Create a YouTube strategy

1. Choose the right content type for your brand: educational, entertaining, and self-promotional.

Educational: how-to’s, tutorials, documentaries, product reviews. Entertainment: vlogs, sketch comedy, musicals, reaction videos, trick shots. Self-promotional: about the products and services you provide. The best performing content will include all three styles in one video.

2. Create content that will engage with the most potential customers, with the goal of reaching a wide range of people organically.

Create content that: Relates to your product or service. Provides value to your audience, such as teaches them something or entertains them. Is something that will reflect well on your audience if they share it with others, for example, make them appear to have a good sense of humor. That includes some form of engagement or feedback. For example, inviting the audience to leave a comment. For example, a barbershop channel’s content focuses on clients getting haircuts. This appeals to people who like to see transformations, barbers who want to better their craft, and people who want to get cool haircuts. If you are struggling for ideas, research other videos your audience watches or simply ask them.

3. Create up to three videos a week and at least one video a month.

Creating videos at a high rate helps you keep engagement high and collect data. Also releasing videos on a regular schedule will lead to people expecting and looking for your latest post.

4. Tell a story with your thumbnail and title that creates a sense of curiosity, to improve your CTR.

Some techniques you can use include: Ask a question. Pique the audience’s curiosity. Leverage a current trend. Promote a giveaway. Highlight what your audience will learn. Use faces in your thumbnail as they grab people’s attention. Keep copy concise and ensure it is easy to read at all sizes. Make sure that thumbnail content is in the video.

5. Increase the average view duration with a compelling introduction.

At the beginning of each video, immediately explain the topic, explain the value this provides, and pique the audience’s curiosity.

6. Build playlists, use cards, and add ads to get viewers to spend more time on YouTube in order to grow organically.

Build playlists and organize your channel’s content. You can have the same video in multiple playlists, and you can include video content from other creators. Use YouTube’s Cards; call-outs that happen on the video and at the end of the video. Interact with viewers who comment on your videos, giving them a reason to come back. Turn on advertisements for your videos, and use AdSense to block potential competitors from buying ads on your videos. This gives YouTube another reason to recommend your videos as they can make money on them.

7. Use paid ads to target audiences at specific places in your funnel. However, serve ads from a separate YouTube channel, to not hinder the growth of your organic channel.

In your top-of-the-funnel ads, use broad customer targeting such as just men, or a large custom affinity such as sports or coffee. In your middle-of-the-funnel ads, use custom intent audiences to reach users interested in specific topics, brands, or with product-relevant keyword searches. At the bottom of the funnel, target people who visited the website.

8. Decide what performance metrics you want to track and what targets you should hit, for example, cost per view (CPV) and return on ad spend (ROAS).

Look at your current CPV and ROAS to set new targets. A target CPV can be $0.02 or less. For ROAS, you can factor in all conversions and look to get at least 2X your spend.

9. Create content for paid marketing that will hook the viewer and make them watch your advertisement.

Focus on creating videos where the first five seconds have the most engaging content possible. The goal is to convince the viewer to stick around and watch your ad, over the video they want to see. Focus on demonstrating value and piquing the audience’s curiosity.