Content marketing tactics like blogging work well right now. They can drive a lot of traffic and leads. But people’s content preferences are changing as they are consuming more video. Video is expected to account for 82% of all internet traffic by 2022. That’s why your content marketing ideas for new content should revolve around video.
If you want to continue generating more traffic from your content marketing efforts, you should begin including more video. And the best network to build a presence with video is YouTube where 1.9 billion monthly users watch 5 billion videos per day.
Therefore, to help you build a strong content marketing presence on YouTube I have shared my top tips and tactics below for some epic YouTube video marketing advice …
Create videos for different viewers:
Your YouTube viewers are just like the people who visit your blog or content landing pages. Different viewers will be at different stage in the content marketing funnel. Some will need more educational content, while others will want sales videos.
This is why you should create different types of YouTube videos for people in different stages of the video sales funnel. Here are a few video types you should be creating…
Educational videos: Just like how you write educational blog posts, you should also be creating a lot of educational video content. Most people on YouTube are searching for free helpful content. So, create as much helpful content as you can to truly maximize your leveraging video content.
Some common types of educational content people publish on YouTube are tutorials, interviews and even educative animated videos. An example is this video from the TED YouTube channel.
Videos like these are both educative and entertaining. They will drive a lot of engagement.
Videos like the above can take a while to make especially if you are new to creating videos. So, you can try and create more simple ones first. For some inspiration check out Brian Dean’s Backlinko channel on YouTube…
As you can see, he simply speaks on camera and intersperses it with screenshots and other visuals.
You can easily create something simple like this by using a tool like Screencast-O-Matic’s Video Editor.
You can record the video with a camera and then create the visuals using a tool like Crello and then assemble them using Screencast-O-Matic.
Once you master creating simple videos like these you can move onto creating animated marketing videos.
Testimonials and case studies: Testimonials are another type of video you should be sharing on YouTube. When most people share testimonials, they just publish them on their website and write the name of the person who shared them. These testimonials help a little, but they aren’t the most effective.
The most effective types of testimonials are videos as people get to see the person really sharing their opinions. So, make sure you publish a few videos of happy customers sharing what they like about your company and the product.
Here’ an example of a video testimonial from Unbounce…
Videos like these can play a powerful role in convincing people to buy your product or hire you for your services.
Product tutorials: You should also be creating product tutorials on your YouTube channel to complement your other product videos. As people who are interested in buying your products or have already purchased them will want to know how to get the most out of them. So, record a video that shows everything they can do with your product.
If your product is a software, you can share a screen recording of someone using it like Hubspot does in the below video…
Sales videos: Another form of video you should create is a sales video. This is where you talk about your product, the different features you offer, but instead of focusing on educating viewers like you do with product tutorials, you place an emphasis on selling the product.
The helpful videos will get more views and help you nurture and build relationships with your audience while the sales videos will help you generate customers.
Use captions:
People from all over the world will be watching your videos. For many of them English will not be their first language. This is why you should make it easy for them to watch by adding captions. It will help you reach a bigger video audience.
Adding captions will help you get more views from native English speakers as well, as many people prefer watching their videos while they are muted.
To add captions quickly you can use the aforementioned Screencast-O-Matic video editor.
It analyses the video and automatically converts speech to text and overlays captions on the video. If you have written the script, you can always just import a caption file.
Once you begin adding captions you will notice that more people will watch your videos to completion. As a study found that videos with captions/subtitles are watched 91% to completion and videos without captions are only watched 66% to completion.
Use call to actions:
Creating quality videos and adding captions will help drive up views. But you need to take steps to convert these views to leads and customers. For this, you should insert call to actions in your YouTube videos.
One way to do this is by adding a link in your description to a product or lead magnet. You can then constantly inform people watching your video to click on the link and buy or sign up. Links to lead magnets will work best for educational videos and links to products will work best on case studies, product tutorials, and sales videos.
To get the most out of these links you should make sure you link to proper conversion optimized landing pages.
You should also add a link to a landing page in your YouTube channel’s settings. This will be displayed right below the banner image. When people visit your channel, this is one of the first things they will see. More people will click on it and sign up or buy.
An example can be seen on The School of Life’s YouTube channel. They added a link to their shop and added the call to action ‘Visit our Shop’.
Another thing you can do is create a conversion focused end card.The YouTube end card is something that can be added to the last 5 to 20 seconds of a video. Have you ever noticed the popups that appear asking you to subscribe to a channel or watch another video when you get to the end of a video on YouTube?
This is the end card. You can add 5 elements to it. These are the subscribe button, a recommended channel button, recommended playlists, recommended video and link.
As our goal here is to generate traffic, leads, and sales, you should add a link to your website in the end card along with another 2 to 3 elements. And make sure you use a still background instead of just placing it over the ending video like most people do. This will reduce distractions and increase conversions.
You can also add extra designs like arrows and text to the end cards to drive more attention towards the link element.
A good video content marketing example of an end card that focuses on driving traffic and conversions, is this one from Scott Herman’s video.
As you can see, he included a link element that directs you to his App. He also added an arrow and call to action on the end card that drives more attention to the element.
Note: The link doesn’t take you directly to the app, but to a landing page on his website where you can find the link to the apps for the Google Play Store and App Store. You need to use this indirect method as you can only link to your own website from the end card.
Partner with influencers:
More content marketing ideas that work on YouTube is to partner with influencers. There are many influencers on YouTube who have a lot of subscribers and a vast social media following to whom they can promote your products.
So, team up with them. There are three ways you can go about with this…
One is to do a giveaway where you offer the influencer a product for free and let them give it to one or a few of their viewers.
The other is to just sponsor a video. This is where you pay an influencer a fee and they add an advert to their video where they either promote your channel or your product. An example of video sponsorship can be seen on this video on Cup of TJ’s channel.
It’s a helpful and entertaining video with an ad for Squarespace placed towards the end. The host, TJ Lee also mentions that Squarespace sponsored the video at the beginning.
The third option is affiliate marketing. This is where you just offer your product upfront to the influencer for free and they review it on their channel. They can then promote it with their affiliate link in the YouTube description. This way how much they earn will be based on the number of sales they generate through affiliate marketing.
Conclusion on Video Content Marketing Ideas:
These are the 4 content marketing ideas you can use on YouTube. Start off by creating quality educational videos that have captions and contain links to lead magnets and other forms of helpful content. These will help nurture your subscribers and build a relationship with them.
After that, you can create more promotional videos like sales videos and product tutorials. The above methods will take some time to bring in results as you need to grow your YouTube channel. So, in the meantime, you can team up with influencers for quick results.
Which of these content marketing ideas do you use on YouTube? Are there any other YouTube or video marketing tips you would like to share with us? Please leave your video marketing ideas and comments below.
Mitt Ray is an expert on Content Marketing. Mitt is the founder of Social Marketing Writing. He helps businesses with social media and content marketing. Mitt and his work have been featured on sites like Business Insider and Wired. Follow him on Twitter @MittRay.