YouTube Videos has experienced exceptional growth in the last few years. With its undeniable popularity among people of all age-groups, YouTube video marketing has come across as an intimidating tool for marketers.
We would be lying if we said that we never spent some lazy afternoons binge-watching YouTube and enjoying videos of varying genres, one after the other. And with such an extensive following, YouTube has two billion users logged-in every month.
Gone are the days when YouTube was only seen as an entertainment source; now, with such a solid user base, YouTube has asserted its dominance as an essential marketing tool.It is nearly impossible to understate the importance of YouTube marketing in today’s Time, and still, if you think that your target audience is not on this platform, you need to think again.
Below we have discussed a series of steps that conclude your ultimate guide for YouTube Video Marketing:
1. Creating A YouTube Business Channel
Before you dive into the whole YouTube analytics, you need to make a YouTube Business Channel. You can also opt for a personal account, but that would restrict you from taking specific actions and will only allow a single user to have access.
If you make a Business account, you can add multiple users simultaneously, and it will be suitable for a growing business as it allows for more actions.
You will have to fill in a few necessary details and customize how you want your website to show to your visitors. Add an attractive and relevant profile image and cover image; you can also customize your channel’s name and make your first impression accordingly.
2. Determining Target Audience
After creating a YouTube channel for your business, you need to invest some time determining who your target audience is? Your target audience will depend on the nature of your business, your location, and what sector you work in.
Depending on this, you need to do qualitative and quantitative research on aspects such as where the most number of your viewers live, what is the predominant age range, what are their viewing preferences, and what kind of content is getting widely famous among them.
For example, some crucial statistics related to this are:
- 15% of Site Traffic Comes from The US
- Most Viewers Fall Under The Age of 15-25
- 70% of Viewers’ Watch time is On Mobile
- The Current Generation Prefer Watching Short Videos
3. Competitive Analysis
There is some in-depth research that goes behind creating a successful YouTube channel. You need to conduct an audit on your competition to gain more clarity on the matter and get a clearer perspective on what your competitors are doing and how you can be a step ahead of them.
YouTube, similar to other social media channels, also offers a lot of competition. And to create your own unique identity on the platform, you need to evaluate what you are doing compared to your competition and how you can adapt and improve.
Researching your competitors will also help you identify opportunities that you may have missed to consider.
Below is the list of things that you need to analyze while researching your competition:
- Subscriber Numbers
- Viewership Stats
- Keywords
- Comments on Their Videos
- Topics of Their Videos
- Ads Frequency
- Paid Reach and Organic Reach
Along with this, ensure that you perform a thorough analysis of their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Because the above-listed aspects will help you get to know your audience, but knowing their strengths and weaknesses will help you overcome them.
4. Learn from the Best
After doing a thorough analysis of your competitors, you need to check what industry leaders have been up to. On studying the best YouTubers of your niche, you will understand the level of hard work that you will need to put in the work that will ultimately help you achieve their level of success.
Apart from setting a goal for your YouTube channel, this will also help you evaluate what kind of content is most liked by the audience and carve out your strategy for your own YouTube channel.
You can also study your favorite brands, get insights about their video marketing strategies, and update yours accordingly. You can also analyze what kind of content and format they are using for their brand to present their videos and how you can modify yours in a way that makes sense for your brand.
5. Optimizing Your Videos for A Stronger Presence
After getting your YouTube video up and running, you need to focus on optimizing your growth by using the right tools. There are several things that you need to take into consideration that will make you rank higher in search results of YouTube and Google Search Engine.
YouTube being the second largest search engine in the world after Google offers limitless exposure, and with the right optimization, you can achieve wonders for your brand.
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The first and foremost thing that you need to do that will mark the beginning of your optimization process is optimizing your video’s Metadata. In simple words, Metadata is all the information concerned with your video. Such as title, description, tags, thumbnail, subtitles, category, closed captions, etc.
Along with inserting the metadata you also need to focus on your keyword strategy to get a higher reach as compared to your competitors.
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Keyword Tool io, for one, is a great keyword planner tool that can assist you in making your keyword strategy. It creates a detailed report of the keywords after conducting thorough research across various domains and provides you with similar keywords, search volume, competition, etc.
To have your video adequately indexed by YouTube, you need to add the correct information in your video’s Metadata. This way, your video will appear in the search results whenever people are searching for something similar.
However, you need to be extra careful while adding content to your video’s Metadata because if you add unrelated keywords in your video, chances are, your video will be removed. Also, make sure you don’t add unnecessary words and be succinct and to the point.
Title – Your title will make the first impression of your video, so it is essential to use a compelling one. Use something that will make your viewers curious, but also make sure that it is not clickbait.
Description- Your video description should explain what the video is about and what aspects of the topic you will cover in your video. You can also add some important links or CTAs in the description to drive views and engagement. Also, add some relevant keywords for better reach.
Tags- Tags are the main keywords that will help you broaden your reach. Add some relevant keywords with your video, and make sure to use some long-tail keywords as well.
Category- YouTube allows you to categorize your video according to your topic. You can use from several categories such as Film & Animation, Pets & Animals, Sports, Travel & Events, Entertainment, News & Politics, How-to & Style, Educations, Gaming, People & Blogs, Comedy, Science & Technology, Autos & Vehicles, Music, and Nonprofits & Activism.
Thumbnails- Thumbnails are the images that viewers will first see when your video appears. Thumbnails can also affect the views on your videos, so you have to pick a great one. Statistics show, 90% of the best performing videos use custom thumbnails. And you can also optimize your growth by using a custom thumbnail for yourself.
Cards, Endscreens, Bumper Ads, and Watermarks-
All this additional information concerning your video will help you optimize your videos.
- i) Cards: Cards are CTAs, that are small and transparent. YouTube allows you to use up to five cards for each video.
- ii) End Screens: End Screens are the clickable frames that appear at the end of your video that directs you to some relatable videos.
- iii) Bumper Ads: Bumper Ads are non-skippable ads that are 6 seconds long; they appear either at the start of your video or the end of the video.
- iv) Watermarks: You can add custom subscribe buttons at the end that is only visible to your non-subscribers
6. Creating a YouTube Marketing Strategy
After producing a video and optimizing it for better reach, you need to create a holistic YouTube Marketing Strategy that will help you gain a large subscriber base. Although truth to be told, it will be a little tricky when you are just starting.
But you can accelerate your growth if you have the right YouTube Marketing Strategy, and we are here to help you with that.
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Firstly, you need to spread the word out about your channel through different platforms. Luckily, it is relatively easy to share your video on different other platforms. Below we have listed some ways through which you can promote your content:
i) Social Media Platforms
Social Media Platforms are infamous for marketing, and it is nearly impossible to avoid them when you are talking about marketing strategies. They provide you excellent scope for exposure and help you bring awareness to your brand.
You can share your video on your social media channels by sharing the URL. You can also use relevant hashtags to accelerate your reach.
ii) Blog Post and Websites
When you are promoting a video or your channel, make sure never to leave a platform that can help you get relevant traffic and increase your reach.
You can add your video link or your YouTube channel link on your blog as well as your website that will help you better your reach and will ultimately get you more views and subscribers.
iii) Email Marketing
Email Marketing is a great way to generate more leads and add new subscribers to your channels and also helps you engage the existing ones. With the help of Email Marketing, you can send the links of your video through a relevant mail list.
iv) Q&A Sites
Q&A Sites are also a great way to direct website traffic and videos. They work best when presented as a solution for something. Some famous Q&A websites are Quora, Yahoo! Answers, Blurt It, etc.
Give your video as a solution to a relevant question. This technique mostly works because you are presenting your video at a place where it is needed, and people will want to check it out.
7. Understanding YouTube Analytics
After putting so much effort into your video and its marketing, now it’s Time to evaluate your progress with the help of YouTube Analytics. By doing a proper analysis of your video, you will not only measure your success, but it will also help you determine the direction of your upcoming strategies.
Initially, you may face some issues in understanding the concept of YouTube, but gradually you will learn your way around it.
You can also take help from tools that will make you develop a basic understanding of YouTube analytics and evaluate your growth. Here is a great tool for checking your rank with page number in the search results: YT-Rank.
YT-Rank Checker Tool
YT-Rank is a simple and convenient web-based tool that helps you in getting your video rank in the search results. Refer to the picture below:
i) Determining Your Target
Your goal for your YouTube video channel will decide the direction of your video marketing strategy that is why it is important to determine the goal beforehand so you can prepare accordingly.
Ideally, you should have one goal per video and you can decide anything from brand awareness, to brand engagement, increased views, inbound links, social shares, etc. Your video can be used as a marketing tool for your desired goal that will ultimately help you increase your reach.
ii) Audience Retention and Watch Time
Audience Retention refers to the average percentage of a YouTube video that people watch. The videos on YouTube, having more audience retention, tend to have more visibility on YouTube.
Watch Time is considered one of YouTube’s ranking factors, which means the more will be your watch time, the more you are likely to rank higher in the search results.
Watch Time indicates the total Time your audience has spent viewing your content on YouTube. It also helps you in determining what kind of content is getting more popular among your viewers.
ii). Tracking Key Metrics
While intimidating at first, YouTube analytics provides a great source of information regarding your growth on YouTube and helps you determine your next step. YouTube analytics will give you all the insights about your video, such as how much your audience engaged with your video, the average watch time of each video, and which source the viewers found the content.
By tracking these key metrics, you can measure your success and direct your business’s progress accordingly.
iii) Demographics
Demographics define the aspects of the population that you need to take into consideration for optimizing your reach. You need to check the demographics for understanding your viewers by their age and gender, which can further be divided into their geographic area.
With these demographics’ help, you can update your content and use a more customer-friendly approach for your YouTube video strategy.
iv) Gross Engagement
Engagement reports show you your videos’ general performance, like with what frequency people are viewing your video, clicking, liking, commenting, sharing, and such. Engagement reports also show you how your cards and end screens are performing for your videos.
v) Source of Traffic
Source of Traffic, again, is an essential aspect of YouTube analytics. They report how your viewers are finding your content on online platforms. With the help of this, you can determine which platform will best promote your YouTube content.
By studying your source of traffic, you can optimize your strategy accordingly.
8. Try YouTube Advertising Campaigns
With the help of YouTube Advertising Campaigns, you can expand your reach beyond the reach of your YouTube channel. Advertisements are essential in growing your business, and it is equally essential in the online aspect of it.
When you start something new or your business is in its initial stage, advertisements play a vital role in increasing the conversion rates.
YouTube offers its advertising campaigns in four categories:
- Non-skippable In-stream Ads
- Non-Video Ads, such as overlays and banners
- Skippable In-stream Ads
- Video Discovery Ads or In-display Ads
Conclusion
We hope the above-given strategies help you better understand YouTube video marketing and simplify the concept for you.
The eight steps mentioned in the article concludes a video marketing strategy for your YouTube channel.
If you are willing to learn more about how videos can help you optimize your growth then stay tuned for our next blog by filling the form below.
