YouTube for E-Commerce: The Art of Selling Without Selling

Source: Neil Patel

What if I told you that you had unlimited access to a proven e-commerce marketing platform — and it was free to use?

You do.

YouTube visitors watch almost 5 billion videos every day. It’s the perfect vehicle for promoting brand awareness and building a loyal following.

But its popularity is a double-edged sword.

Billions of visitors draw lots of content creators. It can be hard to cut through the clutter and stand out — not just from your competition, but from the content-creator masses as a whole.

Thankfully, with the right strategy in place, you can rise above the throngs of eager YouTubers to drive revenue.

Because you definitely want to take advantage of YouTube’s selling potential.

It is, after all, the third most visited website in the world.

I’m going to show you how to leverage it like a pro to boost your e-commerce sales.

What makes YouTube so effective as a selling tool?

In business, it’s better to show, not tell.

YouTube is the perfect platform to show your brand to a large audience so they remember you when it’s time to buy.

If 63% of marketers say that their #1 challenge is generating new leads and 43% of consumers want to see more video content, a video platform like Youtube is the perfect way to connect those needs.

The problem is that YouTube is so popular and so saturated with content creators and channels that it can be a challenge to get your videos in front of the right viewers.

What do I mean by “saturated”?

There are over 50 million active references in the YouTube database.

What does that mean for you?

It means that your message is competing with over 50 million other unique videos for attention.

The good news is that there are also over a billion active YouTube users, watching around a billion hours of content a day.

The audience is there. You just have to get to it.

Here are a few tips to make YouTube one of your most effective selling tools.

1. Stay true to your brand

Your channel is an extension of your website and should look the part so that your potential customers immediately recognize you no matter where they find you.

Be consistent, whether it’s on your website, social or video platforms.

On average, it takes 5-7 brand impressions before someone remembers you. For a visitor to make a visual imprint of your brand and remember you in the future, they need to see your story at least five times.

This is why it’s crucial to look like the same company on every single platform.

It creates a cohesive story, which creates a cognitive link between you and your reader.

Just check out this example of a compelling brand story from Toms.

Good stories don’t just connect customers. They connect with customers. Toms puts their mission statement front and center on their website:

Improving lives, giving back, helping people in need.

It’s memorable.

Now, look at the Toms YouTube Channel:

There is immediate recognizability with their logo, color palette, and basic branding elements, but they also carry over their mission statement to their video playlist.

Their channel looks and feels like an extension of their brand.

Here’s another example from my website:

Compare that to my YouTube channel:

Same look and feel, right? It’s all intentional so that searchers will recognize my content in an instant.

So how do you do the same thing?

First, make sure you take a look at YouTube’s customization features and add some brand flavor to your channel.

YouTube makes it easy to brand your channel with logos, images and design elements that carry over from your website.

Second, don’t overlook the importance of using keywords to supercharge your brand identity.

Within the next two years, video will account for 80% of consumer Internet traffic.

Eighty percent.

The right keywords reinforce your brand and help the right customers find you on video channels like YouTube.

If you do it right, it doesn’t take long to zero in on those keywords.

If you’re just getting started, try a free keyword search tool like Ubersuggest. Here’s how it works:

By entering a simple search term like “b2b marketing,” I’m presented with an impressive list of 267 keywords to choose from:

Ubersuggest lets you easily drill down from there to get to the right list of keywords for your brand:

Now that you’ve found your brand identity and the right keywords to back it up, it’s time to think about content.

2. Find your content cadence

Don’t overlook the importance of posting on a regular schedule.

If you don’t post often enough or are too erratic with your posts, your audience will quickly lose interest and forget about you.

First, you need to determine your content marketing goals.

Is it to build an email list? Drive consumers to your e-commerce site?

Identify your top two or three objectives to help hone in on the right strategy.

I can’t overemphasize the importance of this step.

72% of content marketers credit content strategy development as a key factor in their organization’s overall success.

Next, identify your biggest challenges. What’s holding you back from content marketing Utopia?

To help brainstorm, here are some of the top challenges reported by content marketers. Do you see yourself in here?

Don’t despair.

Simply address one challenge at a time. Recognizing what to fix is half the battle.

For example, if your top challenge is producing enough content, try creating some repeatable templates or processes to help you crank out more posts without reinventing the wheel every time.

Once you’ve acknowledged and addressed your challenges, it’s time to get down to business.

You have a bank of great content.

You have the right keywords.

So when is the best time to post to make sure your content doesn’t fall into a black hole?

Obviously, you want to post when web traffic is highest. Check out these stats:

As you can see, traffic is generally higher later in the week and on the weekends.

Consider your audience, however. When are they most likely to be free and able to watch your content?

If you’re not sure how to find the best times to post for your brand, you can use a free tool like YouTube Analytics. Here’s how to use it:

3. Build a following

Your ultimate goal is to generate traffic that will convert to more sales, but you can’t do that without an audience.

The more subscribers you have, the more views and shares your content will get. The bigger the audience, the more credibility and brand awareness.

YouTube “popularity” has a snowball effect.

To be successful, you’ll need to understand the persona…

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