Top 10 YouTube Marketing Tips for Your Business or Nonprofit

YouTube: Where the World Watches

YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine, right behind its owner, Google. It is a video-sharing platform, with over 2.7 billion monthly active users searching for and watching everything from hilarious cat compilation videos to tutorials on how to do anything, to educational documentaries. And where brands place their commercials, as in ad campaigns. Lots of them!

YouTube offers creators and brands an online space to connect with their target audience and achieve their goals, whether they’re a business showcasing  their products to build sales or a non-profit looking to spread their mission and develop more donors. But with endless scrolling and countless YouTube channels vying for attention, how do you stand out? 

Marketing on YouTube requires a strategic plan. Simply uploading a random video here and there won’t cut it. To truly thrive on YouTube, your business or nonprofit needs to include both organic content strategies and paid opportunities.  

How to Advertise on YouTube

Advertising on YouTube is rather straightforward if you are familiar with Google Ads. As YouTube is owned by Google, it should not surprise you that getting started with YouTube Ads is as simple as heading over to the Google Ads platform. The basic steps to advertise on YouTube are:

• Create a channel for your business. Be sure to introduce your brand to your audience with descriptive, engaging copy.
• Create a video ad to promote your brand. There are many creative tools you can deploy to help make your story stand out.
• Set up a campaign and measure results

We dive into more detail in our marketing tips below. 

Jumpstart Your YouTube Marketing Strategy

After you set up your YouTube channel, incorporate these ten actionable tips into your YouTube marketing strategy to grow your audience and produce high levels of engagement. 

1) Optimize Your Channel for Discovery

Did you know your YouTube channel is highly customizable? Manage the overall look and feel of your channel with the “customize channel” button. Add a clear, concise, and keyword-rich channel description and upload a branded banner image formatted for both web and mobile visitors along with a profile image.

2) Craft High-Quality, Engaging Videos

Each YouTube video uploaded to the platform should have one purpose: catch attention and stop the scroll of your intended audience.

Start by producing videos that are visually appealing, informative, and entertaining for your target audience. To instantly catch the attention of your potential audience, use motion, varied camera angles, props, or sound effects in the first three seconds to create curiosity and increase overall clicks. 

High-quality footage means investing  in good lighting and audio for a professional look and sound. However, not every video has to be professionally shot and edited. Recording on a newer phone with a tripod, a lavalier microphone, and a ring light can also produce high-quality and authentic videos. Don’t let technology or gear hold you back from creating YouTube marketing videos.

3) Keyword Research is Key

Optimize your video content for search  by using relevant keywords in your YouTube titles, descriptions, and tags. If you are looking for inspiration and new content ideas, utilize YouTube’s keyword research tool to find trending topics and optimize your video content accordingly. 

Top Tip: Create the content your audience is looking (and searching) for, not the content you like creating!

4) Post Consistently

To build trust with your growing audience, develop a regular publishing schedule and stick to it. Consistency builds audience anticipation, encourages viewers to subscribe for more content, and trumps frequency for channel growth any day! 

Top Tip: Schedule your long content as “premiere” content. Premieres allow your community to experience your videos together with you in real time through live chat. Click “set as a Premiere” to activate this option when scheduling your video.

5) Engage with Your Audience

Respond to all comments and answer all questions on your YouTube marketing videos. Participate in discussions to foster a sense of community and to get to know your audience. Encourage your viewers to like, comment, and subscribe with clear calls to action throughout your videos. Growing your YouTube community takes time, effort, and a strategy. 

6) Leverage Playlists and End Screens

You can organize your video content into playlists to keep viewers engaged and watch more videos on your channel. Playlists allow for binge-watching, a behavior we see on apps like Netflix and Hulu. 

Use the “end screen” function to promote other relevant videos on your channel and encourage viewers to keep watching. To get more views, share your carefully curated playlists in email newsletters or on social media.

7) Partner with Other YouTubers

A great way to grow your YouTube channel is to collaborate with fellow YouTubers in your niche. This will put your videos in front of new audiences and give you broader exposure. To get started, look for channels that complement your brand and content. 

Examples of YouTube partnerships include being featured on the news, in online magazines, as a guest on live shows, or on a podcast distributed on YouTube. 

8) Promote Your Videos Off-Platform

Promotion starts with sharing your YouTube videos on other social media platforms including Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn to drive traffic to your channel. Uploading the video thumbnail and posting it with a link to your video will spark curiosity! 

A second way to promote your videos is to use YouTube’s  transcript and embed function to create a blog article from your video. 

Top Tip: Update the YouTube video description with a link to the newly published blog for extra SEO juice. 

9) Analyze Your YouTube Video Performance

Keep a close eye on your YouTube Analytics, which are an excellent YouTube marketing tool. 

• Track your video performance and understand what resonates with your audience.  
• Analyze metrics such as views, watch time, audience demographics, and engagement to refine your video strategy. 
• Track your performance daily, then weekly when implementing a new content strategy. Once established, analyze monthly for an ongoing implementation.

The data you receive should influence how you shoot, edit, and publish the next batch of video content. Making small changes to your content and strategy can yield huge returns!

10) Experiment with Different Video Formats

Once you have an active, engaged audience, dare to branch out and experiment with different video formats. Examples include tutorials, product demonstrations, behind-the-scenes glimpses, live videos, or explainer videos to keep your content fresh and engaging for your audience. Doing this will help you grow your YouTube community.

Top Tip: If you have a podcast, move it to YouTube for additional views and listens! 

BONUS TIP: Don’t get stuck on long-form content. Invest in the creation of YouTube Shorts. They are the fastest-growing segment of videos on YouTube with a dedicated feed of vertical videos. YouTube Shorts views are counted as views, allowing for quicker channel growth with shorter videos. 

How much does it cost to advertise on YouTube?

Great question. Our advice is to start with a small budget. This is especially true for those who don’t have a lot of content created just yet. Once you publish content regularly, we recommend a budget between $10-$50/day. This number can be adjusted month to month, depending on the sales and social media campaigns you have currently running on other social media platforms. 

Once a budget is established for YouTube advertising, it’s time to look at what it takes to market a business or organization on YouTube.

YouTube Marketing Tools You Need

We found this playlist of YouTube marketing tools. If you are ready to dive in with a YouTube strategy, these tools will help you with keyword research, recording, captions, editing and so much more. 

How Rapunzel Creative Can Help With YouTube Marketing

If you need help establishing your YouTube channel or creating an effective video ad campaign for your business or nonprofit organization, contact Rapunzel Creative. Our social media consulting and marketing strategy sessions can help boost your engagement and bottom line. 

Looking for similar tips for LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram? We have those covered too–and would love to discuss your needs during a short discovery call, which you can schedule here.