Image via Freepik As the second biggest search engine, YouTube is a potential platform for businesses to expand their digital marketing. Additionally, most audiences today love to see video content, and YouTube has a place for both short and long videos. That’s why YouTube marketing has become relevant as a marketing channel. Brands can do many things, including promoting new products, interacting with audiences, and sharing social proof content. Besides, YouTube provides an analytic page, a crucial section for every creator. Brands can see their content performance and audience behavior, preferences, and demographics. Let’s delve deeper into YouTube marketing to explore the benefits and seven top tips to leverage the platform and expand your business.
An Intro to YouTube Marketing
The role of visual content is essential for enhancing your marketing strategy. Especially today, when people are very engaged in social media videos. Businesses choose to invest in video platforms like Instagram Reel, TikTok, and YouTube. As the biggest video-based platform, YouTube can drive significant results for businesses. That’s why YouTube marketing keeps getting more popular and relevant year after year. Marketers can create product videos, provide valuable content, work with influencers, and more. Furthermore, YouTube marketing also involves optimizing videos for search engines and analyzing your content performance. You may also use paid advertising to generate a quick and optimized result. Here are what you can get from YouTube marketing:
- Wider audience reach with over 2 billion monthly active users
- Cost-effective compared to traditional advertising
- Engaging video content can build brand awareness and establish authority
- Drive traffic to a business’s website and increase sales
- Videos can appear in Google search results, improving search engine visibility
- Detailed analytics to understand audiences and improve content performance
However, getting into YouTube marketing for the first time can be daunting. The highly competitive arena can make it hard for businesses to thrive. The key is to be consistent and patient while pathing your journey.
How to Start a YouTube Marketing Journey
One of the big problems many businesses face today is garnering subscribers and loyal audiences. A massive and active community will make your video marketing journey smooth sailing. Below we’ve curated the seven ways to start your YouTube marketing journey. You can garner loyal subscribers and build a solid brand presence on the platform.
#1. Identify Your Target Audience
Before creating content for your YouTube channel, it’s important to identify your target audience. This step involves understanding who your ideal viewers are and what they are interested in. You can use tools like Google Analytics, YouTube Analytics, or social media insights to gather data on your target audience. Or, consider demographics and psychographics segmentation to identify their demographics, interests, and viewing habits. Once you have specified and understood your target audience, start planning and creating content that resonates with them and addresses their needs and interests. Also, consider the tones and styles you will use in your video.
#2. Optimize Your Channel and Videos
Optimizing your YouTube channel and videos can help you to rank higher in search results and attract more views and subscribers. You will need to research and use keywords in your video titles, descriptions, and tags. You must also create visually appealing thumbnails and add end screens and annotations to promote other videos on your channel. Additionally, organize your videos into playlists and use relevant hashtags to make it easier for viewers to find your content.
#3. Collaborate with Other YouTubers
Collaborating with other YouTubers can help you to reach new audiences and build relationships with influencers in your industry. This strategy requires you to create joint videos or feature each other’s content on your channels. Collaborating with other YouTubers allows you to tap into their existing audience and attract new viewers to your channel. However, consider the influencer agreement about the fee and project you will work on together.
#4. Use Paid Advertising
While organic reach on YouTube can be challenging, paid advertising can help promote your videos and reach a wider audience. YouTube offers a range of advertising options. You can try TrueView ads, which allow viewers to skip the ad after 5 seconds, and bumper ads, which are 6-second non-skippable ads. Paid advertising helps you target specific demographics and interests. It also ensures relevant audiences see your videos.
#5. Connect with Your Audience
Connecting with your audience is vital to building a successful YouTube channel. You can respond to comments and messages, ask for feedback, and encourage viewers to like, share, and subscribe to your channel. You can create interactive content like polls, quizzes, and live-streaming videos. Interactive posts evoke audience participation and help you raise brand awareness more effectively. Moreover, live streaming is content that many audiences are willing to watch. You can communicate directly through the virtual space with audiences to build stronger relationships and loyalty.
#6. Create Compelling Video Content
Creating compelling video content is the key to attracting and retaining viewers on your YouTube channel. Invest in creating informative, entertaining, or inspiring content according to your target audience’s interests and needs. You can use storytelling techniques, visual effects, and music to make your videos more engaging and memorable. Also, consider experimenting with different formats, such as explainer videos, tutorials, vlogs, or product reviews. You can garner loyal subscribers and build a solid community with high-quality content. Better still, valuable content helps you establish your brand as an authority in your industry.
#7. Analyze Performance and Adjust Strategy
If you want to generate subscribers, you must be all-out in doing your job. One of the essential tasks is analyzing your channel and content performance on YouTube. It needs you to track vital metrics like views, watch time, engagement, and conversions. You can find the metrics on the YouTube analytics page. It also lets you gain insights into your audience’s demographics and behavior. You can identify what’s working and what’s not and adjust your content strategy accordingly. You may need to experiment with different formats, topics, or promotion strategies. With various content concepts, you can find which resonates best with your audience and drive the most engagement and conversion. You may also notice that specific content can significantly help you gain new subscribers.
YouTube Tools Recommendations
We also compiled some YouTube recommendations to help leverage the platform to the fullest. Those that made it to our list have received positive comments on online communities. Some of them are entirely free to use.
#1. TubeBuddy
The first recommendation for a YouTube tool is the famous TubeBuddy. Many marketers use TubeBuddy to help them optimize their YouTube operations. It’s a comprehensive and user-friendly browser extension to help you optimize video content for search engines.TubeBuddy has keyword research tools, analytics, and video optimization features to help you get more views and subscribers. It also includes a bulk processing feature that allows you to update multiple videos at once. With various features and tools, you can spend time and energy efficiently.
#2. VidIQ
Another famous name for a YouTube tool is VidIQ. Similar to TubeBuddy, VidIQ is also a browser extension that provides detailed analytics and optimization features. You can get a wealth of information about your channel and competitors’ channels, including engagement rate, subscriber growth, and video tags. VidIQ also has a keyword research tool and a feature that suggests tags for your videos based on your content.
#3. Canva
You must have been familiar with Canva. It’s a graphic design tool that you can use to create custom thumbnails for your YouTube videos. Thumbnails are essential because they can make your videos stand out in search results and increase click-through rates. You can get ready-to-use templates to create eye-catching thumbnails quickly.
#4. Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Premiere Pro should be a perfect fit if you need a top-tier video editor. With a wide range of features, you can use it to create and edit your YouTube videos. Some of the main features that can be useful for you include advanced color correction, audio editing, and visual effects. As a professional-grade editing tool, you may need some time to overcome the learning curve.
#5. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a powerful SEO tool with keyword research, backlink analysis, and competitor analysis features. It also has a YouTube keyword research tool that helps you find relevant keywords and topics for your videos. Its YouTube feature helps you to analyze the top-performing videos for any keyword or topic. Additionally, it provides insights into their metrics and optimization strategies. This information can help you create better videos and optimize them for search and discovery.
Final Thoughts
YouTube marketing can be a highly effective way to grow your brand and reach new audiences. However, to make your journey on the platform, you must garner audiences or subscribers to your channel. The above seven points are ways to drive subscribers. Over time, you can grow your channel and business by consistently creating high-quality content, engaging with your audience, and incorporating best practices. Besides, marketing trends will constantly evolve. Keep a close eye on the latest marketing and content trends to stay relevant and competitive on the platform. You can also build a strong brand presence to overrun competitors.
Author
Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video production company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order).
Twitter: @breadnbeyond
Email/Gravatar: andre@breadnbeyond.com
LinkedIn: Andre Oentoro
