Why is YouTube a good marketing tool?
by Natalia Lopez
Founded in 2005 by former PayPal employees and bought by Google in 2016 for a cool $1.65 billion, YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world. With 22.8 billion visits a month, it’s also the world's second-most visited website.
This gargantuan global reach makes the video-hosting platform a marketer's dream. Promoting a brand, building awareness, showcasing products and services, and gaining exposure are just some of the ways thousands of companies leverage YouTube to boost their social media traffic, increase their customer base and drive those all-important sales.
Here at Curious Crab HQ, our crew took advantage of YouTube’s various marketing strategies to build our sister company, School of Wok’s brand, to over 450,000 subscribers and over 30 million views.
In this article, we reveal five big benefits that make YouTube a great marketing tool, and we discuss why businesses of any size can use it as a cost-effective way to drive growth.
1. Global Reach
It’s no exaggeration to say that YouTube is one of the most recognisable brands in the world. It’s used in over 100 countries worldwide, has over 2.2 billion monthly active users, and features content in over 80 languages.
An average of 2,500 new videos are uploaded to the site every minute, adding approximately 183 hours worth of video content for audiences to enjoy.
Uploading video content to YouTube allows brands unrivalled access to potential customers and business associates that may never cross your path any other way.
The automatically generated translated subtitles and closed-captions options make your content accessible to foreign audiences and those with different needs. This premium service is available to everyone and, best of all; it’s free.
2. Build brand awareness and drive sales
In a digital world transformed by over two decades of social media, content is key for building and generating brand awareness.
From well-established names who are eager to stay relevant in a competitive space to exciting and challenger start-up companies, YouTube is the perfect platform for building brand awareness and driving sales.
Videos are a powerful tool for influencing consumer decisions. In one survey, a whopping 96% of people revealed that videos helped them decide whether to pull the trigger on an online purchase.
Stats like this explain why, in a separate Wyzol survey of industry professionals, an equally impressive 95% of marketers think video has increased their brand awareness, and 87% say it’s increased their sales.
Adding watermarks and your company logo to videos is another easy way to build brand awareness and leverage the promotional benefits that consumers who share your videos can help with.
3. Increase website traffic and improve your search visibility
The savviest YouTube channels always include website links in their video descriptions and in their channel profile info. Associating your website with your YouTube channel ensures you come up when people search for things related to the products and services you offer.
This is because YouTube traffic improves your search visibility on the site and on Google, which owns YouTube and promotes video content as much as text-only pages.
Taking advantage of using backlinks means you can continuously and effortlessly build your SEO and improve your website ranking and search visibility. You can take it further by optimising keywords in your video titles and description to ensure people looking for specific information can stumble upon your uploaded content and find your channel.
You can also use YouTube to build your e-mail list by integrating software that allows you to include sign-up forms directly in your videos. This means you can build an e-mail list, increase website traffic and optimise your SEO while delivering engaging video content for your audience to enjoy!
4. Monetise your channel with ad revenue
It used to be that people posted on YouTube to generate revenue via lead generation. However, thanks to its meteoric rise in popularity, brands can now make extra revenue by monetising their content and making money based on their videos' views and engagement.
Google’s AdSense for video and AdWords lets you make money from your videos by allowing adverts. You’ll need to be accepted into YouTube’s Partner Program by meeting their eligibility criteria to qualify.
Currently, this includes things like getting 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 public watch hours in 12 months or 1,000 subscribers and 10 million valid public shorts views in the last 90 days.
This method has allowed thousands of channels to generate six-figure ad revenue and has been “YouTuber,” a lucrative and coveted career for independent content creators and larger media producers.
5. Build trust and credibility
YouTube’s subscriber function is one way audiences can pledge loyalty to brands whose content they enjoy following. Channel subscribers are automatically alerted to new uploads on their YouTube homepage and are also recommended similar content based on the videos they watch most.
Video is also the most shared type of content among consumers making it the number one form of content marketing.
If you can create the type of content users love to share, Google will recognise it as valuable and engaging and automatically promote it among your target audience.
Building trust using videos is often much easier than using static text, images or audio-only content. A video's ability to provoke an emotional response in audiences is thanks to its ability to include a combination of moving and status images, texts and audio. Marketers take advantage of this when they experiment with different types of videos.
From behind-the-scenes footage, influence collaborations, testimonials, interviews, product demos and more, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then video is priceless.
Wrapping Up
So there you have it, five reasons why YouTube is an excellent marketing tool and why you need to leverage these benefits to make the most out of your content marketing strategies!
If you’re convinced that you need video to take your brand to the next level and you’re looking for a professional partner on your journey to success, reach out to us today.
We’d love to hear from you.
