How To Use YouTube To Flood Your Business With Leads

13 Sep, 2013

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It’s not Twitter! It’s not Facebook! It’s YouTube that has suddenly experienced a spike in usage rates, reveals a study by the Fortune Global 100 companies. The report also stated that there has been an astounding 40% increase in YouTube accounts maintained by a majority of those companies. Each of their channels averages around 2 million views with more than 1,650 subscribers! This is why YouTube Marketing is powerful!

It’s not just the huge corporations that have discovered that the future of marketing is within the social media sphere. Even smaller companies and businesses like food delivery to kennel-selling websites are all engaged in this.

Gone are the days when YouTube was mostly satisfying teenagers or people looking to entertain themselves watching funny videos of cats and dogs. It has become a medium of branding for companies, solely due to the change in attitude of online consumers. It’s the second largest search engine, after Google.

True to the principle, “A moving picture is worth a million words,” visual content has proven to be far more effective than words alone.

So, is YouTube marketing worth it?

Yes, it probably is.

But it all depends on the type of videos you create and the exposure you get for your videos.

THE KEY TO SUCCESSFUL YOUTUBE MARKETING

YouTube recently changed its algorithm and now gives videos and channels that retain viewers’ interest throughout the video, better visibility in the search results as well as in the “suggested videos” and “related videos” categories.

You must be thinking, “who would want to watch a video on what I’m selling?” Probably, a lot of people!

A mundane video that sounds like a news item, and feels like a commercial isn’t going to create the desirable results. Think of videos more as highly condensed special interest webisodes of TV programs, where additional information about the characters or plotlines is divulged. Great YouTube marketing campaigns involve thoroughly engaging the viewer, as you need to do with any other form of social media marketing.

YouTube viewers lean towards informative and/or entertaining videos. Studies have shown that it’s in the first 15 seconds that viewers decide if they’re going to continue watching the video or not.

Let’s go ahead and discuss the creation of the right kind of videos, optimization and ranking them on Google, and gaining maximum mileage.

CREATING INTERESTING VIDEOS FOR YOUTUBE MARKETING

You don’t have to be discouraged even if this is your first time. It doesn’t take an Oscar performance to create a good video.

Determine the unique value your product/service offers and then come up with the most creative way to make it the main point of you video. “Read my blog…” is no way to spark an emotional connection with your viewers. You also don’t give them dusty facts and figures.

You do it by addressing how your product can provide the solution to a problem they have. This should be the core of your video’s approach. My product can help you and here’s how. The viewers also HAVE to be told what action they should take. This call to action needs to be very clear and easily accessible.

Here are some ideas:

Quick 1 minute (animated) tips related to your niche

Answer frequently asked questions

Tutorials and how-to’s

Creative stories

Interviews

Slide shows

YouTube Marketing tip: Be interesting, be enthusiast and don’t be afraid to put on a show. Consider yourself in the “entertainment” business so you need to hold attention and “entertain” at all times. Remember that if you don’t convey genuine enthusiasm in what you are talking about then how will anyone else ever be interested in what you are saying?

So, what content can we use?

Let’s assume you’re selling home-made chocolates. Your video can focus on where you get the ingredients from, how you prepare the chocolates, tips on preserving chocolates or the health benefits of the ingredients.

How about a video series? A stream of videos posted on a regular basis will increase your chances of gaining value from them. Many marketers use this Youtube Marketing strategy with great success.

I have had many people ask me how to create professional-looking videos. You don’t want to do that. Home-made “non commercial looking” (but well made) videos have been seen to increase the viral appeal.

USE PROFESSIONAL VIDEO SOFTWARE

The quality of videos on Youtube vary greatly. I recommend a product called Easy Video Suite which is used by such very successful online marketers as Chris Farrell, Ryan Deiss, Mike Filsaime and Jason Moffatt. It allows you to record, publish, market and track your videos all in one system. In my view its the best video marketing and promoting software on the market by a very long way. You can find out more about it by CLICKING HERE.

MAKE YOUR VIDEO FINDABLE

Hundreds of videos on YouTube are languishing and crying for attention. Even after you’ve created and uploaded your video to YouTube, it doesn’t guarantee traffic.

You must make them findable within YouTube and in the search engines. This is what makes YouTube marketing successful. Videos usually land up on the first page of the search engines and are a wonderful way of leap-frogging your competition. YouTube is Google’s baby!

Upload your video and it’s time to go Meta. Metadata is the information you enter for your video – the title, description and tags. By using these fields effectively, you can optimize your video for the search engines.

Let’s see what we can do to make sure your video show up in YouTube’s search results, homepage, related videos and in the search engines.

META DATA

Video Title: Use your targeted keywords in the title, at the beginning, leaving your branding to the end. You can also add a colon after your keywords and then rephrase the title. For example, if your main keyword is “YouTube Marketing,” you can create something like: “YouTube Marketing: 5 Ways To Maximize Your YouTube Traffic.”

YouTube Marketing Tip: For some serious traffic, you can find popular videos in your niche that enjoy an insane amount of views and use a similar title for your video.

Description: It’s always good to start the description with a full URL, followed by a carefully crafted paragraph around your key phrase. A clear call to action is a must.

Example of a description: “http://www.youtubemarketingforcats.com – In this video, YouTube Marketing expert Andrew Spence explains how to create videos that best suit your audience. YouTube videos, when done properly, will make it easier to rank high in the search engines. Click on the link for Andrew’s advice on optimizing YouTube videos and YouTube Marketing Tips.”

Google shows this video description in the search results and also uses it to determine the keywords/phrases your video should show up for.

Tags: For tags, use your key phrases and the different variations. Stick to 10 or 15 phrases. For phrases more than one word long, use quotes, such as “YouTube marketing.” Think about what people would be searching for on YouTube.

THUMB NAILS

Thumbnails are your marketing banners on YouTube. If you have a custom thumbnail enabled on your account, you should upload a high resolution image along with the video. This can make a huge difference in your YouTube marketing. It can be anything from a close up face to some text.

OTHER CHANNELS OF PROMOTION

Don’t limit your video promotion to just YouTube. Reach out to other sites that offer amazing benefits.

Many viewers find YouTube content through other sites. Blogs, other websites and media outlets are always looking for great content. See how you can leverage their audience to increase your YouTube visitors.

SOCIAL MEDIA SITES

Twitter: More than 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter every minute, and many companies have doubled their response rate. So tweet your YouTube link.

Facebook: Share your video in a status update on Facebook. Have a clear call-to-action. You can even spend a little on Promoted Posts and Page Post Ads too.

Pinterest: They have a special section for pinned videos. The PLAY button is featured over the image, so it stands out, making it easier for people to click. Fill in the description with a URL and call-to-action.

Blogs, other websites and media outlets can be great too. See how you can leverage their audience to increase your YouTube visitors.

Do It … One Little Video At a Time

YouTube Marketing Take Away..

Quickly surpassing all others, YouTube has become a proven source of highly-targeted traffic for websites and blogs.

My advice? Seriously consider YouTube Marketing as part of your 2013 plan. Some tactics may work for your niche, while others don’t. But continue creating good videos and you stand a chance at enjoying great exposure. Also, the more videos you shoot, the better quality they will become and the more confidence you will have.

Have you been using YouTube Marketing and has it been effective for you?