It is undeniable that YouTube is a powerful marketing tool. Before YouTube, brands have been using video as a tool to showcase their products and services, except now, with Youtube, it’s much easier to create, upload, market and share video content through any digital platform available.
How does Youtube stack up in your marketing repertoire? While videos are powerful, having a Youtube channel for your brand requires thinking and answering some hard questions. Here are some of them:
- What kind of content do you want to upload on Youtube?
- Do you have the resources to create a decent video and commit to a consistent content creation schedule?
- Does your target audience favor a Youtube video compared to other forms of visual content (e.g., TikTok-style short videos, Instagram reels etc.)
Narrowing down your prospects on the videos you plan on creating will help you navigate the kind and type of content suitable for your audience.
Once you have the answers to the questions above, you need to:
- Create a video marketing strategy
A marketing strategy for Youtube requires focus. It would help if you defined your objective and goals for your YouTube marketing efforts to have specific plans to reach, a timeline, and a budget. All of this information helps keep your content tight and your resources optimized. What do you want to achieve with your videos- clicks and traffic, engagement, as well as reach and subscriber numbers?
You can use the SMART model to help you create objectives- Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-Based. You also need to measure your videos to see if they are performing according to the objectives you’ve set. At this point, you also need to establish what your KPIs are in order to measure these results. If you’re trying to reach as many viewers as possible with a limited budget, it’s in your best interest to consider using bulk text messaging. By using bulk SMS software, you’ll be able to send SMS campaigns quickly by firing off thousands of texts in minutes. All you have to do is add your video URL in the message, and all of your recipients will be able to view it by clicking on the link. Adding videos to text messages is a creative and dynamic way to ensure your audience will view them.
- Stick to a schedule for content creation, production, editing and publishing
Social platforms thrive with consistent content creation. It is essential, especially if you are new to Youtube and you want to grow your channel. The more consistent you are at posting content on your channel, the higher the probability of reaching a wider audience. You can use your existing social media platforms to promote these videos to your audience, so even if they are not subscribers, these users can still view these videos on Facebook or Instagram and share them on their pages. Factor in the time needed to produce, edit and publish videos. When you make this commitment, you need to stick to it. Once you have determined how often you’d be posting, you should also factor in when you would be releasing your videos.
- Mix and match types
The beauty of creating a schedule is that it allows you to see the bigger picture. You get to see how often you post content and the topic for each content. Scheduling also helps you decide which type of video to post. You can mix and match the type of content from interviews to ‘how-to’s’ to behind-the-scenes to give your audience different things to look forward to.
Types of marketing videos
Once you have decided and determined your goals and your publishing schedule, the question is, what are the kinds of videos you can make?
Your focus on content can be the same, but the type of videos can differ. It would help if you did this to keep your audience entertained and coming back for more. Experimenting with the different types of videos can also help you understand which one’s appeal more to your audience and which ones don’t. Here are some video types that you can focus on creating:
- How-to videos or tutorials: These are among the high-performing videos on YouTube because they provide plenty of value to users. Since YouTube is the second most used search engine, people go to YouTube because they want to see something done or learn how to make something or cook something or build something or play something. If you are using this format, you need to look at what aspect of your business can be turned into a ‘How-To.’ Look upon the internet for blog posts for materials you can use to create your video. Make this video edutainment.
- Behind-the-scenes videos: Remember that YouTube is also another social media platform. You can use YouTube to humanize your brand and show a different side of your product or service. Behind-the-scenes work great to showcase product development and event development in stages, brainstorming sessions, your work culture as well as your team.
- Product videos: Videos are the way to go if you want your users to see your products and services like the video shown on https://www.meltontackle.com/kayaks/fishing-kayaks. Viewers need to see the highlights of your new product or the new offerings in your service, and the best way to show this is via videos. These videos need to be concise.
- Case studies: Case studies need to be focused on the client and their stories and how your product or service helped with their pain points. For case studies to be informational and engaging, it needs to have animated graphs, quotes, facts and figures that are highlighted throughout the video to retain viewers’ attention. These videos also need to showcase achievements and also plans for the future.
- Interviews: Who doesn’t love a good interview? Featuring videos of well-known experts in your industry and influencers is another way to attract viewers, similar to how you use influencers and experts in your blog posts and tag them in your Twitter posts. These people can help drive traffic to your YouTube channel.
- Listicles: This type of content is another popular format. Listicles are created to highlight your products or services. People love clicking on listicles so you can start your videos with ’10 Biggest Hollywood Dramas’ or ’15 Islands to visit before you die’. As much as you want it to be informational and entertaining, it would help if you also remembered that these lists should always be relevant to your audience, business niche, and brand.