Running a YouTube marketing campaign is a smart move as it's basically a search engine and social media platform rolled into one. However, it's not as simple as having the "best content" to hit the #1 result when 720,000 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every day.
The Power of YouTube
Around 30% of all the web traffic in the world is on YouTube. That's an unbelievable number of users and more hours of video content than anyone could ever watch in a single lifetime. The dominance of YouTube has only continued to grow.
With over 2.6 billion users worldwide in 2023, chances are, your target audience is already there and watching. If you're looking to promote a brand, product, or service, it's time to leverage the power of YouTube with an effective marketing campaign.
It's easy to see why YouTube has become one of the best digital marketing tools for businesses.
So today, we're going to share our top 5 tips to ensure that your YouTube marketing campaign is a success.
Audience Appeal
Before spending hours creating content to market yourself on YouTube, you need to zero in on your target audience.
Knowing your audience is key to any marketing campaign, especially one on YouTube. People of all demographics are now familiar with YouTube, but each one will react differently to CTAs (Calls to Action), images, and titles.
If you go into a campaign with the mindset of targeting the widest group of people possible, you'll find your results less favorable than if you targeted a narrower audience.
Catchy titles are important and one of the main factors that viewers use to determine whether or not they're going to click.
It may seem like a no-brainer, but there is a fine line between Clickbait and a quality title. Clickbait titles will actually hurt you in the long run, even though you may get more initial clicks. Most audiences understand and recognize clickbait which can actually cause your audience to lose faith in your business and your brand, the opposite of what you want in a marketing campaign.
Choose titles for your videos that promise the viewer value. They should know why they are clicking on your video, and what exactly they'll learn.
YouTube SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
YouTube has its own search engine algorithm to ensure that its users see the most relevant content.
The number one factor that YouTube uses to determine this is viewer retention. The more eyes you have on your videos, the higher your videos will rank. Regardless of all other tips, you need to have content that viewers are willing to watch and, maybe even sit through ads, to get back to.
Focusing on your information, message, and keywords can sometimes be more important than the actual video. Millions of YouTubers are optimizing their message while customizing stock videos to create highly engaging content that ranks well.
After that, there are a number of tricks that you can use to help optimize your YouTube SEO.
- Rename files with your keyword
- Add accurate subtitles
- Write accurate descriptions & tags
- Engage with viewer comments
All of these will help with your YouTube SEO, but more importantly, all of these will help your viewers as well.
Thumbnails
I'm betting you've seen the clickbait equivalent of a YouTube thumbnail. It's a close-up shot of a YouTuber with a shocked-looking face that you'd only see on soap operas that come with similar sounding "You won't believe..." titles.
Despite the obvious ploy, these exist because just like clickbait titles, they get more clicks. However, if you're using these in your marketing campaign, your audience is going to catch on.
Thumbnail images are just as important as your title. They should prominently display your keyword and clearly tell what your viewers are going to see. That's it.
Follow the Data
Finally, you need to look at your YouTube data metrics and adjust accordingly. YouTube Analytics offers a host of metrics full of data for content creators, and this data will help your marketing campaign be successful.
Track which videos are doing the best (and worst) and see what's working. By using A/B testing or optimizing your content, titles, or thumbnails, you can see what interests your target audience and get more views and conversions.
Track your data on a monthly basis rather than a daily basis. If you spend too much time tweaking your campaign based on daily data, you'll never give it time to yield quality results.
