Thanks to mobile technology increasingly penetrating civilization, consumer’s demands have changed. Most people want instant and effortless gratification of their needs. While there exists a good number of content media to suit users’ demands, there’s nothing that quenches the curiosity and impatience of modern consumers like video.
YouTube happens to be the most impressionable video platform that social media users throng to for entertainment and education purposes.
With so many enterprises out there looking for a piece of the YouTube pie, it’s important to ensure that your approach stands out from the rest.
For this, you need a formidable YouTube marketing strategy that ticks all the boxes. Read on and get to learn how you can develop a foolproof plan.
If you’re thinking of delving into video marketing, especially YouTube marketing, then you need to be tactful about it.
Boasting an excess of 50 million content creators regularly sharing content, you need to arrive at the scene with a bang and have that longevity to keep drawing in the views.
Achieving this doesn’t come easy. Since proper engagement is needed, you’re going to have to strike a balance between creating great content and advertising. This is crucial because most viewers aren’t that into advertising.
As such, you need to be methodical in your approach to ensure that you’re able to raise awareness about what your brand is all about without losing that entertainment and wow factor.
Platforms like Facebook have lost their edge in recent years because there’s been an increase in the number of targeted ads and push campaigns running there. This “pay to play” strategy has slowly morphed the social scene into an advertising space and consumers are becoming worried about the trend.
The same can also be said of platforms like Instagram where marketers are increasingly losing their footing because people want to organically interact with content.
As the marketing world transforms, brands are on the look for new ways to capture audiences which could lead to better conversion rates. At present, YouTube offers the best chance for a resurgence in fortunes. Join us as we dive deeper into how you can grow your brand.
YouTube Uniqueness
Compared to other platforms, YouTube is a different gravy.
While competitor platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook mostly deal with creating and sharing content to boost engagement rates, start conversations, and creating awareness, YouTube has plenty of similarities with blog posts.
This single attribute is perhaps why the platform excels so much when it comes to content marketing. While users can comment on most social platforms, YouTube allows such kind of engagement to occur in a fashion that’s quite similar to blog posts.
Most comments are usually about the shared videos and the user’s interpretation of them. This is quite in contrast to other social media platforms where users get to share their thoughts about how the day is progressing.
Given this divergence in usability, it’s important that you carefully approach YouTube with the intent of using it for content marketing purposes.
Here’s a couple of other distinctions:
People are likely to find your YouTube videos by searching for them or by clicking on suggested videos. This contrasts with most other social media platforms where people get to view content by clicking on ads or by following through on friends’ engagements.
YouTube focuses more on the watching of videos, not discussions about videos. It’s not common to find people tagging other users in the comments section because it’s all about the viewing experience and not socialization
Most people access YouTube intending to view particular videos. It doesn’t just happen because they were idly scrolling through their feed and stumbled upon a particular video
With this background, we’re confident that you now get the gist of how the platform functions.
Since you’re going to be involved in content marketing, you want to know beforehand which moves are the smartest to play. In this sense, YouTube marketing has plenty of similarities with a classic game of chess.
By canvassing what you’re competitors are doing, you’ll find it easy to develop your marketing strategy that appeals. If they are notching impressive numbers, you can look at what you can borrow from their idea and try to figure out how to enhance it to suit your own business.
Identifying such gaps can enable you to formulate a winning strategy that does more than meet the customers’ demands. If you choose to conform to the set standards, you may find it hard to break even and become an authority figure in your field.
Influencer marketing is the modern creation of all the technology around us. On YouTube, you’ll find megastars with a great following on their channels that can guarantee you a good number of new followers and views once they endorse your brand.
In most instances, brands tend to get it wrong by assuming that YouTubers are only capable of pulling the millennial audience. While a vast majority of the demographic lies here, their influence tends to be much bigger.
To make it work for your particular industry, you need to reach out to more than the stereotypical vloggers dispensing fashion advice, sharing gaming tips, and dealing with cosmetics.
With so many YouTubers exploring different niches, the onus is on you to find the perfect match and collaborate on a project. The cross-exposure you get from this venture is not only going to be lucrative but will also serve as a great way to organically grow your audience.
The adage may be somewhat cliché today but still rings true.
While YouTube channels are considerably harder to maintain than blogs, you need to keep pushing to see results. In the long run, you may see production costs climb upwards and lots of time commitment to doing things like editing and shooting.
Still, these obstacles shouldn’t deter you from achieving your ultimate goal. With consistency, you’ll find your YouTube channel in people’s lips and we all know just how powerful word-of-mouth marketing can be.
By going all-in and staying committed, audience members will start to respect your craft. To make things easy for them to follow, you can notify them about the frequency of your uploads so that they can always look forward to the posts you make.
Once you find your rhythm – be it in quality, length, or schedule – be consistent and stick to it.
There’s a couple of good reasons why video content is dominating as it is.
With all that’s happening on the tech front, you could argue that people have shorter attention spans than they ever did at any point in history.
Then again, a case could also be made that video content is much more personal and engaging than other media like eBooks, blogs, and white papers.
As someone who’s looking to venture into YouTube marketing, you want to keep this at the back of your mind as you formulate your strategy. However, you shouldn’t do a shoddy job simply because video contains numerous accessible formats and the masses have a greater likelihood of checking it out.
You need to hone your craft and work on producing video content that raises eyebrows from the word go. Sure, video tutorials may be all the rage for people looking to acquire new skills, but if you come up with a video in which you’re droning all through the conversation, you wouldn’t blame viewers if they decide to switch tabs and check out what else is out on the web.
Importantly, there’s a bevy of topics to choose from, irrespective of your industry. You can opt to come up with great success stories of people who’ve used your product/enjoyed your services, demo videos of your offerings, or how your clientele can make use of your product.
At the end of the day, you want your videos to have some shine about them.
As brilliant as YouTube is, it’s not the foundation stone upon which you want your business built upon.
Instead, you want to use the platform as a stepping stone to bigger and better things. You can link back to your website somewhere in the video description to drive traffic to your landing page. Alternatively, you can introduce an annotation in your video that will send prospects to your website once they click on it.
This process is key because it shores up your customers and gives you a better chance of making conversions.
Not only will doing this give you a better chance of firming up your sales funnel, but it will also serve as a great way of growing your brand.
While YouTube excels as a YouTube platform, it’s not the best site to relay traditional calls-to-action. That said, that doesn’t mean you can’t pass your message across at the end of each video.
Before you think about your CTA, think about which stage of the funnel the viewers are at. If it’s the preliminary stages, you want as many people aboard your ship as possible. Therefore, it makes sense to ask them to subscribe to your page for more scintillating content.
On the other hand, if it’s a demo video about using your product/services, you can request them to head over to your website for the low-down.
Importantly, the CTAs you create need to guide your viewers on how to progress further along the sales funnel.
As alluded earlier, attention spans aren’t what they used to be. As such, you want to aim for that sweet spot that lies between 1-2 minutes.
By doing so, you’ll not only notice better retention rates among viewers, but there’s also a good chance the content will be much more relatable for your audience.
With so many tools in the marketing world today, you can check out a couple and note down which video lengths tend to give you the best engagement levels. If you’re happy with the results, you can then work on enhancing your video briefs to include more insight for your viewers.
Conclusion
Developing a YouTube marketing strategy isn’t an easy business, but, it’s important to always have a plan. Having highlighted some ways of approach, we’re confident you’ll be able to start more knowledgeable than if you were to start from scratch.
As a new technology, digital video is constantly evolving and you need to acquaint yourself with the times else, you may lose your footing.
Is YouTube Marketing something you’re looking to incorporate in your business? How do you intend to begin?
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Vipin Nayar is the Digital Marketing Head at Acodez. As a Social Media, SEO & SEM expert with over 8 years' experience in online marketing, he uses his keen insight into customer behaviour to formulate innovative strategies that helps clients enhance their online presence & open up new business avenues.
