Camera sitting on a pink background

How to get more customers with YouTube

MarketingCategory
9 min read
Bryan Caplan

As a small business owner, ever ask yourself why you’re investing so much time and energy on your YouTube content when you’re already spread thin by all of the things you have to do in running your business? Simple: small business creators get more customers with YouTube!

Why is video important for my business?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what’s a video worth to your business? The potential to dramatically increase your chances of getting more customers, according to recent YouTube statistics from Google:

  • 68% of YouTube users watch videos to make purchasing decisions.
  • More than 46% of shoppers will potentially buy from a new brand they discovered through YouTube.
  • 70% of YouTube viewers bought something from a brand they saw on YouTube.

Those staggering numbers show that YouTube videos greatly influence consumers’ buying decisions. And since only 9% of small businesses are on YouTube, if you take the time to create and upload videos, you’ll essentially stand out from 9 out of 10 of your competitors.

Why do I need a YouTube channel?

More than 90% of consumers say they’ve discovered new products and brands on YouTube. Having a YouTube channel allows your business to capture the interest of those consumers when they’re actively exploring their options.

As the second-largest search engine behind Google, YouTube is brilliant in that it realizes the power of giving people options. When viewers are empowered to choose what they want to watch, they pay attention to the content because it matters to them. If you create educational, entertaining or thought-provoking videos, you have a better chance of viewers actively engaging with your brand. Those engaged viewers, in turn, enable you to make more sales with YouTube.

4 things to include to get more customers on YouTube

When building a YouTube channel, there are a few important elements that deserve your attention:

  1. Channel banner.
  2. Important links.
  3. Welcome video and description.
  4. Channel sections and playlists.

1. Channel banner

Think of the channel banner like your billboard on YouTube. This sits atop your channel and can be used to welcome viewers, set expectations for the types of videos you upload, and even drive clicks to a specific page. On Bigger Better Biz, we use the channel banner to drive downloads of our free marketing resources.

When customizing your YouTube channel, you can add important links to your other digital properties. Be sure to use them because they show on your channel banner as well as in your About tab. On Bigger Better Biz, we link to our free download, marketing community signup, LinkedIn and Facebook.

3. Welcome video and description

The welcome video (also known as the channel trailer) gives new (yet to subscribe) visitors to your channel a brief idea of the type of content you’re posting. Use both your video and its accompanying description to instruct viewers to watch your other videos and subscribe to the channel. This is a great way to get more followers on YouTube.

On Bigger Better Biz, we use the welcome video and description to welcome new viewers, outline our video topics, and prompt them to subscribe to the channel.

4. Channel sections and playlists

Your YouTube channel homepage allows for up to 12 sections. Each of these sections can contain live stream content, video playlists, or other channels with which you collaborate. On Bigger Better Biz, our sections include:

  • Starting your small business
  • How to Google My Business
  • YouTube Shorts
  • Popular uploads
  • Free marketing strategy coaching clips
  • Digital marketing tools
  • Small business questions

You don’t need to use all 12 sections, but having three or more sections makes your channel look established and robust to new viewers.

How YouTube can help you gain more customers

To understand the opportunity you have with YouTube, we first have to dive into consumer psychology and take a look at micro-moments.

What are micro-moments?

Google coined the term “micro-moments” back in 2015. Think with Google puts it best when it describes micro-moments:

Micro-moments occur when people reflexively turn to a device — increasingly a smartphone — to act on a need to learn something, do something, discover something, watch something, or buy something. They are intent-rich moments when decisions are made and preferences shaped. In these moments, consumers' expectations are higher than ever. The powerful computers we carry in our pockets have trained us to expect brands to immediately deliver exactly what we are looking for when we are looking. We want things right, and we want things right away.

Simply put, a micro-moment is a moment in time when your potential customers need to:

  • Know something.
  • Go somewhere.
  • Do something.
  • Buy something.

In these impactful moments, consumers are both exploring and evaluating their options (known as the Messy Middle) and they turn to search engines like YouTube to make more educated decisions. Recent research from Google shows that:

  • 75% of shoppers used a Google product like YouTube in the past week to help with their shopping.
  • 70% of shoppers are open to learning about products on YouTube from brands.
  • More than 90% of people say they’ve discovered new products and brands via YouTube.
  • Over 50% of shoppers say they used online video while shopping in-store.

How to leverage micro-moments to get more customers with YouTube

Watching videos in their micro-moment helps consumers compare their options and make better-informed buying decisions. That’s not to say that all of your videos should only focus on pushing your products or services, though. Because consumers in micro-moments are both exploring and evaluating, you want to consider the role video will play in your overall marketing strategy.

What role will video play in your marketing strategy?

Before I create a video for Bigger Better Biz, I like to jot down my objective for the video on a sticky note and make sure it’s in clear view as I record. Of course, you’re using video in your marketing to get more customers with YouTube, but each video can have a different objective or goal that ultimately leads to making more sales with YouTube.

Building brand awareness with YouTube

To attract customers, you need to show them your products and services. In the case of building brand awareness, you’re making videos with a goal that consumers will recognize or recall your brand or offerings. To build brand awareness, you might create the following types of videos:

Growing loyalty with YouTube

Once potential customers know about your brand, you want to bolster their loyalty so they are more likely to recommend your business to others. To grow loyalty, you might create videos including:

  • Customer testimonials
  • Case studies
  • Thought leadership and advice

Driving sales with YouTube

Last, but not least, you can use YouTube to drive online or offline sales. This is where you turn on the boosters and promote your offerings. It might feel a little shameless, but if 90% of consumers are discovering things to buy on YouTube, it’s in your best interest to sell with video.

Here’s an example of a recent video promoting a new marketing program we developed for small business owners:

Note in the video how I speak to the viewers’ pain points of feeling overwhelmed with endless marketing options and provide them with a solution: our monthly marketing success plan.

If you’re not ready for a direct sales video, then you might consider uploading:

  • Origin story videos
  • Product highlight videos
  • DIY videos
  • Unboxing videos

Don’t let the lists above overwhelm you, but use them as inspiration. It’s easy to get sidetracked with fresh ideas when recording videos, so I suggest you start by choosing one objective. Write your objective on a notepad and add two to three bullet points on what you want to cover in your video. As you make your video, consult your note and make sure you’re staying true to your objective.

Related: Top 5 videos you need to be adding to YouTube to grow your sales

Where do I share my YouTube videos?

Once you publish your video on your YouTube channel, spread the word right away because the more views and watch time you gain with your new release, the more YouTube rewards you by suggesting your video to viewers outside of your network. With that in mind, here are some simple strategies to get more eyes on your YouTube videos.

Embed your video in a blog post

If blogging is a part of your content marketing strategy, you will want to write a blog post to showcase every video you upload to YouTube. Why? Because by writing a blog post and embedding your new video in the body of your blog, you’re marrying YouTube and Google for an SEO boost.

Pro tip: Consider embedding a playlist link in your blog posts, so your viewers continue watching your other videos.

Share your video in your email marketing campaigns

When you release a new video that provides value to your email subscribers, send out an email marketing campaign to let them know. If you time it right, you can schedule your video to publish when your email campaign hits the inbox to demonstrate a strong initial demand for your video content.

Related: 13 email marketing tips to captivate customers and drive sales

Share your video on social media

I’m sure you’re always on the prowl for new content to share on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. By promoting your YouTube videos via social media platforms, you’re spreading the word to social media users who might have never known your YouTube channel existed. If your video content is engaging enough, you have a good chance of winning new subscribers.

Pro tip: Be sure to add short, informative descriptions that motivate social media users to click the video links.

Start leveraging YouTube to get more customers

We’ve established that YouTube is a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal because it influences consumer buying decisions. When potential customers find themselves in micro-moments, they turn to search engines like YouTube to explore and evaluate their options, and the stats show that more than 90%t of people say they’ve discovered new products and brands via YouTube.

Be deliberate with your objectives before recording your videos, and consider modeling some of the examples I listed above. Once you publish your video to YouTube, be sure to share it as soon as you can to get as many views as possible right when it’s live for the world to see.

I’ve given you the inspiration, now put in the perspiration!