YouTube Marketing: A Comprehensive Guide

Video is on the rise for content creators. Most content, from once audio-only podcasts to the formally photo-focused Instagram, has evolved to accommodate consumers’ love for engaging visual media.

This trend has made YouTube the second-most popular search engine in the world. It’s also inspired digital marketers to create video assets that help their brands reach more people.

Marketing on YouTube, however, isn’t as simple as uploading a video and calling it a day. YouTube users upload more than five hundred hours of video every minute, making it hard for brands to stand out.

Here’s everything you need to know to create a YouTube marketing strategy that ensures your content attracts attention.

What’s YouTube Marketing?

YouTube marketing covers a range of strategies designed to use the power of YouTube videos to promote a brand, products, or services.

Here are some of the ways digital marketers use this popular video-sharing platform:

• Creating organic promotional videos — Share engaging videos that build brand awareness and connect with potential customers.
• Working with influencers — Collaborate with popular creators within your brand’s niche to tap into their established audiences.
• Advertising — Use YouTube’s powerful advertising tools to reach specific target audiences through various ad formats.

The Benefits of YouTube Marketing

Here’s why you should incorporate YouTube-based tactics into your marketing strategy:

• Reach a large global audience — More than two billion people worldwide use YouTube, so your target audience is likely already there.
• Boost brand awareness — YouTube has such a massive user base, so it’s a great way to put your brand on potential customers’ radars.
• Build customer trust — Authentic, informative videos enhance a company’s credibility and establish a brand as an authority within its niche.
• Generate leads — Creating search engine-optimized videos drives traffic to your website, landing pages, and lead capture forms.
• Get more bang for your buck — YouTube marketing is more cost-effective than traditional advertising, making it easier to reach more people for less.
• Reach your ideal customer — YouTube lets you use viewers’ demographics, interests, and online behaviors to target videos to the people they’re most likely to appeal to.

13 YouTube Marketing Strategies and Tips

YouTube marketing strategies aren’t created equally — follow these 13 tips and best practices to ensure your efforts pay off.

1. Create and Brand Your YouTube Channel

Make a YouTube channel, choosing a memorable name that reflects your brand. Keep your channel on-brand by using a high-quality version of your logo or related image for your profile picture and adding attention-grabbing channel art. You’ll also want to add an informative “About” section so potential subscribers know what to expect.

By starting a YouTube channel, you’ll get access to YouTube Studio, the platform that allows content creators to manage their presence and monetize videos. Here you’ll find a channel analytics section, which provides helpful information about your audience and the ways they engage with your video content. Use these metrics to put several of the other strategies into practice.

2. Research Your Target Audience

Understanding the people you’re trying to reach is the key to creating content they crave. Define your ideal viewer by considering their age, location, interests, and the things that make your products or services right for them.

3. Conduct a Competitive Analysis

Figure out who your brand’s competitors are, then analyze their YouTube presence. Look at the video topics they cover, noting what they do successfully and where they fall short. Consider how long their videos are, how often they post, and how many likes, comments, and shares their videos get. This information helps you decide what to create and when to post.

4. Create Quality YouTube Content

Don’t create content for content’s sake — put time and effort into brainstorming ideas and producing high-value videos that are worth your viewers’ time. 

That doesn’t mean you need to break the bank with high-cost productions. Basic scripting ensures your videos have a clear focus, and editing your recordings with user-friendly tools like Captions gives them that professional feel.

5. Be consistent

Set a realistic posting schedule and stick to it. If possible, prepare content ahead of time, pre-scheduling your videos on set days and times. You can figure out the best time to post by watching your audience’s viewing trends on your YouTube analytics.

6. Promote Your Videos

Don’t just upload a video and wait for viewers to come to you — actively promote your content by:

• Sharing new videos with engaging teasers on social media
• Embedding featured videos on your website and writing blog posts that expand on your videos’ content
• Sending email newsletters that include captivating stills linking out to the full video
• Building visibility by commenting thoughtfully on other videos within your niche
  

7. Use Search Engine Optimization

Search engine-optimizing your videos helps them pop up when people search YouTube or Google for topics you cover. Tools like Ahrefs and Semrush can showcase which search terms are relevant to your audience. Then, work those search terms (known as SEO keywords) into the video titles and descriptions to make your content more searchable.

8. Optimize Your YouTube Thumbnails

Design eye-catching thumbnails that entice viewers to click. Use bold text, vibrant colors, and visually interesting images to make your thumbnails stand out in search results and suggested video feeds.

9. Engage With Your Audience

Respond to comments, answer questions, and foster a sense of community on your channel. Engaging with your audience shows YouTube that the channel is active and responsive, which can have a positive influence on video rankings.

10 Cross-Promote Your Content

Increase your channel’s exposure through cross-promotion, a strategy that involves partnering with other YouTubers in your niche. Make guest appearances on each other’s channels, produce joint video projects, or even just give a quick shout-out to creators whose content your audience might enjoy.

11. Try YouTube Shorts

Sharing YouTube Shorts (YouTube’s short-form video format) is a great way to release quick, engaging content that taps into current trends. Shorts have a dedicated discovery section, giving you one more way to reach viewers.

12. Run YouTube Ads

Posting videos to your channel isn’t the only way to grow your business with YouTube. You can also use YouTube Advertising to create commercials (aka YouTube ads) that run before, during, or after other channels’ videos.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the different formats:

• Skippable in-stream ads: Video ads that play before or during other videos; viewers can choose to skip after five seconds
• Non-skippable in-stream ads: Video ads up to 15 seconds long; viewers can’t skip
• Discovery ads: Ads that appear in search results and as suggested videos
• Bumper ads: Non-skippable ads up to six seconds long
  

13. Measure your success

Use your channel analytics to discover how individual videos are performing, who’s watching, and where viewers find out about your content. Then, analyze the trends you see and refine your strategy to help your channel perform even better.

YouTube Marketing Tools To Try

A successful video marketing campaign takes a mix of creativity, commitment, and strategy. To make your job a little easier, these tools can streamline your workflow, enhance your video production value, and provide you with information to help you make the biggest impact possible:

• Canva: A free, user-friendly design tool for creating eye-catching video thumbnails and graphics
• Ahrefs: A software suite that helps you discover the right keywords and track SEO performance
• Captions: An AI-powered creative studio that simplifies editing and captioning videos

Jumpstart Your YouTube Success With Captions

Captions makes it easy to create studio-quality videos with just a few clicks. Use the online video editor to trim and polish your recordings, then add finishing touches like animated captions and royalty-free music — all within the app.

Want to run ads on YouTube but don’t have the time or budget to produce them? With Captions’ AI Ad Generator, you can make user-generated content ads in seconds.