If your company is trying to market in this digital age, you have likely heard of social media marketing. Using social media to reach out and connect to your audience is wonderful —it can turn a boring ad into an amazing interactive experience! Engaging an audience with Facebook and Twitter is something anyone can do, but you need to be careful when trying to sell your product through YouTube —or you might be spending your budget on ineffective infomercials!
Defenders may argue that “YouTube is the second largest search engine. Of course having ads on here would benefit my company!” Although Mr. Advertiser is right to think that YouTube has a lot of marketing potential, he’s is probably using the wrong type of advertising.
Yes, YouTube has more than one billion unique visitors a month. Yes, YouTube reaches more adults ages 18-34 than any cable network. Of course, more than a million advertisers use Google ad platforms. However, if you are trying to reach the young demographic with windy infomercials, you may end up driving them away instead.
Why YouTube Ads are Less Effective Than you Think
Think of how you use YouTube. You’re relaxing in the comfort of your home and need something to do. You don’t want to commit to watching an entire movie, so you log onto YouTube and see that one of your favorite YouTubers has uploaded a new video.
5 minutes! Wow, perfect! You’re excited now—the video’s title promises a cute cat doing funny things! You hover your mouse over the title and click the video and then…
“Hi. I’m Doug from x company, and we want to sell you y.” Your muscles tense as a large man in a suit bombards you with special offers for a product that cleans goldfish bowls. You’re growing impatient now; you want to watch your cat video and not this interrupting salesman.
Once the ad finally finishes, you get to enjoy your cat video. Great! Then you look, in the related searches bar—what’s that!? A dancing bear? You just have to click it, and— No! Why? The exact same ad begins to play again. You’ve already suffered through the salesman’s irrelevant spiel once, and now you are forced to watch it again!
Now, not only have you decided:
1) ‘I want to enjoy my personal time.’
2) ‘I do not care about this product.’
But you’ve also developed another reaction: The company has actually angered you with their intrusive videos and so:
3) ‘I am so annoyed with this company that I am less likely to involve myself with this or other products they carry.’
Sound familiar? So what should your company do?
YouTube is a massive website that reaches billions of viewers. However, YouTube often reaches people during their “Me-Time.” It’s the same concept as door-to-door salesmen knocking on your door at supper time. It’s intrusive and could hurt your company’s chances at gaining customers.
Check back on Hoopla as I reveal how to successfully advertise on YouTube.