10 Things To Know Before Buying YouTube Video Advertising

YouTube video advertising is one of the most effective forms of marketing in today’s day and age. This is because videos can tell a consumer a whole lot more about your product or service than text or even a photo can. However, when you decide to buy video advertising, there are some things that you want to know before you do it.

#1: Who is Your Target Audience?

Before you can do any kind of YouTube video advertising, you have to know who your target audience is. This is of the utmost importance because you need to figure out who you are going to target and what kind of video is going to be made so that people can identify with the video that you are going to post on the video site. If you fail to identify your target audience, the video may flop. Just as with any other kind of advertising, you must know your audience so that you can make the necessary considerations.

#2: Who is Supplying the Video?

When you buy any kind of advertising package, you have to determine who is going to supply the video for your business. Some companies are only going to help you advertise for the video that you already have, which means that you have to make your own – or hire another company to do it for you. If you are going to make your own, it has to be strong enough to compare to some of the other videos out there. If you are going to hire a company, check to see what past videos look like so you know what kind of quality to expect.

#3: What are You Buying?

Be sure you know exactly what you are buying. When it comes to YouTube video advertising, everyone has their own interpretation of what advertising on YouTube is nowadays. There are videos, in-video ads, banner ads and much more. There is also the practice of people buying views on YouTube to help them become more viral. You can do anything you want, but it’s important to know what you’re actually paying for before you hand over any kind of money.

#4: Is it Appealing?

The video that you put up on YouTube has to be appealing based upon your target demographic. If you have a company create a video, make sure you get to view it before they put it up online. You don’t want your brand associated with a video that you are not behind 100 percent of the way. If you make the video yourself, it may be advantageous to create a private channel and send the link to friends by email or by Facebook first to see what they thing. Opinions can be very valuable to obtain before you open it up for the masses to view.

#5: Is it SEO friendly?

The video advertising campaign has to be SEO friendly. There are a number of ways to target keywords within the meta descriptions so that your video can be found in the search engines. If you are already a leader in certain keywords, make sure that these are being used within the video marketing campaign. The video can also be used within your website and in other areas to help with the overall SEO aspects of your business. The company that you work with should be able to help you with all of the SEO concerns that you have.

#6: Remarketing

There are many ways to remarket once you have loaded your video up on YouTube. Examples of remarketing including linking to the YouTube video on Twitter and Facebook. It’s also possible to blog about the video and get others to blog about the video. Getting more links to go to it can help to increase the views, the sharing and the overall popularity.

Remarketing can be done by you or the company, so it’s important to find out who’s responsibility it will be to do any of the remarketing so you know what role is required. Sometimes just sharing a link in the right areas can be all it takes to get the momentum going on your video marketing campaign.

#7: Additional YouTube Advertising

There are various forms of YouTube advertising and there may be some opportunities for you to expand on your own campaign. Find out what is going to be the most effective based upon your overall goals as well as the scope of your project. Budget is going to impact what you are able to do in many ways, but it’s worth finding out whether you can do some in-video advertising or even some banner ads in order to capture more of the 1 billion hits on YouTube that occur every single day. Talk to an advertising firm and find out what your options are and what it will cost.

#8: In-Video versus Banner

In-video advertising is popular because it’s the video that plays before the intended video starts. The only problem is that if it’s not interesting, people have the ability to skip it within a few seconds in. The other option is to get a banner that is viewed on the side of the video so that people will see it the whole time they are watching their video. What works best for you is going to depend on your target audience as well as how intense your banner is. It’s worth exploring both options – and if you have the budget for it, both may be the solution that you are looking for.

#9: What’s the Cost?

Before you give any advertising firm the power to run with a campaign, you want to find out what it’s going to cost you. Are you paying a flat fee, a monthly fee, or a pay per click fee? These are just some of the questions that you want to ask about in terms of cost. Video production is an entirely different line item and many places have tiers of prices based upon how long and how graphic you want your video. The “cooler” you want it to be, the more expensive it is going to be due to the labor intensive aspect.

#10: What’s the Return on Investment?

Don’t jump into any kind of advertising campaign without finding out about the estimated return on investment that you’re going to get. While every campaign is going to be a little different, there are statistics out there based upon the industry that you are in, the type of advertising that you are going to do, what your target demographic is, and how much you are going to spend in your project. All of this will be used to tell you what kind of traffic you can expect to see once the video goes live. Don’t be afraid to ask for detailed reports. Additionally, you want to find out if there are going to be adjustments within the campaign if the hits are not what you expected to see.

Doing a little research on your own about YouTube video advertising is always a good idea. Once you know what works and what doesn’t, you can make better decisions and ensure you hire the right company to do what you need done.