YouTube has more than 2 billion users worldwide. This isn’t surprising. Video content is extremely popular with today’s users who prefer it over other types of digital media.
No wonder YouTube has become a great place for brands that seek business growth and better sales figures. You can use the platform in many ways for your brand even if you’ve never thought about video marketing before. And in this guide, we will walk you through the 5 top tips to use YouTube for small business to make more money as a brand.
Why Use YouTube Marketing for Your Brand?
YouTube doesn’t seem as an obvious choice for the first moment of truth and effective brandng as Instagram or TikTok. But, it’s an excellent platform for:
Growing brand awareness
90% of Internet users go on YouTube to discover new brands and products. People are twice as likely to share video content with their social circle than other content types from various social media platforms (e.g. social media posts, blog articles, etc.).
Diverse audience reach
YouTube is home to users from more than 100 countries in dozens of languages. Its user base is spread across all age groups, genders, and social statuses. It means your brand can reach miscellaneous audiences and easily gain recognition among your target customers.
Boost in SERP visibility
Video carousels that appear on top of Google search results mainly come from YouTube. You can generate organic SERP visibility on popular search engines.
Higher numbers of leads and better sales
You can get leads from YouTube ads or your own branded video content, by sharing promo codes, and promoting your web pages on your channel. This leads to more conversions and higher revenue.
5 Proven Ways to Use YouTube for Small Business to Generate Extra Revenue
You might want to experiment with your tactics before you decide on the best way to incorporate YouTube for small business. Try out the time-tested, actionable strategies below. They are easy to implement and can be combined to form a solid YouTube marketing workflow:
1. (The one you can’t skip) Start a branded YouTube channel
This is the natural first step to start making money on YouTube as a small business. To make the most of your YouTube presence, set up a Brand Account. This type of profile has features to:
- Give YouTube channel access to multiple moderators: It can be your marketing or sales team, social media savvy employees, or even YouTube influencers (more on that in point 5).
- Customize the appearance of the channel: Change the way your YouTube channel looks to reflect your visual brand identity.
- Access YouTube channel analytics: See how your branded channel performs on the platform. It will help you understand what content resonates with your viewers and promotes your business more effectively.
Once your Brand Account is up, you can add relevant keywords, video titles, a channel trailer and description, and visual design to represent your brand on YouTube. It will boost your discoverability and brand awareness. You can start to create content and attract viewers.
Pro-tip: you can use special YouTube earnings calculators to see how much money you can generate with your business YouTube account on the platform.
- Estimate daily, weekly, and annual earnings potential with YouTube Money Calculator created by Influencer Marketing Hub.
- Another great option is the Omni YouTube Money Calculator. By entering just two values in the calculator’s system, you’ll get an estimation of your YouTube income.
- Calculate your monthly YouTube partner income and get valuable stats based on your video channel’s performance with Noxinfluencer’s YouTube Income Calculator.
2. Post the right branded content on your YouTube channel
Develop a YouTube marketing strategy for your branded YouTube channel. You need it to know how to upload videos that drive traffic and revenue to your brand. To get some ideas, you can:
- See what your competitors are doing.
- Explore the trending topics, YouTube channels, and tactics like guerilla marketing.
- Ask your followers on social media platforms ( Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok) what kind of video they’d like to see from your brand.
If you’re an online home goods or equipment brand, you can use video formats as unboxing videos or product reviews and video tutorials.
Or maybe you’re a SaaS startup that wants to share helpful content to leads and customers. Create podcasts or educational videos with industry professionals to provide additional value to your audiences and score new viewers.
Other popular types of branded video content for improving engagement on YouTube include:
- Lifestyle videos
- Office tour videos
- Entertaining videos (e.g. sketches)
- Sneak peeks/ behind-the-scene videos
- Video interviews
- Video testimonials
- Q&A videos
3. Advertise your brand with YouTube ads
If you want to fuel your brand promotion even further, create YouTube ads. It has many ad types that can reach millions of YouTube users:
- Skippable and non-skippable in-stream ads
- Display ads
- Discovery ads
- Bumper ads
- Mastheads ads
YouTube ads can follow a PPC (pay-per-click) or PPV (pay-per-view) model. It’s up to you to choose the setup that fits your budget and marketing objectives.
Optimize your YouTube video ad performance with these tips:
- Target the right demographics and customer personas: Use your marketing research to reach the right audiences and deliver the most appropriate ad content based on their preferences.
- Use well-crafted, direct call to actions (CTAs): Encourage viewers to visit your web pages, use your promo code, or go and check out your channel.
- Carefully monitor your ad performance metrics: Track your click-through rates (CTR), ad views, and other KPIs to see which aspects of your video ad campaign need improvement.
4. Stream on YouTube Live for live shopping
Livestream shopping is the new black. It first grew popular as the COVID-19 lockdowns put physical shopping on hold, but it’s still a booming practice.
Hop on the sell-via-streaming trend and use YouTube as your primary live-stream platform. YouTube Live is a feature that allows you to launch live streams and interact with your audiences in real time.
This feature is a great option if you want to showcase your product selection and let potential buyers interact with you to make a buying decision on the spot.
- Show and describe your product: During the stream, have the host try the product (on), and explain its benefits.
- Communicate with the stream viewers: Engage with viewers. Answer their questions mid-video or in the comment section, encourage them to leave comments, and communicate with each other.
- Display links to the product page: You can place the links on your video feed or in the stream description. Always refer viewers to your business website.
- Promote special offers: Advertise discounts, special sales deals, and promo codes for your YouTube audience.
5. Work with YouTube influencers
If you want to maximize the efficiency and monetary value of your YouTube presence, collaborate with YouTube influencers. These digital content creators know the platform inside out and can help you push the right buttons for YouTube brand promotion and video creation.
YouTube influencers are content creators who have gained YouTube followers by positioning themselves as experts in a particular field/niche, like Amazon influencers.
Influencers have a big impact on people’s buying decisions. You should collaborate with YouTube influencers to increase brand awareness and grow your YouTube earnings. Influencers know how to deliver trending content consistently. They will help you adjust your YouTube content strategy for better results.
To start a YouTube influencer marketing campaign, follow these steps:
- Determine the influencer campaign goals: What do you want to achieve? Besides a direct boost in sales, it can be the growth of your YouTube follower count, improved brand awareness or trust, etc. Properly set goals will help you set the budget for the campaign and have a clear idea of what kind of influencer you need.
- Find a suitable YouTube influencer: They should create content in your niche and have a follower base matching your target audience. You can use influencer search tools to automate the search process. Once you’ve found the right creator, get in touch with the chosen influencer and pitch your business idea.
- Build an influencer campaign strategy: It should include the content plan, timeline, and desired outcomes. Work side by side with the influencer. They know YouTube inside out and will offer valuable insights on how to improve the campaign.
- Launch and track your campaign progress: Use YouTube video and channel analytics to see how the campaign performs.
Red Bull’s YouTube channel is an excellent example of YouTube influencer marketing done right. The brand regularly works with sports and lifestyle influencers to promote its products and boost brand awareness. Red Bull’s YouTube videos are fun, engaging, and informative at the same time.
Capping off YouTube for Small Businesses
YouTube is more than a great platform for trending video content. It’s a superb tool to grow small businesses and increase revenue while expanding reach and brand trust. Explore the many monetizing features of the platform, customize channel design, try flexible video ad types, and work with YouTube influencers to increase your YouTube revenues. Moreover, by using a VPN service, you can bypass YouTube TV location restrictions and expand your target audience globally, unlocking new opportunities for revenue growth and brand recognition on the platform.
