Videos cater to an individual’s visual and audio senses and have much better retention than any other form of content. Brands have started realizing this and exploring ways in which they can incorporate video as a part of their marketing strategies. A look at YouTube statistics would reveal that it has more than 38 million active channels today.
Over 22,000 of such channels have more than a million followers each. In such a situation, brands that opt for YouTube marketing have an edge over the competition. With 500 hours of video content being uploaded on YouTube every minute, merely having a YouTube presence will not suffice. As a brand, you need to walk the extra mile to promote your product or service on YouTube. Here are 8 tips that will help you.
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Work on Your Keywords
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the key to digital visibility. Keywords help to give a picture of what the users are looking for. Start by indulging in some reverse engineering where you use tools such as the Google Ads Keyword Planner to identify the keywords that are relevant to your content.
Then google the top keywords and study the search engine results page (SERP) to identify if the results are textual or video-based. Depending on the results, add the keywords in your video title and publish the video. The YouTube viewership for countries like the US, India, and Japan stands at 16.4%,9.2%, and 4.8%. These values are the highest on a global scale.
Focus on the Title
Once you identify the relevant keywords, the next step is deciding on the title. Realize that the first thing that users see while viewing your content is the title and we recommend that you restrict it to 60 characters. A look at some of the most popular YouTube videos will reveal that all of them have short titles.
The engaging video title is a sure-shot way of attracting potential customers. Understand that while a clickbait title is tempting, it can prove detrimental to your brand’s image in the long run. Also, while using keywords in your video title, try to keep it in the first half as users generally tend to read the initial part of a sentence and then skim through the rest.
Come Up With Interesting Thumbnail
The average human brain processes images in 13 milliseconds and that is significantly faster than that of textual content. That is why thumbnails are an integral part of the video marketing initiatives of any firm. While YouTube comes up with thumbnails for all its videos, directing your efforts at custom thumbnails gives good ROI.
Choose a close-up image and maintain an aspect ratio of 16:9 while creating your thumbnail. Try to go for colors and fonts that encourage viewers to click on them. Have some high-contrast images as your thumbnail and try to spend time evaluating the thumbnails of the most popular YouTube videos. 94% of YouTube users of 2020 learned their way around the tool by watching YouTube videos. Watching others perform well will help you form an idea of what works for you.
Do Not Ignore the Description
After your title and thumbnails interest a YouTube user on your product or service, the next stage is convincing them into watching a video. For this, come up with a poignant video description that is not longer than 5000 characters. Use timestamps to create a content page so that your viewers can easily navigate to the content they wish to see.
Further, you can have links to playlists in the video description. Since 70% of people watch YouTube for digital streaming of live events, the use of appropriate hashtags will help you improve your visibility and reach out to interested viewers.
Make the Most of Your Blogging Initiatives
If your brand website has a blog section, try to come up with ways to embed videos in your posts and have searchable transcripts to go with it. That way, you can expect an increase in the page as well as the video views. Since Google ranks pages with videos higher than those without it, you can expect a significant increase in your blog’s digital visibility.
You can take another step and leverage Google Analytics on your blogs to compare the posts and find out which works the best for you. You can also consider having the result of your video embedded into the blog. That way, you can subtly encourage your viewers to check out your YouTube channel without making it seem obvious.
Leverage Special Events to Create Relevant Content
YouTube is one of the most diverse platforms in the world and there are more than 100 versions of this video sharing platform. It is available in more than 80 languages. In such a situation, you can leverage local festivals and customs to create a ripple effect about your promotional video.
Using the context of popular movies, social trends, etc. is another option that you can consider. For example, a look at the 100 most popular YouTube videos of all times would reveal that a good fraction of them have a ‘Game of Thrones’ theme.
Email-Based YouTube Marketing
66% of marketers who bring together the world of email marketing with that of video believe that it is worth the monetary investment involved. To make the most of this, start by composing an email list of YouTube subscribers. That way, you can give a heads-up to your target customers every time you post new content.
If the email recipients are interested in the video, you can expect a significant increase in the initial view count. The view count increase will turn on YouTube’s recommendation algorithm, thereby making your video appear on the feed of other viewers.
Go Beyond Promoting the Video
Today, 52% of all YouTube searches are for a YouTube personality or channel. These figures are a testimony to the fact that in today’s times, merely promoting an individual video on YouTube will not suffice and brands need to make the effort of promoting their channel. You can start pushing for subscribers by encouraging your existing customers to spread the word.
Further, try to link your YouTube account wherever possible. And if your video has a call-to-action (CTA), leverage that to link relevant videos with each other. Such proactive measures on your part will get your marketing videos to rank higher in Google and YouTube searches and thereby increase their reach among the target audience.
With digital penetration increasing by leaps and bounds, this is indeed the best time for you to jump into the video marketing revolution. With the tips discussed in this article, you are now equipped to take up the challenge of YouTube marketing.