YouTube Video: Why is it Important
YouTube videos often gets overlooked by other digital advertising. This is based on sound logic, YouTube introduces a brand to an audience but is rarely the last point before a user purchases a product or service. Thus, any marketer would assume that YouTube doesn’t work as well, thus throw more cash at other digital marketing channels that are designed to drive immediate sales (i.e. search text ads, local directories and remarking). As a result, YouTube is likely under invested as a platform.
However, if you’re trying to build a brand, you need to tell your story of who you are, what you represent and the amazing products or services you offer. This is very hard to do via standard banner advertising or just sending users to a landing page. An amazing way to do this, and debatably the best way, is through videos. Why? Simple, you have multiple facets working in your favor, you personally can tell your story with sight, sound and motion.
Think of the saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words”, I would say a video is worth 10X that of a picture. Within a short video, you can boil down your message and share what you’re all about to the user. Immediately, they’ll understand who you are and if you can help them or someone in their network.
Take this Nike video for example, there is no way you can fuel the same emotion or the “possibilities” message with other formats. As a byproduct, users understand what Nike is about: greatness, pushing yourself to be the best you can, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5i3Cb0R86U
YouTube Video: What will it Achieve
Now, here is the hard cold fact, YouTube videos won’t produce immediate sales. It can, there are many case studies out there, but for the vast majority, it simply won’t. The reason is you’re building your brand and telling users what you’re about, but they may not immediately need your products or services at that given time. Take that Nike video I just shared..it’s great, and I may vow to buy Nikes the next time I need shoes, but I simply don’t need shoes at this point. Frankly, it may be another 6+months before I need running shoes.
That said, it doesn’t mean that video isn’t valuable. It certainly is! Think of video as a branding mechanism, and it’s awesome at sharing your story with a ton of people, efficiently.
So how should you measure success of video, you ask? Great question, given video is a branding vehicle, we should measure based on how effective it is at sharing the video to your target audience, and the engagement users have to the video. Again, not direct sales, sales will come later, but first you need to share with the world what you’re all about.
With that, I would measure success based on the metrics below, in prioritized order. All of which is trackable within AdWords and I can help you launch, manage and measure your efforts as well.
- Reach: How many users did your video reach? Did it reach 1,000 or 10,000 users. You’ll be the judge of how success this was, based on your preliminary goals.
- View Through Rate: This simple means of all people who saw your video (see reach above), what % of them saw at least 30 seconds of the video or clicked to your website.
- Views: Views are people who watched at least 30 seconds of your YouTube video or clicked to your website. In my opinion, this is the most important metric for YouTube video advertising. The best part with Youtube advertising, you only pay per view (i.e. 30 seconds of the video or someone who clicked to the website).
- Click Through Rate: Of all users who watched a video, what percent of them clicked to your landing page.
- Clicks: Of all users who saw your video, how many clicked to your website.
- Conversions: Of users who viewed :30 seconds of your video or clicked to your website, how many converted (i.e. submitted a lead, become a customer, this varies based on your goals).
- View Through Conversions: Of users who saw your video, but less than 30 seconds, how many eventually converted on your website.
Please note, I listed conversions towards the bottom, again because video is a vehicle to drive brand awareness and not necessarily hit people as they’re ready to purchase. You will get customers from video, you will, but not immediately nor at the same rate as some other digital advertising tactics, such as Paid Search, Remarking.
YouTube Video: How can I take advantage
Alright! You made it this far in the blog post and now you want to know how you can take advantage and build your brand with sight, sound and motion. In my opinion, the best way to accomplish this is with YouTube video advertising. Specifically TrueView for Action ads, which you can access through AdWords – Google’s advertising platform. See this link for more information.
See sample screenshot of what this ad looks like, below. This ad format rocks for a few reasons.
- You only pay per view. If a user doesn’t resonate with your brand and video message, they can skip the ad and you won’t pay for the impressions.
- This ad format has several clickable components, such as a “call to action overlay”, which is simply a banner asking users to click to your website. This helps convert video viewers to site visitors. Additionally, at the end of the video there is an end screen, asking users to visit your website.
- Lastly, it’s crucial to share how targeted you can get with YouTube videos. For example, you can just target your local area, demographics, only show on content that’s relevant to your market, and even target users based on what they searched on Google.com.
Let me give you a real world example. Say you’re launching a high end skin care line. With targeting, you could serve throughout the US (or global!), but only reach high household income zip codes (i.e. folks who are likely to have a higher amount of disposable income), then reach your target demo (i.e. women, 35-49), and only reach them as they are watching contextually relevant videos around facial and body care.
YouTube Video: Have fun with it
I’ll leave it up to you to start building your brand with YouTube videos. It’s pretty rewarding sharing your message at scale to relevant users and seeing the view counter on your YouTube channel start to jump drastically. If you need help with any of the below, reach out to me – happy to support your efforts. My email is: hello@diydigitalstrategy.com.
- Video strategy, media plan creation and execution
- Video assets. While I personally don’t offer video production services, I partner with a few shops that produce some pretty awesome work designed for small businesses.
Best of luck building your brand – until next time!
Ben
