It is essential for creators to market on YouTube to optimize their growth. YouTube, with its billions of active users, secures its spot as the second most used social platform. With its size and capacity, YouTube offers creators a stage to share their content. The platform provides the means for any creator to grow an audience. But aside from uploading videos, creators also need a marketing plan to help their channel reach its potential.
Consider a brand account
To form a YouTube marketing plan, the creator must identify the goal of their content. Doing so may include making a separate brand account. A brand account will give a professional feel and space for your content. It will separate the creator from the work. Creator, Jenné Claiborne, exemplifies this with the channel SweetPotatoSoul. The channel focuses on vegan meal preparation. SweetPotatoSoul is professional in style and provides the audience with easy-to-follow recipes. A brand account gives your content a more legitimate feel.
Use advertising
After establishing your goal it is time to start advertising. Creators can do this by linking their YouTube channel to a Google Ads account. On YouTube, there are a handful of ways to run ads. There are video discovery ads, in-stream ads, pre-roll ads and bumper ads.Â
Video discovery ads are placed on the top of the search result page or on the top of the right-hand column in a video watch page. These ads act in a more traditional sense as they are static images until a user presses on the link to a video campaign.
In-stream ads play at the beginning of videos that the viewer selects. This ad type can be skipped after 5 seconds. With the option to skip, creators need to tell their story within the allotted time. Creators must find a way to make the viewer connect immediately to avoid them from skipping.
Pre-roll ads can not be skipped and are able to play at different points in a video. This ad type offers 15-20 seconds to expand on a creator’s campaign. With more time for the viewer to watch the ad, it is important to make it worth it. Creators will benefit most by including a call to action like asking the viewer to click the ad.
Bumper ads are short 6-second videos that play before a viewer’s selected video. Although short, bumpers are a great addition to a larger campaign. Bumpers need to include only critical pieces of a brand to be memorable to the viewer.
Optimize your channel
Marketing optimization works in different ways across YouTube. To optimize a channel, a creator must look to adjust aspects of their content to help viewers find it. Creators who optimize components of YouTube — like keywords, titles and thumbnails — will see a better success rate. There are also many ways to optimize your video content such as playtime, segmentation and editing.
Researching keywords when tackling the wording around your video post. There are different ways to find the right keywords for your content. To help creators analyze search volume, there are tools like Ahrefs and Google Search Console available. Once you decide on the best keywords for your specific content, it’s good practice to use them throughout a post. Using keywords in a title or description will raise a creator’s chance of getting discovered. Make sure to spend time refining your thumbnail. The thumbnail is a small preview of a video, so it needs to be enticing.
You’ll also focus on being consistent with your content. If you’re a fashion blogger be sure to produce content connected to fashion. Consistency is key.
Think about the playtime of videos. It is logical to provide a variety of content that has different playtimes. If a creator does create a longer video, it is a good idea to use segmentation. To segment video posts, a creator must identify different ideas throughout a video and separate them. This can be edited into the timeline or provided as timestamps in the description. Keeping a consistent editing style and refining it as a brand grows will set you apart from other channels.
Schedule posts
A schedule for posting and marketing will lead to a more efficient workflow. Knowing when to post will keep creators on track. A great practice is to post weekly at the same time and day. A consistent posting schedule will show viewers that creators care about their brand and audience. An organized marketing schedule that coincides with posting is critical. Be sure to spend time organizing a monthly marketing schedule to keep track of campaigns.
Know your audience
After establishing a brand, it’s time to engage with your audience. Creators can do this by reviewing your channel analytics. Creators access analytics through YouTube studio. Here you can review reach, engagement and audience statistics. Determine what content is performing well. Cater to your audience by producing content with the consideration of successful analytics.
Build your brand
Upkeeping a brand takes planning and consideration of many components. When executed efficiently, a marketing plan and schedule will push your YouTube channel to the next level. The more effort creators put into their brand development the more it shows their audience legitimacy for their work.