3 Essentials for YouTube and Video Marketing Success

3 Essentials for YouTube and Video Marketing Success

When it comes to social media usage, YouTube remains a channel of choice for consumers. According to Pew Research, 73 percent of U.S. adults use the online platform. Another study conducted by Digital Trends indicates that 94 percent of the 18-24 demographic consume videos through YouTube.

For marketers and small businesses, video promoted through a YouTube channel can provide a powerful boost to your marketing program. In fact, 87 percent of marketers have seen a jump in website traffic as a result of video marketing. Ninety-five percent indicate that video has increased user understanding of their product or service,[i] a factor that could lead to more sales and repeat business.

However, getting started in video marketing can be costly and time-consuming, so taking a planned and informed approach is essential. Here are three things to consider when starting a YouTube channel for your business.

Your Audience Rules

When it comes to marketing efforts overall, the end-goal is to gain new customers or to drive sales. To reach that goal, you need to engage with potential customers throughout the various stages of the sales funnel, from creating that initial spark of awareness through nurturing existing customers. Video offers a way to efficiently meet consumers at all stages of the buying journey, but it takes the right approach to ensure engagement.

According to Marketing Charts, nearly half of buyers want videos that provide information on specific products and services, and 73 percent prefer entertaining videos. However, it’s important that your videos be appropriate for your individual audience.

For example, at FNBO, we created the Dollar Belles series to help expand our YouTube presence. The Dollar Belles is a video series that takes a fun, lifestyle approach to the financial topics that our customers care about most. Each video features FNBO employees discussing timely topics, such as kids’ allowances, moving to a new house, or starting a savings plan.

Humorous conversations between real people make it possible for us to answer customer questions in a way that simplifies complex topics, allowing us to establish connections with potential customers long before they enter a branch or open an account online.

Selecting the Right Video Format

When it comes to creating the right video for your business, you have a lot of choices. While how-to videos, sales videos and top 5 lists are consumers’ highest ranking preferences for video content, businesses can also provide a behind-the-scenes look at operations, a tutorial or even a product review. The possibilities are only limited by the creative genius of your marketing team.

However, when deciding on a video format, it’s important to produce the right type of content for your audience. Research has shown that 75 percent of consumers decided not to purchase a product after watching a video that annoyed them.

Audience research can reveal insightful information to ensure that your videos hit the mark. For us, it was that fact that 83 percent of consumers prefer an informal chatty tone when watching videos.

That’s why we decided to take a conversational approach to our Dollar Belles video series. We understood that financial topics were important to our customers but wanted to present information in a way that was easy to understand. So, we decided to use real-life examples presented from the lives of our employees.

In doing so, we were able to present information in a way that was more relatable than if we had created a how-to video laden with numbers and advice.

Make Sure Your Video Is Found by those Searching for the Information

Creating videos can be more time-consuming and costly than other types of content, so it is important that your videos can be found by users searching for the information. Repeated views, likes and shares are also the only way to grow your YouTube channel audience.

Fortunately, YouTube has many tools to help you optimize your videos for discovery. Before you launch a new video, be sure to add an in-depth title, description, and tags. YouTube uses this information when presenting videos on search as well as those featured on a viewer’s main feed, so it’s important that you use the right words and phrases.

Hootsuite also recommends that you research SEO terms to increase the likelihood that Google will present your video to users searching the web for your topic. Ubersuggest is a free tool that can help you identify keywords to use in your title, description and tags.

You can also ensure that your videos receive traffic by promoting them on other channels. Consider sharing them through social media, email campaigns and on your company website.  

Video for Business Marketing

Creating videos and growing a YouTube channel is an increasingly important part of a corporate marketing strategy. Eighty-three percent of businesses say that video supports their lead generation strategy, and 80 percent have realize a direct increase in sales.[ii]

With results like these from leading organizations, businesses of all sizes can improve marketing outcomes by growing their YouTube presence and using video to increase engagement and sales.