YouTube is undoubtedly the most famous video sharing platform in the world. More than 5 billion videos are watched every single minute on YouTube. And the ever-growing user base has propelled YouTube to the status of 2nd most popular social media platform in the world, and the second most visited website after Google in 2021.
YouTube marketing is great for both businesses and individuals who want to make careers out of YouTube. Many businesses make use of YouTube ads to get their products to their customers and it's really effective. However, you can make more organic traffic using YouTube video marketing. With a successful YouTube video marketing strategy, you can generate leads without any ad investments.
And in this guide, we will discuss some YouTube video marketing tips that will help you get more subscribers and build your brand outreach.
Tip #1: Create A Roadmap Leading To Your Main Goal
A roadmap is basically a level by level approach to your vision. Instead of just looking at the end plan, you are building your platform up through short attainable goals. There is immense power in setting short term goals. Some serious questions that you should ask yourself are:
Step 1: Start with the question of why you need a YouTube channel in the first place! Decide on what your channel should be about and how the viewers are going to benefit from it.
Step 2: The next step is to prepare a content plan. Here must decide the type of videos and how often it will be published on your channel.
Step 3: What is your target in terms of subscribers and traffic conversion. Do you plan to take the audience to a separate landing or are you planning on making money solely from YouTube?
Planning out such specifics will help you build your platform gradually to the main goal.
Tip #2: Do tests within your strategy
Understanding the audience preferences is paramount to the success of YouTube channels. There are some important tests that you can do to understand the genre that you are targeting.
a. Test video duration
Nobody likes to see a 2 hour long YouTube video unless it's super interesting. Thankfully, there have been studies that have been conducted to measure the audience reaction to videos of different lengths.
By default, when you create a YouTube account, the maximum upload length is restricted to just 15 minutes. You can go past this limit by verifying your account on YouTube.
When you look at the most trending videos on YouTube, they generally fall within 10 minutes. The average video size on YouTube is 4.4 minutes .
For example, let us look at YouTube videos that explain the same concept, but with different video lengths and see if the audience engagement differs with the videos. we have ensured that both videos are from channels who have a similar subscriber count in order to eliminate disproportionality that arises from viewer base.
This video gives an excellent explanation of the string theory. The Video is From TED-Ed and you can see the audience response in the comments where they praise Physicist Brian Greene for his talk. Note that the video has 2.4 million views.
Now, look at the above video that explains String Theory in less than half the time from TED-Ed. Notice how the video has more than four times the views with an impressive 10 million views. It comes to show that if you can condense your content in such a way that you can get the maximum meaning across in minimum time, you will rack up more views!
b. Test different formats/scenarios
Having a monotonous nature throughout your videos can be quite tiring for the viewer after some time. Make sure to mix things up a bit by introducing new types of video formats or scenarios that keeps the users engaged.
Such a format change will also be invaluable in testing the audience reaction to the different types of videos that you make. These new formats can be in the form of a separate video series that is different from your main content. It can also be something that directly engages the viewers like a live video stream, Ask Me Anything or Q&A type of content, etc.
For example, let us take one among the most popular cooking channels on YouTube – Tasty. If you were to browse through their content, you can see how they got their fame with cookery videos that are short and sweet like the one below:
However, they do not just stick to that same format all the time. you can also see how they mix in lengthier videos of different format. For example:
And many videos that aren’t specifically cooking at all!
And it is evident that these new formats have also become crowd favorites. Now do all their videos hit the 1 million mark? No, that just shows they are constantly testing out the waters go ahead with what works and discard what doesn’t!
c. Try Giveaways and gifts
You can boost the viewership and subscriber count for your channel by setting up occasional giveaways or gifts to the viewers. Make sure that you set the winning criteria to have the viewers subscribe to the channel.
For example, let’s take another popular YouTube channel Unbox Therapy. On Jun 27, 2018, the channel did an announcement that they were giving 106 OnePlus 6 smartphones!
And the result of the announcement was evident in the subscribers count.
From June 23rd to June 27th, 2018, Unbox therapy had gained 12,583 subscribers. However, from the announcement date that is June 27th to June 30th, 2018, the channel saw an increase of a whopping 52,173 subscribers! Till date, the video has over 14 million views
We do not advise you to try this out when you are just starting your YouTube career. Only venture out to such investments when you are stable when it comes to earnings.
Tip#3: Ask your audience for Feedback
All your videos must be created with the audience in mind. However, sometimes what you may think would work might not fit well with the audience. Hence, it is imperative that you understand their likes and dislikes.
And the best way to improve your videos is to take suggestions from the audience themselves. You can ask them specific questions on how to improve your videos or what they want to see in your future creations. Take notes on what they have to offer and start building your content taking in those suggestions.
There is also another facet to incorporating audience feedback as it projects your YouTube channel to be responsive to the audience, something that is vital to building a strong and loyal viewer base on YouTube.
Tip #4: Analyse your YouTube videos traffic sources
YouTube has made it easier for you to track the sources from which your videos are getting the views. Sign in to YouTube Studio Beta and the click Reach from the Analytics menu provided on the left panel. Now click on Traffic source types.
In this window, you can see the different sources that led viewers to your video. Generally, it can be a mix of websites, YouTube recommendation’s, YouTube search, etc. Metrics like Watch Time gives you an idea of how long viewers watch your videos and Audience Retention shows how consistent they are at watching them. These are just two of the many metrics you can use to your advantage.
Analyzing YouTube videos will help you structure your future videos in a way that it is more susceptible to being clicked.
Tip #5: Track the effectiveness of your videos
You must have an eye on the metrics that your videos garner over the days. While the number of views, likes, and dislikes are great indicators in determining the popularity of the videos, but there are many more factors at play.
Your video ranking is important as it determines the position of your videos when a keyword is typed into the search box. The ranks are calculated by the YouTube algorithm, but you have a certain degree of power in raising the ranks by leveraging the following parameters of the video;
Thumbnail: The first thing that the viewer is going it see when they are browsing through a list of videos is the thumbnail. Make sure that it is attractive and stands out!
Title: The next element that gets the most attention from both the user and the YouTube algorithm is the title. Ensure that the main keyword you are targeting is included in the title.
Description: This is where you can play a lot with keywords, both short and long tail. Be very descriptive about your video, but do not just use a big chunk of text. The description must be succinct and informative. It can also have links to your landing page or sponsors.
Tags: Tags are words or phrases that are used to help YouTube better understand the video. Make sure the tags that you are giving are related to the video that they represent.
Category: YouTube has some predefined categories and the videos that you upload must be put in the right one to get maximum reach.
Subtitles: Subtitles do not carry much weight in terms of SEO or ranking, but they are a much-appreciated addition in the audience point of view.
Yes, it can be quite meticulous but the results are worth the effort. Having a rank tracker like the one from SE Ranking or Tubebuddy can be quite handy at times like these. The software basically tracks everything about your videos and presents them in a neatly organized dashboard, which is cuts the effort significantly for YouTube marketers.
Do not leave the video by itself to garner views, it often fails to register any results because elements like the title, description and the keywords play an important role in getting the videos to the users.
You may also like: How to Convert YouTube to MP4 Safely? [Step by Step Guide] >>
Tip #6: Choose a suitable video creator
Creating attractive videos is a key to make success in Youtube video marketing. So you will need to have a suitable video editor to help you. There are quite a few choices in marketing now, such as Adobe Premiere Pro. However, there is a better choice for most average users - Filmora Video Editor , which provides powerful video editing features and huge transitions, effects, and filters resources.
To know more about Filmora Video Editor, visit its page: https://filmora.wondershare.com/video-editor/
Conclusion
YouTube marketing has evolved over the years to a point where you need a carefully crafted plan to have a successful YouTube career. In this guide, we have mentioned some useful YouTube marketing tips that will help you alo12ng the way.
The greatest takeaway from this guide should be that you must be patient and have persistence. Do not stop what you are doing just because you didn’t see any results on day one. Keep the fire burning and you will reach there in no time!