Why YouTube Marketing Should Be in Your Marketing Strategy

There are many digital marketing platforms for you to choose from, the popular ones are Instagram and Facebook. But with the way we gain organic growth changing on these platforms and ultimately becoming much harder to achieve, you might want to seek an alternative.

That is where YouTube comes in. Yes okay, so it’s a bit more effort to make a long-form video than just quickly snapping a pic for Insta or writing a captivating status on Facebook. However, in the long run, YouTube could save you time and hugely benefit your brand.

What is YouTube marketing?

YouTube is the second most visited search engine after Google, so it’s safe to say there is a lot of search volume to tap into 30 million users a day kind of search volume! Over 5 billion videos are watched every day on the platform which is far greater than platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

YouTube marketing is similar to Instagram in the sense that you create content for your followers (or in this case subscribers) to consume and engage with. However, the beauty of YouTube is that it’s not chronological like other social media platforms.

So, if you create a video and 3 months later someone is searching the topic of your video can still rank at the top of the page regardless of when it was posted.

YouTube is a great platform for user loyalty. By using longer-form videos you create a better relationship with your subscribers making them far more likely to continue watching, and even purchase from you if you are selling something.

YouTube SEO

Using a Google search engine, a user is typically seeking a quick answer to a question, or a product to buy. However, YouTube is like a hotel, somewhere you users go to relax and stay for a while instead of just a quick answer.

YouTube does still use SEO and wants to provide content that answers the search query so it will rank videos that match the search term. To get your video to rank on YouTube make sure you are incorporating queries related to your target audience.

YouTube ranks the success of your video on watch time and recommends videos that have been watched for longer. For example, if there are two videos that are each 5 minutes long, and one has an average watch time of 2 minutes and the other has an average watch time of 4 minutes, YouTube will show the video with the longest average watch time as a recommendation.

Make sure you optimise your video for longer watch times. Whether that’s asking users to stay till the end to enter a giveaway or get the answer to their query.

Adding a call to action to your video will help users to discover your content more frequently. That may be adding another video to the end of your video to keep people on the app and watching your content or asking them to subscribe so they can be notified when you next post.

Better visibility on Google

By using YouTube marketing for your content, you’re not only advertising on the app but also showing up on google.

You may have seen that when you search for something on google videos come up as suggestions. Use this to your advantage, by adding high-quality content to your website you can embed and backlink your video.

This associates your YouTube account with your website and helps to improve your SEO authority.

This also works when other websites can embed your videos into their website. For example, we wrote a blog about recipes for one of our clients that included YouTube videos showing the process of the recipe. This helps to increase the authority of the website and the YouTube account being shared and therefore push your site up on the search page.

YouTube Ads

YouTube marketing isn’t just organic though, you can run ads to boost your videos and gain more traffic to your channel and website. There are several different types of YouTube ads;

• Video discovery ads– These show up on the YouTube homepage, the search page when someone has searched a query about your video topic, and related videos when someone is watching a similar video to yours.
• TrueView In-Stream ads– These ads are skippable; you only pay for these when a user watches for 30 seconds or clicks a call to action on your ad. These ads play before someone watches a video they have selected, users can either skip the ad after 5 seconds or continue to watch. These videos can also appear anywhere in the Google display network.
• Non-skippable In-Stream ads– These ads are typically 15-20 seconds long and play halfway through another video that’s longer than 10 minutes. This ad charges you on a pay-per-click
• Bumper ads– These are the shortest type of video ad. Only 6 seconds long and are non-skippable. They play before a selected video.
• Overlay ads– These ads are banner ads that overlay another video at the bottom. It’s less intrusive and a great way to enhance video campaigns.

Creating a YouTube Ad is similar to a Google Ad. You create it in the interface and select video as the type. You then select your strategy and method for reaching your goal (which type of YouTube ad). You can then create a campaign name and set a budget.

YouTube marketing is a great way to get your brand out there and create a loyal audience and customer base. Not only can you grow organically but you can boost your posts and create ads. If optimise your videos properly you can end up ranking for a search term months after you’ve posted it.

We have a client who collaborated with an influencer and incorporated a discount code as a call to action. This video is now 5 years old and still consistently organically generating $10,000 in revenue.

So, if you’re wondering whether you should be using YouTube marketing in your strategy the answer is yes, definitely give it a go!

If you’re looking for help with your digital marketing strategy and to get started on YouTube marketing, contact us today.