“I make good quality video content and upload on my YouTube channel regularly. Then why are my subscribers not increasing?”
Do you often find yourself wondering why you aren’t getting subscribers even though you put great content out there?
Creating good quality content is not enough to gain thousands of subscribers. Getting discovered by the right people at the right time is equally important. An engaged audience is how you make the most money on YouTube.
Here is where promoting both your YouTube Channel and videos come to the play.
Today, I have curated 8 most essential things that you can’t miss to do for your YouTube marketing.
All of the tips mentioned below are directed towards two primary goals: ranking on YouTube + Google and increasing engagement rate – this is all that matters to boost your YouTube channel.
So, let’s get started right away, shall we?
YouTube Marketing Tips On How To Promote Your YouTube Channel
1. Nail Your YouTube SEO
Did you know? Just like you optimize your blog posts with SEO tactics, your YouTube videos, too, can be designed keeping SEO in mind.
To make sure your videos rank higher on both the search engines, follow these YouTube marketing practices:
- Video Description: Research for the keywords in your niche using tools like Ahrefs or keyword.io and include them in the title and description of your video.
Check how Bright Side adds an extensive description of the video and includes timestamps too. This video fetched them over 3.5M views.
- Video Categories: Always categorize your videos so that YouTube can show when someone searches for that particular term.
- Video Tags: YouTube allows you to add quite a lot of tags. Add all the relevant tags you think your viewers might be searching for.
- Comments: Engage with your viewers in the comments section and try to use your primary keywords in the conversation.
- Channel About: Your YouTube channel has an “About” section where you can describe what your channel is about. Add your main keywords in the first few lines of your content. This ‘About’ content is displayed in the search engines too.
- Channel Keywords: YouTube allows you to add channel keywords, which are then used to rank your channel to match search queries. In your channel page, go to ‘Advanced Settings’ to add your channel keywords.
- YouTube Videos On Google SERPs: A vital tactic to make sure your YouTube videos get the maximum visibility is to optimize it for SERPs. To do so, follow these tips:
- Make How To videos in your niche
- Add timestamps using relevant keywords
- Optimize the name of your video file before uploading it
- Use the video description space to add relevant keywords
- Embed the video into your blogs
- Many times, YouTube videos appear on Google search even before any of the blog content.
2. Engage With Your Audience
If people are getting engaged with your videos, it probably means they liked your content. And, YouTube considers audience engagement as the most important ranking factor for your video.
These are some ways you can strike a conversation:
- Comment On And Off YouTube: Engage with your target audience both in your YouTube comment section and outside YouTube in the places where your audience is most active – social media, Quora, blogs, etc. You can also interact with commenters on other channels in your niche to attract the audience from there as well.
- Pin Top Comments: Use this feature to your advantage to either pin a really good comment or comment from your account, like the example shown below. Either way, it is a great strategy to start conversations in the comment section.
Check out how YouTuber ‘Pick Up Limes’ does it:
- Establish A Relationship With Your Top Fans: YouTube analytics can help you identify your top fans, i.e., those who interact with your video the most. These fans have the potential to become your ambassadors, so focus on maintaining a good relationship with them by giving them shout-outs and goodies.
- Run Contests And Giveaways: Running contests and giveaways is a sure-shot way to boost engagement. Ask your audience to do something – like commenting, subscribing, tagging you on social media, or so to participate in the contest. If your offer is enticing enough, you can get them to do anything that will help you increase your engagement. Make sure to follow YouTube’s policies.
- Live-Stream Videos: Host a Q&A session to enable live interaction with your audience. Remember, you can earn loyal followers when your audience gets to see you in action instead of a pre-recorded video.
Live streaming enables live chat too, which is a great opportunity to strike conversations.
3. Customize Your Thumbnail
Our brains are hardwired to spot catchy visuals before any text. It is one fact that you cannot ignore in your YouTube marketing strategy. Custom thumbnails are a great way to make sure the viewer chooses your video over others’.
Here are some tips to make an appealing thumbnail for your YouTube video:
- Ideal YouTube Thumbnail size is 1280 x 720 pixels
- Use a light-colored background
- If adding a photo, try to add a close-up
- Keep the thumbnail clutter-free and have a clear representation of what your video contains
- Follow a theme across all your thumbnails to build your brand identity
- Do not use misleading thumbnails – be as authentic as possible
Remember, branded thumbnails are not only essential to build your brand identity on YouTube, but also at other platforms where your YouTube video is embedded.
Check how Tasty’s thumbnails are designed, which would make you click on it, undeniably.
4. Add A Catchy Title
After the thumbnail, the next place your viewers’ eyes will travel to is on the title. Titles are the make-or-break deal for the viewer to decide if they want to view your video or move on to the next. Remember, this whole process of selecting videos happens within seconds.
Short, crisp, and captivating titles are easily clickable.
Follow these tips to write catchy titles for your YouTube Videos:
- Limit your title to 60 characters to avoid getting it clipped
- Keep it authentic; avoid click baits and misleading titles
- Use the 4 ‘U’s to write a title – Unique, Useful, Urgent, and Ultra-specific
- Use adjectives or emotional words to strike a connection
Check out the appealing titles YouTuber ‘MattDoesFitness’ use.
5. Collaborate With Other Channels And Brands
Do you know what the easiest way to gain loyal subscribers is?
Collaboration!
Collaborate with other YouTubers in your niche and create content that is suitable for both of your channels. By doing so, the audience following your collaborator’s channel will follow you too, and the collaborator will tap into your audience. It’s a win-win situation, isn’t it?
You can also partner with other brands that you think your audience will like or use. Doing so signifies that you will be able to tap into a new audience group – the ones who search for that specific brand.
- Choose the right partner and release videos at the right time. Relevance is the key here
- Remember to announce the collaboration well in advance and market it on social media too
- When shooting a video for your collaborator’s channel, ask the audience to check out your YouTube channel as well.
- Interview influencers in your niche to build credibility on your channel and capture the audience that already follows that specific influencer
- Collaborate with authority websites to host your video on their top-performing blogs
As shown below, we can see that famous YouTuber Lilly Singh collaborated with actor Justing Baldoni to promote his show. And, both of them gained a significant number of followers due to the collaboration!
6. Cross-Promote Across All Your Channels
There’s no point in putting effort into creating content if you do not distribute and cross-promote it efficiently. Use every bit of all the available platforms to maximize your ROI.
Once you have uploaded a video on YouTube, go all out on to promote it on different platforms. Some of the most important channels are:
- Social Media
- Blog posts
- Email
- Quora
- Other community pages
Your YouTube promotion cycle should go on for at least a month after uploading the video. Again, ensure that you promote your YouTube videos at relevant platforms where your target audience is present.
Here’s how HubSpot integrates their YouTube videos in their blog:
7. Use Intro And Outro For All Of Your YouTube Videos
If there is one thing you absolutely should do for your YouTube channel, that is, add intro-outro videos.
Intro videos allow you to set the tone for your content that follows. It essentially becomes your “signature” move when you use similar types of intros across all your videos. Use one of the templates for your intro maker to design an excellent start to your videos.
On the other hand, outro videos (AKA End Screens) on YouTube ensure that your viewers continue watching your content instead of moving on to someone else’s videos. You can easily design your end screen video with one of the templates in the outro maker.
Tip: Add a Call-To-Action in your outro video that will guide your viewer to watch one of your playlists or a series of videos.
We all know and remember TED’s intro, don’t we?
8. Upload Quality Content Consistently
Lastly, upload content consistently. Your audience will appreciate it if they know when to expect the next video from you. Also, it’s an excellent practice for your channel’s SEO.
The best YouTube marketing strategy is to host a well-balanced content mix under your channel.
Making videos on trending topics will help you gain new subscribers and amazing engagement in a short time.
On the other hand, evergreen content will take care of sustainability for your channel.
You can use an online video editor to stay consistent with your content production.
Remember, the best kind of publicity you can get is via word-of-mouth. Your existing subscribers referring your channel to their friends will earn you another loyal subscriber.
Closing Thoughts
It’s simple. Only creating and uploading your YouTube videos won’t do you much good. You need to distribute your videos and promote your channel as much as possible. You can also include video ads in your YouTube marketing mix to further boost your promotional efforts.
As a rule of thumb, for every hour you spend on creating the content, keep aside four-five hours for promoting it.
How do you plan for your YouTube marketing strategy now? Let us know in the comments.
