First Steps Of A Good YouTube Strategy

If you're an entrepreneur, you probably want more people to know about your business. Marketing can be pretty expensive, with many moving parts to track. Believe it or not, YouTube is an excellent way to bring awareness to products and services. With the right content and strategy, you can reach a ton of people on YouTube and build a loyal audience in the process.

Success on YouTube is about identifying and building your network while you pursue your dreams. But before you start uploading on your channel, you need good video content and a strategy to create an audience.

Creating A YouTube Strategy

With over 500 hours of video posted every minute, there's a lot of competition waiting for you on YouTube, so you'll need a solid strategy.

Below you'll find the first steps towards building a YouTube marketing strategy to help you optimize your channel, increase subscriptions, and expand your reach.

Identify Your Niche

First, determine who your target audience is. Take some time to study YouTube demographics if you're just getting started on YouTube.

If you're a small business owner, you already know that your video content should focus on your product or service. You'll need to plan out the video content related to your business. For example, suppose you own a coffee shop. In that case, you could create a series of videos educating your customers about beans from various regions and how the growing location affects the taste of a cup of coffee.

Keep in mind that if your targeted audience is young, you'll need to adjust your edits accordingly. Studies show that Gen Z viewers are more prone to seek out short-form content.

Name Your Channel

Your YouTube channel's name can be anything from a person's first and last name (Casey Neistat) to descriptive names representing a channel's general topic (Khan Academy).

Of course, as you are creating that channel to promote your business, you can simply use its name. But you can always start the channel with your name or any other name and then promote your business later on. But, if the sole purpose of the channel is to promote the brand over personality, using your brand's name would be ideal.

Optimize Your Videos

At its core, just like Google, YouTube is a search engine for videos. Videos are ranked by titles, keywords, descriptions, and other characteristics. You need everything set up in your favor to take advantage of their algorithm, so you show up in their recommended videos which account for 70% of what consumers view on the platform.

Optimize your videos for the best chance of appearing in search results and receiving more views. Here are some SEO must-haves to get you started:

Write A Compelling Title

The title is one of the most critical factors in YouTube's algorithm, which viewers consider when clicking on your video.

In YouTube Analytics, you can go to Traffic Sources and see what words people use to reach your channel. It would help if you also took advantage of Google Trends and the Keyword Planner tool in Google Ads. Check to see if you can include any of these prominent search terms in your title.

Create Unique Thumbnails

When it comes to thumbnails, 90% of the best-performing videos on YouTube have one thing in common: they're all customized. Thumbnails are the first thing people see even before reading the title.

Your thumbnail is more likely to stand out if it has unique and creative. Always make sure that the image and title are in sync, don't try to game the system with a clickbait image. Tease enough of the subject of your video to create curiosity. The goal is to entice viewers to click through to your video over the competition. 

Write A Keyword Rich Description

Take advantage of your 5,000-character limit, but provide a quick summary of your video topic in the first few lines of your description. Write in a natural-sounding manner, and be sure to add links to your website and social media accounts.  

If you create a "table of contents" with timestamps, viewers will be able to skip to specific areas of your video.

Create Quality Content

This should be an obvious one, but I have seen some businesses create videos for the sake of making videos. In the long run, they'd have been better off having no videos rather than having the wrong videos. The better your content is, the more people will click through and watch till the end. They may even share your content or subscribe to your channel. 

You'll eventually want to invest in some decent equipment, but don't get bogged down by the gear. The fact is the phone in your pocket can probably shoot some really good-looking video. If you can, though, invest in some audio tech, like a decent microphone. Audio is 50% of video, and poor audio can significantly lower the quality of video content.

Remind Viewers 

There's a reason why most YouTube videos end with "like, share, and subscribe." It's effective and doesn't hurt to ask your viewers to support your growth. People occasionally require a gentle reminder.

Final Words

I realize that all of this could be overwhelming for someone who has never attempted video content creation. But take heart; it is possible. YouTube is full of people just like you who have figured it out. However, if you need guidance around content creation or hands-on assistance creating and maintaining a successful YouTube channel, I'm here to help.

I have been active in marketing for years with extensive experience creating video content for businesses, and I look forward to helping you create a successful YouTube channel. Schedule a free consultation today so we can get started.