When it comes to digital marketing, there are many platforms to choose from, and while popular sites like Facebook, Instagram, and your company website are great places to invest, having a YouTube channel might be the best place to promote your business online.
Let's be honest, we all love video. Whether it's going to the movies, watching videos posted to Facebook, streaming videos to watch shows like Orange is the New Black or The Crown, or going down rabbit holes on YouTube, need I say more? Video is fascinating. We just can't seem to stop watching it. How many times have I seen that video of a hamster eating a carrot? More times than I'd like to admit.
If people love video as much as we do, it's worth considering video as part of your marketing strategy. And by video, we mean YouTube, of course. If you haven't made YouTube marketing part of your overall plan yet, read on for 6 reasons why you should.
What is YouTube Marketing?
YouTube marketing is the process of promoting your business on YouTube through videos and ads. Video is such a powerful medium that YouTube is growing faster than any other platform. YouTube is the second most visited site in the world after Google. Since its launch, it has nearly 2 billion monthly active users worldwide. So, if you want to diversify your traffic sources or get your business in front of your target audience, YouTube marketing is the answer.
The biggest benefits of YouTube marketing
1. Traffic jams
YouTube is growing fast, with over 5 billion videos being watched every day, which is far more traffic than any other platform. Even if you don't create many videos for your business, you can easily reach your audience by promoting your content on other people's videos. YouTube has a huge amount of traffic, so if you cater to your customers' needs, you're sure to find potential customers. Here are some YouTube stats you should know:
- YouTube receives 30 million visitors per day
- 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
-
68% of YouTube users say videos help them make purchasing decisions.
- Small business advertising on YouTube has doubled in the past two years
- YouTube is available in a total of 76 languages (which covers about 95% of the internet population)
- Over 88 countries have their own local versions of YouTube
2. Increased visibility on Google
You may have noticed that videos appear more frequently in Google search results than other forms of content. To take advantage of this, create quality content on your website and create videos on YouTube from that content. This will create backlinks to your website and help your business appear more frequently in Google searches. Leveraging YouTube marketing will also increase your business's online authority. The more authority you have on Google, the higher your page will rank on Google search engine results pages.
Here are some tips on how to use YouTube to boost your website's authority.
- Get your videos embedded on other websites
- Link your website to your YouTube channel
- Share the video on other social media platforms
- Use a variety of video styles to increase consumer engagement
3. Build your email list on YouTube
One of the big benefits of YouTube marketing is the ability to build an email list through YouTube. There is a lot of software available that allows you to embed sign-up forms directly into your YouTube videos. You can pause the video so that viewers can enter their information and subscribe to your list. This approach makes it easy to build an email list while providing your viewers with quality content.
Here are some of the most popular ways to build an email list on YouTube.
- Use a lead magnet
- Add annotations
- Add a card
- Run YouTube ads
4. Increased conversion rates
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million. Moreover, video evokes emotions more than any other form of content. Video transforms your message from static text to something dynamic and engaging, bringing your business to life. Video also helps build trust and authority among people in a unique way. This fun and engaging form of content has the power to increase conversion rates by 80 percent.
5. Multiple Video Types
Another key benefit of YouTube marketing is the variety of different types of videos you can create to present your brand online. The most common types of videos on YouTube are explainer videos, sales videos, social media videos, presentation videos and video ads. You can easily recreate one piece of content into different types. If you're wondering what type of video you should create, here are some tips to help you:
- Create engaging and entertaining videos
- Answer frequently asked questions (think about the most common questions potential customers ask about your business, products, or services)
- Behind the scenes videos show how the brand works
- Write a customer testimonial
- Live Streaming
6. Large Media Library
YouTube not only has a large number of users, but also a huge media library. This is because 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. With this amount of information, you can literally find everything there is out there and then some more. To navigate such a large platform, YouTube has a powerful search engine that helps you find exactly the content you are looking for. With over 3 billion searches per month (far more than Ask.com, AOL, Bing, and Yahoo combined), YouTube is the second largest search engine on the Internet. If you are worried that your content will be lost in this vast ocean of information, all you need to do is optimize your YouTube videos.
Conclusion
YouTube offers a great opportunity for any business to increase traffic and customers. But it is also a very competitive place, which means you can't just start uploading videos and expect to see results right away. Many big businesses jump into YouTube marketing without a strategy, which results in fewer views and subscribers. The truth is, to be successful on YouTube, it's not enough to just create great videos. It's important to know how to optimize your videos for the keywords people are searching for on YouTube. If you want to master YouTube marketing, you can enroll in Simplilearn's Digital Marketing Graduate Program, created in partnership with Purdue University and in collaboration with Facebook. This course will teach you all the practical aspects of SEO, SEM, web analytics, and social media marketing through tools and practical exercises. Enroll in this course now and master digital marketing.