The opinions expressed by contributors are of their own.
In just a decade, YouTube has become a source of entertainment and fun for people of all ages. Big brands are not the only ones who use the site for promotional purposes. Companies of all sizes and types are using the video sharing site to deliver their messages.
There is a huge opportunity to reach and engage with diverse audiences, but only when done right. The platform has some of the biggest challenges that marketers face.
Many marketers make the mistake of targeting the wrong audience, which leads to visitors slipping away. It's easy to think that your video will appeal to everyone, but you may end up choosing the wrong audience.
To avoid this mistake, it is important to know your customers demographic. Unless life on Earth is in danger due to oxygen running out, you are the only one selling oxygen. Who is your target customer? Women, men or both? Is it young or old? Are you married or single? Other demographic segments include cultural background, occupation, income, educational level and location. This is data about your customers. You want to know what their lifestyle, interests, attitudes, values and pain points are, so that you can understand their personality and purchase intent.
It's a good idea to look at consumer touch-points that can help define your audience. Ask your sales reps and consumer service teams what your clients want. You can use the tools to find out your audience's topics of interest.
2. Not having an objective.
It's important to define your objectives so that you can create the right type of video content. Increasing leads and sales are some of the objectives of marketing. Depending on your objectives and audience, you can use different types of video content. Q&A sessions and how-to guides are examples.
Think of the type of emotion that you want your potential customers to feel. Do you want them to be happy? Emotions that you want to avoid are feelings of stress. Negative emotions will cost you money. Emotions drive value for a business.
There are 5 keys to getting more viewers and making more money on the internet.
3. Poor quality videos are being shared.
Poor-quality videos would be a mistake if they were to be offered to lower costs. Good videos make your audience feel good. Make your video look professional by paying attention to the details. Video production can make a difference with lighting. You should separate the background from the foreground elements, remove shadows and emphasize the scene elements. Quality audio is important for your video and promotion efforts. If the sound quality is not good, most viewers will leave your video and miss your message.
A good video can inform, engage, and entertain your audience. A video that is relevant and interesting covers a topic your viewers are interested in, offers information in a way that is easy to digest and solve a problem your audience is having.
You can use YouTube to reach your intended audience.
4. The wrong metrics are being tracked.
Businesses fail to set metrics for their video marketing campaigns. While comments and shares are important, other metrics will help you to get a good idea of the performance of your promotion efforts. Traffic source, view-to-subscribers ratio, average view duration, and conversion rate are some of the metrics you want to track. Average percentage viewed, watch time, re-watch and unique viewers are some of the metrics that will help you measure success.
5. Failing to moderate.
Users consume the entire experience when they come across your video or visit your channel, and this also includes your comments section. You want to hold potentially harmful and inappropriate comments for review, weed out unwanted comments and interact with positive ones. If you are overwhelmed or have a lot of other things to do, you can add a moderator to manage comments. You can use moderation and community management features to approve, post and flag comments, or hide content that contains specific words.
Mistakes can drown even the most well-thought and carefully crafted marketing strategy. When done right, YouTube is a great platform for engaging with diverse audiences. If you want to connect with new and engaged audiences, build brand awareness and authority, and ultimately boost your sales, make sure you share content that is entertaining and useful. There are some costly mistakes that can be made to claim success in marketing on the internet.
There are more ways you can use YouTube to reach your audience.