A Guide to YouTube Marketing in 2022

As with all marketing YouTube is ALWAYS changing and it always will so don’t be put off jump in now and ride the wave of changes as they happen… But only if you think it will be beneficial for your business. 

This is a 10-step guide to create a winning YouTube marketing strategy 

Step 1: Create a YouTube channel for your business

Step 2: Learn about your audience

Step 3: Research your competition

Step 4: Learn from your favourite channels

Step 5: Optimize your videos to get views

Step 6: Upload and schedule your videos

Step 7: Optimize your channel to attract followers

Step 8: Try YouTube advertising

Step 9: Try influencer marketing

Step 10: analyse and adapt

To market your business on YouTube — whether you’re an entrepreneur or an enterprise corporation — you need to produce what your target customers want. 

Sounds simple, right? It is, as long as you know what your customers really want and it’s not just what you think they want, which is a trap far too many businesses fall into.

Plus, you need to make sure the right people find your videos. YouTube is a search engine so you’ll need to optimise your content for the YouTube algorithm, just like you do for Google SEO.

In this article we’ll break down the 10 steps into bite size chunks… 

10-step guide to create a winning YouTube marketing strategy 

Step 1: Create a YouTube channel for your business

Here’s how to get up and running:

1. Create a Google account.
2. Use that to create your YouTube account.
3. Log in to YouTube and create a Brand Account and channel.

Managing your YouTube channel with a Brand Account is a best practice, as opposed to running it with your personal Google account. For one thing, a Brand Account lets multiple people in your company manage and update your YouTube channel

More importantly, it also allows you to expand your business later with additional YouTube channels.

Add all of your information and keywords in your BIO etc. Make it look pretty and professional. 

Step 2: Learn about your audience

So, now we need to work out what your audience really wants?

To figure this out, you need to answer two questions:

1. Who are you making videos for?
2. What are they already watching on YouTube?

Use the target audience template and work out the interests of your audience and think about the videos they might watch… If it feels too broad then your persona/audience profile may be too broad too. These need to be super specific, else it will be a waste of time creating content that people won’t feel compelled to engage with. 

Ways to do this: Look at your  social media audience insights and see what age and demographics they are.

Step 3: Research your competition

The fastest way to grow your YouTube is to work out what your competition is doing and then do it BETTER.

You can start by looking up channels from the competitors you already know. Perform a competitor analysis for the following:

• Subscriber count
• Average views per video
• Frequency of posting
• Overall video quality
• What people are saying in the comments
• The main topics they post about

And then ask yourself:

• What are their most popular videos?
• How are they presenting themselves?
• What is their brand voice?
• How can I differentiate my company from them?
• What ideas can I get for new content from this channel?

Put all your notes into a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Step 4: Learn from your favourite channels

Besides learning from your competitors, you should also be learning from your favourite YouTube channels. These don’t have to be channels related to your industry.

By consuming YouTube content, you will learn a lot about what’s working, especially since it’s always changing.

A lot goes into making YouTube videos people want to watch. When you watch others, pay attention to things like:

• Video thumbnails
• Channel art
• How other creators are linking to posts or products
• How other creators edit their videos, including text popups and other special effects

Step 5: Optimise your videos to get views

If you’re familiar with SEO and Google’s algorithm, YouTube works in a similar way with 1 key difference: Personalisation.

That’s why no two users’ YouTube homepage or search results will be 100% alike. The results are personal to you and your watch history and searches. 

Some tips for optimising your videos:

• Do you keyword research
• Add those keywords to your content
  • The video title (main keyword)
  • The video description (main keyword + 1-2 related keywords)
  • Use the main keyword within the first 3 sentences
• Add a detailed description

Here’s what you want to include in your description

• Website link
• Links to your other social media accounts
• Links to your products or services mentioned in the video
• A call to action
• Custom thumbnails are so important for views.

Step 6: Upload and schedule your videos

Just like all social media channels find the best time for sharing. Scheduling is great for making sure you do this. 

For scheduling, a few things to keep in mind:

• How often are you going to post? Pick a schedule — daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, etc — and stick to it.
• Think about the best day to post on for your audience. When are they most likely to watch your content?

Step 7: Optimise your channel to attract followers

In addition to visual branding, YouTube has some built-in features that make it easier to get more subscribers:

• Group your videos into playlists organized by topic.
• Create a channel trailer, which is like a commercial representing what your channel is about.

In your videos, be sure to:

• Ask people to subscribe to your channel and like, comment and/or share your video.
• Have a clear call to action.
• Engage with your audience.
• For example, mention how audience questions inspired the current video.
• Use a custom end screen to direct viewers to other videos of yours to keep them on your channel longer.
• Add closed captioning. You should prioritise accessibility in all your content, and captions include Deaf and/or hard-of-hearing people in your potential audience.
• Uploading your own captions will ensure accuracy and is something you can easily outsource.

Step 8: Try YouTube advertising

An untapped ad tool – give it a go but first before you try out paid ads, make sure you have:

• A rock-solid understanding of who your audience is.
• Optimised your YouTube channel’s visual branding and description.
• Uploaded at least 5-10 videos so your new visitors can get a sense for what you’re all about.

Step 9: Try influencer marketing

YouTube influencers — called “creators” — are growing every year.

As with any form of paid advertising or marketing campaign, you can’t jump straight into an influencer partnership without some prep work:

• Know your audience, know your goals… you know this part already.
• Play by the rules – ensure your creator partner uses the hashtags #ad or #sponsored, as a minimum.
• Choose an influencer who aligns with your brand and who you trust to produce high-quality content.
• Analyse your results after the campaign and learn what to do differently next time.

Step 10: Analyse and adapt

As with all marketing, you need to track your YouTube analytics at least monthly. Use YouTube’s built-in reports to see what your audience is watching, what they like the most, where your traffic is coming from and more.

Use analytics to track your channel growth, too. 

Write down your numbers monthly for:

• Subscribers
• Views
• View duration
• Top videos
• Watch time
• Impressions
• Your click-through rate (CTR)

Remember to tag us into your post @idomarketinguk and use the hashtag #idmcalendar2021