Learn How to Structure Your YouTube Content Marketing Videos To Get Leads And Subscribers
More specifically, it turns out that most of YouTube content marketing videos with any substantial number of views have a number of common elements.
In this post, I will look at some well performing marketing videos on a variety of subjects and try to identify some common parts, such as the intros, outros, background music, branded logos, bumpers, and so on. Knowing the working template will help you to improve your own videos to maximize the leads and subscribers.
Why you may want to follow a template?
Simply put, why reinvent the bicycle, when you can simply reuse the approach that works.
However, following a particular template won’t help you to magically transform a lousy video into a YouTube hit. It may, however, help you to maximize the potential of the videos that do deliver value to your audience.
Related: 10 Common Problems with YouTube Promotional Video and How to Fix Them
Let’s start by looking at some reasonably popular (over 100K views) content marketing videos on a variety of subjects and see what they have in common
What makes a video a marketing video or specifically a content marketing video? Most importantly, it’s not an ad or a sales pitch. Thus, when I put together the playlist below, I wasn’t looking for the traditional advertisement clips or for the popular products demos (neither I was looking for viral or entertaining monetization videos) but rather for the videos that above all provided the viewers with something useful, yet carried a subtle marketing message by (indirectly) promoting a brand or by collecting business leads.
My (somewhat random) playlist of YouTube content marketing videos with 100,000+ views
Now, let’s see what do these YouTube videos have in common:
5 common elements of a successful YouTube content marketing video
My good friends at SafeMusicList have graciously agreed to make this simple video that sums up the 5 essential video elements discussed below. Watch the video for a quick intro and get into the details by reading further.
Key Element 1 – Attention Grabbing Intro
The main purpose of the intro section is to convince the viewer to keep watching and not to browse to the next video. This is achieved by clearly explaining what is the viewers are about to see and (optionally) how they can benefit from it. Something like this: You are about to see (fill in your subject) and it will help you to (fill in the problem you’re solving).
The intro can be a screenshot with a video title or a short scene where you can explain what the video is about. Note, that you must be able to convey your idea quickly, within 3-5 sec, since that’s how long it usually takes before the viewers lose their interest and move on to watch the next video in the search results.
Key Elements 2 – Branded Logo
The recognizable logo helps building up the loyalty, so it becomes easier for the viewer to recognize your videos in the future and be compelled to choose you over the competition (as long as you impressed them with your present work, of course).
For even greater memorability effect, many YouTubers opt for creating a special short scene with animated logos and music. Listen to some audio logos and intros you can license to use in your YouTube videos.
The logo scene may take a form of a corporate logo image or just be a name of your channel. The key here is to consistently place it on every video you produce.
Key Element 3 – Call to Action (CTA)
This may seem obvious but every marketing video should have a clear purpose. Not necessarily directly related to sales but a purpose nonetheless. Even more so, you should be able to tell if your video, in fact, performs well. The number of views is a good indicator but it may be misleading for a variety of reasons.
In order to estimate the success of your marketing effort, the video must clearly tell the viewers what is that you want them to do (think, what is the purpose of your video). Click on a link? Subscribe? Share? Download something?
Then by tracking the results in your preferred analytics software you can actually see how successful your video really is.
Some YouTubers like to give the CTA its own place in the video by placing it in a outtro bumper scene. It commonly looks like a “Click Here / Do This” text accompanied by some upbeat background music go grab the attention. Using the bumper gives you another opportunity to convince the viewer to act on your CTA before leaving your video.
Listen to some short music loops and bumpers you can license and use as the outro audio bumpers in your YouTube CTAs to grab attention.
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Key Element 4 – Related Videos and Subscribe Link
Regardless of your call to action (which may never get clicked), you still want to retain the viewer by offering a simple way to subscribe to your channel and to watch more of your content.
Key Element 5 – Suitable Background Music
As a composer, I could really say a lot here but I’ll just let you watch the video. You can also read this post for details: 5 BIG Reasons to Add Background Music to Your Business Video
Concerned with YouTube copyright system?
Many people choose not to use background music to avoid copyright issues with YouTube. Some people spend substantial time looking for “copyright free” music, eventually running into the very troubles they were trying to avoid.
It is perfectly safe to use copyrighted music on YouTube, as long it is properly cleared for YouTube use by the copyright owner.
Feel free to check my royalty free music collection for promotional and business videos.
Related:
Is It Safe to Use Free Music in Corporate Marketing Videos? (with Infographic)
5 Music Licensing Mistakes that Can Make Your Video Disappear from YouTube
The Most Important Element
All of the marketing videos in my playlist do provide the viewer with useful information and that what’s make them popular. Marketers, let’s face it, in the era of abundant choices, nobody wants to watch yet another sales pitch.
Related: 5 Ideas to Help You Start Promoting Your Business on YouTube
The Most Important Element
Have a music licensing question? Post it in the comments.
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I agree– you need to catch the viewer’s attention right from the start. An effective way to do this is to show a quick ten seconds of the video’s highlights. This will most likely ensure the viewer watches the rest of the video to get the small details.
You made a good point that there’s nothing wrong with following a template for a promotional video if it works anyway. I’m planning to start selling some of my collections throughout the years that consists of toys, trading cards, and comic books. Since their themes are interconnected, I think it would be easy to hire a promotional video production studio to help market my online store and whip up a video that I can share to people.