Talking about the outreach of media propagating video content, YouTube remains unbeaten surpassing cable TV and broadcasting way behind. More than 300 hours of video is uploaded on YouTube in a minute. YouTube says good business practices start on their platform! YouTube blends the engaging and entertaining characteristics of social media with Google’s immense search traffic and content ranking, making it a one-of-a-kind platform. After Google, YouTube is the second most viewed website.
How Significant is YouTube Marketing?
Today’s audience have comparatively lower attention spans. They prefer watching a video more than reading text, which makes YouTube the ideal medium for showcasing your business to a wide audience. You may easily convert your audience into a potential buyer by sharing knowledge about your product and services on YouTube. We learned in our post about starting a business with 100k how important YouTube marketing can be!
Marketing on YouTube entails submitting video content to YouTube in order to promote your company to a specific audience – often, video content that educates, gives value, and motivates potential customers to purchase your items. Because of the huge traffic potential that a YouTube channel may provide, many businesses engage in growing a channel of their own. The primary aim is to get results on YouTube by creating valuable and interesting content that keeps viewers on the platform engaged. At the end of the day, it’s all about cultivating a loyal following that both celebrates and defends your brand enabling it to grow significantly.
The Confluence of E-Commerce and YouTube
YouTube viewers watch videos to make purchasing decisions in 68% of cases, which is wonderful news for e-commerce businesses.
We already know how popular YouTube is. Naturally, any business that abstains itself from jumping on this bandwagon will miss out on a significant revenue. And, given the platform’s size, there’s not even a speck of doubt that by uploading videos to YouTube, you’ll be able to find your target market.
Cisco claims that video streaming is expected to account for 82% of global traffic in the near future. Creating a YouTube channel, therefore, will provide you a new source of traffic that can help you scale your e-commerce business swiftly.
The ultimate question now is how to do it effectively? Simply anyone can create a channel, upload videos after videos and get nothing out of it! In the next section, we’ll give you 7 tips to start a YouTube channel for your e-commerce business to increase your sales and boost revenue.
1. Start with a video content marketing strategy
Creating random videos for the sake of posting is the quickest way to fail at YouTube marketing. Before you start brainstorming ideas, you need to have short-term goals and long-term objectives, and a strategy that works for your company in place.
Remember that when it comes to e-commerce on YouTube, volume always wins. Make a list of the topics you want to cover in your videos to help you plan them out. These themes should be relevant to your product or service, as well as what your target audience is looking for. Make plans to include subtitles in your videos so that they can be seen by a larger audience.
A simple way to devise strategies and goals is to answer certain key questions like:
- Who do you want to reach out to?
- What information does your target audience require in order to purchase your products?
- How can you portray your items as a solution to the challenges that your target market is facing?
- What’s the next step for your viewers once they’ve watched your videos?
Once you’ve got clear-cut answers for these questions, devising a strategy with goals and objectives will not be difficult.
2. Always post genuine content that aligns with your brand
Everything that is genuine sells. So long as you stick to your brand’s values and beliefs, you’ll be fine. Videos can help you leave a lasting visual impression. You may use images to tell your story and help your audience connect with your business. What makes all the difference is a tale that connects with the customer? Tell a story that allows your customers to connect with you, understand you, and like you.
Take, for example, the TOMS brand of shoes. TOMS’ tagline is “one for one,” which means that for every pair of shoes purchased, they donate a pair to those in need.
A screenshot of TOMS’ website: Source
3. Promote your videos on other platforms as well
After creating and posting the video on YouTube, one of the first things you should do is promote it on several media. The reason is simple; people won’t come to you directly, especially when you’ve just started. So, reach out to them as much as possible.
Make your video available to your social media followers. Instead of replicating the title from the post, come up with a clever idea that will entice people to watch your video. Include your video in a blog post about the same subject. If you don’t already have one, turn your video into a blog post and publish it.
Send an email to everyone on your contact list, and create an engaging message that will entice your viewers to watch your video on YouTube. Also, leverage online communities, such as Reddit or Quora, where your target market resides. Take part in discussions and provide answers to queries. Include a link to your video only when it’s absolutely necessary.
Make blog posts, Twitter threads, Instagram stories, and podcasts out of your videos. Distribute your material across different platforms. After creating a new video, spend the first 24-48 hours marketing your video. The results will eventually compound, resulting in higher returns.
4. Consider establishing a niche following
Every person who looks at your advertisement has the potential to become a buyer. The goal is to increase traffic, which will lead to an increase in sales. You must find the correct audience and provide them with what they require, which most of the time is simply a solution to their problems. It’s, therefore, not just about producing videos, attracting traffic, and selling your stuff to grow a YouTube channel. It’s all about gaining a following.
If you don’t prioritize your audience, you’ll probably only get a few views and subscribers as a result. You must concentrate on the requirements of your target audience. How to do it?
- Make your plan based on the questions asked most often by your target audience.
- Create videos in response to the questions posed by your audience.
- Have polls, quizzes, gamifications, etc., to find out what people want to see.
- Host a live stream and respond to comments on a regular basis.
Don’t just think from the perspective of building a list of subscribers, strive towards establishing a community of followers.
Diasy Jing, banish.com‘s CEO, did not create a flashy marketing video. Instead, she made a vulnerable connection with her audience by solving a problem: acne. Banish was able to make over $3 million in revenue solely from YouTube Subscribers as a result of this.
A screenshot of Banish’s YouTube channel: Source
5. Make your videos Search Engine Optimized
There’s no point in making all the efforts to launch your e-commerce business on YouTube if you aren’t found when needed. Therefore, when posting videos on YouTube, it’s critical to have an SEO plan in place, otherwise your competitors will outrank you.
According to YouTube, you should prioritize topic relevance with the right keywords in titles, tags, and descriptions. Also, you must focus on viewer involvement with likes, comments, and shares, and not to forget, content quality.
From performing keyword research to competitive analysis, through to optimizing video titles and descriptions, to adding tags, subtitles, and captions, SEO practices for your e-commerce YouTube channel will optimize significant ROI.
6. Partner with other influencers
Influencer marketing is one of the most significant approaches for increasing brand awareness. And the fact that 49% of internet shoppers are more willing to believe suggestions from influencers backs the premise.
For your e-commerce YouTube channel, allow the influencer to support your product in a way that complements the video. Give each campaign its own discount code so you can track how successful it was. Also, you can collaborate with influencers to produce a one-of-a-kind video. This will organically place your brand in front of the influencer’s audience.
You can also give the influencer your products, let them try out, and then ask for their feedback. Create a testimonial video or case study to use in your marketing if it’s highly positive.
7. Invest on YouTube Ads
It’s a smart idea to invest in YouTube ads, especially for e-commerce businesses. There are many sceptical views regarding the creation of YouTube ads, like high costs, cut-throat competition, risk of getting suspended, etc. These concerns may be viable for social media platforms like Facebook, but are baseless when it comes to YouTube marketing.
In reality, creating video commercials isn’t as difficult as you would assume on YouTube. You just have to iterate ideas until you find something that works, just as you would with other ad platforms. You must, however, generate minimum-viable videos in order to iterate quickly.
Start with any short video of your product or brand. Don’t put too much money into it initially. Craft a well-written script for the video. Have a good voiceover artist. To put it all together, you’ll also need a video editor. Do not compromise on the quality of your script copy. So, if you’re not good at writing copy, engage someone to do it for you.
Try out different concepts until you find one that performs significantly better than the others. You can then invest in professional video creation.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I promote my ecommerce channel on YouTube?
To promote your ecommerce channel on YouTube, you can create compelling and visually appealing product videos, optimize your video titles and descriptions with relevant keywords, collaborate with influencers or YouTubers, and engage with your audience through comments and community features.
Can I claim my YouTube channel as a business?
Yes, you can claim your YouTube channel as a business by setting up a Brand Account, which allows you to access additional features like custom branding, analytics, and multiple channel managers.
Why type of ecommerce business should make a YouTube channel?
Any type of ecommerce business can benefit from having a YouTube channel. However, businesses that offer visually appealing products, require demonstrations or tutorials or have a niche or unique product offering should make a YouTube channel.
So, When Are You Launching Your E-Commerce YouTube Channel?
It’s never a bad idea to add an alternative source of traffic to your e-commerce website. And when that alternative source is one of the most popular platforms for video consumption, it becomes indispensable for your online store to leverage it.
Whether you’re about to launch your e-commerce business, or, are already into the business with or without a YouTube channel, finding it difficult to get or convert prospects, putting into practice what all you’ve learned here, will give you a good start.
