Can YouTube Marketing Help You Reach Your Target Market?
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YouTube! A platform that has been widely used by almost everyone has been a part of the worldwide web for more than a decade. It was started in February 2005 by three PayPal employees, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, and bought by Google in 2006. Now, YouTube operates as a subsidiary of Google and has more than one billion active users who watch hundreds of millions of hours and generate billions of views.
It is a shame that not many companies make use of YouTube to reach out to their customers. Marketing on YouTube can be cumbersome, as well as a costly affair as it involves video production instead of drafting a blog. As a company that is well recognized by all, you cannot just post any video and expect it to bring business. You will need to invest time and money on it. Companies are not falling off the wagon, though. They may not own an exclusive channel, but they do use YouTube to advertise themselves.
YouTube offers its audience its own channel. There are several real YouTube Subscribers who use the channel optimally to reach out to their audience. These YouTube Subscribers may not have a target audience to focus on, or they have just entered the market without defining their target market. They are here to ensure their growth with as many YouTube views as they can possibly get. But these YouTube users or subscribers are working on a small scale, producing simple yet interesting videos, and has no target audience.
Now imagine this! You are a brand, and you need to ensure that people recognize your brand. What will you do? How will you go about it? There are millions and billions of people on YouTube. How will you reach your target audience?
How will you build the right audience for your YouTube channel?
It is easy to make a viral video. Find something nice and interesting, which is unique and has very little to do with any brand, product, or service. Make the video more interesting with suspense in it. Use the right music and make sure your cast is talented. Don’t expect a vial video to help you promote your brand.
A viral video is just entertainment without the possibility of promoting anything. It is unique and interesting, but the addition of any marketing strategy into it can only make it lost its exclusivity. That’s not how you would want to promote your YouTube channel. Targeting the right audience is not as easy as many people claim it to be. If the video does not hit the right target market, they will fail to get anywhere further as the YouTube algorithm will overturn its views, as well as suppress future views. If a video fails, it is termed as an expensive mistake. A wise person would spend time to understand the target audience before they jump into video production.
Research the right audience for your channel!
The most important fact to remember is that you do not want to generate traffic, but you want to build the right target audience for your YouTube channel. Many may find the difference to be subtle, but the actual difference can be seen in the long run as an audience start to build. Many YouTube subscribers want viral videos to promote them. But the problem with a viral video is that they can be hosted on other channels as well, and you lose your audience. Instead, aim for consistency.
There are three steps to researching the right audience for your channel. They include
- Defining the target audience
A target audience differs for each based on what the person is promoting or informing. A YouTube channel can be used for many purposes, such as entertainment, education, information, promotion, and so on. Each channel has a category it falls under, and each category has a different audience. Before you start a YouTube channel, it is important to define who your target audience is. You can start by narrowing down based on age, gender, occupation, location, among other filters. By defining your target audience, you will be able to understand your competitor better as well.
Let us assume you are promoting a weight-loss program. Your target audience would be women who are obese or overweight and are aged over forty years. By using the right keywords, you can ensure that you reach out to the right market. For example, the words ‘weight-loss’ is something very general as well as wide term and can refer to both men and women. If you use ‘weight-loss for women’, it only reduces the number of men looking for weight-loss videos on YouTube. The right keyword would be ‘weight-loss program for women over forty years of age’ as it targets only women aged above forty and looking for a weight-loss program. Let us assume you are targeting those women who have gained excessive weight due to thyroid problems. Then, the ‘weight-loss program for women suffering from thyroid problem’ would be an ideal definition. Remember, the more specific you become, the easier it becomes to reach your target market with lesser competition and more engagement.
- Understanding the target audience
Once you have defined your target audience, you must then try to understand them as each has different needs based on their age, gender, priorities, health, and so on. For example, teenagers who are overweight would want to spend some time and money to get into shape, whereas women over fifty would just want to stay healthy and maintain. So, a weight-loss program would not be an ideal choice for women over fifty unless it affects their health. The target market is further divided into different segments to better understand which segment is willing to shell out a little extra money for something that can help them.
Considering the example given above, women aged forty and above would not be an ideal target market for weight loss as at this age, many women concentrate on their health and maintaining the present weight rather than get into shape. That doesn’t mean that all women aged forty and above do not fit into the definition of the target market for weight loss. It only means that the market needs to be further segmented into women with thyroid and women without a thyroid, and define as ‘weight-loss program for women suffering from a thyroid problem.’
To build content,
- Understand what your target audience cares about, what is their passion, their interest, problems, needs, and demands.
- Remember that what your channel stands for is your mission, and your mission is based on what your target audience seeks.
- Build your content based on the confluence of your audience’s interest and passion, as well as your channel’s identity.
- Finding the target audience
The most vital step is to find your target audience which is primarily from
- YouTube traffic: The ideal way to finding your target market is by being a part of your competitor’s YouTube channel. You can attract an audience by commenting on competitor channels, understanding the audience, look for an audience who are not satisfied and looking for answers, and so on. You can also make videos and use them to comment in your niche market, as well as collaborate with other YouTube channels having the same target audience.
- Search traffic or search engines: They are an ideal choice for finding your target audience. You can optimize your chance of showing up in searches by using the right keywords.
- Other websites such as Reddit, Quora are means to finding your target market by participating in discussions relating to your target audience’s likes and interests.
Once you have found your target audience, the only thing left to do is to reach out to your target market through YouTube marketing to promote your brand, product or service.
Reaching out to target market via YouTube marketing!
YouTube marketing is a massive shift from web to video marketing by online business owners and internet marketers. These marketers are slowly accepting videos to be a better choice to communicate their message to their audience. The concept of using videos to promote had always been in the industry, but it was limited for media like television. But the transition towards the web is slowly taking action as it has become far easier to target the right audience.
YouTube marketing is gaining a lot of importance now more than ever. There was a time when drafting a blog was considered to be far easier and effective than making a video. The increased cost was the main reason behind the slow growth of YouTube marketing. But to the increasing demand for videos and an increase in YouTube subscribers, the web has seen immense growth and is expected to see a growing trend for YouTube videos. The increasing YouTube views have let marketing experts believe that it is one of the most ideal marketing techniques that help reach out to the target audience.
A viral video is as good as advertising on television, where you cannot target any specific market. It is more generalized. But in the case of YouTube, your videos are based on the target market you focus on, and you not only reach out to them but also build a relationship.
