YouTube is one of the most powerful marketing tools any business can use. With billions of hours of video viewed every day, the opportunities to find and connect with customers are huge.
How impactful can YouTube marketing be?
- YouTube comes in as the second-most-visited website globally, right after Google (SEMRush).
- 122 million active users watch more than 18 minutes of video daily (Omnicore Agency).
- 81% of marketers say video content has helped them increase sales (Wyzowl).
- 70% of viewers purchased after watching an ad on YouTube (The Social Shepherd).
- And because it’s a Google product, YouTube videos appear at the top of Google’s organic search results for relevant searches.
So it’s time to learn how to use YouTube to promote your business, your subscription, and your brand. Let’s take a look at the basic tools you need to manage YouTube video marketing so you can see your channel grow in popularity.
Why is YouTube Good for Business?
YouTube marketing involves creating videos, uploading them, and using YouTube SEO to promote and increase brand or product awareness. YouTube’s size and variety make it a video marketing platform for marketers around the world.
According to data collected by SEMRush, YouTube will have 60,900,456,208 monthly visitors by July 2022. With so many regular visitors, companies with billions of viewers can take advantage of this.
Smart businesses have already committed valuable resources to the YouTube market because this type of content improves SEO and increases conversions and sales. It provides customized content, personalized advertising, and audience appeal in both B2B and B2C capabilities.
But before you start counting the money, it’s important to say that YouTube is a very competitive platform. You have to know what you are doing to see results.
With these seven steps, you can start marketing on YouTube and grow your channel.
1. Plan Your YouTube Marketing
Marketing on YouTube is not just about posting videos on the platform.
You should also create a basic video strategy based on market research, audience needs, and marketing objectives. And you have to create, optimize, and share all that data, but we’ll get to that.
Most importantly, managing and maintaining a YouTube channel takes time and planning. If your current team doesn’t have the power to stay on top of things, it might make sense to hire someone dedicated to managing your YouTube marketing.
A YouTube video marketing manager should pay close attention to the following:
- The strategy involves how YouTube fits into the broader content marketing plan.
- Create content, from writing or drawing to production.
- Editing, including subtitles and translations
- Uploading and optimization
- Promotion through other marketing channels
2. How to Start a YouTube Channel: Basics
Create a YouTube brand account for your business’s video marketing.
A brand account is a more effective way to lead than using the account of a company leader or other team member, even if it’s their corporate profile. YouTube states: “When a device is connected to a brand, numerous individuals can manage it through their Google Account.” They don’t need a unique username or password to control YouTube channels with their brand account.”
When creating a YouTube account, it’s important to use a common email address, not an admin or team member email address. This ensures that if someone else contacts you and shares information, you won’t increase your company’s cybersecurity risk.
Setting permissions on your account is another important step in securing not only your YouTube account but also your entire corporate network.
There are three levels of permission to consider:
- Owner: Absolute control.
- Manager: Same as above, but can’t add or remove page elements or delete lists.
- Communications Manager: can respond to reviews and do other minor things, but can’t use the admin tool, upload content, or view analytics.
3. Customize Your Channel
Plain YouTube accounts may give the impression that not much effort is being put in, affecting the perceived quality of your work! Therefore, customizing your channel is crucial for the best results.
From the name of your channel to the images, banners, and watermarks you use, everything adds a personal touch that makes your channel part of your brand.
Not only should your YouTube channel match your brand strategy, but it should also have a video or trailer. This short intro video is pinned at the top of your channel page and immediately gives people an idea of what your channel is about and what they’re watching. Don’t forget to include a link to your website and contact information in your profile so you can get noticed. your calls to action.
4. Make Great Video Content
Good-quality visual content is the most important part of your YouTube channel. In fact, it’s the foundation of SEO in general, and it keeps your YouTube viewers coming back for more. Content triggers like saves, comments, and shares are important because they help you grow and develop your audience.
What Type of Video Content is Best?
You can submit videos of any style and purpose, which means you can tailor the type of views your business generates on YouTube to meet a specific goal. They can be expanded with a video description or explain to customers how your product works.
These are the best types of videos that businesses can create.
- Customer reviews
- Product Description
- Tutorials and teaching
- Expert interviews and insights
- Direct advertising
- Content of vlogs
- Video of events
- Influencer video
Although many of us watch interesting videos on YouTube, entertainment should not be the main purpose of your content. You can expect to discover, practice, or discuss relevant topics through interviews, adding value to your client’s day.
Constant Contact, an email marketing platform, uses YouTube to provide helpful videos and content on topics such as how to use their platform, small business topics, and email marketing tips and tricks. They know their target audience is small businesses or entrepreneurs who need help with business growth and email marketing in the form of video tutorials.
Today, Cisco IT leaders share videos on everything from customer success and partnerships to business news, tips, solutions, and training. Cisco content also includes YouTube shorts, YouTube hosts short videos and more.
A good example of how positive content can increase brand awareness for B2C companies is STORROR, a parkour clothing label and group. His YouTube channel receives millions of high-quality parkour videos every month. These concepts help drive traffic to the STORROR product section of the website by displaying them in the description of each video.
Storyboarding and Scriptwriting
Great video content doesn’t happen by accident. Sometimes a marketing video can go viral, but most of the time, successful video marketing is about following a good plan. When you’re creating the initial concept for your video, it’s helpful to use a storyboard to make sure all topics and themes are covered.
How long should your video be?
Short videos, around two minutes long, generally get more views than longer marketing videos. These short videos encourage more engagement and a greater likelihood of driving action by those viewers who watched the whole thing and agree with your point. But not all videos have to be short. The average length of YouTube videos is 11.7 minutes. Even more important is the extent of the fit.
If your video takes an hour to get to the point, it should be an hour long. However, if you can cover the same content in 15 minutes, an hour-long piece of content will not be able to capture the attention of the viewers.
5. The Best Video Creation Tools
Having the right tools is crucial for effective content marketing. The first thing you should start with is the camera, and you don’t have to spend money to find a movie camera. All you need is a camera that can display 1080p (full HD), which means you can start using your phone.
Other essential equipment includes a good microphone and a tripod or film stabilizer to prevent the film from jumping and making viewing difficult. Some video editing software can help you organize content, add images and titles, and improve conversions.
Again, you don’t need to buy extras. There are high-quality free video editing software available that can help you create content that interests you. like OpenShot and DaVinci Resolve are good choices for beginners, while the best software from Adobe, Apple, or CyberLink delivers excellent results.
If you’re new to using your phone as a camera, try apps like YouCut, LumaFusion, or KineMaster, which have a lot of options.
6. Optimize Your Channel & Videos
SEO techniques are important for the quality of content, including YouTube videos. Keyword research helps you identify topics of interest to your target audience. Create video titles using the most popular and relevant searches for your content and turn them into an attention-grabbing hook.
You can use other high-ranking keywords in your video description, but your search must include both actual YouTube searches and regular Google searches. YouTube Analytics now gives you information about the keywords that drive visitors to your videos.
Google-related keywords should also appear in video tags. Make sure you categorize your video correctly so that people and YouTube’s algorithm understand what it means. And don’t forget the hashtags! Hashtags help your videos get found, just like keywords and can be used in many ways on YouTube.
Be sure to fill out all details in your channel profile, claim a channel handle (a new feature!), include a link to your website, add an interesting feature video, and curate your videos into relevant and easy-to-navigate articles.
Don’t ignore the Call to Action
Calls to action in YouTube videos are a great way to get people to subscribe to your channel, visit your website, and become customers. The more subscribers you have on your channel, the more views your videos will get, and the higher your social media and (hopefully) sales results will be.
Traditional methods like email marketing are also a good way to encourage customers to follow your YouTube ads.
7. Master Analytics for Continued Success
Once you know the basic tools for creating great videos, it’s time to put them to use and see what the world thinks of your YouTube videos.
Now it’s time to analyze the data from each video to see what works, what doesn’t, and how you can improve next time. Use the insights gained from your videos to improve your marketing strategy.
The basic plan for discovering YouTube information is:
- Audience time and retention
- Sources of traffic
- Demographics
- Engagement reports
This will help you better understand your audience and build trust and alignment as you build your brand. And it’s all thanks to the power of YouTube videos!
Now that you need to use YouTube to promote your business, it’s time to do it. Create measurable KPIs to track the performance of your videos, then sit back and enjoy the results, such as audience interactions, shares, and converting your videos into leads on your site.