YouTube went through a lot of revolutionary phases and improvements since its inception after its first video in 2005. Today, it has undoubtedly become the world’s number one video streaming platform. Because of its minimalist UI and a gigantic viewer base, more content producers use this platform to share their videos including vlogs, tutorials, travelogues, DIY videos, podcasts, lectures, etc with an international audience.
These content producers include news channels, political wings, celebrities, influencers, individuals, SMBs, as well as enterprise-grade organizations. YouTube is a renowned marketing channel for businesses of all types and scales. According to recent research, over 60% of businesses leverage YouTube to publish their video content that fuels their brand awareness campaigns.
What is YouTube Lead Generation?
YouTube lead generation starts by placing your lead generation landing pages as a link to your video content or more specifically YouTube lead generation Ads. When your viewers click on a link or ad it reveals their interest in your business and its offer. Then, you push a lead form and ask your prospects for their information exchange of something valuable like a download link to a gated content like a complete video, a link to a relevant playlist, or a range of different offers.
Some notable benefits of using YouTube for lead generation include:
Brand Awareness
YouTube videos offer you the opportunity to rank on Google among the top video results. When internet users type a search query on Google, they are able to see your YouTube video in the SERPs. It makes it easier for your ideal customers to discover your brand by finding your YouTube content.
Showcase your products & services to new customers
People also prefer video content to find and compare different products. YouTube offers a recommendation engine that enables individuals to easily find your product, service, or brand by searching for a particular product. According to a recent survey by Google, over 90% of users claim they discovered new brands, products, or services on YouTube.
Video content is more engaging and supports the community
Videos are one of the most impactful marketing utilities that makes it essential to use. Lead generation with YouTube allows you to engage hot leads that have a very high potential to become long-term customers. Around 85% of lead generation experts claim that video is the most effective lead generation tool for any business.
Increase Web Traffic
By adding links to your website in your YouTube lead generation Ads or videos you can drive traffic to your website. Greater traffic offers more lead generation opportunities for your business.
YouTube Lead Generation Strategies That Should Work Effectively
You cannot just upload videos on YouTube and wait for the miracle. As over 500 hours length of videos is uploaded on YouTube every single minute, making it extremely difficult to divert traffic to your video or channel. It requires a strategic approach to YouTube lead generation to boost your reach and engagement, compete with the overwhelming competition, and scale your brand channel.
The following strategies can drive you better results and make your YouTube lead generation efforts more impactful. Let’s discuss each of these strategies in detail.
1. Know your audience
To make a data-backed and rational decision you need to know your audience and market segment. Create a buyer persona to know more about your target audiences, their demographics, and interests. It is helpful in creating more relevant and engaging video content for the audience in your niche and boosts your chances of attracting hot leads.
The moment you upload your first video, you start shaping your niche and start attracting the viewers that relate to your video, topic, or niche. Therefore, it is vital to know your favorable audience and plan your content accordingly.
2. Create valuable content
The right and engaging video content have the potential to convert most of your video views into sales numbers or paying customers. Your video content must be entertaining, visually appealing, educational, add value to viewers’ time and showcase your product or service as a solution to their problem.
According to the research, around 95% of lead generation specialists claim that video content has helped them address prospects’ concerns regarding their service or product. The most favorite types of video content used by lead gen experts include:
- Descriptive videos like how-to-tips and tutorials (75%)
- Presentation videos like educational and informative content (50%)
- Testimonial videos including proven cases studies, customers’ POV, etc (50%)
- Sales videos or Ads (40%)
3. YouTube SEO
Using relevant keywords in the video title, subtitle, description, and tags can increase the likelihood of your video being suggested by YouTube’s recommendation engine. It further helps Google index your videos and in turn, boost your brand awareness.
Invest time in keyword research. Choose your video title wisely, for instance, for a particular keyword on YouTube like product placement. Then, consider the top results and create your own title.
You can also use different keyword research tools to find the right keywords or phrases as well as the trending or most heated topics in your niche. Don’t forget to YouTube as your search engine before using keyword research tools.
Google Trends also allows you to find out the popularity of any particular topic or keyword on YouTube.
4. YouTube Lead Gen Ads
YouTube lead generation ads enable marketers to prioritize specific actions like lead generation or more general activities like brand awareness. YouTube lead generation ads appear and play before or between the video the viewer clicked with the intention to watch.
It is recommended to design your YouTube lead generation ads as 15 to 30-sec videos with clear CTA and optimized for mobile YouTube applications. These ads appear like a slideshow or stream that contains a short & clear introduction with a CTA below the video ad.
5. Optimize your YouTube channel for the best
You need to optimize your YouTube channel and its content to boost engagement and conversion rates. Some key tips to optimize your YouTube content include:
- Craft content that focuses on user intent. Discover what your audience is looking for and prefer to watch.
- Decide the effective watch time for a video based on its content or type. (For instance, the same audience who tends to watch 1-3 hours podcast video will never watch a 1 hour DIY video and drifts away without converting)
- Session watch time is most crucial than your views. Session Watch Time is the length of time a user spends on YouTube watching a single video. Keep in mind, that YouTube supports videos that keep people engaged on the platform so they make more money from advertisements.
- Use proper timestamps to help your users navigate through lengthy video content like podcasts, interviews, or presentations.
- Use creative thumbnails to persuade users to click your videos. Refrain from making a clickbait as thousands of clicks without proper engagement will never produce the desired results and damage your brand image.
- A consistent publication schedule is mandatory to keep your channel alive. YouTube eventually started supporting the channels that publish content on a consistent basis.
6. Engage with your viewers
Do not desert your audience after uploading a video even if it’s performing well in terms of views and engagements. Add extra ingredients of engagement like:
- Writing brief descriptions of video or subject
- Encourage comments and subscribers
- Add action items and web pages links in descriptions,
- Add clear CTA like sign-ups, avail free consultations, limited time offers, etc
- Reply to comments to resolve the queries and confusion of viewers and push them towards CTA for a descriptive and personalized answers
- Use YouTube Cards (Add related videos or blogs links)
- Use Playlist to help the audience navigate easily and find their favorite topics or subjects. It helps in increased viewership and engagement.
7. Partner with Influencers
According to the survey, around 90% of lead gen experts claim their ROI from influencer marketing is significantly better compared to other marketing tactics. Therefore, collaborating or partnering with influencers in your niche is an effective way to ensure an effective YouTube lead generation strategy. It allows you to persuade your audience to choose your brand by making a well-known personality or channel recommending your products or services.
Influencer marketing enables businesses to showcase their products, services, or brand in an influencer’s content. It requires a significant budget depending on the number of subscribers retained by the influencer you are going to partner with. It offers immense opportunities for generating hot leads and boosting your conversion rates and sales significantly.
8. Monitor the analytics of your YouTube channel to see which videos are performing the best
Go to Relative Audience Retention to check the performance of your particular video compared to similar videos on YouTube. This feature allows you to set a benchmark for the performance of your YouTube video competing with similar content or subject in your niche.
You can also check the average view duration KPI that showcases the meantime of viewers watching your video before drifting away. Observe and note these KPIs to further improve and optimize your YouTube content and ensure necessary improvements gradually.
Conclusion
These tips and strategies are proven to produce promising results for YouTube lead generation. You can not expect the content alone to produce results for your business amid overwhelming competition. You need to plan and think strategically before jumping on a bandwagon to produce content just for the sake of uploading daily videos.
