youtube section final
TRANSCRIPT
YOUTUBE
YouTube is an online video-sharing website that provides a forum
for its users to connect, inform, and inspire others all around the world.
Launched in 2005, YouTube was swiftly purchased by Google and is
currently one of their most notable subsidiaries. What makes YouTube
special is its capacity to connect billions of people and allow them to
quickly and easily discover, watch, and share originally created videos.
YouTube is localized in 75 countries and available in 61 languages,
which presents a great opportunity for Gifts.com to increase brand
awareness globally. With the support of a reputable and credible
organization such as Google, YouTube has the potential to expand their
influence among more consumers than ever before.
Our communication objective is to increase subscriptions to the
Gifts.com YouTube channel, especially among male consumers in our
target market, by 40% within the next year. To increase the current
number of subscribers (259) by 40%, we must acquire roughly 100
new male subscribers in the next year- approximately 9 new men each
month. Our primary strategy to achieve this objective is to implement
a stronger presence on YouTube by utilizing the advertising tools
YouTube provides to their users. One of our proposed tactics is to
create a variety of campaigns for Gifts.com using content that is
relevant and engaging to their consumers. The company can easily
take advantage of YouTube’s advertising tools such as their TrueView
ads, FanFinder and Adwords, in order to reach their target market
more effectively. These consumer-oriented campaigns can be featured
as brief advertisements during other segments, as well as integrated
into our other social media channels.
YOUTUBE CAMPAIGN 1 - Expert Advice Segments
One of our ideas for Gifts.com is to create a collection of videos
providing expert help from a compelling spokesperson in order to
attract our target male consumers. These brief videos, one minute or
less, will feature dynamic employees or popular bloggers, in order to
engage male consumers and offer them helpful gift suggestions.
Gifts.com should use an outgoing, friendly, and knowledgeable
individual to represent their brand and effectively communicate the
offerings featured on Gifts.com to their consumers. These experts will
discuss the features and benefits of three to five different gifts, as a
way to generate both intrigue and awareness of the brand.
Our team recommends using a spokesperson like Jim Chapman.
Jim, nicknamed “The Gentleman”, is a young, stylish, and handsome
26-year-old best known for his Q&A advice videos on the web. Our
team believes Jim would make a great spokesperson to engage male
viewers looking for advice to find the perfect gift. Because Jim is a
young male who is also in a relationship, he will be able to connect
with both the younger, single male consumers (Joey) as well as the
older, off-the-market males (Michael) as well. Jim even features his
fiancé Tanya in his videos; one video where he does her make-up has
had over 1.2 million views.
Jim’s personal style and fashion sense have also been admired
by men’s fashion brands and magazines – GQ profiled him in March
and Topman invited him to their London Fashion Week show. This
recognition further strengthens his credibility as a trendy man who is
respected for his good taste. He also regularly appears on Viral Tap,
the ITV2 panel-show hosted by Caroline Flack. With 1.4 million
YouTube subscribers, 438K Facebook likes, and nearly 700K Twitter
followers, Jim is a strong candidate for representing the brand and
engaging our target market.
Our team further recommends developing these expert-help
videos in a variety of genres, in order to reach as many of our target
male consumers as possible. For example, if a popular search is for
“gift fails”, create a video with Jim recommending ways to never fail at
gift-giving again. By customizing this campaign to coincide with trends
in popular culture, Gifts.com will have a better chance of reaching their
target consumer and spreading awareness of their brand. Gifts.com
can promote their ads directly to their target market, by implementing
a combination of the promotional tools YouTube offers to paying
members. Below is a brief overview of the main tools our team
suggests the company incorporate within their YouTube strategy:
FanFinder - allows users to provide a video ad that tells viewers
about their channel, and will run before other videos across
YouTube.com at no cost to the creator.
o YouTube finds potential fans by using signals from viewers’
activities on the website: other channels they watch and
engage with, their existing channel subscriptions and their
engagement levels with different types of content.
TrueView Ads -
o 4 standard types of ad formats:
1. In-search: ad shows up above YouTube search results.
Least expensive ad format option
2. In-slate: ad shows up in suggested videos after your
video ended.
3. In-display: ad shows up on suggested videos beside the
video you are watching.
Ads appear as a thumbnail and text on
‘YouTube watch pages’ in the right-hand pane
of suggested and recommended videos.
You pay a “cost-per-view” when a user clicks-
through your ad and begins watching your
video on a watch page.
4. In-stream : ad plays before you can watch your video.
Viewers see five seconds of your ad and then
can keep watching or can skip it.
You pay a “cost-per-view” if they choose to
watch at least 30 seconds of your ad.
Most expensive ad format option
o Three Targeting Types:
1. Video Remarketing: promote an ad to users that
have performed an action on your channel, such as
viewing, liking or commenting.
Using an AdWords feature called “custom
combinations” you’re also able to combine
these groups to target, for example, audiences
that have viewed your video, but who are not
yet subscribers.
2. Placement Targeting: Allows you to show your ad
on other YouTube channels your audience may
appreciate
o Used specifically with In-stream or In-display
format
3. Interest Category Targeting: Allows you to show
your ad only to users that have a particular interest.
o For example, if you create cooking tutorials,
you can target YouTube users that are
interested in food, or “foodies”.
AdWords for Video - allows you to promote your videos and
your channel with the TrueView family of ad formats
o First, create an AdWords account at
adwords.google.com, then create a new
“online video campaign”, set a budget and
target an audience.
o Budget is flexible; invest as much or as little as
you want
Insights Page - Shows you more about fans within your circle
and lets you reach out and connect with them.
Google+ - If your channel is connected to Google+, you can
add fans to circles, or share a post.
Top Fans - Helps you find partners to collaborate with, by
considering the criteria that may be important to your
audience, in order to create a successful collaboration for all
involved.
YOUTUBE CAMPAIGN 2 - Commercials
An additional tactic our team suggests, is the implementation of
a combination of 10-20 second ads to be aired in-between related
YouTube videos and channels. We want Gifts.com to create videos
based on the most popular channel searches among males in the
target market. By using the YouTube Insight software tools, Gifts.com
has a better chance of accurately reaching their target market and can
avoid wasting time and money advertising elsewhere. For example, we
want to create romantic commercials to be aired on channels related
to love, relationships, or romance. By doing so, our team feels that
Gifts.com will have a better chance of engaging their target male
consumers and creating top-of-the-mind awareness for the brand.
These commercials should be integrated into our other marketing
channels by simply adjusting their format to fit the different channel
capacities. We can use the audio portion of our clips to air on Pandora,
and use both the audio and visual ads on Facebook, Instagram, and
even on the website.
BUDGETING
One reason YouTube is such a beneficial platform for Gifts.com to
implement, is the flexibility and ease of advertising. YouTube offers
several options for members to promote their channel and allows the
advertiser to choose how much they are willing to spend. The pricing
varies slightly per ad unit, with in-display ads ranging towards the
higher-end ($.30) and in-search toward the lower-end ($.10). Gifts.com
can choose from a variety of ad formats, depending on how aggressive
they want to be with their promotions. One great thing about
advertising on YouTube is that you only pay when viewers choose to
watch at least 30 seconds of your ad. Overall, YouTube ads are an
excellent means of boosting your web presence at an affordable rate.
For most ad units, potential customers actually choose to watch your
advertisement. Also, the overall boost in views gives more credibility to
your company and gives it a better chance of showing up organically in
YouTube or other search engines.
MEASURING EFFECTIVENESS
By already having a membership with YouTube, Gifts.com has
access to their analytical software that can provide the company with
substantial statistical information about how their channel is doing and
which videos are performing the best. One easy and straightforward way
to measure the effectiveness of the implemented tactics, is by looking at
the number of new channel subscriptions. We can also monitor the
channel through the associated hashtags being used throughout the
campaigns on the other social media platforms. In addition to the number
of subscriptions, we can also evaluate the number of times the videos are
being shared between users, the amount of likes or dislikes, and the
number of views each video receives. This data will allow Gifts.com to
better connect with their audience and learn about who is sharing, liking,
and viewing their videos. Although one of the most tedious measures to
analyze, direct feedback from user comments may by far, be one of the
best methods for measuring the effectiveness of a video. When a
consumer takes the time to comment, they are providing the company
with valuable insight, whether or not the feedback is positive or negative.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Our team recommends that Gifts.com use high quality equipment
and either hire professional videographers or have employees that are
skillful with a camera, coordinate the production of these videos. By doing
so, Gifts.com will come across to the consumer as legitimate and
knowledgeable about the e-commerce industry. Buying anything online
can be nerve-racking for people who may not be as comfortable with the
Internet, or do not like providing credit card information over a computer.
By exuding a professional image through their online presence, Gifts.com
can leave their consumers with greater reassurance that they are a
dependable and trustworthy brand. In the world of business, reputation is
everything, and Gifts.com must strive to create a positive perception of
their brand among consumers.