In the past, budget constraints were the major pullback for the marketing campaigns of most small businesses. With the world taking a digital leap, that gap has been bridged, and today, we see a fairground for competition. With video marketing taking the world by storm, small businesses no longer need a huge budget for initiating their marketing campaigns.
While you can have videos in your brand’s social media pages or official website, YouTube continues to be the major dominator in the world of video marketing. Being the largest video search engine, a potential customer who is keen on video content is more likely to start the search from YouTube.
A member of the Google family, videos on YouTube appear in Google search results as well. The fact that you can share your YouTube videos on social media, your website, or through emails is a bonus for brands keen on digital marketing. In this article, we shall talk of some tips that small businesses must consider while using the YouTube platform as a part of its marketing strategies.
Write a Compelling Description
A good section of YouTube users relies on the description of a video while deciding whether to watch it or not. To ensure that you catch the attention of such people, keep the description short and informative. You can also choose to ask a question in the description of the answer to arouse the curiosity of the reader and have them watch the video for the answer.
Links to your websites, tagging influencers, or celebrities who were a part of the video are some other things that you may consider adding in your video description. As far as possible, try to use keywords in this section to increase the online visibility of your YouTube video.
Portray Your Brand Identity
YouTube allows you the option of customising your channel page with images, links, colour schemes, and a host of other options. Use that to establish your brand identity. That way, when a subscriber sees your product on the shelves of supermarkets, they will be able to relate it to the video they saw, and that will impact their buying behaviour.
Always encourage your viewers to subscribe to your channel. Doing so will have them notified every time you post a new video making them more likely to watch it.
Initiate Call-to-Action (CTA)
Most businesses incorporate relevant links in the description of their YouTube videos. While there is nothing wrong with this approach, you can take things a step further by initiating CTAs in your outros.
Look up different tools online to identify the outro maker that works the best for you and use that to tell viewers what you expect them to do after watching your video. This may range, taking them to a page where they can provide feedback to simply taking them to your channel in a bid to get them to subscribe to it. By chalking out a clear strategy for people who enjoyed your video, you are increasing the chances of having them do what you expect them to.
Foster Two-way Communication
One of the most effective marketing techniques is listening to what your audience expects of you and then acting on it to give live up to their expectations. YouTube provides a seamless way of achieving this, and it is up to you to leverage this to your advantage. Start by encouraging your viewers to rate the video and provide their feedback in the form of comments.
Monitor and respond to all such feedback as promptly as possible. Be honest in taking feedback and reflect on the negative ones to see how you can improve your product or service. Do not opt for taking the shortcut and having a cookie-cutter automated reply to the valuable feedback given by customers.
Come Up with Interesting Titles
Merely knowing how to create a video will not suffice in the SEO dominated digital world. You must realise that the search option in YouTube is powered by Google, and the SEO optimisation remains intact. Thus, you must direct your efforts in coming up with catchy titles for your YouTube videos that have relevant keywords to ensure that your video reaches people who are looking for it.
Be Careful with the Category and the Tags You Use
YouTube has 15 categories, and you need to make sure that you select the most relevant one while uploading a video. While using tags, the choice is much diverse, and you need to tread with better caution. Understand that the tags which YouTube auto-populates are ones that people commonly search for, and not amending the list is a smart option.
If you are confident about a new hashtag, you are free to manually add that to the list. However, be careful about the hashtags you use as having a popular but irrelevant hashtag may get you views from people who are not your target group. Such indirect marketing efforts will not yield positive results on your sales figures.
Add Subtitles to Your Video
Understand that a fraction of your viewers may not understand the language spoken in the video or maybe hearing impaired. Being empathetic and catering to the needs of such people will improve the impact of your videos. YouTube has the feature of auto-captioning that you can use.
However, before going live, it is always better to see the output of the auto-captioning and ensure that it is accurate. If you are using a dedicated video editor or intro maker, you may also use the subtitle feature of the tool.
The key to successful YouTube marketing lies in proper strategizing and looking at the bigger picture. Before creating a video, you need to sit back and evaluate whether that fits in your overall brand image.
With proper strategizing and promotions, YouTube videos can single-handedly steer the success story of your brand. All you need to do is stay focused and ensure that you do not deter from your goals. As your small business looks forward to utilising the power of YouTube marketing, here’s wishing your firm the very best for the same.
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.