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Almost 5 billion videos are watched on Youtube every single day, and YouTube gets over 30 million visitors per day.
That’s enough of a reason for you to be publishing videos on Youtube.
Very few online educators are using Youtube well to sell more online courses, so this is a golden opportunity for you to become known as an expert your niche, drive traffic to your sales funnel (leading to your course), and sell more courses!
4 Great Reasons To Publish On Youtube
#1 – Youtube is free.
Yes, there are a lot of costs that go along with taking your business online, creating and promoting your online courses, and building your online audience, so if you have the opportunity for FREE promotion – jump at it!
Publishing videos to Youtube is FREE. You are going to need to put the time into the research, scripting, filming, editing, and publishing your videos, but it’s an effective, free way to drive traffic to your optin/freebie, course, website, etc.
#2 – It’s a natural fit for online education.
Being that most online courses are video-based, creating videos for Youtube won’t be much of a stretch for you.
You’ve already been scripting, filming, editing, and uploading videos to your Learning Management System, so there’s not much of a learning curve doing the same thing for Youtube.
#3 – It will help you get found by your target audience of potential customers.
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines
Youtube is the 2nd largest search engine, next to Google – who happens to also own Youtube. What this means for you is that optimized Youtube videos will rank on Google searches!
If your online course teaches puppy training, and you start creating Youtube videos on puppy training, they may show up in Google searches AND Youtube searches.
Now, I’m not saying that they’ll show up on the first, second, or even third page of Google initially, but the more traffic and views your Youtube videos get, the more videos you produce, and the higher your Youtube channel ranks in popularity, the higher the chances are of your video ranking well on Google and Youtube searches.
But SEO doesn’t just apply to your Youtube videos and channel. You can embed your Youtube videos on your website (like I’ve done here), landing pages, and blog posts to increase the chance of those pages ranking higher on Google!
#4 – It increases your brand awareness and credibility.
Breaking into the online scene when you’re an unknown can be tough. You need to increase your credibility as an authority/expert in your niche, and create brand awareness of your company in order for your audience to trust you enough to buy from you.
You can use Youtube to build brand awareness and credibility – allow a new audience to find you (through search and related videos); establish trust with your audience by showing up authentically and consistently; and interviewing students of your course and/or clients about their results.
How To Get Started Using Youtube
Start With a Youtube Strategy
Before you dive in and start publishing random videos on Youtube, you need a strategy.
There are many factors which should be accounted for in your Youtube strategy including:
- Optimizing your channel
- Creating relevant playlists
- Your channel trailer
- Keyword research
- Video quality
- Publishing consistency
- Authenticity
- Viewer / subscriber engagement
Your Youtube channel will help build the trust required for viewers and subscribers to optin to your freebie (into your funnel) and potentially even to buy your course!
How are you going to build trust with your audience?
How are you going to get them into the top of your sales funnel?
How are you going to move them through your sales funnel?
Research
Every successful Youtube video creator knows that research is THE most critical component.
Your research should include:
- Which topics your audience, and potential audience, are interested in
- What questions your audience has that you can answer
- Which keywords and long-tail keywords are searched to find the video(s) or channel
You can use tools like VidIQ, TubeBuddy, Youtube, Google, Google AdWords Keyword Planner, and Ubersuggest to find the keywords that people are typing in to search engines to find what they’re looking for.
These keywords and long-tail keywords can (and should) be used in optimizing your Youtube channel, and in video titles, descriptions, and tags.
This is not one-and-done research. This should be done for EVERY video you’ll be creating for your Youtube channel.
Videos To Create
The biggest question that stumps entrepreneurs starting out on Youtube is, “.. but what should my videos be about?”
The FEAR is that putting out too much free information will hinder potential customers from enrolling in your course or member site.
Don’t be afraid to give away information for FREE!
The REALITY is that publishing consistent, quality content will increase the likelihood of video viewers taking a course from you because you’re establishing yourself as the expert and establishing trust between you and your viewers/subscribers. They’ll think to themselves, “Wow! If she’s giving this much away for free, imagine what’s in her paid courses!”.
Here are some of the Youtube videos you’ll want to start with:
CHANNEL TRAILER
This is the first video that will be shown to new visitors to your channel.
It should introduce you to the viewer, tell them who you serve and how you serve them, tell them what you publish videos on and how often, point them to your optin/freebie (because you also want to get them on your email list!) and ask them to subscribe.
Here’s how to upload your channel trailer.
COURSE DEMO / SALES VIDEO
Now you’ve likely already created this for your course sales page, but if you haven’t now is the time!
This video should include an attention grabbing intro, identify their problem through storytelling, establish scarcity/urgency, highlight the solution to their problem (your course), give features and benefits (screenshots are good!), include social proof, overcome objections, and have a strong call to action at the end.
If you haven’t yet created this video, do it now! Then add it to your sales page AND upload to your Youtube channel.
WHO, WHAT, WHY, HOW VIDEOS
There are a variety of videos that can be created based on your course including:
Why would someone take your course?
What is the course about? What results will they get from taking the course?
Who is the course for? Who would get the most from your course?
How-to videos. What do they need to know, do, or feel BEFORE taking your course?
Course excerpt videos.
FAQ VIDEOS
Which repetitive questions do you get about your course? Topics related to your course?
FAQ videos are great for handling objections and sending potential course purchasers to!
Value, Value, Value
Youtube is a top of funnel strategy. It’s about casting a wide net to grow your online audience.
Don’t think that you’re going to publish a few Youtube videos and suddenly people are going to be buying up your course!
The videos you publish CANNOT just be sales pitches. They must provide VALUE to the viewers, or they’ll click off the videos and find another Youtube video that can get them one step closer to answering their questions and solving their problems.
Pro-tip: recreate blog posts / social media posts that got good engagement and make them into Youtube videos.
Publishing Youtube Videos
Before you upload your videos to Youtube, you need to have:
- Done your research!
- Edited the video
- Created your SEO optimized video title
- Written your keyword-rich description (including time stamps)
- Created your tags
- Created a custom thumbnail graphic
- Know which playlists you’ll be adding the video to
- Know the publish date (if pre-scheduling)
When you’re ready to upload, follow these instructions.
Using Youtube to boost sales of your online course is a strategy that compounds in ROI over time.
The Youtube videos I published years ago STILL DRIVE TRAFFIC TO MY WEBSITE AND TO MY COURSES EVERYDAY.
If you’re in this for the long-haul then Youtube is an extraordinary opportunity to expand your reach, increase brand awareness, establish your authority, build trust with your audience, and drive sales of your online courses.