8 Tips on How to Use YouTube for Ecommerce Success

Ecommerce businesses have ignored YouTube for a long time. Despite the fact that ecommerce and visuals always go together, the platform has been underutilized. YouTube offers a goldmine of opportunities for entrepreneurs to expand their business horizons. 

The fact that more than a billion unique visitors swarm the most popular visual content platform is a testimony in itself. 

If you are a store owner, it’s high time that you create your own website if you haven’t done so. Leveraging YouTube for ecommerce can prove to be a boon for your sales. 

The biggest advantage of using YouTube for ecommerce websites is that you already got an enormous pool of content consumers on the platform. All you have to do is to implement effective YouTube marketing strategies to capitalize on it. 

Why limit your ecommerce website to just color variation options, 360-degree rotation, and high-quality images when you have access to the best visual content platform? Make your own YouTube channel and showcase the details of your products to the world! 

Direct them to your website through call-to-action and voila! You have converted your viewers into customers! 

There is always a possibility that one of your videos may go viral and bring tons of visitors to your ecommerce website. 

Through YouTube marketing for ecommerce, store owners can establish a personal bond with potential and existing customers. 

Think about the prospects of them turning into your loyal shoppers! YouTube can provide a face to your brand. If your company is lacking a personal touch, YouTube marketing is the perfect solution for you. 

1. YouTube: An Incredible Brand Recognition Tool

You have the perfect solution for customers’ problems; yet, somehow have the trouble of getting enough visitors to your ecommerce website. As you may already know, the first step before customer acquisition is to create brand awareness

If people don’t even know about your company and your product, how would they even make a purchase? While YouTube may not be the conventional marketing channel for ecommerce, it is gaining widespread recognition lately. 

If you are still not using YouTube for ecommerce, you are probably missing out on millions or even billions of potential clients and customers!

If you already have an ecommerce website for your store, you can go ahead and create your own YouTube channel

Your initial subscribers can be the existing visitors and customers of your website. Don’t forget to add a link to your YouTube channel on the website. 

That will give you a kick-start. Now, here comes the mind-blowing part, approximately 5 billion videos are viewed by YouTube visitors every single day! 

What better tool to promote brand recognition and inflate your sales? YouTube is home to millions of content creators who cater to various niches. 

While it may be challenging to sort through the clutter, with right strategies, YouTube will definitely augment your ecommerce sales. 

2. What Type of YouTube Videos Should You Create? 

Well! There are plenty of options. The first one is to convert your blogs and articles into video format and then upload them on YouTube. You can take the help of a graphic designer to create explanatory YouTube videos. 

For instance, videos about how customers can use your products to make their life easier are great choices. Moreover, these “how to” videos are quite popular on YouTube. 

Here’s why YouTube marketing for ecommerce websites is a great strategy – you can offer an inside look of your business and how the products are made. You may already have this type of content on your company Facebook page.  

Tweaking some of that content and sharing it on your YouTube channel is a viable solution or you can just create videos from scratch. 

Such ‘behind the scenes’ videos will help viewers connect with your product on a deeper level. They would understand the nitty-gritty of your business and thus appreciate it more. 

Human beings are innately curious. They want to know the people behind your company, how the products are made, where they are made and more. In order to connect with your customers, you must show the human side of your business. 

This is why testimonials from customers and employees have great value attached to them. Besides, you can add detailed product reviews enlightening consumers about the specifications and general feedback of the same.

If you are just starting a new business, creating a video about the reason and vision behind your company’s foundation is an excellent choice for promoting your brand image!

3. Create YouTube Videos that Offer Value to Your Customers

While many people may click on your video out of their sheer curiosity, chances are they may find something that offers great value to them. 

YouTube for ecommerce does not need to be just about entertainment. Scores of people use YouTube to learn new things. 

This is why “how to” type educational or informative content is highly sought-after by visitors. Advertisements and written articles are not perfect methods of teaching people how to acquire new skills.  

If viewers find your videos helpful, chances are they would become your subscribers and potential customers. In addition, if your YouTube ecommerce videos somehow help your viewers succeed, you will gain loyal subscribers. 

Not only that, their word-of-mouth marketing will then help you gain more subscribers and future customers. 

You can leverage YouTube marketing for ecommerce by:

  • Creating “how to” videos and including your products in them.
  • Developing videos explaining about how your products work.
  • Informing potential customers about your company’s charitable initiatives to enhance brand identity.
  • Including step-by-step instructional videos on your channel.

4. YouTube for Ecommerce Website: Engagement is Key

The sole purpose of YouTube marketing is engagement. You want your YouTube videos to rank on search engines. 

Therefore, audience engagement and video quality are two important parameters of successful YouTube marketing for your ecommerce website. 

These are two reference points that YouTube algorithms utilize to rank your videos. Greater the number of viewers that like your content, subscribe to your channel and actually comment, the higher your YouTube video will rank on search results. 

Active engagement of viewers is extremely important for your videos to rank high in search results. YouTube in itself is one of the most popular and widely-used search engines. 

Hence, as a business owner and a content creator, you need to engage with your audience quite often. Don’t forget to include various call-to-actions in your videos such as “Please give this video a thumbs up” or “Please subscribe to my channel”. 

Ask your viewers about their opinions or inputs. They are your potential customers and they must feel valuable. Frequently asking for their suggestions will show that you care about what they have to say. 

Whether it’s about your video or your product, their feedback might actually help you improve your quality and service delivery. 

Another great way to boost audience engagement on your YouTube channel is to hold contests or giveaways. These methods have proved to be popular on YouTube. 

However, one must not forget that it is the quality of your content that will ultimately drive engagement and hence revenue to your business. 

Moreover, effective YouTube marketing for ecommerce also requires you to promote your videos across other social channels such as Reddit and your own website. It’s because greater the number of views on your videos, greater is the engagement. 

5. Does Duration of YouTube Videos for Ecommerce Matter?

According to an analysis done by socialbakers, YouTube videos under two minutes garner most views. This comes as no surprise as people are not going to watch an hour-long video explaining how your company was founded. 

The attention span of most viewers is very limited unless it’s a really interesting documentary. 

Moreover, why would viewers watch a 30-minute product review when they have numerous other options to choose from!

Hence, video length is a significant quotient here. Do not rush to give every little detail of your company and products in one or two videos. Exercise brevity when it comes to YouTube marketing for ecommerce. 

Storytelling is the most powerful way of promoting your brand on YouTube and that too in a succinct manner! Since, there are constant changes in YouTube algorithms, these conditions may change. 

According to these algorithms, if viewers stick till the end of your videos, your rankings will improve. 

Furthermore, your channel will gain better visibility if viewers watch your YouTube video till the very end instead of abandoning it early. 

The duration of YouTube videos is correlated to the audience engagement factor that we discussed in the previous section. This is why the YouTube algorithm favors quality of engagement over number of views. 

6. Role of Analytics in YouTube Video Performance

As a content creator and business owner, keeping regular tabs on analytics is extremely necessary for promoting your ecommerce website on YouTube. 

In order to gain in-depth information about the performance of your YouTube videos, analytics will come in quite handy. YouTube for ecommerce can only be successful if your approach is strategic rather than random. 

Therefore, analytics will help you understand what’s actually working and what isn’t. It will help you identify the audience retention rate as well. 

The wealth of information offered by analytics will help you comprehend why a particular video is not performing as well as you expected it to. 

Analytics measures the performance of your YouTube videos beyond just the number of views. Therefore, YouTube for ecommerce must be combined with analytics for sales to soar like never before. 

Try to understand the demographics of your viewers along with various sources of traffic using YouTube’s built-in analytics. You can check at what point viewers left the video and how many of them watched it till the end. 

This way you realize how to make your videos more engaging and thereby boost the sales of your products. 

In addition, whenever YouTube makes changes in its algorithms, analytics will offer valuable insights into how you should alter your YouTube marketing strategy for ecommerce. 

7. YouTube for Ecommerce: How Big Players are Doing It

YouTube has become a powerful marketing tool for many players in the ecommerce space. 

From large institutions to corporate brands, they have established a great presence on YouTube. 

The early adoption of YouTube worked in their favor and therefore they are reaping great benefits. 

As a store owner, you should observe how these companies progressed by capitalizing on YouTube for ecommerce websites. This will give you some idea of how to do it for your own business in near future.

Best Buy

The best example of a company utilizing their social media pretty well is that of Best Buy. 

They have customized the playlists on their YouTube page to a great extent. Best Buy offers more targeted experience on their YouTube channel. 

Not only that, their channel has different subchannels as well. These subchannels are dedicated to different user groups. 

The subscription rate of Best Buy’s YouTube channel shows the results of their YouTube marketing strategy for ecommerce. 

If you are a store owner starting out a YouTube channel, refer to Best Buy’s YouTube channel for understanding their strategy. 

Another noteworthy factor to observe is how frequently they post customer interaction pieces, deals, and products on their channel. “Consistency is the key” – as many successful content marketers have pointed out. 

Geico   

If you don’t want to make YouTube content from scratch for promoting your ecommerce website, Geico is the perfect example for you. 

As an established store owner, you might have plenty of commercials already running on other channels such as Facebook. What you can do is just create a YouTube channel and upload your commercials there! 

This is what Geico’s YouTube channel is all about. It’s no wonder that they have more than a million subscribers now on YouTube. 

If your commercials have been successful on other platforms, chances are they will attract substantial viewers on YouTube as well. 

8. How to Generate More Leads Through YouTube?

There are several other ways to generate more leads through YouTube for ecommerce. 

Partner with Influencers 

It’s quite understandable that expanding the subscriber base is very difficult, especially in initial phases. 

Therefore, partnering with a fellow YouTube influencer will certainly bode well for your channel. Collaborations are essential among influencers to boost the subscriber count of both parties. 

There are great chances that the subscribers of the influencer that you have partnered with will subscribe to your channel as well. Given that they find your content engaging. 

Of course, you must ensure that the niche is similar so that those subscribers can convert to potential customers. This strategy will help you gain more exposure in the YouTube community, to say the least.

Paid YouTube Ads   

If you have the budget, you can opt for paid YouTube ads. YouTube offers a plethora of targeting options such as retargeting, geotargeting, behavioral targeting, and contextual targeting. 

Through paid YouTube ecommerce ads, you can ensure that your videos reach the qualified and intended audience. With the help of YouTube paid ads, you can generate more leads. 

The best thing about paid YouTube ads is that you are required to pay only when your targeted audience actually watches the entire 30-second advertisement. In case they skip over the paid ads, you don’t have to pay for anything. 

Optimize Your Videos   

Did you know that you can optimize your YouTube videos apart from optimizing your channel? Optimizing your videos is another great way of generating more leads for your ecommerce website. 

When you include keywords in your YouTube video’s title, Google indexes it. Optimizing the videos will help your YouTube page appear several times in search results. 

You should also leverage YouTube’s tagging feature. This will help your videos appear in “related videos” section so that viewers will be encouraged to watch similar content. 

Conclusion

Use of YouTube for ecommerce websites is gathering impetus on account of increasing adoption by both small brands and large brands. 

The ecommerce-friendly features of YouTube such as subscription lists, promotional search algorithms, and customized channels makes it a must-have marketing channel for your brand. 

If you are looking to attract more customers to your website through visual content formats, YouTube is the best platform for you. 

YouTube marketing will provide the necessary social media injection into your brand. Using YouTube for ecommerce will generate amazing results for you and that too at a considerably low cost. 

Start encouraging people to follow your YouTube channel and share it with others just like you do for your Twitter and Facebook page. 

Motivate your viewers to subscribe to your channel. Keep a list of YouTube viewers who have actually made a purchase and ask them to share your products with their friends, family, and colleagues. 

Remember to connect your YouTube videos with your Twitter and Facebook pages and most importantly your ecommerce website. 

Focus on creating compelling content to drive engagement and be consistent in your efforts. Lastly, don’t underestimate the power of built-in analytics for promoting your sales by leveraging YouTube. 

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