Marketing on YouTube is a different beast altogether. Sure, your company has videos, but no one clicks on YouTube to watch an advertisement.
Developing a YouTube marketing strategy requires a keen eye and creative approach. You’ll be developing content that addresses your brand and it’s products in a completely new way.
Again, no one is going to watch you peddle your products for five minutes, but they will watch you show them how that product can solve some of their real-world problems. For example, Ikea’s YouTube channel shows their products in action and creates videos that inspire people to redo and organize their homes.
If you’re looking to grab a piece of the world’s second largest search engine, check out these 7 tips to make your YouTube strategy a success.
1. Make Better Content
The first step to any quality project worth all your hours of effort and hard work is research. Check out channels on related topics, or ones produced by similar brands to develop a competitive YouTube marketing strategy.
Answer these question before developing your own:
- Who is my competition?
- What kind of video content do they make?
- How well does that content do?
- What areas are they not addressing?
You’ll also want to consider your audience and do a little research on them as well.
You might read the comments on competitor videos to see what questions remain. What did people find useful, entertaining, or informative? This research will help you create better content, so you can add something new to the conversation.
If you can understand why your potential customers seek video content for your industry, products, or services, you can create content they’ll want to watch.
2. Create a Schedule and Stick to it
If your favorite show comes on every Wednesday at 10 o’clock, you’re sitting in front of the TV at 9:45 with the channel queued up. While YouTube doesn’t require the same amount of precision as live TV, some kind of schedule is essential to a successful YouTube strategy.
If you can delivery daily, weekly, or monthly content with consistency, your audience is sure to grow. YouTube is the most popular platform for consuming video, so you definitely want to satisfy that audience.
Your schedule establishes familiarity which builds loyalty over time. If the content is engaging, well-produced, and regular, people will come back for more.
Build your YouTube content strategy with the process of production in mind. Map out what videos you want to create, how long production should take, and when you want to publish.
Give yourself enough time to produce quality content. As you get more comfortable with the process, your videos should improve in quality over time. You gotta keep things fresh, after all.
3. Build a Community
The best way to build a strong fan base is to get people engaged with your brand. Since YouTube is such a personal platform with a highly active comment section, you should use this combination to build a relationship with the audience.
Encourage and respond to viewer comments. This is one way to avoid the passive experience of many other marketing strategies. When your channel discusses a topic regularly, you have the opportunity to build an active community that feels heard and valued by your brand.
Another way to show your appreciation for the community is by adding subtitles to your videos. This not only accommodates the deaf and hard of hearing community, but makes your videos accessible in situations where sound is unavailable. People out in public with no headphones can now watch your video without missing a thing (or skipping it altogether).
4. SEO the Heck Out of Your YouTube Marketing Strategy
You’ve put all the effort into scripting, shooting, and editing a video. But the work doesn’t end there. You can optimize videos to perform better in search just like any website or social media post overloaded with hashtags.
The title needs a major keyword that lets people know what the video is about, but is also something people search regularly. Add relevant tags and create a description that includes other popular keywords.
The thumbnail is major real estate as well. You want something clickable that isn’t gimmicky. This is a good place to include a small icon to develop familiarity and establish the presence of your brand on YouTube.
5. Collaborate with Other Channels
If you have a favorite YouTuber, you’ve probably heard about the best way to grow a channel organically. Collaborations, or ‘collabs’ as they’re referred to on the platform, bring in hundreds or thousands of new viewers.
As a business, your YouTube marketing strategy can use collabs by:
- Sponsoring a popular YouTuber with an audience similar to your target demo, or one that makes videos about relevant topics.
- Bringing that YouTuber into one of your videos to promote a product or service.
The name recognition of these mini-celebrities will expose a new audience to products or services they’re likely to want. It’s a win-win.
6. Promote Your Brand
Within your own videos, you can promote your products and services with annotations. These are little automated notifications that pop up in the corner of YouTube videos.
Time these annotations with relevant discussions in the video to take your viewers directly to your website. You’ll also want to include all relevant links in the description box so they’re nice and handy.
7. End With a Call to Action
At the end of your funny, entertaining, or informative video, you want your viewers to take action. This action could be purchasing the product they just watched a demo video for, or something as simple as subscribing, leaving a like, and checking out your last video.
The end screen is the perfect place to promote your website and products. This isn’t just a YouTube strategy for brands. Tons of YouTubers plug their merchandise, other videos, books, or sponsors on the end screen. It’s the way things work on YouTube.
Why Stop at YouTube?
Your YouTube marketing strategy is sure to bring in more revenue if you seriously put in the work. But why stop at one platform when Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have the same potential to bring in more clientele.
While you’re busy in the studio making the next viral video, hire the experienced professionals at North Lake Digital to handle your social media presence.
