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YouTube Marketing: The Ultimate Guide

Follow this 10-step guide to create a winning YouTube marketing strategy and take your YouTube presence to the next level.

Here's what we'll cover...
If you're looking to grow your YouTube channel, you're in the right place.

Everyone watches YouTube. Over 75% of Americans ages 15 and up are on YouTube, part of over 2 billion monthly active users, making it the most popular website in the world after Google.

The potential of a huge audience is a great reason to market your business on YouTube. But shouting from the rooftops about your products without a plan won’t get you anywhere.

You need a strategy to succeed and that’s exactly what you’ll find here.

This guide is going to show 10 essential steps you need to follow to succeed at YouTube marketing and build a successful YouTube channel.

What is YouTube Marketing?

Before we dive in, let’s first talk about what YouTube marketing actually is.

YouTube marketing is the practice of promoting companies, products, and services on YouTube, by developing a marketing strategy that generates more views and brand awareness with valuable content on a YouTube channel or using YouTube ads.

So why is YouTube so important to your marketing and business growth?

It’s simple. Video is the most powerful way to attract an audience, build an engaged community, deliver your message, and quickly grow your business.

Consider these stats:

These stats show the power and impact video (especially on YouTube) can have on digital marketing strategy and business as a whole.

When someone sees your brand and video content on YouTube, it’s significantly more memorable than reading a blog post or seeing a text-based or even image post or ad.

Since YouTube is one of the most powerful marketing channels you can use to grow your business, and with so many people using the platform every day, how can you stand out and follow a YouTube marketing plan that works?

This guide will help you learn everything you need to know about how to market your business on YouTube.

YouTube marketing can be an intimidating tool for brands. It combines a strategic principle of SEO with one of the most resource-intensive forms of media like video. 

That’s why we’ve created this complete guide for YouTube pros and newcomers alike. Below we’ll walk through each step of marketing on YouTube, from how to create a YouTube channel and optimize videos for SEO to how to run a YouTube advertising campaign and interpret video analytics.

So let's get started...

step one

Create A YouTube Channel

First, you need to set up a YouTube channel. Since YouTube is part of Google, you’ll need to create a free Google account first to sign up for a YouTube channel. You can use an existing account or create one designated for managing your business.

To get started, follow these steps…

Create a Google Account.

Step 1: Visit Google and click "Sign in" in the upper right-hand corner.

google account setup
Sign into your Google account.

Step 2: Click on "Create account" at the bottom of the page.

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Create your account.

Step 3: You’ll see an option pop up to create an account for yourself or to manage your business. Since your YouTube account will be for your business, choose To manage my business.

google account setup
Select "To manage my business"

Step 4: To officially create your Google account, enter your name and desired email and password before clicking Next. Then, enter a recovery email and your birthday, gender, and phone number.

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Enter your account information.

Step 5: Lastly, agree to Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service and verify your account with a code sent via text or phone call. Congrats! You’re now the proud owner of a Google account.

Create a YouTube Account.

Now that you have a dedicated Google account, use that to create your YouTube account.

Step 1: Visit YouTube. In the upper right-hand corner, note that you’re probably already logged into your new Google account. (If you’re not, click Sign in and enter your new Google account username and password.)

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Visit YouTube.com

Step 2: Once you’ve signed in, click your account module and click Your channel in the drop-down menu.

youtube account setup

Step 3: You’ll see two options for creating your channel. Choose Use a custom name.

Step 4: Now, you should be prompted to create your channel name.

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Create your YouTube channel name.

Customize Your YouTube Brand Account And Channel.

Step 1: Click on Customize Channel to get started.

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Customize your YouTube channel.

Step 2: Add a channel profile picture and channel art. These will be the first parts of your YouTube account that users see when visiting, so be sure to use images that are easily recognizable and consistent with your overall branding.

Step 3: To add a profile picture, click on the default profile picture in the upper left-hand corner of your channel to upload an image. 

Step 4: Next, upload your banner image and video watermark. After you have customized the visual elements for your channel, click Basic info to add a channel description, a company email, and links to your company website and other social platforms.

Your YouTube channel is your business' face on the internet. It's a great way to attract new customers and connect with your existing fans.

By following these steps, you can create a high-quality channel that looks professional, so people know they're dealing with someone they can trust, plus build an easy way to attract subscribers.

  • Channel Name: Your channel name is connected with every video you publish. Make sure it’s consistent with your other social media channels and company.
  • Channel Icon: Google recommends uploading an 800 x 800 px square or round image. This image will be used across all of your Google properties including Gmail. Consider using a company logo or, if you are a public figure, a professional headshot.
  • Channel Art: Upload a 2560 x 1440 px image that will scale well across a desktop, tablet, mobile, and TV. 
  • Channel Description: Your description should provide more information on your company and explain what type of video content you plan on sharing. Search engines look at your description when determining how to rank your profile, so incorporate relevant keywords in your overview.
  • Channel Trailer: Your trailer is your chance to really get your audience interested in what you have to offer. It should be short and sweet (around 30 to 60 seconds), and it should focus on showing visitors what your channel is about and what they can expect to see in your videos. Your trailer won't be interrupted by ads, which will keep the user focused on why they should watch more videos from your brand. In the end, don't forget to encourage them to subscribe!
  • Channel URL: Your channel may be eligible for a custom URL if you have over 100 subscribers, a channel icon, channel art, and is more than 30 days old.
  • Channel links: Link to all other social media accounts and relevant websites from the “About” section of your channel. Make it easy for subscribers to connect with you elsewhere.
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Customize all fields for your YouTube channel.

Setting Permissions For Your YouTube Account And Access

Before you start implementing your YouTube marketing plan, you should decide who on your team will need access to the account. Granting access to team members will allow them to help manage the channel through their own Google accounts.

When you grant access to a Google account, there are three types of roles to consider:

  • Owner: Owners have full editing power over all company Google properties. They can add or remove managers, edit business information, respond to reviews, and more.
  • Manager: Managers have the same editing powers as Owners, except they cannot add or remove page roles or remove listings. Anyone editing a YouTube channel must be a Manager or an Owner.
  • Communications Manager: Communications Managers can respond to reviews and do several other actions but they cannot use YouTube’s video manager, upload content, or view analytics.

Step 1: To add individuals to your account, tap your Google account icon in the upper right-hand corner to open the drop-down menu and go to Settings.

Step 2: Click Add or remove manager(s).

Step 3: Click Manage Permissions.

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Manage channel permissions.

Step 4: Select the people icon in the upper right-hand corner to invite new users. To grant permission to a person, enter their Gmail address and indicate their role.

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Add users to your YouTube channel.

Now we’re ready to begin or upgrade your YouTube video marketing strategy.

step TWO

Plan Your Video Strategy

When it comes to YouTube, having a plan is SUPER important. That way you can know where you’re being successful in growing a popular YouTube channel and more importantly a thriving business.

You can consider this entire YouTube Marketing Guide as your video strategy resource and even download and implement our Video Strategy PDF Guide available to you.

So let’s explore more about key video strategy secrets to remember in your YouTube video creation and marketing process.

Remember these video strategy essentials:

  • Always have one goal in mind for each video. What will make this one video successful?
  • Video keyword research is very important to improve YouTube performance. Without keyword planning, you have no plan for your videos to work to get you views, attention, and sales.
  • Create a YouTube publishing calendar and stick with it! YouTube viewers are loyal to the channels they love and subscribe to. Plus, they expect the channels they enjoy to produce content regularly. So being inconsistent is one of the biggest mistakes new YouTubers make when starting their channel. Publishing one video per month can help you stay more consistent than publishing a video every week, but taking a two-week break unexpectedly can hurt your channel reach.
  • Know your video strategy investments. Are you DIY-ing everything or are you outsourcing to an agency like Video Supply to handle everything for you. Know your involvement so you can be the most productive with your time.
  • Organize a YouTube team to support you as part of your investment. Believe us, this saves lots of time and money in the long run, especially with YouTube being so essential to your business growth and attention potential online. Your team can include a YouTube Strategist, Videographer, Video Editor, SEO and Content Writer, Graphic Designer, and more.

These are only some of the top tips when preparing your video marketing strategy. Learn more about how to develop and implement your own video marketing strategy here.

step Three

Research Your Audience And Competition

To help lock in your video marketing strategy, it’s essential to know as much as possible about your audience and competition.

Your Audience

Let’s start with your audience.

You need to know what your audience really wants and needs.

To figure this out, you need to answer two questions:

  1. Who are you making videos for?
  2. What are they already watching on YouTube? 

To start, it’s helpful to know some basic YouTube demographics. YouTube has over 2 billion users and 72% of American internet users regularly browse YouTube. 77% of people aged 15-35 use YouTube and unlike other social platforms, there isn’t a large drop-off in that rate for older users.

You can use a tool like TubeBuddy to find out what your customers are searching for on YouTube and what videos they’re watching on the platform. This will help you figure out which topics are most interesting to your target audience but also help you understand which topics might be more difficult to rank well in since they’re already saturated with competition.

YouTube isn’t only popular in the USA. There are over 100 localized versions of YouTube for countries around the world.

Spend some time researching who your target audience is already following on YouTube. What types of videos do they watch? (If you don’t have your target audience figured out yet, we have a free buyer persona template to help out.)

You can also use the research from this post to identify what kind of content might be interesting for your audience. You can search for keywords related to your niche and see what kinds of videos are already ranking well for those terms. For example, if you sell fitness products, then search “fitness” or “workout” on YouTube and see what kinds of videos people are watching most often.

Then create your own video that focuses on answering questions that are important to your target audience. You can also consider using these videos as part of an email sequence to build trust with potential customers before they buy anything from you.

YouTube is a great place to learn about your audience. To get started, go to your YouTube Analytics page (which should be linked in the sidebar of your creator studio).

This will give you valuable insights into your audience’s demographics and interests. You can see how many people are finding your videos through search, seeing it in their suggested feed or from other sources. This is really helpful when determining which types of videos perform best for you and what kind of content they like to see.

If you want to make content that people will actually want to watch, you have to know what they want.

And the best way to find that out is by seeing what people are saying about you, your industry, and the products and services you offer.

When you see what people are talking about online, you can use those conversations as content ideas for your videos.

Your Competition

The fastest way to grow on YouTube is to figure out what’s working for your competition and then do that… but better.

If you want to develop a more thorough understanding of your competition, take a look at the most popular videos on YouTube related to your niche. You can do this by searching “[niche] + [content type] + [search term]” - for example, “marketing + video” or “marketing + tutorial”.

Research more about your competitors using the following metrics:

  • Popular topics your competitors post about
  • What people are saying in the comments
  • Subscriber count
  • Frequency of posting
  • Overall video quality
  • Average views per video

Start by looking up channels from the competitors you already know. See what they’re doing, and how often they post.

And then ask yourself:

  • What are their most popular videos?
  • How are they presenting themselves?
  • What are their titles?
  • How long are their videos?
  • Do they upload regularly?
  • What is their brand voice?
  • How can I differentiate my company from them?
  • What ideas can I get for new content from this channel?

All of these insights and new knowledge will guide how you can level up your content and outperform your competitors.

Get Inspired By Your Favorite Channels

Learning from your competitors is one thing, but learning from your favorite YouTube channels is another.

You should definitely be studying the channels you love and admire to see what they're doing, especially if it's not related to your industry.

Why? Well, because things are always changing on YouTube, and it's important to stay up-to-date with the latest trends in video content creation and marketing.

For instance, did you know that good audio quality is more important than video quality? It's true: Bad audio can turn people off from watching your video or subscribing!

There’s a lot that goes into the making of popular YouTube videos, especially the ones people want to watch. When you explore other channels and creators, pay attention to:

  • Video thumbnails
  • Channel art
  • How other creators are linking to posts or products
  • How other creators edit their videos, including text popups and other special effects

These insights will help guide each strategic YouTube decision you make.

step four

Video Equipment and Software

When it comes to YouTube marketing, there’s no tool or piece of equipment that can do it all. But if you want to get an accurate picture of your channel’s health and performance, you need to use a few different tools in conjunction with one another.

One of the best sources of data for your channel is YouTube Studio. It gives you access to a lot of information about your account and its performance: from analytics on views and subscribers to insights about engagement and advertising. The only downside is that this data is limited by YouTube itself—the platform doesn't always have complete information on your statistics because it's not tracking every single view or subscriber on the platform.

Here are the most comprehensive and powerful YouTube marketing software tools we recommend for the best results on YouTube.

Video Amigo

Video Amigo is one of the most powerful, all-in-one YouTube tools that unlocks the YouTube platform's insights while providing the information needed to grow audiences and earn money on YouTube.

video amigo software
VideoAmigo.com

VidIQ

VidIQ is a keyword research tool that helps you identify trends and topics to discuss on your YouTube channel. Every channel gets a scorecard which is essentially a real-time infographic of your channel’s analytics that’s usually stored deep within YouTube Studio. With VidIQ you won’t have to spend hours creating custom reports and searching for data. Instead, you can spend that time searching for new keywords in the Keyword Inspector Tool.

You can find out what other people are searching for and what they’re watching so you know what content to create next. You can also use this information to better target your audience and increase the likelihood of them subscribing to your channel.

This tool is free to use but if you want more features like advanced analytics then you will need to upgrade for $19 per month or $69 per year.

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VideoIQ.com

Tube Buddy

Tube Buddy is a YouTube marketing tool to help creators optimize their YouTube channel faster with expert insights and analytics for more views and subscribers.

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Tubebuddy.com

Vidooly

Vidooly helps online video publishers, advertisers, media companies and agencies to succeed in digital video across all platforms through its best in-class insights.

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Vidooly.com

Video Equipment and Gear

When it comes to selecting the right video production equipment for your YouTube video production, consider the following budget-friendly recommendations.

Video equipment can always be understood within three categories: camera, audio, and lighting. We’ll reference each of these categories as we talk about 3 levels of equipment investment and cost options.

Explore all of our video gear recommendations here.

No Budget Equipment

If you have no money right now to invest in more professional gear then create content using our simple motto, “The best camera you have is the one you have with you… your phone.” You can easily get started creating professional-looking videos with your phone, no matter the brand or model.

For your no-budget video lighting, face a window or light source like a lamp in order to get as much light on your face as possible.

And for no-budget audio recording equipment, use your phone or computer’s built-in microphone while standing or sitting within 5 feet of the device to record the best quality audio.

However, don’t go cheap with audio or microphone equipment here. With video, people ultimately care most about quality sound versus a quality visual.

$1,000 or Less Equipment

If you have $1,000 or less to invest in video production equipment we recommend the following upgrades.

Camera — Use a smartphone lens accessory from Moment or a HD webcam attachment for your computer from Logitech.

Audio — Invest the highest quality microphone by purchasing a USB microphone to plug into your computer.

Lighting — Continue to use window light by facing the daylight from your window or purchase affordable video softbox lighting from Amazon here.

$1,000 or More Equipment

When you have over $1,000 to invest in video gear, this is when you can really have fun with buying and setting up the most professional video equipment for your office or home video studio that’s always ready for your next YouTube video production.

Camera — Professional cameras for YouTube often are DSLR related cameras that are easy to set up, move and even connect directly to your computer like a webcam.

Audio — Shotgun or lavalier microphones are the best options when you have some budget to invest in your YouTube recording studio.

Lighting — Level up your video lighting with higher-quality softbox lighting from Aperture or Westcott. 

All of our recommendations for these categories and price points are available here.

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step five

Create Videos For YouTube

Now that your YouTube channel is set up, it's time to start populating it with content. This is where the fun begins as we guide you on an easy, step-by-step video creation process.

Here’s a quick overview:

  1. Identify your video type
  2. Identify your video goal
  3. Write or outline your YouTube script
  4. Video production tips
  5. Video editing tips, tools, and resources

Video Type

In this section, we'll talk about some different types of videos you can create and how to film and edit them.

First, let's explore what type of videos should you make?

Video is a powerful medium because it engages with your audience in a visceral way—it's more than just words on a page or an image in a slideshow. It's real people talking directly to your customers in their own language, which makes it much easier for them to connect with your brand.

Before you hit record and start filming, identify the type of YouTube video you want to create with the goal that will measure its success.

Here are the top types of YouTube videos:

  1. Thought Leadership: Show-off your expertise and knowledge and training or interview style, thought leadership videos. These videos help amplify your credibility and trustworthiness.
  2. Livestream: YouTube Live is a feature that allows users to broadcast live content to viewers. Live video allows you to easily share unfiltered moments, letting your audience participate with real-time comments and reactions. When you're live on YouTube, you can also interact with your audience by answering questions and responding to comments.
  3. Video Blogs (Vlogs): Video blogs are a great way to share your story with your audience. They can be daily or weekly videos documenting daily life or events, or they could be a video summarizing or highlighting a blog post so your audience has multiple ways to digest the content.
  4. Event Videos: Event videos are a great way to show the excitement of a crowd. These videos often feature in-person experiences at a conference or expo and can be a great way to show the excitement of a crowd.
  5. Case Study Videos: Case study or testimonial videos often showcase the success a customer had with a product, service or brand.
  6. Podcast Series or Show: Build an online TV show around your knowledge, passion, and expertise with daily, weekly, or monthly episodes in an ongoing series of related messages an audience can easily connect with.

More Video Types:

Identify A Video Goal

Before you start creating your YouTube video, it's important to establish what you want to accomplish with it. Do you want to increase awareness for your brand, drive inbound website traffic, add subscribers to your channel, increase social shares, or do something else entirely?

Establishing a singular goal at the start of the production process is key and will allow you to focus the video’s script and strategy on accomplishing it. It’s perfectly OK to have multiple goals for your YouTube channel, like increasing brand awareness and adding subscribers, but the best practice is to focus on one goal per video.

Write A YouTube Script

Once a goal for a video is established then it’s time to reverse-engineer the goal into a written video script or outline — these are the words that will be spoken in the YouTube video.

Your video script can be simply to structure the flow and pacing of the video from beginning, middle to end, with the call to action. 

Video scripts help video production go faster and bring peace of mind to you or the talent on camera so you can avoid rambling to communicate the message clearly and confidently.

Download our video scripting PDF guide for more help.

Video Production

When it comes time to filming your YouTube video, remember to keep everything simple. All you need to do is hit record and capture the message your audience most needs right now.

Use these helpful video production tips when you’re ready to start filming:

  • Get close-up shots of people (or yourself) while they talk so they can be seen clearly; don't shoot too wide-angle or too close up and make sure the subject stays in focus throughout their lines
  • Don't forget the audio! Make sure there's enough ambient noise (such as rain or waves crashing) in order for your subject's voice to cut through. This is when a professional microphone is essential.
  • Make sure there isn't any major background noise or lighting issues before pressing record
  • Use a tripod so each shot is still and not distracting from your main message
  • Film your video from different angles to create more variety and pattern interrupts to maintain attention and increase watch time.

Get more video production tips and support by exploring more resources here.

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Video Editing

When you stop filming, it’s time to edit the YouTube videos.

Here are your three main solutions when it comes to preparing your videos for YouTube:

  1. Hire a Video Editor for your team. You may have the budget to hire a part or full-time video editor to be dedicated to your brand and company projects. This often requires more training, resources, and support you need to provide this team member directly.
  2. Work with a video editing partner like Video Supply. We manage a team of video editors worldwide to professionally edit YouTube videos from companies like yours. Contact us to explore a video editing service that works best for you.
  3. Do it yourself. You may want to temporarily save on your marketing budget by DIY-ing your own video editing. If this is your route, we have online courses and resources available to help you level up your video editing skills here.

As you dive into video editing, using professional quality stock footage, music, and sound effects can make the difference between a successful video and a seemingly amateur one. Fortunately, cinema quality sounds are now readily available, even if your videos don’t have Hollywood-size budgets.

The best way to find great sound effects is by searching for royalty-free music on YouTube or Vimeo. You can also use these sites to search for other types of media like stock images, icons and graphics. When you find something that you like, download it to your computer so that you can use it later when editing videos or creating new content.

step six

Upload High-Quality Videos

Now that you’ve created value-packed videos, you can upload each video directly into YouTube Studio to publish immediately or schedule it for later.

Let’s explore the best times to upload videos on YouTube.

Entrepreneur.com reports that the best time to upload new content to YouTube depends on the day of the week that you publish.

So here are the best times for each day:

  • Monday: 2pm-4pm
  • Tuesday: 2pm-4pm
  • Wednesday: 2pm-4pm
  • Thursday: 12pm-3pm
  • Friday: 12pm-3pm
  • Saturday: 9am-11am
  • Sunday: 9am-11am

Once you’ve uploaded videos to your channel it’s time to optimize.

step seven

Optimize Your Videos and Channel

If you want to get your videos optimized and ranked highly on YouTube, you’ll need to optimize your metadata. When someone searches for a topic that relates to your video, it will show up in the search results, preferably on page 1!

This is where metadata comes in: it gives viewers information about your video, which includes its title, description, tags, category, thumbnail, subtitles and closed captions. 

The more accurate and engaging your metadata is, the better chance you have of being found by potential viewers.

Let's dive into the details!

Title

It’s important to first optimize your video titles for best performance and reach. Juke like on-page SEO efforts on any website, the more you optimize your video titles and descriptions, the better setup you’ll be to be searched and discovered on Google, as well as YouTube.

Titles are the most important part of your YouTube video. They're what people will see when they're scrolling through a list of videos, so you want to make sure yours is clear and compelling — otherwise, it won't get clicked on!

That means your title should make searchers curious about your content or obvious that it will help them solve a problem. Do some keyword research to better understand what viewers are searching for, and make sure to include the most important information and keywords at the beginning of your title. Lastly, keep titles to around 60 characters to keep text from being cut off in results pages.

Description

One of the key elements of a successful YouTube channel is your video descriptions. 

Video descriptions are what people see when they hover over the “Show More” button and want to read more about what you have to say.

You only get 2-3 lines (about 100 characters) of space to catch attention and present all essential information for your viewer. So make sure to include all important links and call to actions at the beginning and then write SEO-optimized copy that increases views and engagement.

Consider using the video transcript in the description, too. Video transcripts can greatly improve your SEO because your video is usually full of keywords.

Each video’s description should have a unique section of a few sentences describing what it’s about. But, you can create default video descriptions to save time for the parts you want in every video. The default description should include links to your social media channels, credits, time stamps, hashtags, and anything else you’d like to highlight about your channel, business or products and services.

In each video description, include the following:

  • Website link
  • Social Media links
  • Product or Service links
  • Links to your other social media accounts
  • A clear call to action and link

Tags

Tags are words that describe your video and help people find it when they search on YouTube. They're also what Google uses to rank videos, so it's important to choose tags that are relevant and well-written.

Tags associate your video with similar videos, which broadens its reach. When tagging videos, tag your most important keywords first and try to include a good mix of more common keywords and long-tail keywords.

You can add up to 100 tags per video, so use them wisely!

To add a tag to your video:

  1. Look at the right side of the "Add a tag" box. The box is under the description box on the right side of the page.
  2. Click in the text box below "Add a tag." A list of tags pops up for you to choose from.
  3. Click on one of the tags in this list and then press Enter or click outside of this box to save it as an option for this video

Category

After a video is uploaded, you can select a video category under Manage Videos. Video categories group your video with related content.

To choose a category, select Category from the dropdown list under Edit.

 YouTube provides the following categories to assign your video to: Film & Animation, Autos & Vehicles, Music, Pets & Animals, Sports, Travel & Events, Gaming, People & Blogs, Comedy, Entertainment, News & Politics, How-to & Style, Educations, Science & Technology, and Nonprofits & Activism.

Thumbnail

We know you're probably used to seeing the auto-generated thumbnails for your videos. But if you want more views and clicks, we highly recommend uploading a custom thumbnail.

YouTube reports that "90% of the best performing videos on YouTube have custom thumbnails", and we agree, your video deserves to stand out! When filming, think of high-quality shots that accurately represent your video. YouTube recommends using a 1280 x 720 px image to ensure that your thumbnail is the highest quality across all screen sizes.

SRT Files (Subtitles & Closed Captions)

Subtitles and closed captions can make your video more accessible to viewers, but they also help you optimize your video for search. They give you another opportunity to highlight important keywords in your video, and they allow YouTube to understand what's being said in the audio track.

You can add subtitles or closed captions by uploading a supported text transcript or timed subtitles file. You can also provide a full transcript of the video and have YouTube time the subtitles automatically, type the subtitles or translation as you watch the video, or hire a professional to translate or transcribe your video.

Transcripts are an important part of your videos' SEO strategy because they give Google an idea of what your video is about. They let viewers know what's going on in your video so they can decide if it's worth watching. This makes it easier for people with hearing impairments to understand what's happening in your video. It also helps people who don't speak the same language as you do—and even those who are learning English!

The more accurate and comprehensive your transcripts are, the better chance you'll have at being found online via search engines like Google (which is how most people find videos online).

Here’s how to add or update subtitles on YouTube.

Step 1: To add subtitles or closed captions, go to Your channel and select Subtitles in the menu on the left side.

Step 2: In YouTube Studio, click on the video you want to add subtitles to.

Step 3: Choose a video language and confirm your choice.

Step 4: Review the automatic transcript for errors before publishing.

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Review and fix video captions inside YouTube Studio.

And that’s it, you now have added or updated your video captions successfully on YouTube.

Cards and End Screens

Cards and end screens are a great way to engage your viewers, but they can also be a bit intimidating. Fortunately, adding cards and end screens is as easy as adding annotations.

Cards are small, rectangular notifications that appear in the top right-hand corner of both desktop and mobile screens. You can include up to five cards per video, but if you’re including multiple cards, be sure to space them out evenly to give viewers time to take the desired action.

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Add Cards to each video to connect other Videos, Playlists, Channels, or Links.

End screens are similar to cards in that they are small rectangles that appear at the end of your video. They include a call-to-action button that leads people back to your channel or another piece of content. End screens are a great way to extend your video engagement and encourage viewers to subscribe to your channel, or promote external links, such as ones that direct to your website. End screens allow you to extend your video for 5-20 seconds to direct viewers to other videos or channels on YouTube. End screens encourage users to continue engaging with your brand or content.

Once you’ve created your card, drag it to the spot in the video you want it to appear. Your changes will be saved automatically.

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Add End Screens to YouTube videos.

Playlists

Creating playlists is a great way to organize your videos and make them more discoverable. You can create playlists around a few specific themes, or you can use them to compile videos from a range of topics.

Playlists are a great way to encourage viewers to continue watching similar content, because they show up separately in search results. In addition, playlists allow you to curate a collection of videos from both your channel and other channels—and that's extra impressive!

In order to create a playlist, simply go to the "Playlist" tab at the top of your dashboard and click "Create Playlist."

You'll be asked to give it a name and choose whether or not you want it public.

Then, simply start adding videos into the playlist by clicking on "+ Add To Playlist." From there, select which videos you'd like to add and press "Save Changes."

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Add 2 or more Playlists to each video upload.

Optimize your videos to get more views

When it comes to increasing your search volume and ranking with each video, it’s important to consider ways to optimize your videos for more views.

Optimizing your videos for more views can be done in a few different ways.

First, consider the length of your video. Longer videos tend to do better than shorter ones, but there is no set length that works best for everyone; create a video that is long enough to cover everything you want but short enough so that viewers don’t get bored.

Second, use appropriate tags when uploading your video. Make sure there are tags related to what you are talking about in your video, as well as any keywords related directly to your business or product(s).

Third, be sure that your videos have captions or subtitles on them! This helps people read along while they watch their favorite YouTubers on their phones during commutes or while they are cooking dinner at home while the kids play outside during the summertime heat waves.

Here are more ways you need to optimize your videos to get more views:

Do keyword research

Keyword research is critical to any video marketing strategy.

Before you can optimize your video, you need to know what you’re optimizing for. Keyword research gives you the phrases people are using to find content so you can add it to yours, too. (More on this in a sec.)

You can use Google Keyword Planner for keyword research. Additionally, type your topic into the YouTube search bar and see what comes up. These are all things real people have searched for. This can give you ideas for new keywords.

Add your keywords to your video

Each YouTube video should include one main keyword and 2-3 secondary keywords.

Here’s how you can use video keywords:

  • Add the main keyword to your video title
  • Optimize the video description by including the primary and secondary keywords
  • The video’s tags: According to YouTube, this has minimal impact, Use keywords as tags may have minor impact according to YouTube but it can still drive awareness for your video.

Use timestamps

YouTube timestamps act as chapters for your video. It makes it easy for viewers to skip to sections within your video, regardless of the length. This increases the chance they’ll watch more of your video.

Create an engaging video thumbnail

When it comes to YouTube marketing, one of the best ways to get more views is with custom thumbnails.

Custom thumbnails are so important for views because they're the only other thing users have to decide if they want to watch your video or not. The title is great and all, but it's not going to convince them on its own. It needs a little help! That's where thumbnails come in.

So what counts as a good YouTube thumbnail? Well, that depends on your audience—but as a minimum, make sure it isn't just a screenshot from your video. Use a photo or your brand elements (logo, colors) and add some text that'll lure viewers in.

Current specs are a 16:9 format with a minimum size of ​​1280 x 720 pixels.

Respond to comments

YouTube is not just a place to host videos—it’s a social network. You can comment on other people’s videos and they can comment on yours in order to participate in the conversation and build a community around your brand. This helps your video gain traction with the algorithm, which boosts its status and makes it more likely to be seen by new viewers.

So how do you respond to viewer comments?

Just like you would anywhere else online: be genuine, helpful, and positive! If someone asks for advice about how to use your product or service, take a minute to respond with some tips.

Or if someone just wants to tell you how much they love your product or service, let them know that their words mean a lot! It’s important that you keep things professional, but also remember that people are watching these videos because they like what they see—so show them who you really are!

Optimize your channel to attract more viewers and subscribers

Now that you've got your individual videos optimized, it's time to talk about optimizing your entire channel.

First things first: make sure your channel art and profile photo reflect your branding. You don't want to have a video about "How to Get a Cat" but have a picture of someone holding a dog in your profile photo. That's confusing!

Next, make sure the title of each video on your channel is relevant. For example, if you have a series about how to take care of cats, call each episode something like "How to Take Care of Your Cat in Winter," instead of simply "Cats." It'll help viewers find the specific information they're looking for without having to sift through unrelated videos.

Finally, and this is important, if someone clicks play and nothing happens, they're going to leave! Make sure that each video has an intro image (that looks like something from the actual video) or at least one second of video before they get into the content itself so people know what they're getting into before they click play.

In your videos, be sure to:

  • Ask viewers to subscribe to your channel and like, comment and/or share your video.
  • Have a clear call to action.
  • Engage with your audience like mentioning how an audience member inspired the current video.
  • Use a custom end screen to direct viewers to other videos of yours to keep them on your channel longer.

Add closed captioning. You should prioritize accessibility in all your content, and captions include Deaf and/or hard-of-hearing people in your potential audience.

Uploading your own captions will ensure accuracy and is something you can easily outsource.

YouTube also offers free, automatic captioning but it often gets words wrong. You can even add translated versions of your captions to better serve a multilingual audience or earn more international views.

step EIGHT

Promote New Videos

Once your videos get published it’s time to do more to promote your video and channel to increase awareness and subscriber count. These promotions occur on and off YouTube for greatest effectiveness.

Consider these methods to promote new videos and increase your channel subscribers:

  1. Re-post promotion clips or YouTube links on other social media platforms to invite followers to watch a new video on your YouTube channel
  2. Send a broadcast email to your email list to share new content with your email audience while inviting them to subscribe to your channel
  3. Share your new video in various internet communities like Reddit, Twitter, and more.
  4. Ask viewers to subscribe at the end of every video with a call to action
  5. Setup and link playlists to encourage viewers to watch more of your channel’s content
  6. Create a professional channel page with an About description, Channel art, trailer, and more

These are only some of the top tips for promoting your YouTube videos and channel on and off YouTube.

You can also invest in YouTube advertising for often faster results.

step nine

Leverage YouTube Advertising

If you're looking to get your content in front of a wider audience, you can use YouTube advertising.

YouTube is one of the top video platforms in the world, with billions of users. It's also one of the most cost-effective ways to promote your content and drive traffic to your website or landing page.

In this section, we'll walk you through how to set up an ad campaign on YouTube, how much it costs, and how to optimize your ads for maximum effectiveness.

Costs of YouTube Advertising

Did you know that YouTube uses a cost per view (CPV) model? It means that if someone skips your video ad, you won't pay for that view.

The exact cost-per-click varies based on keyword competitiveness, but on average it's around $0.06. YouTube mentions that most businesses start with about $10 per day for local ad campaigns. 

Once you set your daily campaign budget, YouTube will display your ad until the daily budget is spent.

Types of YouTube Ads

Video Discovery Ads are a great way to reach users who are already interested in your videos.

TrueView discovery ads appear on the YouTube homepage, within search results, and as related videos on YouTube video watch pages. When a user clicks on one of these ads, they're redirected to the promoted video.

YouTube’s in-stream ads are a great way to reach a large audience.

In-stream ads refer to ads that play within a YouTube video. TrueView in-stream ads play before a viewer watches the video they’ve selected on YouTube. These ads can be customized with different overlay text and CTAs, and viewers usually have the option to skip the ad after watching the first five seconds. In addition to the pre-roll in-stream ads that play before the video, there are also mid-roll video ads that appear midway through YouTube videos that are 10 minutes or longer.

Another type of in-stream ad is InVideo programming, which allows you to create custom content for your viewers based on their interests. For example, if you run a beauty company, InVideo programming would allow you to showcase your best products and tips while showing them how they can use those products at home or work.

Learn more about all of YouTube’s advertising options here.

Setup Your YouTube Ad Campaign

Did you know that you can create a campaign using any video you’ve uploaded to your YouTube channel?

It’s true!

In fact, we recommend doing this for all of your campaigns. It’s a great way to get more out of the time and effort you’ve already put into making videos. You don’t need to start from scratch—you can take advantage of the content you already have and use it to help drive more traffic, leads, and sales.

Step 1: Visit your Google AdWords account and select “New Campaign” to get started.

Step 2: Select “Video” as your campaign type.

Step 3: Select a goal to access suggested campaign settings as you navigate through the campaign setup. You can choose Sales, Leads, Website traffic, Product and brand consideration, or Brand awareness and reach.

Step 4: Choose a name, budget, and run dates for your campaign. You’ll also need to select your bidding strategy, ad networks, and target language(s), and location(s). Also, define any content exclusions, choose which devices you want your ad shown on, and place a cap on the frequency of your ads.

Then, scroll down the page to continue to build your YouTube ad. Write a name for your ad group and set the demographics for your audience. You can also set keywords, topics, and placements to customize your campaign reach. And then select the bid for your ad.

Step 5: Create your video ad. Paste in the URL for your video and choose your video ad format. Select where you want your viewers to go if they click on your ad using a call to action (CTA).

Step 6: Click “Save & Continue” to review your ad. Once review is done then your YouTube ad campaign is ready.

YouTube Ad Types
  • Sponsored cards
  • Display ads
  • Overlay ads
  • Unskippable bumper ads
  • TrueView video ads
  • In-stream TrueView ads
Make A YouTube Video
step ten

Analyze and Repeat

You’ve put a lot of time and effort into your YouTube channel. You’ve created interesting content, optimized it for SEO, and shared it across different platforms, now it’s time to measure your success.

YouTube Analytics is the best way to measure how each video is performing and then adapt and adjust your approach to better focus on what’s working so your content resonates with your audience.

It’s important to track YouTube’s built-in analytics dashboard on a weekly to monthly basis to make more informed decisions around planning and creating new content.

Use an easy tool like Google Sheets to write down your numbers to track your progress and growth.

Consider metrics like:

  • Watch time
  • Subscribers
  • Views
  • View duration
  • Impressions
  • Your click-through rate (CTR)
  • Top videos

Let’s face it, interpreting a bunch of numbers and strange-looking graphs can be pretty challenging. Thankfully, understanding YouTube Analytics can quickly get easier once you understand how to navigate and read the tools.

Follow these steps to better understand YouTube data and insights:

1. Identify your goal

Do you want to increase brand awareness, drive clicks to your website, or build your email list?

There are a lot of different goals you can have for your video content, and how you measure success varies depending on which goal you're working toward. But first things first: you can't measure your success without determining what it is that you want to achieve.

If you've filmed, edited, uploaded, optimized and shared a video and still don't know what goal you're trying to achieve, we have an issue. Your goal should drive your video strategy from beginning to end.

Some of the most common types of goals for videos are: increasing brand awareness; views/engagement; getting more clicks or inbound links on social platforms; driving sales via paid advertising promotion.

As the world's second-largest search engine, YouTube allows your videos to be seen through organic search or paid advertising. Video is a great way to humanize your brand by showcasing real employees, customers or partners. It also allows you to build credibility by publishing informational content that helps your target buyer. Promoting your videos through paid advertising versus organic search can impact the type of video you should create--so make sure that any time

2. Track your performance

YouTube analytics is a great way to keep track of how your videos are performing and how you can improve them. To get started, first head to youtube.com/analytics. You should be directed to an analytics dashboard that shows an overview of how your videos have been performing during the past 28 days.

You can adjust the analytics timeframe by clicking on the drop-down menu in the upper right-hand corner. The overview report features some top-line performance metrics, engagement metrics, demographics, traffic sources, and popular content.

You can also filter your results by content, device type, geography or location, all video content or playlists, subscriber status, playback type, traffic by different YouTube products, and translations. In addition to filtering results, YouTube allows you to display your results in a variety of different charts and even an interactive map.

The goal for your channel will determine which metrics are most important to track. Some of the most important metrics, for any brand, to pay attention to include:

  • Watch Time: Watch time is the total number of minutes viewers spent viewing content on your channel. These insights are helpful in showing you what types of content, messages or topics viewers are actually watching and which content they’re navigating away from. These data will guide you on how to adjust the topics and keywords to focus on for future content.
  • Traffic Sources: The traffic sources report shows how viewers are discovering your content online. This helps inform you where you should be promoting your YouTube content and where your audience is spending their time to search for the answers and information you provide them.
  • Demographics: The demographics reports helps you gain insight into your audience by sharing information about their age, gender and other related information to show who wants to watch your YouTube content.

Lights, Camera, Action!

There are 2.1 billion active users on YouTube, and that number is growing every day. It's time to stop thinking of YouTube as a home for funny videos—it's a serious marketing platform that provides your brand with the opportunity to promote content in a truly visual and engaging way.

In order to optimize your YouTube channel, you'll need to practice inbound marketing techniques. Create content that shares an interesting story and provides your viewers with valuable information. Market that content across different platforms, including social media, email marketing, and your company blog or website. Optimize your content by including cards and end screens with clear CTAs (call-to-actions).

Once you've created a strategy for using YouTube as part of your marketing efforts, follow this guide to make the most out of your YouTube marketing strategy!

Now that you’ve created a solid YouTube marketing plan, you can subscribe to Video Supply’s done-for-you, YouTube marketing service. Schedule a free call here to explore a custom plan for you as we grow your business on YouTube, together!

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