In 2020,  video marketing is  not only important for brands, it is essential. YouTube is one of the most important websites on the planet and the second most popular search engine (only surpassed by Google). Also, video is an incredible tool to communicate and connect with your audience.

But for your foray into video marketing to be a success, you need a plan. So I invite you to read this  YouTube marketing guide  to create a channel that helps you achieve all your goals.

What opportunities does YouTube offer in numbers?

The  marketing numbers on YouTube  are simply incredible. Let’s take a look at some data:

  • YouTube has almost 2 billion active users per month.
  • In any given month, 8 out of 10 adults under 50 watch a video on YouTube.
  • Around 20% of users who start watching a YouTube video abandon it after just 10 seconds. First impressions are very important!
  • YouTube is available in more than 90 countries and 80 languages.
  • YouTube is the third most visited website in the world, only behind Google and Facebook.
  • YouTube users upload 400 hours of video every minute.
  • The amount of time users spend watching YouTube videos is increasing by 60% every year.
  • The average playback session on mobile devices lasts more than 40 minutes.
  • More than 50% of YouTube users use it to find out how to do new things, from knitting to investing in the stock market. They are 3 times more likely to watch a tutorial on YouTube than they are to read a product’s instructions.
  • The four most popular types of content are music, humor, pop culture / entertainment, and tutorials.

What are we looking for with our YouTube strategy?

To consider our  video marketing plan , we first have to know what we want to achieve. Marketing on YouTube can help us achieve a variety of goals, but it is most useful in the  early stages of the sales process .

If we use the  classic conversion funnel as a reference  , we can distinguish three major phases:

  • TOFU or top of the funnel : the user has discovered a need related to our brand and starts looking for information on how to solve it.
  • MOFU or middle of the funnel : the user is already more clear about what he wants and is evaluating different options to achieve it.
  • BOFU or bottom of the funnel : After doing their research, the user is considering a handful of solutions, among which is our product or service.

The  marketing on YouTube  is particularly suitable for the first two phases of this process:

  • In the  TOFU phase,  we will be looking for objectives related to brand awareness, reach, recognition or connection with the audience. For this, the most appropriate content are product videos (more focused on the brand than on immediate sales), tutorials, courses and vlogs.
  • In the  MOFU phase , we will seek to reach potential customers. To achieve this, questions and answers about our product or service, interviews with prominent people in our industry, customer testimonials and webinars usually work well.

It can also be useful to use a classification more focused on  video marketing , in which we will focus mainly on the first three phases:

  • Discovery : here the first contact between the user and the brand takes place. The most suitable content are spots, tutorials focused on common doubts, video infographics and brand content.
  • Consideration : in this phase, the user has already discovered their need and is seeking to solve it, that is, it is equivalent to the TOFU phase of the previous model. To help you, we may use product or catalog videos, brand vlogs, and user-generated content.
  • Decision : the user is evaluating various options to solve their need, as in the MOFU phase. What works best are interviews, customer testimonials, webinars, behind-the-scenes videos, and   video remarketing .
  • Conversion : finally, the user takes the step to become a customer of the brand. To support you in this decision, we can use videos with email marketing actions  , online sales through video and coupon campaigns with influencers.
  • Loyalty : Once the user has converted, we focus on nurturing the long-term relationship. New product tutorials and live, ephemeral or interactive videos that promote brand values ​​will be especially helpful here.

YouTube Marketing: Short Term Strategy

When we start  marketing on YouTube , the  goal  is to get  visibility  for our brand and our channel.

To attract immediate attention, my recommendation is that you create  short videos , of 4 minutes maximum (since it is the duration for which YouTube allows you to filter).

Once we get this initial push, we can start to think about directing this traffic to our own channels (as is the case with our website). Once there, we will use the  landing pages  to keep your data and incorporate it into our marketing process. In the last section of this guide we explain in more detail how to generate leads through YouTube.

Although the traffic generated from YouTube contributes more or less directly to generating conversions on our website, we cannot forget that video marketing is an essential part of the brand image. Spamming our website or resorting to cheap tricks to get people to visit us is prohibited, and the  quality  of the content must always be the top priority.

YouTube Marketing: Long-Term Strategy

When you have a good audience of followers or subscribers, you can start releasing  longer videos , because you have earned the trust and interest of the audience. In these videos we try to explain ideas or concepts in more depth, and they can also be linked to brand content. What we are looking for is the person to learn, be educated, trained and better understand what solutions are on the market and how we position ourselves within them.

In the medium to long term, the ultimate goal of  YouTube marketing  is to become the leaders in our industry and dominate our niche. We will focus on getting users to subscribe to the channel and view different related topics, placing calls to action within the videos.

A good way to work for the long term is to bet on quality content using  “long tail” words  related to training, for example, “how to do X step by step” or “7 key tips to …”.

It is very important to take into account the importance of  SEO positioning  within YouTube, doing a good analysis of keywords and including them in titles, categories and descriptions. The good news is that positioning on YouTube is easier than doing it on Google, and it also has a synergistic effect (if we have well-positioned videos on YouTube, they will appear more easily within Google search results).

Another aspect that we cannot forget is that we have to define a  series of metrics  for each phase that help us know if our channel is working correctly or not. These are just some examples:

  • Impressions : number of times a specific video has been shown.
  • Views: number of times a specific video has been played.
  • Number of times a video has been shared.
  • Engagement ratio: number of comments and “likes”.
  • Volume of visits to our website from YouTube.
  • Number of page views of users from YouTube.
  • Bounce rate of users coming from YouTube.
  • Channel subscriber growth.
  • Playback time of the contents.
  • Lead growth.
  • Content downloads.
  • Conversions
  • Average cost per conversion.
  • Recurring users.
  • Repeat purchases.

How do we generate leads, contacts or subscriptions?

Being able to  generate leads through YouTube  is a fundamental step to achieve your  marketing objectives . Without them, video marketing can help us to generate brand or notoriety, but we will not be able to link it to  conversions  and  ROI . So let’s see 10 recommendations to get more contacts with your YouTube marketing:

  1. Optimize the contents . Quality content is the essential basic pillar of video marketing. Think about what type of questions your audience may have and try to answer them with the best videos in your sector. In addition to being informative and entertaining, technical quality is also important, so consider making at least a small investment in audiovisual material.
  2. Offer something of value . Normally, users leave us their data in exchange for something that interests them, for example, downloadable content, an application or free trial, etc. This content is called a ” lead magnet “. The more attractive your lead magnet is and the better it fits with the audience you are targeting, the greater the chances of converting reproductions into leads.
  3. Use YouTube cards in your videos . To get a user to leave you their data and become a lead, you will first have to direct them to your website. And for this, YouTube has a specific tool: content cards. Cards appear as an icon at the top right of the screen, which users can click to unfold and show extra content. You can include up to 5 cards in each video. Each card will correspond with a call to action, encouraging the user to click.
  4. Create an optimized landing page . And where do you have to link those cards? Well, to a landing page or landing page specially designed for the users of your video. It is important that there is a good fit between the potential audience of your YouTube content and the offer of the landing.
  5. Create playlists . Normally, each landing page / offer focuses on a specific topic, and your channel will include several videos on that topic. Each of those videos will include content cards linked to the landing page. Well, the next step is to include all those videos in a playlist. This way you will be able to increase user retention and make them receive the same call to action several times.
  6. Use the end screens to reinforce the call to action . Content cards are not the only resource to get users to visit your page from YouTube. You can also include links in your video descriptions and customize the end screens (which are displayed when the video finishes playing).
  7. Customize your brand . One thing that distinguishes the best youtubers is that they have a very distinctive personal brand, which is shown through elements such as the header, the greeting, the farewell or the predominant colors in their videos. If you do the same with your brand channel, you will make users remember you and associate your brand with quality content.
  8. Optimize the channel home page . Your channel’s home page is a very important ingredient in your branding (remember, first impressions count a lot), but you can also use it to reinforce your lead generation campaigns through the header image, featured video and links to your networks.
  9. Do SEO on YouTube . The more traffic you attract to your videos, the more leads they will generate. And the better positioned they are, the easier it will be for users to find and see them. Moral: take care of the SEO in your videos and the results will be worth it.
  10. Collaborate with influencers . Find youtubers who are already talking about the topics that most interest your audience and who have good levels of followers and interaction with the audience. Then collaborate with them to create campaigns that really create value for their audience and help you drive more visitors to your landing pages.

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