What’s the big deal with YouTube and video marketing these days? Is it all hype, or is there value in actually pursuing this for your business?
That is what I’m going to be revealing in this article, are 7 simple but practical tips that you can start using today to get more exposure online, which means more leads and more sales for your business.
How To Grab Attention With Video
The first step to any successful marketing campaign is capturing your audience’s attention. This is becoming more and more challenging day by day because of the amount of information and number of distractions online. Let’s see how you can do this using video:
1. Stand Out With an Eye-Popping Thumbnail on YouTube
One of the first things anyone sees before they decide to click and watch your video is the thumbnail — the image placeholder, which acts like a mini billboard advert for your video.
You’ve got to use bold, bright colours, fonts, and ideally faces with emotions. Basically, anything that’s weird, out of the normal, and makes someone stop to see “what the hell is that?”.
I’ve actually created a detailed course specifically about how to design killer YouTube video thumbnails because there’s quite a bit of detail and psychology to it: YouTube Video Thumbnail Mastery.
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2. Pull Attention & Spark Emotions With a Benefit-Focused Video Title
It may be an obvious one, but you’d be surprised that most video creators slap on a weak title and are disappointed with their results. That’s because a video title acts akin to a newspaper headline and should ideally answer “what’s in it for them?”.
Why should your potential viewer spend their valuable time (that they can never ever get back!) to watch your video? What are you promising them that they’ll get out of it? Focus on the benefits — what the information will do for them.
Writing kick-ass titles is an art — the art of copywriting (sales copy) and I’ve gone into more detail in my mini-course on just that: YouTube Video Title Tsunami.
A Concrete Example:
Instead of the title “All about email marketing” which is vague, be more specific…
How about “5 Quick 5 Minute Email Marketing Tips To Boost Your Sales”?
Which one would you rather click on? Yep, me too — the second one!
Now that you have their attention and they want to check your video out, the next step of attention is…
3. Hook Your Viewers In With a Powerful 10 Second Intro
The first 5–10 seconds of your video is so important that if you don’t do it right, your viewer will get bored and leave. Seriously!
You basically need to reiterate right away what the viewer will be learning in the video (the hook) and also sell them on why it’s so important to them (the benefits) and if they don’t watch the video, what they could miss out on if they don’t have this information (the pain points).
Here’s an example to show you how this could look like:
“Hey there, it’s Gabriel, and in this video I’m going to sharing with you five quick email marketing tips that you can apply in 5 minutes in less to boost your sales, starting today. If you learn these tips, you’ll be able to convert more of your email subscribers into loyal customers and increase clickthrough rate, while decreasing unsubscribers. However, if you skip these important steps, you could be wasting your valuable time and money, while losing potential customers that could make you thousands of dollars long-term.”
See what I did there? I told them what they would gain if they watched the video and what they could lose if they don’t watch the video. I’ve sold them on why it’s important for them to invest their time into watching all the way through.
4. Drop Open Loop Teasers To Keep Their Attention Ripe To the Very End
OK great! So you sold them on watching your video. But your work isn’t over yet. You need to hold their attention all the way to the end of the video. Why? For a few reasons…
A) One of YouTube’s measurements of how valuable your video content is, is the retention rate, which is what % of the video has the viewer watched. The higher the percentage, the more proof there is to YouTube that the content is engaging and valuable to the viewer. Ideally, your video should be getting an average retention rate of at least 70% or more.
B) If you’re dropping a call to action at the end (or near the end) of your video, you want to get as many viewers taking action as possible. That means they’ll need to reach that point in the video to see the CTA.
Here’s a powerful but simple way how to create an “open loop”, which is a psychological phenomenon that was first discovered by psychologist and psychiatrist, Bluma Zeigarnik. Also known as the Zeigarnik Effect, it explains the tendency of our brain to remember and focus on incomplete tasks more than it does on completed tasks. So how does this look like in practice?
It’s like a mini-cliffhanger where you hint at something to come later in the video. For example:
“Email subject lines as I just revealed are critical to increasing your open rates, but in the final tip I’ll share a powerful principle that you can use to make your subject line literally pop out of their inbox. But first, onto the next tip which is…”
Notice how just after tip 2, I’m seeding the benefit of a powerful tactic I’ll be revealing in the final tip, so they’ll need to keep watching to learn it.
Once they get to tip 5 and I reveal that principle, that “open loop” will be closed.
You can drop in a few throughout your video, just don’t overdo it, as it’s best used sparingly and tactfully.
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How To Get More Video Visibility on YouTube (or Google)
So you have your video published and created a killer thumbnail and title, along with an intro that can sell water to a seahorse and keep a dog salivating for your entire video, now the challenge is how to increase your video exposure to more relevant potential viewers?
5. Get Your Video Ranked #1 Using Video SEO & Profitable Keywords
YouTube is owned by Google’s parent company, and it’s the world’s largest video search engine, with 2 billion monthly active users.
By optimizing your video for keyword phrases that people around the world are searching for, you have the potential to be ranked in the first few positions in the search results which means exposure to potentially thousands of more viewers every month.
How do you find keyword phrases that have enough monthly demand and which are (relatively) easy to rank for?
That is the million-dollar question… but I’m not going to leave you hanging. It’s actually quite easy. You’ll need to use a keyword research tool that shows you based on Google’s own data how many average searches per month that keyword has had as well as scans through hundreds of video ranking factors based on knowing what is valuable in YouTube’s eyes. This tool then gives you a score which determines how easy it will be to get on the first page of the search results for that keyword based on the competition.
So what is this tool? The only YouTube-Only keyword research tool I’ve ever found and that is worth its salt is YTCockpit, made by SwissMadeMarketing. I’ve personally ranked countless videos on the first page of YouTube using this tool, which made me thousands of dollars in passive income, and they are STILL there even after 5+ years! Crazy, I know…
To get a better more in-depth understanding of how to find the best keywords, not just using this tool, but using YouTube itself, I cover in more detail in: YouTube Keyword Research Goldmine mini-course.
6. Retarget Your Past Viewers With Other Videos By Leveraging YouTube Remarketing
Once anyone on YouTube has watched one of your videos or even subscribed, you have the ability to capture their attention again by retargeting them with a video ad using Google Ads. This means that you have another chance to capture their attention, which could mean another chance to make another sale.
You’ll need to have a Google Ads account set up and then linked to your YouTube channel. It’s quite simple to do with this quick tutorial.
Once it’s linked, you can create remarketing audiences which can be defined by a specific timeframe and an interaction the person had with your video or channel. Then, you can create a video ad that retargets that viewer or subscriber with another video or a video ad with a more direct call to action.
Ultimately, it’s your chance to re-engage that person back into your sphere of influence and leads them to the next steps in your marketing funnel, or simply keep warming them up with your other video content, until they are ready to take further action.
How To Get The Most Clicks To Your Lead Capture or Sales Page From Your Video
Once you have someone watching your video, you’re not going to make money past YouTube partner program unless you have a call to action to lead them to the next step of your marketing funnel (i.e. a product or service).
7. Get More Clicks By Making Your Call To Action More Accessible
One of the most important things to make sure of, before you publish your video is to have a call to action (CTA) in the first 2 lines of your video description. After 3 lines, the video description is hidden by default and most viewers don’t bother to even ‘view more’ unless really compelled to dig through further resources or information.
That’s why to get the most visibility and clicks, your call to action and link to your lead capture page or sales page should be the first sentence of your video description. For example:
“To get 100% free access to my YouTube Sales Secrets Cheat Sheet for more sales, download it here before it goes for sale: [link here]”
Notice in the call to action above, I make it clear it’s free, the benefit is that they’ll learn how to make more sales, and I insert a bit of urgency by telling them it’s not going to be free for much longer, so they need to act now to get it.
Another way to make your call to action more accessible to viewers is to not only have it at the end (where the fewest viewers actually reach), but also have it in the beginning and in the middle, to reach the maximum number of viewers.
Make sure in the call to action you are specific as to why the viewer needs to take action, and why they need to take action now. Be as specific and benefit-focused as possible!
Master YouTube Marketing & Learn How To Turn Your Channel Into Cash
The previous 7 tips will give you a solid start to getting more sales with video marketing, but in order to get the most results, you need to learn the more subtle distinctions that give you the edge. There’s a lot of detail to go into that even a 20,000 word article won’t be able to scratch the surface of, so the only way to easily assimilate and learn it is visually through a video course.
That’s why I’ve created the How To Make $100K Per Year Thanks To YouTube video course with over 9 hours of content spanning 79 videos.
Or if that’s too much of an investment for you now, you can find a ton of value in the book version on Amazon.
Finally, if you have any specific questions about video marketing or how to market on YouTube, please leave your comments below and more than happy to answer them for you either directly, or via a future blog article.