How to Generate Quality Leads Using YouTube Videos
84% of video marketers say video has effectively generated leads in 2021.
Yet, when businesses talk about lead generation, they naturally lean towards PPC ad platforms like Google AdWords or Facebook Ads. However, they overlook the biggest video-sharing platform and the second largest search engine: YouTube – with over two billion viewers.
Since video-based content is the most dynamic and engaging type of content viewers can access online, it is the perfect medium to hook your viewers, show your product in action, tell your brand’s story in a way that will resonate with your target market, and show off more of what makes your business remarkable.
Especially when you consider the fact that YouTube videos are more shareable than Facebook posts or tweets, it becomes all the more important to harness the unlimited lead generation power of YouTube.
If you don’t already know how, let us fill you in on how to use YouTube videos to capture more quality leads for your business.
Table of Contents
Utilise Keywords Effectively
The first step towards generating YouTube leads is optimising your video content to make it easily searchable. This boils down to using the right blend of keywords in and around your video.
Remember that everything from the title of your video and tags to the video description is searchable by search engines. Remember to do your keyword research diligently and incorporate short and long-tail keywords to make it easier for users to discover you.
Relevant keywords increase the chance of your videos being discovered organically in the YouTube search results by your target audience, as well as help search engines index your videos so they show up multiple times in a given search.
Look at how this video places keywords smartly in different locations and appears in search results for all “rainbow cake,” “how to make a rainbow cake,” and “rainbow unicorn cake.” Similarly, you can also search for a specific keyword related to your niche and check out the top few results.
Ranking on these keywords is crucial to the discoverability of your videos since these are the key phrases that people are searching for to find content like yours. You can also use tools such as VidIQ, Ahrefs keywords explorer, Semrush keyword research tool, and Tubebuddy to find the right keywords for your video.
Heading: The title of your video is not only the first thing that users see; it is also an important ranking factor. You need to make your video title as catch and compelling as possible to help search engines and users understand the context of your video. Remember to include your main keyword in the title. 90% of YouTube’s top-ranked videos include a target keyword in the video’s title.
Description: Your video description gives you plenty of real estate to incorporate your primary keywords and a variety of supporting keywords, especially within the first 25 words of the description. However, since your video description is meant to give an insight into what your video is all about, make sure not to stuff your description with keywords.
Transcript: Be sure to add a video transcript and accurate close captions to all your videos since doing so will help your videos rise to the top of search rankings.
Add Relevant CTAs
Getting video views is excellent, but those views are generally useless unless they convert to leads. YouTube is a very distracting platform, and it is easy for avid watchers to get lost in a web of videos.
While you want your audience to watch your next video, subscribe to your channel, like, share or comment, visit your website or perform some action in response to your video, chances are that they will move to the following suggested video faster than the speed of light.
You must guide your audience on what to do after watching your video. This is why adding appropriate CTAs in your video is highly CRUCIAL.
The first rule of adding a CTA is the ease of discoverability. You can’t say something like “Click on the link in the bio for more info!” and expect your viewers to scroll down to the description and fish for the link.
Your CTA needs to be conspicuous to be clickable. For instance, you can use banners and visuals to highlight your CTA. All Brian Dean’s videos feature attractive graphics and always end with an arrow pointing down to the subscribe button below the video.
While you can include a CTA at any point within your video, it’s often most effective when placed at the end of your content. This is where end screens offer a great way to finish your videos with a CTA.
End screens direct your audience to your landing page, a subscribe button for your channel, newsletter, or even standard social media promotion.
To make the most of YouTube’s lead generation strategy, display a link to your product page or eCommerce store to boost sales. You can also incorporate an interactive element as your CTA, such as “take our quiz” or “enter our giveaway,” which will allow you to collect qualified leads from viewers and ultimately lead to conversion. Also, remember to add a verbal cue to “subscribe” or “head to our website” to guide the viewer towards your goal.
Here are some types of CTAs you should be using in your YouTube videos:
- Beginning of the Video CTA: These CTAs work best for targeting viewers who bounce off a few seconds into the video. These CTAs will be clicked by both people who bounce before your video ends and those who watch the video all the way through.
- Video Suggestion CTA: If you want your viewers to spend their YouTube watch sessions on only your videos, you need to suggest relevant videos they should watch after the video they just watched. This tactic is more likely to keep them hooked than the auto-play.
- Channel Subscription CTA: Your subscribers receive notifications about your new videos, and your videos appear on their homepage. This boosts the watch time and enhances your ranking on YouTube. You can drive YouTube subscriptions by including an engaging CTA during your videos’ last 15 seconds.
- Landing page CTA: You can also include an end-of-video CTA that drives viewers to your product landing page or website after they have seen a relevant video. If you have hooked them with your video, they will want to try out your product themselves.
- Description CTA: Last but not least, you can add a CTA to the description section of your videos. Add links to your channel page, social profiles, or website in the description section.
Involve an Influencer
One of the best ways of growing your customer base and generating leads through YouTube is to join forces with professional YouTubers or influencers with a strong viewer base.
Collaborating with content creators helps you gain exposure, build brand awareness, earn the trust of new viewers, increase the visibility of your content, and attract new leads to your channel.
You should look for influencers within your niche to make the most of influencer partnerships. Getting an endorsement from an influencer that is an authority in your industry is 4X more meaningful than a similar endorsement from a big-name celebrity, most because of their approachability and closer engagement with their audience.
This is because people are more likely to pay heed to a well-known voice recommending your product rather than trust your brand, saying how fantastic its product is.
If you are thinking about getting your feet wet in influencer marketing, conduct a simple search in your industry to find individuals you can use as your brand advocates. Once you find influencers with impressive engagement rates, you should contact them about a collaboration.
In this video, influencer Patricia Bright subtly introduces her audience to products from Lily Silk. She starts by covering a wide range of luxury items that are great for the autumn season and mentions the product in the first half of the video.
The more followers or influence a creator has, the higher their price tags. Alternatively, you can consider micro and nano influencers with under 100k and even 10k subscribers, especially if they have amassed an engaged niche following.
For a successful influencer marketing campaign, it is recommended to leave the job of creating content for influencers since they know what their audience wants to see. You can also think about a value exchange partnership where you send free products to influencers against a testimonial, like the unboxing videos we see on YouTube.
However, it is essential to remember that an honest review of your offerings, including all the pros and cons, will resonate well with the audience and drive leads to your product landing page.
When PlayStation released the new PS5, the brand collaborated with Justine Ezarik of iJustine, a vast gaming influencer on YouTube, for this video. In the video, she unboxes the new PS5 and comments on the product's futuristic look, lightweight controllers, and other features.
Create video Playlists
Most businesses typically create multiple videos for a single campaign, each with a similar CTA pointing to the same landing page. If you have groups of related videos on your YouTube channel, why not consider grouping them into a single playlist?
YouTube loves to recommend related videos from your channel to your viewers in its “Suggested videos” section. This means that when you create your playlists, users will keep receiving suggestions to view content created by you rather than being diverted to other videos. Playlists serve multiple purposes.
For instance, creating playlists increases the time viewers stay on your channel since they will not have to search for and click on videos to watch manually. Once one video ends, the next begins… and so on.
Secondly, playlists help tremendously with lead nurturing. Suppose users are not yet ready to convert after a single video. In that case, they will be automatically taken to the following video, which may bring them one step closer to clicking on your CTA button.
See how Rockstar provides its viewers with playlists for their most popular games, including trailers and gameplay videos.
Similarly, Financial counsellor Max Mitchell adds all his TFSA videos to one playlist, so viewers can just sit back and learn all the nitty gritty details of tax-free savings accounts.
Use YouTube Ads
YouTube’s advanced AD platform is a great lead generation tool that can help you capture maximum businesses and expose your business to over 2 billion members.
While creating original and valuable content compels people to share your videos for free, it doesn’t hurt to embrace paid ads to promote your content, maximise your videos' reach, and ensure your videos reach the intended audience.
YouTube features many worthwhile targeting options, such as contextual, behavioural, geotargeting, retargeting, and search, to ensure that the most qualified leads view your videos. Not to mention, YouTube’s built-in analytics makes it easy for you to evaluate the performance of your ads and adapt accordingly.
Here are some kinds of ads we recommend you get started with:
- Skippable In-Stream Video Ads
These are the most common ad formats used on YouTube and can be shown before a video starts or at some point. These ads play for a minimum of 5 seconds before a viewer can skip them. You only have to pay for an Ad impression when viewers watch at least 30 seconds of your video (or less for shorter videos) or if they click on it.
See how the B2B company Monday.com uses skippable in-stream ads for lead generation. Notice how they have placed their sign-up CTA in a companion banner in the top right of the display and a video overlay in the bottom left. The banner ad stays put even if a user skips the video ad. This increases the chance of a viewer clicking on a CTA if they change their mind.
- Non-skippable in-stream ads
These ads can also be played before, during, or after YouTube videos. However, unlike skippable ads, viewers have no option but to watch an ad for its entire duration, ranging from 15-20 seconds. While these ads are great for building brand awareness and affinity, users often find them a nuisance that ruins their video-watching experience.
Another downside of these ads is that you have to pay for each view, or more specifically, per 1000 views (CPM), regardless of whether a user converted. If your sole aim is to increase awareness, regardless of the consequences, these ads are best for you.
- Bumper Ads
These non-skippable 6-seconds ads are played before a video starts and are aimed at getting noticed. Memorable, snappy and punchy, bumper ads work best for announcing sales, introducing new products, promotions, or special events, or driving brand reach and frequency. While it may seem challenging to convey your message in a limited time, these ads can significantly lift ad recall and not annoy users like non-skippable in-stream ads.
- Discovery Ads
Suppose you are familiar with Google search ads. In that case, YouTube’s discovery ads also appear on top of YouTube search results, on the video watch page, and even on the YouTube homepage in a sub-organic way, which increases their reach and visibility.
The only way to distinguish these videos from other videos on YouTube is the little yellow “Ad” box to let users know they are paid for results. Discovery ads are great for ranking on the top for relevant searches and for exposing your YouTube videos to the right audience who appears to be interested in that particular content.
For instance, Hidden Valley has a series of 15-second discovery ads that surface when users type in relevant search terms:
- Display Ads
Display ads are banner ads that include an image and text alongside a CTA with a link to your website. These ads can be static or animated, but rest assured, they do not ruin your video playing experience since they appear on the top of search results or at the right-hand sidebar while the video is playing.
For instance, when I looked up the “best walking shoes” on YouTube, a responsive display ad appeared at the top of the page. The ad included a subject line brand name, a description, and a CTA button to visit their site.
The best thing about these ads is that they are unobtrusive, and you only get charged when someone clicks on the ad. This Ad format is perfect because the ad is constantly displayed on top of video suggestions, keeping it front and centre all the time.
Remember to Respond to Comments Personally
Customers are biased toward brands that are responsive to their queries and comments. This is because most customers ask questions about products, lodge their complaints, or express their displeasure in the comments section of videos rather than contact your customer service team. 79% of consumers expect brands to respond within a day of reaching out over social media.
Since getting engagement on your videos is excellent for expanding your brand exposure and boosting your search rankings, responding to all comments proactively is essential, especially addressing all complaints.
Failure to respond to negative comments can wreak havoc on brand advocacy. Positive or negative, engaging with potential leads allows you to cultivate trust with users and puts you across as a friendly and accessible brand that cares about its customers.
Users love to see businesses that interact with their content on social media sites, and this can go a long way in helping you generate those leads. People are more likely to sign up to hear from you frequently if they respect and trust you.
Consistent, organic action from your channel will generate leads in the long run. You can also use the comment section to pin your extra information or important announcements to the top of the comments, as seen with Unbox Therapy below:
Create YouTube Shorts
Shorts is YouTube’s take on TikTok. This content type gets 6.5 billion daily views even in its most basic beta form. YouTube Shorts are vertical videos that are 60 seconds or less in length.
With YouTube shorts, anyone can connect with a new audience with just a smartphone and the Shorts camera in the YouTube app.
For instance, since Jake Fellman started making YouTube short videos, his channel has witnessed half a billion views, compared to when he would only make educational content.
There are plenty of ways marketers can jump on the bandwagon and make the most of YouTube shorts. For instance, you can use shorts to create quick tutorials or step-by-step videos around the content topics your audience likes.
After all, most people who prefer short-form content or who are in a rush are more likely to see all of your short videos rather than only being able to access your longer content.
Not to mention, while TikTok is better for garnering the attention of Gen Z, when you are targeting older generations, such as Gen X, your short-form content might get more engagement on YouTube than TikTok.
Look at how Lyfe marketing creates fun, engaging, and informative content in under 30 seconds. In the video below, the account breaks down colour psychology effortlessly in such a short period:
If you are inexperienced in creating short-form content, analyse your existing content and pick out topics you can distil down into shorter, more succinct format.
