YouTube’s dominance of the online video world isn’t slowing down. The social media juggernaut boasts 2 billion monthly users. Those are active monthly users at that.
That’s already 2 billion reasons to start a YouTube strategy right away. Need more convincing? YouTube is the second-most popular search engine on the internet, behind Google, of course.
Collectively, YouTube users watch over a billion hours worth of video daily. That’s more than Netflix, which boasts an impressive 139 million paying subscribers. It’s even catching up with Facebook, which hauls in 500 million video watchers per day!
YouTube is becoming more critical for brands that want to grow an online presence. Does this concern sound familiar? Here are seven tips for launching a successful YouTube marketing strategy.
- Start with Market Research
Starting a YouTube marketing strategy is an exciting project, but hold off before firing up the camera. You need a plan of action first, and that begins with market research.
Video content creation is marketing, after all. It’s critical to identify your target audience before making your videos.
Market research is an involved process. Here are several points to consider while compiling your research:
- Annual income
- Target age and gender
- Purchasing power
- Geographical location
- Consumer behaviors
- Favorite brands
These are good research points to start. You should also identify problems that your brand (or product) could solve.
Let’s say you have an all-natural hair dye product. Your product could help a woman looking for a new brand of organic, chemical-free hair dye. The problem is the desire for a new brand of organic hair dye, and the solution is your product.
The end goal of your market research should be a comprehensive consumer profile, broken down by age, behaviors, and more demographics. This is the fictional “person” you’re going to create videos for.
- Brainstorm Creative Ideas
Let the fun begin! You’ve got the market research and data out of the way. Now, you’re free to brainstorm creative ideas for your strategy.
Start with a meeting of the minds. Use a whiteboard to jot down creative ideas as they come. Use bubble charts and outlines to hash out the details of your content.
Review previous campaigns from competitors in the same niche. What are they doing right, and how are their videos falling flat? Analyze their metrics to gauge the engagement level of their video campaigns.
During the research phase, you identified certain behaviors, interests, and values associated with your target audience. How can you use this data to tell a compelling story? The goal is to create shareable videos that are relevant to your audience.
- Set Goals for your YouTube Strategy
Goals are essential to any marketing strategy, and that includes video campaigns. Theoretically, you should be setting goals from the very start. It’s always good to start with a “why.”
What are you hoping to achieve with a YouTube video marketing strategy? Do you want to increase brand awareness or to get repeat customers to buy? These questions are critical to hash out before the content production phase.
Take the inbound marketing approach to video content. This approach identifies three natural steps in the “buyer’s journey.” The attract (or awareness) stage, consideration, and decision making.
YouTube is ideal for the first stage, which is brand awareness. A video campaign is an excellent way to spark your target consumer’s interest as they casually browse YouTube.
How-to videos are good for the consideration phase of the buyer’s journey. These are consumers actively looking for a specific type of content, which is an opportunity for you to get on their radar.
- Produce Your Video Content
You’ve mapped out your entire content strategy. You have a compelling story to tell your target audience. Your next step is to produce your content!
Don’t fall asleep during this step. Quality is everything. Poorly-made videos will not do your ideas justice.
Write down a list of materials you need to produce a quality YouTube strategy. Do you need drone footage, special lighting, actors, or special effects? Next, look for the right video creation tools if you’re producing the strategy in-house.
- Find the Showstopping Talent
If you don’t have enough in-house talent to produce your strategy, you can always turn to the freelancing world. This world is packed with talented videographers, scriptwriters, and art directors. Post a job ad on a popular freelancing site or look within your personal creative network to find amazing talent.
You could also outsource the job to a video content agency. These agencies already have the tools and experience to produce high-quality campaigns. See if you can get a referral, or discover an agency through Google research.
- Implement Your Strategy
It’s showtime! Make sure to cover all your loose ends before launching your YouTube strategy. There are no do-overs on the internet.
YouTube has a feature that lets brands and creators make previews for their videos. This is an excellent way to get your audience excited about the launch. You should also cross-promote your YouTube campaign on your social channels, like Twitter and Facebook.
Remember, your campaign isn’t over once it’s launched. It’s only the beginning. Track and monitor your campaign every step of the way.
Use YouTube analytics to see the rate of new subscribers, likes, dislikes, shares, and comments. You can also see geographical data and viewing preferences, like desktop vs. mobile.
YouTube analytics is complimentary, but you should leverage other analytics tools to fine-tune your campaign. The more data you have, the easier it is to adjust your campaign.
- Analyze Your Campaign Results
Your first campaign isn’t technically over until the next one begins. The final analysis is so critical for campaign success. You can’t move forward without analyzing the past.
Here are several data points to consider:
- Click-through rate
- Click to conversion rate
- Total number of sales
- Total impressions
- Budget spent
- Website bounce rate
- Total number of video views
- Average view duration
- Website traffic
- Peak campaign times
These are just a fraction of areas that you should analyze. The ultimate measure of success is your return on investment, which is commonly known as “ROI.” Divide your YouTube investment by the net profit of your campaign, and multiply that number by 100 to reveal your ROI.
If your ROI is negative, you’re not ready to launch the next campaign.
Analyze your mistakes first. Download your video content to your iPad by going here: https://setapp.com/how-to/download-youtube-videos-to-iphone-and-ipad. Measure it against your market research, campaign data, and feedback to see what went wrong.
Now, you understand why daily campaign monitoring is so essential?
Lights, Camera, Marketing!
You don’t want to miss this marketing moment. Craft a YouTube strategy that goes viral and drives sales. Start now with these seven YouTube tips for success.
YouTube marketing is just one way to grow your dream. Check back daily to discover more tips for taking your dreams higher.