 1,000 views or a 100,000, it doesn’t matter. It should be free for your customers.
Whenever somebody walks in and says, “I’m interested in a tractor. I see you don’t have one. What can you tell me about it?” You can show them a video of your face talking about that particular unit saying, “This is how it operates, and this is why you’re going like it.” I think it’s great for everybody to have one.
You definitely can have a voice. There’s always people showing repairs of equipment on YouTube, but it doesn’t matter if you’re doing the exact same video. It’s your voice. Somebody’s going to watch you do it yourself.
To hear Huckabone get more in depth on his experience with running a Youtube channel, register for the 2023 Dealer Success Academy by clicking here.
