Strategies That Work Great In 2021

YouTube Video marketing is a hot topic among entrepreneurs right now, and for good reason.

According to Statista, individuals and businesses spent almost $177 billion on digital video ad spending in 2023, and there are currently 3.37 billion digital video viewers worldwide. These numbers are only going to increase with time.

Not surprisingly, the growing demand for video content has many businesses scrambling to create a video marketing strategy to increase their exposure, traffic, and sales. Several entrepreneurs recognized this trend early and are already way ahead of the curve.

MrBeast, for example, made a whopping $82 million from YouTube in 2023, ranking first as the top-earning YouTuber worldwide. And while MrBeast might not run the same kind of business as you, his success on the platform speaks to what’s possible if you market your YouTube videos. 

If you haven’t started creating video content to promote your business yet, don’t fret. You’re definitely not alone.

Before we created this guide, we reached out to several top video marketing experts and YouTube channel owners to find out exactly what they’re doing to create high-quality videos, get more views, and leverage YouTube to grow their business.

You’ll find several of their insights and examples from their YouTube channels throughout this guide.

Here’s what we’re going to cover in this guide:

Feel free to skip ahead to any of the sections in this guide that will be most helpful for you right now.

Okay, let’s dive in…

Why publish videos on YouTube?

Although most social media platforms encourage the creation and sharing of video content, YouTube is, without question, the number one source of video content online. Second only to Google, it is the second largest search engine in the world.

So, although there are certainly benefits to publishing video content on other social platforms, like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, this guide will focus exclusively on YouTube.

Here are a few advantages of having videos on YouTube:

• Traffic: With over 2.5 billion users, YouTube processes over 3 billion searches every single month (that’s more search traffic than Yahoo!, Bing, Ask, and AOL combined!).
• Conversions: YouTube videos have the ability to drive website views, engagement, and conversions for businesses. That’s why, in 2024, 86% of companies said they plan to create more videos for promotions, sales, and brand awareness than they did in 2023.
• Google search results: Since Google owns YouTube, you will usually see one or two YouTube videos in the top ten results of a Google search.
• Repurpose content: If you have content in other formats (such as blog posts or podcast episodes), you can easily repurpose that content into videos. The visual learners in your target audience will certainly appreciate it.
• Advertising: If you’re getting tired of diminishing returns from other advertising platforms, give YouTube’s video ads a shot. The cool thing about YouTube’s video ads is you only pay if someone engages with your ad.
• People love sharing videos: YouTube videos are extremely easy to share. They can be embedded in Facebook posts, blog posts, and X posts, and all those views will still show up on your YouTube channel.

The 3 Main Types of YouTube Videos

The majority of the videos on YouTube fall into one of the following categories:

1. Educational videos (helpful how-to advice about a specific topic)
2. Inspirational videos (pulls on your heartstrings and inspires you to take action)
3. Entertaining videos (captures your attention, meant for enjoyment)

If the goal of your video marketing strategy is to increase sales for your product or service, your videos need to attract your target market. So, while inspirational and entertaining videos can certainly attract more views, they won’t necessarily attract your target audience. For that reason, we will focus on creating helpful videos for a specific target audience.

This doesn’t mean that your video can’t be inspirational, entertaining, or both. It just means that you should prioritize being helpful to a specific target audience – your ideal customers – above being entertaining or inspiring.

“Make it for the audience. Know the audience, make it shareable. Would you share it if you didn’t make it? Always ask yourself that.”

– Devin Graham, Devin Super Tramp

How YouTube Ranks Videos in Search Results

Since the goal of your videos is to be found by the people who are searching for your topics, we need to understand a little bit about how YouTube decides to rank the videos that appear in the search results for specific search terms (aka keywords).

Basically, there are three main criteria that YouTube considers when deciding where to rank a specific video in their search results: relevance, engagement, and quality.

1. Relevance

Relevance tracks how relevant a video is to the search terms that someone uses to search for videos. If you search for “funny cat videos,” for example, YsouTube’s job is to show you a list of funny videos with cats in them.

Here are some of the main attributes YouTube uses to evaluate how relevant your video is to specific search terms:

• Your video title
• Your video description
• Your video tags
• Your video closed captions
• Your video thumbnail image

2. Engagement

Engagement tracks how many people have interacted with a video and uses this to push more popular videos to the top of the search list. So, a cat video with millions of views and thousands of comments will likely rank higher than a cat video with a few hundred views and no comments.

Engagement attributes include:

• Total watch time
• % watched (video retention)
• # of views
• # of ratings (likes/dislikes)
• # of comments
• # of subscribes after watching
• # of shares
• # of favorites

If you’re publishing videos to promote your business, you’re probably going to lean more heavily toward relevance than you are toward engagement (or popularity) in your videos, and that’s okay.

When your goal is to attract customers from your YouTube channel, you likely won’t need millions of views to generate a positive ROI on your video marketing efforts. For many businesses, a few thousand or even a few hundred views per video can be enough to increase their website traffic, leads, and sales.

This has certainly been the case for Carissa Hill, an online entrepreneur who scaled her coaching business to more than $100,000 in monthly revenue with the help of video marketing. She achieved this with less than 2,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel.

“I started my online coaching business with videos, and my company has grown by 4X consistently every year since I started. The more subscribers I get, the higher my revenue gets. I only have about 1,400 YouTube subscribers but my sales are over 6 figures per MONTH consistently. I use YouTube videos for my content marketing and email them out to my list. I also use them as private paid trainings (online courses) that I sell. Video has allowed me to build a wonderful relationship with my followers and clients, and I have made it the main part of my marketing and sales strategy.”

– Carissa Hill

3. Quality 

When evaluating the quality of a YouTube video, Google looks for indicators that suggest the video can satisfy user queries and provide value. Quality isn’t determined by a single variable. Instead, it’s the sum of the following factors: 

• The channel reputation/brand trustworthiness 
• Accuracy and depth of content
• Production value and presentation
• Feedback (positive or negative)
• Sustained viewership

9 Steps to Creating YouTube Videos That Attract Customers For Your Business

Unless your only reason for publishing videos on YouTube is to increase exposure for your business, the total number of views you receive isn’t nearly as important as the number of views by your target audience.

With that in mind, here is the  9-step process that top video marketers and entrepreneurs are using to create YouTube videos that attract their target audience:

Step 1: Create Your YouTube Channel

The first step is to create a YouTube channel; that’s where you’ll publish your videos, create playlists, view analytics, and more. Google owns YouTube, so you’ll need to create a Google account to get a YouTube channel. You can use an existing Google account or create one specifically for managing your business channel.

Here are the steps to take once you have your Google account:

• Navigate to YouTube.com and click your profile photo in the top right corner of the page.
• Tap Create a channel when the dropdown menu appears. 
• Enter your business name and the handle you choose and upload your logo (or any other image) as your profile photo. 
• Then, click Create channel. 

Once you do that, you’ll be taken to a dashboard where you’ll have the freedom to customize several elements on your channel to align with your brand (we’ll discuss branding your YouTube channel in more detail later). 

These elements include:

• Profile picture 
• Handle
• Channel description
• Banner image
• Social links
• Channel URL
• Contact information 
• Featured section(s), etc.

By the time you’re done adding these elements, here’s what your YouTube channel should look like:

Step 2: Define Your Audience 

Before you start filming videos, you need to know who you’re creating content for. Granted, not all prospective customers will watch your YouTube videos, but for the ones who do use YouTube, you’ll also want to find out what they like watching. Here are some questions you need to ask: 

• What genders do my audience comprise of (the percentage)? 
• What’s their age range? 
• Where are they located? 
• What language(s) do they speak?

This data helps you figure out your demographic. Once you’ve done that, move on to gauging your audience’s interests. Ask yourself: 

• What kind of content is my target audience currently watching on YouTube?
• What channels are they subscribed to?

There are a number of ways to get the answers to these questions. 

General demographics 

Pew Research Center did a recent survey and found out that as of June 2024, there was a nearly even gender split between YouTube users, with 51.2% being female and 48.8% being male (there’s no specific data on other genders). 

Unlike TikTok, which is mainly geared towards Gen Zs and millennials, YouTube is pretty popular across generations, with 55% of its user base falling between the ages of 18 and 49, and 25.4% of them ranging from ages 50-64. 

YouTube Analytics 

If you already have a YouTube channel set up with some videos on it, you can check your YouTube Analytics for audience data like viewer age and gender, geography, traffic source, and more. This will give you an idea of your audience’s demographics and interests. 

You’ll also know for sure how people are finding your videos (e.g., search, social media, YouTube feed, email, etc.). This will inform how you choose to promote your videos (which we’ll talk about later). 

Social listening

Social listening tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social allow you to keep a finger on the pulse of your audience’s interests and preferences by monitoring what people are saying online, including on social media platforms (including YouTube), forums, and comment sections. 

By analyzing this real-time feedback, you can discover trending topics, emerging interests, and common questions that may serve as the basis of your next YouTube video idea. You can also identify pain points and frequently asked questions that other channels aren’t answering adequately. 

The data you get from these tools goes beyond basic demographics; they provide a nuanced view of what your target audience genuinely cares about and why.

Step 3: Research Your Competition

If you’re just starting out on YouTube, there will be older, more popular channels making the exact type of videos you intend to make, talking about the same topics you want to talk about, and reaching the same audience you’ll be trying to reach. So, you’ll need to get familiar with their game. 

Start by identifying the YouTube channels of competitors you already know. Conduct a competitor analysis by noting the following: 

• Their subscriber count (and growth rate)
• Average views they get per video
• How often they post videos
• Their overall video quality 
• The topics they post videos about 
• Their most popular videos
• Their brand voice 
• Whether they engage with their audience in the comments

This data will help you figure out how to incorporate their strengths into your own channel, capitalize on their weaknesses, and differentiate your content from theirs. For example, if most of your competitors post videos once a week, you could try posting twice. If they don’t engage with viewers in the comments, you can ask a question in your videos to encourage conversation in your comments section. 

You could get some topic ideas by exploring their channels, identify what types of videos your audience is most likely to resonate with, and find content gaps your channel can fill. 

Step 4: Choose Your Video Topic

The key to choosing video topics that your target audience will want to watch is to remember that your product or service is a solution to a specific problem.

This is why understanding your target audience, and more specifically, your ideal customer is so important. If you understand what problem they are facing, then you can create videos to help them solve that problem and learn about your business in the process.

Here are a few ways that you can identify potential topics to create videos about:

• Ask your email subscribers what they want to learn from you.
• Poll your audience on social media (Facebook and X polls are great for this).
• Ask your past and/or existing customers.
• Ask your customer support and/or sales teams what the most commonly asked questions they receive are.
• Scan the top blogs, podcasts, and YouTube channels in your industry for popular content. Read the comments to identify gaps in their content that you can cover in more detail.
• Join a few Facebook and/or LinkedIn groups about your industry. Look for popular discussion topics and questions.
• Search for questions about your industry on popular forums and online communities such as Quora and Reddit.

Once you have some topic ideas in mind, we recommend doing some additional keyword research to validate the demand for those topics. The higher the popularity and search volume there is for your topic, the higher the potential for organic traffic to your video.

Here are some of our favorite tools for validating the demand for a specific keyword/topic:

Google’s Keyword Planner – It’s great for estimating the total number of global monthly searches for your chosen keyword, as well as recommending other similar keywords.

YouTube’s search bar – Type your keyword into the search bar on YouTube. Look at the similar keywords that show up in the dropdown list.

BuzzSumo – Use this to search for other popular websites and content on the web that cover the same topic and have received lots of social shares and backlinks. This tool is also great for monitoring top-performing content on your competitors’ websites.

Let’s pretend you need to create a video to help promote your pet nutrition company. Assuming dog treats are one of your products, you might select “healthy dog treats” as a potential video topic.

Here’s what we found when we researched this topic using these tools:

Google Keyword Planner

According to Google’s Keyword Planner, the keyword “healthy dog treats” receives between 10,000 and 100,000 average monthly searches. The competition for this is high, but if we look at the list of related keywords below we see a few others that less, but decent, searches each month. 

“Best dog dental chews,” for example, receives between 1,000 and 10,000 average monthly searches. So does “low calorie dog treats,” “healthy snacks for dogs,” and ”lean treats for dogs.” While the competition for these alternative keywords is still high, it’ll likely be easier to rank for them than it’ll be to rank for “healthy dog treats.” 

YouTube’s search bar

When we type “healthy dog treats” into the search bar on YouTube, a dropdown list of similar search terms appears. These are great suggestions for potential video topics and titles.

Notice the phrases “homemade” and “to make at home” appear in two of the suggestions in the dropdown list. This is a sign of strong demand for healthy dog treats that are made at home.

“Do your research on what topics are trending in your space, what your customers want to know from you, and what kind of content gets engagement in your niche. Using tools like Google Keyword Planner will allow you to see how many people are searching for your video per month and that will guarantee an audience before you even hit record.”

– Sunny Lenarduzzi

BuzzSumo

When we type “healthy dog treats” into BuzzSumo, we are presented with a list of content that contains these keywords in their headlines, ranked in order of the number of engagements across several social platforms.

As you can see from the screenshot below, the top piece of content on this topic includes the word “homemade” in its title. I think we might be onto something here…

With the pro version of BuzzSumo, you can also export a list of people who have shared this content on social media and a list of websites that are currently linked to it. Those lists come in handy when it’s time to promote your video (more on that later).

As we can see from doing this research, “healthy dog treats” is a topic that thousands of people search for each month. As a pet nutrition company, having a video on YouTube that ranks for this search term can result in additional exposure to your target audience (presumably dog owners) and qualified traffic to your website.

“Review other content that performs well for a target audience and either make the same kind of content but way better, or see what’s ‘missing’ and make content to fill that space.”

– James, Casually Explained

Pro tip: Organize your topic ideas and keywords into a spreadsheet so you can keep track of them.   

Step 5: Record Your Video

Once you’ve selected a specific topic, it’s time to start recording your video.

Remember, your primary objective is to create a video that is helpful for your target audience. Creating videos that are entertaining and/or inspiring should be your second priority.

Video structure:

We recommended scripting your video before you start recording (not necessarily word-for-word, but at least have an outline). This will help you stay focused during your video and not ramble in different directions.

Every video you create should contain three distinct parts:

1. An Introduction

Introduce yourself and the topic you are going to cover in your video as quickly as possible. Most people who search for and find your video won’t know who you are before they watch it. They want to learn about the topic, not about you. Keep your introduction brief and tell them exactly what the outcome of the video.

“Hey, John Smith here from XYZ.com. In this video, I’m going to show you how to (insert topic) so you can (insert benefit). Okay, let’s get started…”

2. Your Main Content

Share your best advice on your chosen topic. If you can be entertaining or inspiring at the same time, great. But above all, share practical advice (no fluff!) that answers a specific question, and helps your audience solve a problem or achieve a specific result.

“Context always matters. You have to be relevant and engaging to your target audience.”

– Roberto Blake, Always Be Creating

3. A Call-To-Action

At the end of your video, give your viewers something to do. Ask them to leave a comment, share your video, visit your website, watch another video, download a free resource, subscribe to your email newsletter, etc. Never leave a viewer without a specific next step to take.

“Always include a call to action at the end of the video so your audience can like and subscribe. In order to get comments, ask a specific question, then prompt them to respond in the comments.”

– LaTisha Styles, Young Finances

Video length:

You might think that most people have short attention spans, and in many circumstances, you’re right. According to  OptinMonster, the average reader spends 52 seconds reading a blog post. For context, the average blog post is between 2,500 and 3,000 words long, which is a 7 – 10-minute read. 

On YouTube, however, the data speaks for itself. In 2024, users worldwide spent approximately 29 hours using the YouTube mobile app per month. So, if you’ve been told that you should create short YouTube videos, you might want to ignore this advice (unless you’re including YouTube Shorts, which we’ll talk about soon).

YouTube is very interested in keeping people on YouTube, and longer videos help them accomplish this. According to Notta’s research, the ideal length of any YouTube video is nearly 12 minutes but can vary from 7 to 15 minutes, depending on the industry you’re in. Therefore, we can safely conclude that on YouTube, longer is better.

With that in mind, we recommend creating regular YouTube videos that are at least 5 minutes long If the top-ranking videos for your target keyword are longer, you might want to create a video that is longer than those competing videos. Remember, as long as your video is helpful, most viewers won’t mind how long it is.

“Get right to the point. Length doesn’t matter but make sure each video starts off with a clear thesis so that viewers know exactly how they’re going to spend the next 5, 10, or 60 minutes of their lives.”

– Clayton Morris, Morris Invest

Video recording equipment:

The majority of the video marketers we reached out to have relatively simple and inexpensive recording equipment.

Many of them created their first videos using only their phones and gradually purchased additional recording equipment as their audience and business grew.

That being said, it doesn’t take a ton of equipment to record high-quality, professional-looking videos. At a minimum, we recommend purchasing a high-definition camera, a tripod, a microphone, and a lighting kit.

For specific cameras, microphones, and lighting recommendations check out our list of recording equipment recommendations here.

“Your viewer cares more about finding helpful content than a high-end production. YouTube is a search engine, and your ideal customers are searching for answers to their questions and solutions to their problems. There are videos that have millions of views that were shot on an iPhone.”

– Sunny Lenarduzzi 

Experiment with YouTube Shorts and other features 

The sudden popularity of 15-30-second TikTok videos inspired the creation of other short-form video mediums like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. And they work! As of October 2023, YouTube Shorts got about 70 million views daily. 

YouTube Shorts allows you to upload vertical videos up to 60 seconds long. This medium provides built-in audio, text, image, and filter features you can use to make your videos stand out. With YouTube Shorts, you can reach mobile-first audiences and drive more engagement for your business. 

There’s a dedicated Shorts tab on the YouTube interface that allows you to scroll through an endless curation of Shorts. This can give you ideas on how to present short videos and creatively use the features available. 

There are other YouTube video features you can experiment with, including Live Streams and 360 videos to deliver unique video experiences to your target audience. Keep an eye out for regular updates and see how you can use them to reach more people and expand your brand.

Step 6: Edit Your Video

Whether you’re creating videos for your own business or personal brand, or on behalf of a client or employer, just because you’re the one creating and/or appearing in those videos does not necessarily mean that you should also be the one who edits them.

As a marketer or entrepreneur, a better use of your time is creating and promoting videos. You’re welcome to edit your own videos if you want to, but in most cases, we recommend leaving this step to a professional.

If you don’t have a video editor in-house, you can find plenty of freelance video editors on Upwork and other freelance marketplaces. That being said, it’s still good to have a basic understanding of the video editing process before you delegate this step to someone else.

Every video has both an audio and a video component. Therefore, there are actually two types of editing that need to occur:

1. Video

The purpose of this step is to optimize what your viewers see. In this step, you’ll do things like remove filler or irrelevant content, change camera angles, add graphics, transitions, screencasts, b-rolls, bullet points, etc.

2. Audio

The purpose of this step is to optimize what your viewers hear. The audio quality of your videos should not be taken lightly. Poor audio quality really detracts from someone’s viewing experience. In this step, you’ll do things like adding a voiceover to specific parts of your video, sounds effects, music, fade in/out, etc.

To edit your videos, you’ll need video editing software. Fortunately, there are plenty of free and inexpensive options to choose from. Here are some popular ones:

To give you an example of a well-edited video, check out the video about starting a YouTube channel by video marketing expert Sean Cannell below. Notice his use of different camera angles, transitions, sound effects, background music, etc. These are all a result of good editing!

Once you’re done editing your video, save it and include your main keywords for the video in the file name. This can help your video rank higher in search results for your main keywords.

If you want to learn more about video editing, simply search for “how to edit videos for YouTube,” and you’ll find plenty of helpful tutorials.

“Plan it, script it, shoot it, edit it, re-edit it, then re-edit it again. When you finally killed all the crap no one cares about, re-edit it again until it does and says what you meant it to. Now add a ton of b-roll, graphics, etc. Then quit messing around with it and post it.”

– Kevin Filmmaker, The Basic Filmmaker 

Step 7: Publish Your Video on YouTube

Once your video has been edited and it’s ready for publishing, it’s time to upload it to your YouTube channel.

1. Add your video title

Give your video a compelling title that includes the main keyword that you chose for your video. Try to keep your title to 70 characters or less (anything longer will be truncated in most search results).

If you need some help coming up with a compelling title, CoSchedule has a great Headline Analyzer tool that gives your headline a score out of 100. You can use this to test a few different headline ideas and pick the one with the highest score.

2. Add your video description

Your video description appears below your video. YouTube currently has a 5,000-character limit on video descriptions, but that doesn’t mean that you should use all 5,000 characters.

Some SEO experts will tell you to write long descriptions for your videos and stuff them with the keywords that you want your video to rank for. But according to Brian Dean, this approach doesn’t work.

“We found zero correlation between keyword-optimized video descriptions and rankings.”

– Brian Dean, Backlinko

One possible explanation for this is that YouTube is now much more capable of understanding what a video is about based on the video itself, and they don’t actually rely on the text in a video description.

With that in mind, we recommend writing a brief paragraph (50-200 words) to describe the content of your video. Use the rest of the available space in your description section to include specific CTAs, links to your website, additional resources, your social media profiles, and so on.

Here is the screenshot of the description of a video by Ali Abdaal, a retired British doctor and productivity expert, on how beginners can invest their money. 

As you can see below, the actual video description is a really short paragraph, while most of the text in the description box are links to other resources he’d like his audience to check out, including his affiliate link for the company sponsoring the video, his upcoming book, course cohort, over YouTube videos, free online courses, creator courses, and more. 

3. Upload a custom thumbnail

Your video thumbnail is the image that people see before they click to watch your video. An attractive thumbnail, along with some text that helps describe the video, can help entice potential viewers to click on your video.

If you don’t upload a custom thumbnail for your video, YouTube gives you an autogenerated screenshot from the video, which, most of the time, is not very flattering.

You can use tools such as Canva or Snappa to easily create attractive thumbnail images for your videos.

4. Add your video tags

The appropriate place to add specific keywords to your video (like the ones you identified when you researched your video topic) is in your video tags. We recommend including at least 5-10 similar keywords in your video tags.

When we did our keyword research for the term “healthy dog treats,” we discovered several similar keywords that people are using to search for that topic. For that video, we would use those keywords in our video tags:

5. Add cards & an end screen to your video

YouTube has two great features that you can use to help increase engagement with your videos: cards and end screens.

Cards can be added to any point in your video. They are used for pointing viewers to specific URLs, and showing custom images, titles, and calls to action, depending on the card type. Cards are a great way to encourage your viewers to click on something during the video, such as a link to a specific product or resource that you mention in your video. You can learn more about adding cards to your videos here.

End screens appear in the last 5-20 seconds of your video. They are great for giving your viewers a next step to take, such as to subscribe to your channel or watch other videos. You can learn more about adding end screens to your videos here.

Here’s a screenshot of an end screen that appears at the end of one of Marie Forleo’s videos. As you can see, it contains a link to watch another one of her videos, and a few other calls to action (subscribe to her channel and visit her website).

“Show your other related videos at the end of the video. This is the moment when your viewers are most engaged in your content. If you linked to 2 other videos of yours on every video you make, you end up with a huge network of interlinking videos that boost their rankings and traffic.”

– Neil Patel

6. Add subtitles/closed captions to your video

Adding subtitles/closed captions to your videos helps YouTube to better understand what your video is about, which will help it rank better in search results for your video topic/keywords. They also help people who can’t hear (or choose to mute your video) understand what is being said in the video.

There are a few ways you can add subtitles/closed captions to your video:

Upload a file: Upload a text transcript or timed subtitles file. You can use a professional transcription service such as Rev to obtain an accurate transcription.

Transcribe and auto-sync: Type or paste in a full transcript of the video, and YouTube will set the subtitle timing automatically.

Create new subtitles: Create subtitles and closed captions by typing them in as you watch the video.

To learn more about adding subtitles and closed captions to your videos, check out YouTube’s tutorial here.

“Be consistent. Be present. Be personal. Be real. Be vulnerable. Be yourself. Be awesome.”

– Bryan Elliott, Behind The Brand

Step 8: Promote Your Video to Increase Views and Shares

In the long run, the goal of your videos is to attract organic traffic by ranking the search results for their respective keywords/topics.

To give your videos the best chance of consistently attracting new viewers on a long-term basis, it helps to promote them as soon as they are published. Promoting your videos as soon as they are published helps give them an initial boost of traction, which helps encourage YouTube to rank your video higher than competing videos.

Here are some things you can do each time you publish a new video to help increase views and shares:

1. Send the link to your video to your email list

Send an email to your list of email subscribers with a link to watch your video. Share a quick story about why you created this video, what they will learn from it, and the benefits of watching it. Encourage them to comment on the video, ask a question, or share it with someone who would also enjoy it.

2. Share your video on social media

Share your video with all of your fans and followers on all of your social networks. Some video marketers create separate promotional videos to encourage their audience to watch their latest video on YouTube. You could also create a teaser video to show a short clip from your main video, and include a link to your main video in their post.

The folks at Cinepals, for example, often share short teaser videos on their Instagram page to promote their latest YouTube videos of them reacting to fan-favorite movies:

“We personally run YouTube ads but you can always add a CTA at the end of your video asking people to like, subscribe, and share! And don’t forget your email list and social channels.”

– Eric Siu, Growth Everywhere

3. Embed your video in a blog post

If you have a company website and/or blog, publish a blog post that summarizes our YouTube video and includes a link to the video itself. This simple act of publishing a blog post that includes a link to your YouTube video can help to increase its ranking on YouTube.

4. Collaborate with other experts

Although this is technically accomplished during the video creation phase, featuring other people in your videos can help increase exposure to new audiences, especially when the people featured in your video help to share it.

Interviewing other experts and content creators in your industry is a great way to accomplish this. Video interviews can also easily be re-purposed as podcast episodes, blog posts, and case studies.

Lewis Howes, for example, regularly interviews guest experts for his School of Greatness Podcast. Since these interviews are recorded in person, the videos are a great addition to his YouTube channel, helping him to attract more views and subscribers to his channel.

We’ve implemented this technique with Thinkific’s YouTube channel as well. We regularly invite guest experts to discuss various aspects of online course creation, marketing, and entrepreneurship. We’ve also interviewed several of our customers, which serve as inspiring case studies for our audience.

5. Reach out to people who have shared and/or linked to similar content

Remember the BuzzSumo tool we introduced you to in Step 1? If you have the pro version or above, you can export a list of people that have shared and/or linked to similar content online. From there, you can reach out to each person individually (email and X are both great ways to do this) and invite them to check out your video.

Although this can be a relatively time-consuming promotion technique, it can be very effective and is generally a great way to initiate relationships with other people who are interested in your video topic.

6. Advertise your videos on YouTube

If you have a Google Ads account (if not, learn how to set one up here), you can pay to promote your videos on YouTube itself. Just like on Facebook, you can target your ads by age, gender, location, interests, and more.

The great thing about advertising on YouTube is you only pay when someone engages with your ad. If they skip it before the 30-second mark (or before the end of your video), you don’t pay anything. You can learn more about advertising on YouTube here.

“YouTube has excess inventory for its advertising right now and often you can get very cheap views, clicks, and conversions by running advertisements to custom audiences on YouTube.”

– Ben Wier, BluMaan

Step 9: Monitor Your YouTube Analytics 

As you implement these steps, be sure to keep an eye on your YouTube analytics at least once a month to see how your channel is performing. YouTube’s built-in analytics feature helps track metrics like: 

• Views
• Impressions
• Subscribers
• View duration
• Watch time
• Audience retention
• Traffic sources and devices
• Click-through rate (CTR) 

These analytics allow you to identify your best (and worst) performing videos, which topics resonate with your audience, and which factors impact video performance. Once you know this information, you’ll be able to tweak your YouTube marketing strategy to become more effective. 

Branding Your YouTube Channel

Now that we’ve discussed how to create videos that attract your ideal customers, let’s discuss optimizing your YouTube channel.

Whether you’re creating a YouTube channel as an individual/personal brand or on behalf of a company, it’s important to brand your channel in a way that makes your target audience feel like they’ve come to the right place.

1. Your Channel Icon

The channel icon is a small image associated with your channel and videos. It appears on the top left of your homepage and next to your channel name below each of your videos.

If you’re creating a channel for your company, it’s common practice to use your company logo as your channel icon. If you’re using your channel to build your personal brand, use a professional headshot. The recommended channel icon image size is 800 x 800 pixels.

2. Your Channel Art

Your channel art is the banner image that appears at the top of your channel’s homepage. This will typically be the first thing a new visitor to your channel sees, so it’s important to make a strong first impression.

Nischa. Her YouTube channel art does a great job of communicating what the channel is about and how often she posts new videos (every Sunday).

You can use tools such as Canva or Snappa to create your channel art. The recommended banner image size is 2560 x 1440 pixels.

3. Your Featured Video

The featured video appears near the top of your channel and, since it plays automatically, it will likely be the first video someone sees when they visit your channel’s homepage. A boring, unprofessional video will turn people off and leave a bad impression of your brand. Do your best to create a high-quality video that welcomes a new viewer to your channel.

Dr. Roger Seheult, for example, has a great featured video for his MedCram YouTube channel where he shares medical lectures and educational videos. In less than 2 minutes, he clearly explains what his channel is about and where his viewers can find additional resources and online courses that he’s created. Feel free to watch his video here.

4. Your Channel Description

Your channel description belongs in the About section of your channel. Use this section to explain what your channel is about, why they should subscribe to it, and any additional calls-to-action you’d like to include.

There’s also a section for custom links where you can add your social media profiles, websites, and other links. You can also specify which ones you want to be overlaid on your channel art banner.

Here are some tips for optimizing your channel description:

• Include some of your main keywords in your description
• Add a call to action (like visit your website, for example)
• Link to your site and other social profiles
• Add your contact details

Here is a screenshot of Hootsuite’s YouTube channel description, as an example:

5. Playlists and Sections

Organizing your videos into specific playlists and sections makes it easier for viewers to find and watch specific types of videos.

Playlists are also a great way to help YouTube better understand what your channel is about, so make sure you are intentional about the keywords you use in your playlist titles. Sometimes, entire playlists can show up in the search results for specific keywords.

Crochet expert Sarah-Jayne, for example, publishes free craft and crochet tutorials every week to her YouTube channel, Bella Coco. Here is a screenshot of some of the playlists she created for her videos:

“Your channel is a direct representation of your brand, and you want to make sure that customers see you at your best. Don’t present them with a messy, disorganized YouTube experience, but rather a well-curated and well-thought-out channel. One of the best ways to do this is to create playlists to organize your content.”

– Dara Fontein, Hootsuite

How to Turn YouTube Viewers Into Paying Customers

Now that we’ve discussed how to create, publish, and promote videos that will attract your target audience, let’s talk about converting those viewers into paying customers for your business.

But first, a quick note about YouTube’s partner program and the potential to earn ad revenue from your videos.

According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the average CPM (cost per thousand views) ranges from $2 to $10 (depending on the industry), with the creator taking 55% of the revenue. So, if you’re paying $10 CPM and every viewer watched the ad on your videos, you’ll earn $5.50 per 1,000 views.  

Source: YouTube Money Calculator (Influencer Marketing Hub)

As you can see from the sample calculation above, unless your YouTube channel receives tens of millions of views or more per year and your viewers are actually engaging with ads on your videos, monetizing your YouTube channel using ads is probably not the most lucrative strategy for your business.

Instead, your goal in publishing videos on YouTube should be to attract and acquire customers for your own products and services. To do this, you need to get your viewers off of YouTube.

Make sure there is a clear path from your YouTube videos to your website, email newsletter, or even a sales page for a specific product or service.

As a business, it’s best to view YouTube as a source of traffic to your website and business. Create videos to attract, add value to, and build trust with your target audience. From there, make sure you have the conversion mechanisms and sales funnels in place to guide your viewers down the path of becoming your customers.

The Best Time to Create a YouTube Video Marketing Strategy

The best time to start marketing your business on YouTube was probably a few years ago, but the second best time is today.

There are already billions of digital video viewers across the globe, and every day, more and more people are consuming video content online.

If you’re not publishing videos on YouTube to help your target audience and attract more customers to your business, you are missing a huge opportunity.

By following the steps outlined in this guide, along with the advice from all of the video marketing experts that we featured in it, you are well on your way to creating a YouTube marketing strategy to help grow your business and attract more customers in 2025 and beyond.

As a quick recap, here are the main steps outlined in this guide:

1. Identify a specific target audience for your videos (your ideal customers)
2. Choose specific topics to answer their question or help them solve a problem that is relevant to your industry/business
3. Record, edit, and upload your videos on your YouTube channel
4. Promote your videos to help increase views and engagement
5. Give your viewers a clear path to becoming your customer

“Be consistent. Plain and simple. If you start a weekly show then you have to be producing and publishing that show every week. Also, longer form content is starting to work better and better, so don’t be scared to create longer videos – just make sure they’re all content. No fluff!”

– Chris Ducker

The secret to getting more views on YouTube

Lastly, to leave you with one final “secret” to getting more views on YouTube…

To succeed on YouTube, stay focused on two things: quality and consistency.

Create videos that are relevant and helpful to your target audience. Publish and promote new videos consistently. Check out our guide to the top customer success strategies used by successful companies to help you understand the desired outcomes of your viewers and design experiences to help them achieve those outcomes.

Publishing videos on YouTube should be part of your long-term content strategy (not a short-term marketing gimmick). And when you do it right, every video you publish becomes a digital asset that works 24/7 to increase your exposure and attract customers to your business.

As Marie Forleo, a highly successful entrepreneur and host of the award-winning online show Marie TV, often says, “Success doesn’t come from what you do occasionally; it comes from what you do consistently.”

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This blog was originally published in March 2021, it’s since been updated in December 2024 to include the newest information.