Video platforms like YouTube and Instagram have emerged as one of the most influential platforms for hosting businesses looking to attract clients. Most of the web hosting companies run and maintain YouTube channel of their brand name.
As a web hosting provider, tapping into YouTube’s massive potential can immensely improve your client acquisition strategy. Here’s a comprehensive guide to help you unlock the secrets to effectively attracting clients through YouTube.
Content that target your audience:
The first step to successful engagement on YouTube is publishing content targeting your audience. On YouTube, just like any other social media platforms, getting views in millions is worthless if none of the viewers need your product.
It is like a vegetarian going in to the jungle to hunt. So firstly take out pen and paper and write down at least 15 to 20 topics that you think a web hosting user both beginner and amateur is most likely to look for on internet related to website hosting. For example queries related to domain, server, control panel, etc. are all related to web hosting. And person looking for tutorials on them are most likely to be a potential web hosting customer.
Don’t start creating content right away. First know what type of content your potential buyers are looking for on YouTube. A blogger look for tutorials on content management related tools like WordPress and Wix. Librarians, educational institutions, may look for tutorials on control panel like cPanel and Plesk.
Tailor your content to address specific concerns of your audiences. No matter how smaller that concern is, it should be useful even for a smaller group of your potential customers. I make videos on ‘How to login to a control panel’ showing step by step putting user name and password to my viewers. And guess what those videos are not only sold but get views also.
See How My Videos Can Get More Clients
for Your Web Hosting Company.
YouTube Marketing: 100s of ‘How-to’ videos on your channel.
Branding: Each video display your brand logo/website link.
Niche Targeting: Our videos are related to web hosting that users are looking for on YouTube for help.
Strengthens Support: Our videos are integrated with your Knowledgebase website that can be used by your clients and support team in email to customers.
Popular Content vs. Useful Content:
Understand that conversion of viewers matters more than the number of views on YouTube or any social media platforms. You are here to get web hosting clients and and not to sell your music album. Why I mentioned music album? To make you understand the difference between getting clients vs popularity. A musician need to be popular to sell his or her creation and web hosting provider need to be useful to sell his or her services.
If you visit the blog or YouTube channel of HostGator, you will see that most of their content has views in hundreds and thousands and not in millions but they are helpful content tailored to target web hosting related clients.
I got a chance to meet the owner of a famous and successful Indian Web hosting company in Delhi. We talked about his distribution of budget on digital marketing while sweeping tea in a winter evening. He told me that he allocates a major portion of his marketing budget on his Vlog (Blog posts with videos).
His team host the videos on social media channels. Most of the time a post is written around a video, with the video being the main attraction in most blog posts. According to him vlogging is like a rental property you invest once and receive rent (clients) every month.
Keyword Research for YouTube:
If you understand what type of content you want to create and a list of titles of videos are ready the next step is the keyword research for YouTube. It is important to note down keywords trending on YouTube around your topic.
Find keywords for YouTube on google as well as YouTube itself. Just type a part of your topic and see the Google suggestions just like I have done for this paragraph. I have used one of the google suggestions “Keyword Research for YouTube” as the heading of this paragraph.
You can explore keywords by typing different alphabets after main keyword and prepare a list of surrounding keywords. You can also use some free YouTube keyword generators like Answer the Public and Google keyword planner if you want to extend your list.
But start with Google suggestions before jumping on any keyword finding tool because google suggestions are the most reliable and help in ranking your video both on YouTube as well as google search result.
Now arrange your keywords as per their rank and group them based on their similarity with each other. The aim is to use similar keywords within same heading or paragraph of your content.
Video Creation
Once you have identified the audience and prepared the content, the third important step is to start creating video for YouTube. Focus is on producing engaging, informative, and valuable videos that help your potential clients.
YouTube video creation process starts with setting up equipment like camera, audio recorders, and light. I suggest you to use your mobile phone and laptop for recording videos and audio. No need to buy expensive camera or audio devices. I have spent money on them and now use my phone for all face recordings.
Keep the video creation process simple and record at a peaceful place or room free from noises. Little ambient noises can be removed in editing process.
In the first 5 to 10 seconds of the video tell the viewers what exactly you are going to explain or show in the video. And in the rest of the video deliver what exactly you promised. Suppose you promised three designs for commercial website that converts then explain exactly three designs neither two nor four.
Remember that you are here to build trust in you and your products . Buyers look for a trustworthy brand for their investment. So first trust yourself and believe in what you are talking about.
Viewers overlook small mistakes or glitches in the quality of the video but not in the quality of the content. They judge your brand and predict the quality of your services while watching your videos. So be truthful.
While recording video focus should be on the action. Camera should focus on your face and eyes should look at the lenses while face recording. You are now speaking directly to your audiences who could be your potential client.
In case of screen recording use zoom, pan, lighting effects to bring the focus on point of action. There are many free screen recorders available online. Check their features like cursor size as many of them show very small cursor waggling like a bee.
Use info-graphics, images, screen recording etc. visual effects to bring more clarity in what exactly you want to communicate to your viewers.
Audio Recording
Another important element of a video is clear and audible audio at same level of volume without noise. Avoid low or very high volume. Use filters to eliminate ambient noise. Be clear and specific no humdrum.
Your mobile or headphone can be used for audio recording. Record it at a calm place away from noises and distractions. Keep it simple avoid and acoustic engineering as some of the ambient noises can be filtered out while editing.
You can also perform a test by listening and editing the small portion of recorded voice in the beginning to avoid redo. See after using noise filter, the audio is clear, audible and free from noises.
Call to Action:
Call to action in YouTube videos are little different from what you see on website. This difference is obvious because buyers can’t buy your product directly from your YouTube video. You need to encourage the viewers to visit your website.
The easiest way to get visitors from YouTube is offer free trial of your services and in return you get their contact details. Now you can contact them and pitch your product. Although a long process of getting clients from YouTube, free trials lure large number of viewers to sign up and the chances of converting clients who have already experienced your services are higher.
A strong call to action not only guides viewers to your website but also tells them of their next step on your website. It can be a one-line message or a full-length statement about what to expect on their visit to your website.
Posting Video on YouTube
Upload your video through YouTube Studio and give the pre-programmed title. The title should indicate what viewers can expect from the video. It should be short, concise, and to the point, and contain some keywords if possible.
Writing Description of the Video
It is like describing the video in words not in detail but in a summarized format. Also you can leave messages like visit my website or contact us and leave your contact details and website links in the description box.
Use of keywords with “#” sign in the beginning helps YouTube search engine to recognize the targeted audience and content of the videos. I am not sure whether it helps or not but its use is in trend.
YouTube Thumbnail is First Impression
The first impression of your video is the thumbnail you design. Your YouTube thumbnail should be eye catching and clearly tell viewers what they can expect in the video.
Before designing a thumbnail, understand what it actually is. Thumbnails are what YouTube automatically suggest from the uploaded video. If you have noticed, YouTube chooses an image from the entire video that is central to the theme of the video. It gives an idea for thumbnail designing.
Use images, graphics, etc. related to the matter of the video. For example, a server image tells that it is something related to electronics and data. A small icon of bank tells viewers it is related to banking.
The use of words and phrases like “How-to” indicates that this is a tutorial that explains how to accomplish a task. Similarly, words like youtube marketing and web designing link the video to a specific area of subject matter.
For more youtube thumbnail ideas, you should see the thumbnails of other YouTubers. There is a method I follow myself, if you follow it step by step you will see improvement in your thumbnail design.
Well, I first think of a topic, for example ” How to do video marketing on Instagram” like I want to learn it. Now I open YouTube and let my senses act upon it and I just watch my actions like an spectator .
I type my query which are mostly modified by the time and browse the search results on YouTube. Then I click on a video or two, watch a bit and then get back to my first two videos that I clicked on. I see what compels me to click on that specific video. There was something about the thumbnail design, the graphic, the title, that made me think that this is what I was looking for at least at that moment.
Engagement and Feedback from Viewers
Once you publish your video get feedback from viewers. Also engage with your audiences through comments and emails. The feedback is something you can incorporate into your next production.
Follow the above process and post another video. Consistency with continuous improvement will lead to greater improvement and help in getting more and more visitors to your website from YouTube.
Consider making playlists. Analyze the performance of individual videos and playlists through YouTube analytics page. Adopt the changes and make further improvements in your approach and content. Don’t just give up after a few videos even if outcome is not as per your expectations.
Final Step:
If you have read this far and my advice has not yet achieved your desired goals, or if you want more. It is good that you are desiring more clients.
My final piece of advice in this blog post “Unlocking the Secrets to Attracting Clients from YouTube” is to create a landing page that effectively guides visitors from your YouTube channel to making a final purchase.
My next blog post is about your owned media i.e. website and landing page that play the most important role of converting the visitors from YouTube to your client.