How To Successfully Use YouTube Marketing For Your Shopify Store

1. How To Successfully Use YouTube Marketing For Your Shopify Store From its inception in 2005 as a dating site that was pivoted into a video sharing site with low resolution clips, YouTube has grown into the second largest search engine behind Google. At least 70% of YouTube watch time comes from mobile devices meaning the platform is accessed anywhere and everywhere. Every day, the platform serves content to over 30 million users who watch 40 minutes of video on average. That’s a lot of eyeballs for a long time. Even a fraction of these users entering your business’ sales funnel is a huge opportunity that shouldn’t be ignored. Getting your business front and center is fairly quick thanks to the very low barrier to entry. All you need is a smartphone that can record relatively high quality video, a basic video and photo editor to integrate the content with B-roll, designing your thumbnails and finally a good internet connection to upload to your channel. There are many compelling reasons why YouTube is a great platform to market your business but one of the most important is the sheer size of the platform. The coveted age group of 18-34 years binge watches a lot of video on the platform across the 100 countries and in over 80 languages. As you upload more and more videos that are likely to be permanently available on the platform for search, there is enormous potential for steadily growing organic traffic to your sales funnel. Key steps to successfully use YouTube for Shopify marketing your store Here are 7 tips to help you leverage YouTube marketing for your Shopify store and increase sales. Adverts for Shopify store on YouTube As you build content on your channel for your target audience to consume, you can immediately direct traffic to your ecommerce store with YouTube Ads. As part of Google, you bid for ad placement on YouTube through the Google AdWords network. On average, it costs about $2000 for an ad to reach 100,000 viewers on YouTube. There are different types of ads you can put up and they include; 1. Display ads that appear only on the desktop version above the video suggestions list 2. Overlay ads that also only appear on the desktop version on the lower part of the screen as text or video. 3. Skippable and Non-skippable video ads that are integrated into the video and can last anywhere between 5s to 30s. 4. Bumper ads which are about 6s that must be watched before proceeding with the desired video. Creating video ads of different types that you can distribute throughout the platform targeting your preferred audience is a good way to start as you develop your channel.

2. Build and maintain brand consistency on your channel To build a YouTube channel that will successfully generate leads for your Shopify store, you need to carefully curate it to appear as an extension of your business. This is called brand consistency and will help your potential clients to have a sense of trust as they transition from YouTube to your store. It is important that your channel profile photo is the same as your store logo. This seems obvious but should not be overlooked. Taking the time to design your logo so that it looks good across platforms is one of those little details that engages clients. Along with the logo, the banner on the channel landing page can be used to advertise products or have a catchy phrase/contact information that viewers, subscribers and customers can associate with your brand. Upload scheduling Viewership data shows that most people in the 18-34 age range get on to YouTube in the morning before work/school, during their lunch break and in the evening before bed. These are the generally safe times to upload that will guarantee a higher likelihood of your content being watched. However, because the platform is global, you also need to consider viewers and potential customers in other time zones. This means that you can upload in a 6-hour pattern so that your content is fresh across multiple time zones and audiences. Maximize engagement (full views, likes and subscriptions) through storytelling Now that you have an upload schedule, what kind of content do you want to upload? Two surefire video types that are always in demand are ‘how to’ videos (aka explainers) and FAQ videos. ‘How to’ videos help your audience learn more about products in your niche and how to get the most out of them. This helps build trust in your brand that can lead to increased sales. FAQ or ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ videos are the type that dive deep into misconceptions and topics surrounding your product range that many people don’t quite understand. Creating FAQ content helps your audience get more comfortable with your products and relieves your support team as customers have free, on demand support through your videos. Leverage Search Engine Optimization within YouTube Identify the personas you want to serve Knowing who your target audience is helps to tailor content for them. Your target audience has a set of characteristics that constitute a buyer persona. The persona includes age bracket, location, income level etc and how to map their keyword search goals to the prospective customer steps of discovery, interest and purchase. For example, a ‘baker’ persona and ‘daycare owner’ persona would have different goals when searching for ‘chocolate cookies’. The baker may want ingredients while the daycare owner wants ready-made cookies. So your content should cater to multiple personas that leads to your Shopify store.

3. Write catchy titles and curious thumbnails Armed with a few ideal personas for your product range, keyword search tools such as keywords everywhere can help you identify what are the best search terms to use in your video titles basing on what people are looking for. Often, what personas search and what they want are not the same thing. You may have what they want, but it’s not what they search for. However, including the search term in your titles helps funnel them to your channel. Topics for your ‘how to’ and‘FAQ’ can also be sourced through keyword search so that you never run out of topics because people don’t stop searching. YouTube is a visual medium, so remember to make eye catching thumbnails that are consistent with your brand while stimulating the searcher. Many successful thumbnails often use people with recognizable expressions such as joy, confusion or anger next to products that are being reviewed or talked about. Interesting descriptions that lead viewers to your store The video description is a sort of extension to the title in the sense that it is used by the search engine to index keywords. So if you write your description well, your video has more chances of ranking higher than other videos with similar titles. Additionally, the description section is a great place to write copy that contains calls to action and linkbacks to your Shopify store. Engage with viewers in the comments section Uploading videos is not a case of drop and go. To grow your channel and give your viewers a sense of true engagement, it is good practice to respond to comments and maybe even take feedback into the next video you upload. This is one way to solidify a relationship with your viewers that turns them into subscribers. Subscribers are more likely to discover and watch your videos and thus more likely to come to your Shopify ecommerce site. Collaborate with YouTube influencers One quick and easy way to identify influencers is to search the common terms of your niche and look at the videos that appear first on the results page. Those videos generally belong to channels with large numbers of subscribers or view counts. Engaging these channels to influence your target audience for you through collaboration or featuring your product/service goes a long way in creating traction for your brand and Shopify store. Generally, influencers with subscriber counts of 500-5000 charge around $300 per video and the value goes higher with larger subscriber counts. Budgeting for influencer collaboration needs to be well thought out and negotiated. This is because recognition and association of your brand by their audiences usually takes up to 6 months of brand mentions on social media and on their channels. Conclusion YouTube is a very large platform with many viewers looking for great content and many creators competing for their attention. However, just like on Google, great search engine optimization techniques will keep you ahead of the competition. These include making content for trending topics and keywords, using catchy thumbnails and titles as well as descriptions with linkbacks. Always strive to maintain brand consistency to build viewer trust so that your conversion ratio is kept growing and the YouTube algorithm will work for you. Whenever you need a quick boost of viewership, take advantage of the many ad options available to you.