YouTube boasts of more than one billion internet users from over 60 countries and across 61 languages. This staggering statistic implies that ecommerce businesses like yours can access a huge variety of market using YouTube as an effective marketing tool.
Some ecommerce stores have been raking in notable profits from their YouTube channel. In case you are yet to get significant shares from the opportunity that this video search engine presents to businesses and marketers, you may need to recheck your approach.
Getting It Right with a Content Strategy
Technology is good, but technology won’t do for you what you should do yourself. Look beyond the impressive statistics about YouTube and the excitement that comes with seeing yourself in a video – don’t let that drive you to create casual videos for your store, and just post them at random.
An effective way of marketing your ecommerce business through YouTube is to have a content marketing strategy in place.
Design a strategy that will enable you to create and post valuable and relevant videos consistently. Valuable video content offered consistently can attract your target audience and get them to watch, share and subscribe for more. These are the kind of reactions you want to get from your viewers.
The following are three things to think about when planning a video marketing strategy for your business:
One, Set Up Your YouTube Channel as a Business Tool
Yes, it is indeed a business tool. While setting up your account, create a new channel and give it a name similar or the same as your business name. You want to do this to enhance the way viewers perceive your brand.
Take advantage of all the features that YouTube provides under settings to project your business. Use the channel description option to say interesting things about your ecommerce, upload aesthetic graphics that echo your brand’s message, and make a short introductory video about your offers, products, and services.
You can always go back to review your video settings and watch as the number of viewers increases drastically.
Two, Understand Your Audience
Getting it right also means that you will understand your target audience well enough to know the right kind of content to post to them. People search YouTube primarily to solve their problems- they aren’t looking for your store. But if you can show them how your product can solve their problem, they will appreciate you for that.
We both know that customers’ appreciation comes with a lot of benefits for business owners. So, find out what type of videos your niche audience is searching for on YouTube, and make a video on that. See how you can create something good for them.
Number Three, Define the Purpose of Your Next Video
You want to let your target audience know what’s in store for them if they subscribe. You should also learn how to optimize your videos by creating and optimizing the video’s metadata. The metadata is what tells the audience what your video is about and what they can expect the purpose of the video to be. The metadata also helps YouTube index your video, so it appears when similar subject matter is searched.
Never promote your videos with unrelated keywords because they can be removed. You want to rank highly-the right way- with engaging content.
What Kind of Video Should You Create for YouTube?
The kind of videos your business should create depends on your business goals and the needs of your customers. Ecommerce businesses generally should create videos along these lines:
Product Demos
This is one of the first videos you want to consider. Demonstrate your products in real use. Don’t just display or describe them as many ecommerce owners do. You’re showing a video so let the viewers see the details of how your product works, why it’ll be beneficial to them, and what makes it better than the competition.
How-To Videos
YouTube viewers have spent as many as 100 million hours searching and watching ‘how-to’ videos. How-to videos can be used to provide useful information on how people can solve their problems either with your product or in other ways indirectly connected with your product.
For example, if you’re selling fitness kits, you can show a video on simple tips people can follow to keep fit. And when any of the viewers decide to make a purchase, it’s you that’ll come to their mind.
Case Studies and Testimonials
If your products have been getting lots of positive feedback from satisfied customers, try creating video testimonials with them on your YouTube channel. You’d be surprised how many of your customers will be willing to identify with your brand.
In marketing, it’s believed that people trust the words of their friends and families over whatever it is that you’re saying about your products. So, setting up a case study video will be an effective way to attract new buyers.
News and Events
Use your YouTube channel to announce new products and upcoming events like a special discount, exhibition, and the like. If your business just got an award or hit a remarkable record- say you made the highest one-day sales in your niche,- you already have a marketable script for another video. Get to the camera.
Getting the Best Out Of Ecommerce YouTube Channels
Thumbs up if you’ve got great video content and uploaded it onto your channel. Every minute, over 60 hours of video are being uploaded on YouTube. To get the best from your ecommerce YouTube channel, you have to optimize your videos and promote them as much as possible to help you reach your target audience and get more views.
Optimizing a YouTube channel involves creating a valuable video for the viewers and making sure that YouTube understands your content. The following is a summary of some of the more important points to keep in mind:
- Identify the keywords you want to rank for and place them in your video title. Be creative with your title such that it can grab the attention of the viewer
- Using your keyword, create a full description of what your video is all about. Also, in the description box, you can add CTA links to your website, social media pages, and previous videos
- Use target keywords and key phrases as tags for your video
- Annotations are great in keeping the viewers focused. Add them to your videos to highlight major points
- Leverage your website, blog and social media pages to promote your ecommerce. Send traffic to your YouTube channel from these platforms
- Or use YouTube ads, and you can get significant results
- And don’t forget to ask the viewers to subscribe to your channel
Finally, monitor YouTube analytics to learn how your channel is doing. You can get insights like who’s watching your channel, traffic sources, and how engaged your audience is. The information available there will help you make informed decisions on how you can further enhance your ecommerce business with YouTube.