Lessons

Lesson Info

Intro to Youtube Advertising

I want you to think about YouTube in a very different way to how you probably think about it right now because they way you're gonna advertise, the way you're gonna get in front of your customers, is by getting in front of them at the moments that matter. We all use YouTube for lots of different reasons, and when you go to YouTube, right now, when you go to YouTube you're probably going there for reasons where you're actually looking for something. You're motivated already before you even get to the platform. You think, okay, I'm gonna go to YouTube and find out more information about this, or maybe, you've gone to Google first, you're searching for something, and then you end up watching a video on YouTube because it's very relevant. You've seen it in the search results or something along those lines. You end up going to YouTube because you're full of this intent, this motivation to find out information. And it's because you're in a moment that matters to you. And this is the perfect ...

thing when you're advertising, cause you can get in front of your customers when they're in a moment of need, or a moment of wanting more information, and so we can get in front of them at that exact time. Now, most brands, most companies, don't do this very well at all. I know that from personal experience. I have two very young kids, and sometimes my eldest, who's now three, but was younger, obviously, before, that's how age works, of course, but in the past what he used to do in the mornings is he would come through from his bedroom, run into my bedroom with my wife and I, and he'd jump into the bed and he would jump onto my chest, and he'd go, "daddy, daddy, Peppa Pig, Peppa Pig." And in the UK Peppa Pig is this children's program that most children absolutely love. It's just this pig, obviously called Peppa, but, ya, all kids love it. And what I used to do, cause this would be around 4:45 in the morning I remember, it was very, very early in the morning, I used to just go to my iPhone, grab it, I'd kind of type in kind of Peppa Pig and press go to press play on a YouTube video of Peppa Pig. And what ended up happening is sometimes an ad would appear in front of those videos. And most of those ads are completely irrelevant. They're pushing some sort of brand, and at 4:45 in the morning, I'm not interested in potentially being interrupted at this critical moment where I'm desperate to watch Peppa Pig with my kid just to give me five minutes to wake up. But that's the thing, is that you can get in front of people exactly the right time with a really good ad that provides value to your customer and you don't have to bombard people with this messaging that doesn't really resonate with them. You'll be able to create ads that really do resonate. So, let's talk about your customers and why they would be going to YouTube and the specifics of that. Now when it comes to YouTube, we tend to use YouTube for lots of different reasons. People visit YouTube because, well, there's four reasons in particular I want to walk you through. One is because the want to know information. Your customers are going to YouTube because they want to know more information about things. They might type into YouTube and, kind of, just look up general advice about something so they can gather more information about a particular subject matter or anything that they will find valuable and useful, anything they're looking for in that moment in time. It's not just knowing though, what some people do is they go to YouTube because they want to physically, actually do something. They're looking up 'how to' videos, or tutorial style videos. We've all done it. We go to YouTube, we're looking for information that's going to help us perform a task of some sort, whether that be online, maybe it's some sort of software or something you might be working with. Maybe it's offline. Maybe it's, like, you're fixing your car perhaps. I know I had a customer recently told me that they used YouTube to fix their heater at home, their boiler at home. And so they're using YouTube all the time, following along videos, and just kind of hopefully getting something from those videos they're watching to help them fix problems. That's what YouTube is really, really good for. Likewise, people go to YouTube because they're looking to potentially buy something. They might be in the market for a particular product, and before they're gonna and make that purchase decision, they go to YouTube because they just want to see if there's any reviews online, if there's any parents or if there's any kind of people going to YouTube making their own videos about particular products. The reason I say parents is because I know that when I was looking for a stroller, for my two boys. it was very difficult to find a stroller that was gonna work for both kids cause they're 15 months apart and so I was trying to find that buggy or that stroller that would work. It was difficult to find the exact one we wanted. So we ended up going to places like YouTube, typing in things like 'the best stroller', or looking at the model of the stroller, for example, that would mean that we can kind of see that stroller in action but by other parents. They're not biased, they're not trying to sell us anything. They're creating these videos so we can go and watch them and see if that product is right for us. The great thing about that I'll get to see exactly how easy it was to collapse it, whether it fits in the back of the car or not, the pros and cons of that particular product. And that's obviously us looking for strollers, but this could be any product. And if you go to YouTube there's always these different products where customers of those products are creating videos and showcasing those products so you can see exactly whether it's gonna be the right thing for you to buy or not, which is really valuable. So people go there because they want to know something, do something, buy something, or because they're looking to be inspired by potential content as well. I know that I'll end up following or subscribing to channels that I feel like just resonate with me, and I'm sure you do it the same. If there's a thought leader in the space, for example, you'll end up subscribing to that channel so you can get more and more content from that particular individual or that company. And it means that when you know that you can go to YouTube and have this experience whether you're either going there for that search intent, looking to know something, do something, or buy something, or potentially if you're being inspired by somebody, you can get that content for yourself on YouTube. And that's the reason why people use YouTube. It's very different to a platform like Facebook, for example. Facebook is fantastic, but when we use Facebook it's normally because we're looking to connect with our community or maybe we're looking to just be distracted, like, we just want something to be distracting for a time and so you end up going to Facebook on your phone or on your computer. Whereas YouTube's different. Sure, sometimes some people will go to YouTube because of that reason, but a lot of people go into YouTube with that search intent. They're going there because they want to know something, do something, buy something, or potentially be inspired by something. So, with this in mind, what does that mean for us? If we can start understanding exactly what our customers are going to YouTube for, they have certain expectations of the platform. They have certain expectations when they get to YouTube what are they gonna see. So YouTube users tend to expect a level of relevancy. I don't know about you, but every time I go to YouTube, I'll type something in, I'll start watching a video and something comes up that's just not relevant. It might be a really nice car driving down the mountainside, or something along those lines, as a pre-roll ad, you know, those ads that pop up before you're about to watch those videos. Well those pre-roll ads are actually called in-stream ads, and normally, completely irrelevant. And as a result we get a bad experience sometimes with these brands. We tend to find they just interrupt our day, they're not relevant to us, and it's just not a great experience. So we can do a lot better than that and I'm gonna be sharing with you exactly how to be relevant to your customers. So only be there when it's right to be there. Likewise, they're expecting a level of value. Remember, these people are going to YouTube cause they want to know something, do something, buy something, or be inspired by something. And with that in mind, they don't want to have some sort of ad that's irrelevant, or any ad that's not providing any value. If it's just a sales pitch, for example, that doesn't actually provide any value to them as a user, they're gonna turn off that video. They're not gonna be interested by it at all. And so it's really important that when you actually get your ad in front of people, you can give them some level of value. And I'll share with you exactly how to do that. We'll be talking about that later in the program, but, the value part of creating a video ad is really important. Likewise, there's a level of quality that people expect as well. Remember, when we tend to consume video, what we've been used to for many, many years is t.v. And of course, production quality on t.v. is very high. That said, obviously YouTube is not t.v. so we're not looking as high a standard as somewhere like t.v. We don't have to have this really high level of production when we create our video ads. However, it is good to strive for a level of quality that is good enough for it to be a good video so people will watch it and that looks well produced, that looks like a really good video ad. It's a lot to do with the instant perception that people have of your company. And if you have a quality ad, if it's shot well and looks good from the very beginning, then people really will see that video and trust the brand a lot more behind it. You can get away with a lot less quality videos when it's somewhere like Facebook, for example, because it's more of a social place, and of course, on Facebook there's a lot more going on, there's a lot more text around the video, for example. But on YouTube you just have the video by itself. It's gotta carry the weight of that advertising effort, and as a result, the video ad has to be high quality and it has to be the sort of thing which would get your brand across in the first couple of seconds and people to feel like, wow, this looks like a credible business. So quality's important. And likewise, they really don't want a sales pitch. Users out there on YouTube are not looking for someone just to say, "hey, look, I've got this great thing. Come and find out more over here," for example. They want to be, kind of, no one likes a hard sales pitch on YouTube. Instead what people are looking for is some value, some good content, so they feel, they get to that point in their own mind where they're thinking this is really good content and I really love this video, even though it's an ad, where do I find out more? What do I have to do next to find out more? So those are the types of videos we're gonna be creating in this program so we can really resonate with your customer and get them to come to your website because they actually want to come to your website. Great. So, let me just give you a bit of a viewpoint of the different platforms of Facebook versus YouTube cause I think a lot of people when it comes to advertising are very familiar with Facebook, but YouTube is a completely different ballgame altogether when it comes to advertising. With Facebook, you're advertising to people's interests. Sure, there's lots of different ways of advertising, but, one of the most prevalent ways of advertising on Facebook is by choosing people based on their interests. If they're interested in something, if they've liked certain pages, if they're engaging with certain pages, then Facebook know that and then you can choose those sorts people based off their interests. Now, with YouTube, it's very different. With YouTube, it's about that intent. People are going to YouTube because they want to find out information. They want to know something, do something, buy something, or be inspired by something. I know I keep on mentioning that but it's important to get that in your mind because when it comes to YouTube, it is a social platform, sure, and it's a search platform. It's the second largest search platform in the world. Obviously Google being number one and then YouTube being number two. But also you have a lot more going on in YouTube. I think there's one billion users on YouTube right now. Lots of people consuming content there. And they're going there because they want to watch video. YouTube is the home of video and so when people go there they want to watch video, but they want to make sure it's relevant because they're going there with that intent. But we can target people based off their intent. We can get in front of people based off what they're looking for. And it's a really powerful moment to get in front of them because if they're looking for information and we can get in front of them at that time which is the perfect moment for our business and for them as well, you'll find that you'll really get a connection with your audience that will work very, very well indeed.