With over a billion users who watch a billion hours of videos every day, YouTube can be a very important marketing medium for your business.
The internet and the mass adaptation of smartphones have meant that people watch content online more than they watch television, which is reflected by the fact that YouTube reaches more 18-49-year-olds on mobile than on any television cable network.
This makes YouTube one of the most valuable promotion channels for businesses around the globe and it is essentially why we’re going to talk about how you can leverage YouTube in your business’ favor and use it to generate more sales.
So, without any further delay, here is how YouTube can help you increase your sales:
By getting your brand in front of new people
With a user base that’s over a billion users strong, YouTube is bound to have a large number of people that don’t know about your brand.While you might be active on other social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, etc., it is indisputable that there are people you haven’t reached yet.
Your YouTube channel gives you a chance to reach people that you have not/cannot reach on other platforms. It should go without saying but this essentially means that your content reaches a wider range of people which subsequently increases the number of prospective customers your business has.
It is important for you to maintain consistency on your YouTube channel. Your YouTube channel should be branded in the same manner as other marketing mediums such as your site and social media profiles etc.
This can be achieved by doing a number of things, such as keeping the same color scheme on your channel as that of your website and your general brand colors, etc. and using custom thumbnails (with the same template, as an example).
To further elaborate on this, go have a look at Neil Patel’s YouTube channel; it has the same black, orange and gray colors and all his videos’ thumbnails include him along with the prescribed color scheme.
This goes a long way in helping people connect with you as users start to associate colors with your videos exclusively. A loyal YouTube subscribers base almost definitely means more prospects of them converting into customers.
Create quality videos/that attract people
On a platform as competitive as YouTube, it is important to pump out content that interests people. For this, you can do a number of things.First off, a detailed strategy should be in place with regard to the type of content you want to post on YouTube. To get a sense of what kind of videos people want, go have a look at what your competitors are doing.
Analyze their videos, look at their statistics (the number of subscribers they have paired with the nature of reactions they gain on their videos such as comments and likes) and get a sense of what people want on this platform.
Users’ comments are a very useful method of gauging what people like as they explicitly state what they like or dislike about the video. In the end, your efforts should be aimed at catering the gap left by your competitors and filling the void by capitalizing on their shortfalls.
It is important for you to use professional equipment to create videos. Users tend to be very picky about the kind of videos they want and thus small shortfalls such as shaky shots and distorted scenes tend to scare users off.
This is why you should have a basic set of equipment for your videos, including a camera that records in at least 1080p resolution, a gimbal that stabilizes your shots and ensures the absence of shaky shots and an external microphone that clearly records all audios.
Keyword optimize your titles
Think of YouTube as Google; it is basically a search engine itself. Users put in keywords in the search bar and are shown relevant results. This is why the basic principles of search engine optimization should be applied to YouTube too.It is important to include relevant keywords in your video’s title as well as in its description in order for YouTube to index your video. In easier words, if you don’t use keywords in the title and the description, your video won’t show up when people search for content.
Your title should not be clickbait and a mere attention-grabber. Make sure it is relevant to the actual video because writing one thing in the title and showing another thing in the actual video is bound to get you into the bad books of users.
Your description is majorly important too because it tells users what your video is about and is used to index your videos on YouTube and Google (every search engine in general) as well. Since only the first two lines (mostly) appear in the snippet of the video, it is important to make it concise and to the point.
Include multiple calls to actions
Calls to action are reminders of doing specific tasks. It is essential to include a call to actions in all your content, which is reinforced by the evergreen quote, “Remind in order to be remembered”.You should remind users to take specific actions when starting your video, between your video and at the end of your video. This action can be anything, such as a call to subscribe, a call to like the video or to comment among a host of other things. CTAs can include a call to visit your website or to buy merchandise; yes, people do that too!
This might come off as too direct for some people but if you’ve implemented the points listed above, with specific emphasis placed on the point about creating great content, you are almost bound to get tangible results from giving clear calls to action.
You can give a call to actions verbally as well as through annotations either during the video or at the end of the video. The latter is a great way of getting people to stay on your channel’s videos and for them to basically watch more of your videos.
Hire YouTube influencers
Influencers are people who can influence the minds of users. They are mostly specific to niches, such as a beauty influencer who might just create video tutorials about makeup on YouTube.They’re incredibly important since recommendations from influencers have turned out to be one of the most important methods of revenue surges for businesses around the world. Influencer marketing is hailed as a masterpiece and is accepted to be a fantastic way of increasing revenue by marketers in every niche.
You should reach out to influencers in your niche and ask them to do a review of your products. This can be through the provision of sample goods to them in exchange for a review or even a basic mention.
Keep in mind though, ask the influencer not to go all out praises for your product as that is likely to put users off. Discussing the product’s shortfalls along with its pros are necessary in order to retain the trust factor and to eventually get people to make a purchase.
