Let’s talk facts to begin with. YouTube currently has 1.9 billion monthly active users. While you read this, 400 hours of videos will be uploaded on YouTube by users across the world. Being available in 91 countries and 61 languages, it’s time you start investing in YouTube marketing if you already have not.
While you get started, here are some tips on how to stay a step ahead from your competitors.
Table of Contents
Why YouTube is a good marketing tool
First things first, before diving deep into how to excel at YouTube marketing, let’s understand what are the steps that people from almost all folds have taken for us to invest time and effort in this. YouTube has made its place as the world’s second-largest search engine and second most-visited site after Google.
A recent report by Hubspot had some interesting facts:
- YouTube users collectively watch over 46,000 years of content each year
- 68% of YouTube users watched a video to help themselves while making a purchase decision
- People prefer watching video on YouTube 4x more than on any other social media platforms
- YouTube users watch more than 180 million hours of content on TV screens each day
Developing a YouTube marketing strategy
Ask any marketer how they get started with any form of marketing and they will say that they brainstormed to have a proper strategy in place. Well, isn’t that how it all starts?
When you kick off with YouTube marketing, start with setting your goals. With all the efforts you put in, what is it that you want to achieve:
- Clicks and traffic
- Engagement
- Reach
- Subscribers
You can also build a powerful strategy by using the SMART model. It will help you put all the required objectives together: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant & Time-bound. This will ensure that your objectives are target specific and are do-able.
While you draft your strategy, also remember to establish your KPIs, which will further ease your process when you measure the results of your efforts.
[Also Read Your Ultimate Guide to Video Marketing]
Setting a fixed schedule
One of the most important things for YouTube marketing is consistency. Users want to see and consume the content quickly (because everyone is short of time). While that stands true, it is also important to knock at their doors a number of times so as to stay on top of their mind. But the catch here is, in the race of creating and publishing content, the bigger task is to create ‘quality’ content.
Most successful YouTubers have a strict publishing schedule and they make it a point to stick to it. After you have studied your audience well, analyze their behaviour and patterns and plan your calendar accordingly.
According to a report by Oberio, most viewers consume content on YouTube in early afternoons during the week or on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Hence, it is good practice to post videos at the right time. It increases the chances of your video getting indexed at the right time and getting viewed by the right set of audience.
Source: Oberio
Type of videos that work for businesses
Now that you know the broader basics to get started with YouTube marketing, here’s a list of the type of videos that work the best on the platform:
01. Customer testimonial videos
These are the interview format videos where a satisfied customer talks about the product or service you offer and how they have benefitted from it. These types of videos are one of the best sources to win the trust and credibility of prospective customers.
[Recommended Read Customer Testimonials Generate 5x RevenueFrom Every Customer, Every Visit]
02. Tutorials and demonstration videos
Explainer videos are the videos that elaborate in detail the how and what of the product. Tutorial videos are a good source to answer customer queries and to explain a new feature and the value it generates.
03. Podcasts or talk with industry leaders
In the business world, one of the ways to leverage YouTube marketing is by developing content-rich podcasts. This brings in more listeners and establishes credibility. You can also invite people from your senior-most management team to talk about your product or service.
04. Reports and case studies
Nothing beats factual information in the business world. You can opt to create detailed reports with a verbal description of the area of your business expertise. Another aspect is case studies: a precise way to show the ‘then’ and the ‘now’ by portraying statistics.
05. Event videos
There are high chances that your business is investing in hosting industry events. It is also possible that you have employees going over to conferences and talking on certain subjects. All you need to do is get this talk or event camera and upload it on your YouTube channel for posterity to view.
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Optimizing your videos for SEO for YouTube marketing
Since YouTube is the second largest search engine, it is important to optimize the content so that Google can bring visibility to it. There are a number of things that you can do to optimize your content and rank high on Google and YouTube both.
Some of the major areas to focus on are title, description, subtitles, tags, playlist, category and closed captions. Broadly, all of these form a part of what we call metadata. Writing the relevant information in the metadata ensures that it is properly indexed by web algorithms.
Pro-tip: Be absolutely straightforward with each of the spaces in the metadata. Make sure you insert relevant keywords but do not overdo it. Add related translations wherever possible as well.
Accessed by almost 1.9 billion people on a monthly basis, YouTube is not merely an entertainment platform. If used well, it can bring in a lot of visibility to your brand and help you leverage all your marketing efforts.
YouTube marketing is ‘the’ big thing at present and the above-listed points will help you excel while you get started on it!
2 Comments
nice blog
Thank you, Ratnesh!