YouTube Marketing: 5 Smart Ways to Grow Your Channel
You have a YouTube Channel. You have a few dozen–maybe even a few hundred–subscribers. You get some views but not enough to help you grow your business.
You may need to alter your marketing plan if your YouTube channel does not generate results. A marketing strategy that increases your subscriber count and makes your business more profitable is what you need.
It is not impossible to do. YouTube has become my favorite site. Every day, I look at videos, ranging from hilarious compilations of funny gym fails, to videos analyzing politics, to videos about interesting businesses.
It’s not luck that made these channels go from zero subscribers to more than 100,000 in a short time. These channels used specific strategies to turn their hobby into a business.
In this article, you will learn how to develop your own YouTube Marketing Strategy to increase subscribers and bank balance.
Narrow Your Audience
Successful YouTube channels all share the same thing: They speak to the same audience.
Maybe you’ve read marketing articles that state having a “buyer persona”, an “ideal customer profile”, or even a target market is essential to your success. This involves surveys, keyword analysis, and competitor analysis. Interviews may be required.
The majority of YouTube channels cater to specific interests. These channels only have one kind of audience in mind. Take a look at all the extremely popular channels.
You can watch philosophy on television.
You can watch history channels on your TV:
Create a sound channel that is dedicated to ambient music:
You can reach out to your audience by publishing similar videos. It’s also important to make sure that your video is useful for that target audience.
Wendover Productions is a company I enjoy watching because they explain the business of airlines in great detail. It wasn’t until I started watching his videos that I realized how much I loved the airline industry. However, I did subscribe.
Sam, the founder of the channel, has already branched out to other infrastructure-related industries–trains, ports, etc.–but his focus on the airline industry built a loyal following, including me.
You can’t avoid it: your channel must start with a clear target. While this process is time-consuming, it is crucial.
If you have already done this research for your marketing or business strategy, then it’s easy to adapt that strategy to YouTube.
YouTube viewers are unlikely to want a boring explanation of a topic, no matter what the tone is.
I stated in our article about whether you should start a YouTube Channel to promote your Business that YouTube is a place where people go to learn or be entertained. Successful channels, like ours, appeal to a casual audience who want a more light-hearted approach.
Bloomberg is one of the most respected financial news outlets in the world. Bloomberg’s business and investor-focused writing is known for its quality. Their YouTube channel, however, appeals to a more casual and engaged audience.
This is a silly joke, but fun. Bloomberg doesn’t have this type of humor on its website. Bloomberg has high-quality content that’s not buried in business jargon.
By modifying your existing marketing strategies, you can easily adapt them to YouTube. It should be more engaging, fun, and entertaining.
Key Metrics
YouTube is a popular site for a reason. Google turned it into an advertising tool, transforming the website from being a social platform to a revenue-generating one.
YouTube, Alphabet (parent company of Google), is expected to generate more than 10 billion dollars in revenue, which represents almost 10% of Alphabet’s total revenues.
YouTube has become a money-making machine for Alphabet. YouTube’s algorithm for ranking and suggestions is designed to promote any video that allows them to make money. They benefit from a higher CPM.
If you are able to create a video with high quality and a decent eCPM, the amount of money that you get after YouTube divides your revenue, then you can expect it to be popular.
You need to focus on these metrics if you want the algorithm to boost your videos.
The prominence of videos is determined by two key algorithms:
- A search algorithm determines the comparison of your video to other videos when you search for a specific search query.
- Algorithm for recommendation: The algorithm determines if your video is suggested to you at the bottom and the bar on the right.
If you’re familiar with Google Search Engine Optimization, it is best to focus on the algorithm for recommendations. Since 70 percent of YouTube hits come from this channel, you should focus on it.
A group of Google engineers created a document that outlines key metrics which affect YouTube’s algorithm. These include:
- The click-through rate measures the probability that a viewer will click on your video after viewing it.
- Total watch time: The total time a person spends viewing your video
- Total number of Videos Viewed: The total number of videos viewed by a subscriber on your channel
- Recent: When did a user last view a video about this topic?
- The search history of a user is the list of terms they searched previously
- View History: Video previously watched by
- User demographics and location
Although they are not included in the report’s metrics, these factors can still affect your ranking.
- Sessions Time: How long an individual spends at a website during one visit
- The average percentage of videos viewed by a single user: This is the amount of time that an individual spends viewing a video
- Engagement – Comments, Likes, and Shares of the Video
When creating videos, you should focus on the following metrics:
How to get people interested in your business right away
Most YouTube users only need a couple of clicks or taps to access hundreds of videos. Videos that read more like documents than compelling stories will lose viewers’ interest.
You can build engagement by telling a story. You can tell your own story, or someone else’s.
It is good to see this video as an example. You may already know that WeWork lost $47 billion by making a mistake, but the story it tells from the first frame to the last shot will leave you wanting more.
Titles and thumbnails that are interesting will encourage people to click on your video. This is how most popular YouTube channels do it. For example, the title and thumbnail of This Video intrigue viewers.
Within two weeks, this video surpassed the popularity of all videos we published in that month.
Make sure you are setting the correct expectations in your video title. If the title or thumbnail promises something the video does not deliver, people will quit watching.
Spending too much time on the small details, or making a video that is not entertaining, informative, or useful, will make it just as bad.
The guys of Business Casual explain in this video what it is about, and what people can learn.
There is no one way to build interest in your video. YouTube viewers aren’t interested in watching a lecture or sermon. They just want to have fun.
Get people to spend as much time as possible on the site
To do this, you can create playlists and recommend other videos in your description and card.
We offer a wide range of playlists covering our courses, interview topics, and many other subjects, including email marketing, ecommerce, and more.
We also display cards that suggest other videos like ours at the end of our videos. YouTube loves this because it encourages viewers to stay on YouTube.
Encourage viewers to like, share and comment on your video
Your videos should encourage people to engage with them. It may sound obvious.
This is shown in the video below:
To engage the viewer, some channels place their comments at the beginning of a video. They ask viewers to express their opinions or to answer a question.
YouTube will recognize that your video is good if people engage with it. The algorithm should feature it.
If you want YouTube to like your video content, it doesn’t matter if you intend to monetize YouTube as some influencers do.
Your help will be appreciated.
Posting Frequently (But Concentrate on Quality)
Consistency plays a major role in determining your success as a channel.
We are included in this.
A clearly defined calendar of content is essential. Successful YouTubers have said that frequent posting is key in promoting their videos.
They’ll want to see your content every time you post it. Your audience will want to watch your videos every time.
Publication of the Right Information at the Right Times
It is important to have a plan for publishing your videos.
Oberlo’s research has shown that on Thursdays or Fridays, the best time to upload videos on YouTube is between 12 and 4 p.m. On weekends, it is between 9-11 a.m.
This data is useful for those who are just getting started or do not plan on publishing often.
Test the timing as you increase your frequency of publishing (once a week or every 10 days). Your audience may only watch videos at weekends, or not at all.
Choose to direct your video channel to busy professionals, who are more likely to view videos at night. Some students may choose to watch videos in the early morning hours or during the week.
Take note of the number of views, comments, and likes that you receive on your video within the first two or three hours after its release. Comparing your notes will show you when you received the most responses.
When you first start, you may not care how long you publish your videos. YouTube’s algorithms will boost your videos the faster they’re viewed.
Optimize Your Videos (YouTube SEO)
Now let’s talk about YouTube SEO.
Even though the algorithm used by Google is not as complex, you still need to adhere to its rules. There isn’t any video link building, for example.
Sebastian Beja discusses Mindvalley’s strategy to grow its subscriber base exponentially.
This includes
- Doing keyword research
- Make a list of keywords relevant to your content and brand
- Use these keywords to optimize your video
To begin, you can use traditional SEO tools like Ahrefs, and SEMrush, or specific tools such as TubeBuddy and VidIQ.
TubeBuddy allows you to compare keywords with their competitors and find the best ones.
Look for keywords relevant to your brand and you, which have a high volume of searches but low or medium competition.
All of the above metrics make it hard to compete against a particular keyword or video that ranks under that term.
The first two things are pretty obvious.
TubeBuddy, and VidIQ, and both of them provide the information.
You cannot analyze other metrics such as the watch time or session duration. It is best to stick with the keywords you know.
After you’ve done your keyword research, go to YouTube Studio. You can use this tool to add keywords, optimize your videos, and view analytics.
Tags, titles, and descriptions can be added to each video.
Add keywords to these three places.
Include your keywords in the title.
Think about what you would like people to learn from your video. How do you wish people to perceive my video? Note down the answer.
Add a short description. It can be long, and detailed, like a summary of a video, or it can promote your site, products, and any other videos you may have.
Brian Dean explains his video while adding keywords. Any doubts about his videos will be quickly dispelled.
Tags are located at the bottom of a webpage.
Add up to 10 keywords to your YouTube video description to make it easier for YouTube to understand your video. Using these tags, your video will be more likely to rank well in search results if you use related keywords.
YouTube SEO is, as can be seen, much simpler and easier to use than Google. However, you still need to pay attention despite its simplicity. You can get a boost for your videos.
Sebastian Beja explains how Mindvalley optimizes its videos in this article.
Wrap-Up
Developing a YouTube Strategy is not that different from developing a strategy for your blog, company, or business. However, the main difference between a YouTube Strategy and a more general strategy lies in how you customize it to YouTube’s algorithm.
You will see results quickly if you can make your content appealing to this algorithm.
