2014年9月16日
By 1月时特约编辑
专题文章

最大限度地利用YouTube: 4家公司提供最佳实践

According to legend, someone once asked the famous thief Willie Sutton why he robbed banks. 萨顿说:“这就是赚钱的地方.”

类似的, most video producers would probably tell you that they publish on YouTube because, “这才是吸引眼球的地方.YouTube也会对你的视频进行编码, 创造一个吸引人的玩家, 允许您嵌入视频到您自己的网站, 确保与一系列目标平台的兼容性, 并支付所有的运输费用. If video distribution is integral to your marketing strategy, YouTube is an incredible bargain.

然而, 正如无数制作人已经学到的那样, simply uploading videos to YouTube is no guarantee of marketing success. 你必须上传正确的视频, 确保他们被找到, 采取措施确保点击率回到你自己的网站, and integrate these 领导 into a comprehensive marketing pipeline to ensure maximum value. 在本文中, I explore these issues with four publishers that have used YouTube to maximum effect.

美国第一住房抵押贷款

美国第一住房抵押贷款专门从事联邦住房管理局贷款, VA按揭贷款, 美国农业部农村发展贷款, home improvement loans and Conventional lending and has offices in 12 states. 当公司雇佣丹·莫伊尔时, 卡拉马祖当地新闻联播公司的高级新闻制作人, it signaled that video was going to become very important to their marketing efforts.

为什么你的视频会在YouTube上?

这是显而易见的. Our target buyer persona is the first-time homebuyers who is typically 25-35. 当这个年龄段的人有问题时，他们会去谷歌. Once there, YouTube results seem to appear in Google more than any other video service.

And we only use YouTube, we don’t syndicate to other sites, which I think waters down the SEO impact. 当我刚开始的时候, 我们尝试把一个视频放到100多个频道, 他们认为开车没有任何好处, 领导, 或收视率. Since then, we’ve decided to keep the content focused, to not spray and pray.

你如何为你的视频确定主题?

我们确定我们的潜在客户和客户正在问的问题. One of the first steps I took when I got here was to ask the loan originators what questions are the prospects asking most often. 我们收集了前十个问题，并制作了视频来回答它们.

我们还创建了一些级数. 其中一个系列是60秒按揭秘诀, 回答问题, 回复博客上的评论, 或者来自销售团队的输入. 另一个系列是每周住房市场更新, where we’re trying to become a thought leader reaching agents and other lenders, 哪个是长期项目. 我们也给客户讲故事, 而不是对我们的产品和服务进行推荐, 而是为了展示他们的成就, 比如提高他们的信用评级，这样他们就可以买房子了, 买了一套待修的房子，把它改造成一个漂亮的家.

We try to produce at least two videos a week--the two series--and one longer video a month, 无论是客户的故事, 时事新闻, 或者只是一个潜在客户感兴趣的故事, 就像你在拍卖会上买房子一样. We also produce occasional in-house corporate videos that aren’t really for marketing purposes.

你的视频的目标长度是多少?

In the broadcast world where I came from, the average length was 1:45 - 2:15. 在互联网上, 每个人都说你有6秒钟的时间来吸引观众的注意力, but our most watched video (on 首页。Path loans) is 11 minutes long and has over 15,500的浏览量. 也就是说, 我们尽量将大多数视频控制在2-3分钟的范围内, 不过如果这个故事值得喘息的空间, 我们会走得更久.

如何让YouTube访问者回到你的网站?

所有视频都有一个行动呼吁, 在描述和视频中都有, 通常是一个非常特定于上下文的链接. We track how many viewers visit us from YouTube, and how many turn into 领导. If you watch a video and click that deep link, you’re much more likely to become a lead. the effectiveness of this traffic blows social media traffic away, and beats organic traffic as well.

你是如何学习YouTube相关技能的?

We engaged a company named Pixability (a consultancy that helps their customers succeed on YouTube) that taught us the best practices for tags, 创建可操作的标题和写视频标题. 他们还向我们展示了其他技术来改善我们的搜索引擎优化, and provided much better analytics for our videos than we get from YouTube. 他们是一笔巨大的财富.

你还学了什么其他的技巧?

SEO重要性的层次结构是标题和标签, 在YouTube上哪个比描述更重要. 创建标题时, 我们首先关注视频传达的主要思想, 把它放到标题的前面. 我们不追求可爱和时髦的标题，但功能和有用的.

Though there are no limit to tags, we learned very early to put the most important tags first. 我们把品牌相关的标签贴在背面, 因为很少有潜在的观众通过名字或产品名称搜索我们.

视频制作最好的背景是什么?

你不会想雇一个高中生帮你拍视频的, 你需要一个有视频眼光和讲故事天赋的人, 虽然他们不必是电视记者. 找一个擅长写作和讲故事的人, 他们应该能够制作出好的视频.

跟我说说你们的生产设备?

虽然我是电视出身, we started out with a little Panasonic consumer grade HD camera; nothing fancy, 但它确实有手动控制, 我的摄影师用哪个. We also have a $300 compact fluorescent light kit and a couple of wireless lapel and shotgun microphones, 不是超级高端, 好装备. 这项技术的价格已经降了这么多, 你不需要一台红色相机来拍摄高质量的视频. 重要的是要有灯, mics and have a tripod - do it professionally - don’t just grab your iphone and expect people to come back.

还有其他建议吗??

保持简单，回答问题. 去他的性感，要乐于助人. 要明白你要说的是有趣的, 不要害怕留下一点个性.

Amerifirst’s Valentine’s Day video sought to convince renters it was time to buy a home.

天花板瓷砖

Ceilume manufactures ceiling tiles and has been displaying videos on YouTube since around 2005, 总浏览量超过200万, 一个视频, 我能负担得起格子天花板吗, 累计超过446次,000的浏览量. 一些满怀希望的营销人员将YouTube视频视为灵丹妙药, Ceilume president Ed Davis sees it as just the starting point of the typical customer buying process.

你制作视频有多久了?

We’ve actually been producing videos since the 90’s, primarily for training new employees. We started with ecommerce in about 2000, and then started posting videos online in 2005/2006.

你为什么开始把视频放到网上?

视频最初是作为教育工具. 我们的天花板瓷砖是彻底创新的产品, 我们想让网上顾客了解他们在买什么. 你可以用产品页面上的文字做得很好, 但我们想展示它被处理了, 绞合并安装.

I liken it to the early, historical Sears and Roebuck catalogs I saw when I was a kid. The first 20 pages were on watches; not which one to buy, 但如何理解什么是好表. 这就是我们制作视频的目的, 教育我们的客户，帮助他们做出更好的决定.

YouTube在你的整体营销组合中处于什么位置?

这是一个关键的组成部分，但只是一个起点. We track how prospects get to our site and their path through the site. 我们的顾客一般都喜欢自己动手, 大约1美元,000 to spend to replace the ceiling in a basement or small retail operation, 不用花很多钱就能改变外观. 他们可能会从在谷歌或YouTube上搜索天花板瓷砖开始, 这可能会让他们看到我们在YouTube上的视频. 那里的视频可能会引起他们足够的兴趣来访问我们的网站, 如果他们看的是特定产品的视频, an annotation or link in the video will usually take them directly to the product page.

On the website, we have to fill out the story, perhaps showing them how the tile is installed. 我们知道他们可能会访问我们的网站, 和其他人, 好几次了——他们第一次来几乎从不买. We try to give them a little 信息 each visit so by the time they decide to buy, 他们对产品非常熟悉. 事实上, if they try to buy the product without watching some of these product-related videos, 我们让他们看视频, 所以他们很清楚自己买的是什么.

Ceilume总裁艾德·戴维斯是YouTube上的“天花板瓷砖男”.

YouTube给了你什么你在其他地方得不到的东西?

在我们看来, YouTube是第二受欢迎的搜索引擎, 如果人们在搜索你的产品类别, 你的排名必须靠前. 也就是说, Google still rules the roost; it’s where people really go first when searching for a product. 如果我们不得不放弃YouTube或谷歌，我们会放弃YouTube.

描述你的视频制作过程.

我称之为游击生产. We’ve got a camera operator who’s also the editor, and the actor who also wrote the script. So we can make a video very efficiently, for well under $500 considering wages and other costs.

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