How to use YouTube within your Inbound Marketing strategy?
Inbound marketing is a type of marketing that seeks to attract users to our brand so that they later become customers. There is an essential factor to carry out all this process: the content. This element is vital to attract new users and places our company as an expert in the eyes of future customers.
Still, not all content is always valid. We must create the appropriate content for each phase of the funnel so that in this way, our users can consume it and get closer to the final conversion. Undoubtedly, one of the star formats is video since this type of content is gaining more and more relevance in the digital marketing world.
Next, we will see why you should use a platform like YouTube for your inbound marketing strategy and the key elements to creating content on YouTube successfully.
Why include YouTube in your inbound strategy
As we have said before, within the inbound methodology, content is key. We must offer our users valuable content, as this will capture their attention, and we can ensure that, over time, they become leads for our database.
To create content that attracts and is interesting for our clients, video is precisely one of the best formats. Internet users increasingly prefer to consume audiovisual content that helps them integrate knowledge in a more informative and direct way.
Second, the video also allows us to show our branding elements much more. The language, the edition, the information… This format helps us to have a unified corporate image and to convey our message much better.
Another highlight of audiovisual formats is direct and much more personal communication. We must not forget that when we do marketing, we are people talking to other people. Communicating with video makes our content connect much more with our audience.
Beyond the use of video, the reality is that YouTube has become the second most used search engine in the world after Google. For its part, the platform helps us position our content in search engines and make our brand known and reach more users.
Key elements of an inbound marketing strategy on YouTube
To create a good YouTube inbound marketing strategy, we must pay special attention to several vital aspects that will help us complete our campaigns successfully.
Content planning
Content is essential to engage our audience. Therefore, we must create a plan for the videos uploaded to the platform since this way, we can have a global vision and a long-term strategy.
Ideally, create a monthly or quarterly plan that allows us to work well with our team, know at all times what content to produce, avoid repeating themes, and make mistakes. To be successful on YouTube is critical to be consistent when creating content and to have a weekly periodicity. All this can be collected in a content calendar with dates and all related tasks.
SEO strategy on YouTube
Marketers often forget that YouTube is just another search engine, along with Google or Bing. Therefore, we must work on all the elements of SEO from the beginning and thus, position our content on the platform.
In the first instance, we must investigate what content or keywords have traction on YouTube and the kind of videos positioned with them. Once this initial search is done, we will identify what content we should create to gain traffic and improve our organic positioning. We will structure videos in content clusters, that is, thematic groupings under similar keywords. YouTube lets you do it thanks to playlists.
Channel optimization
Then, we must optimize all the elements that YouTube gives us to increase the reach of our channel. Different factors can help us better position and redirect traffic to other content or the web in the videos on this platform. These factors are:
- The thumbnail: the size must be 1280×720 pixels. Thumbnails that include text and a photograph with people tend to have a better click-through rate.
- The video’s title: It should contain the keywords we want to position ourselves and avoid clickbait, as it can harm us.
- The description of the content: the description should contain the keywords that interest us and links to our other social media profiles and website so users can find us on other platforms.
- Tags: YouTube also allows us to include the tags we want to position our video. These keywords must be related to the video content and the theme. Otherwise, it will be counterproductive.
- Cards and end screens: Finally, another key tool for generating conversions and clicks is cards and end screens. These small pop-ups or pop-up content are shown throughout or at the end of the video. They can also help us guide our audience to the web.
Webinars and lives
Beyond scheduled videos, another strong point of YouTube is that it allows you to innovate with formats such as webinars or live streams. This type of content generates a lot of traffic, and, in addition, it can help us professionalize our YouTube channel. With live shows, we will gain interaction and transparency with our followers. At the same time, with webinars, we can create special content, such as workshops, and provide knowledge and value to our audience.
In conclusion
YouTube is a very versatile tool for generating content. It is a platform that serves as one more search engine where we can position ourselves, work on SEO and create videos that connect with our visitors and drive them to our website. And let’s not forget that it can be monetized when you have met the conditions of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time. YouTube is, therefore, a key piece if we want to incorporate video marketing into our inbound strategy.
