SaaS is still a booming industry. Even after a few decades, it hasn't gone out of fashion. And it probably won't for a long time. But you know one thing that does not go out of fashion? Marketing. Now, for those in the industry, it is good news that it is popular. However, bad news always comes along with the good. A booming industry also means booming competition. And it does not matter which sector you are in, there will always be a lot of competitors. Your best bet is to have a unique marketing strategy. It ends not only at unique. Your marketing strategy also has to be effective. Therefore, you need to do your best to set yourself apart from your competitors. “How?” you may ask. Well, there are a lot of ways. But for the sake of this article, let's focus on YouTube strategies for your SaaS business.
Your next question might be, “Why should I use YouTube strategies?”
Two points for you. It is an excellent question. And a crucial one. Why YouTube when you could use any of the thousands of marketing platforms? Let me tell you why. First, YouTube is a search engine. Think Google, exclusively for videos. And it is the second most visited website, second only to Google. And that’s not even the best part yet. The best part is the demographic of users YouTube boasts.
Here are a few stats provided by Global Media Insight:
YouTube is most popular among men at 53.90%, while female users make up the rest at 46.10%
Additionally, 81% of its users are between the ages of 18-25
India is the top consumer of content. Followed by the USAOther stats powered by Omnicore Agency:
2.6 billion total users
122 million daily users
Users spend an average of 18 minutes a day
These users consume about 1 billion hours of content dailyIf these stats alone do not convince you, then I do not know what will. YouTube is a must in your marketing strategy. And after that, you must employ YouTube strategies. Read More: 7 Proven Facebook Ad Strategies for SaaS Businesses
But why is YouTube so popular?
Because of the range of content available on the platform. Remember Google but for videos? YouTube is a host to a plethora of content types. You have tutorials, guides, entertainment, educational videos, reviews, listicles, unboxing, and more types than I can name. YouTube has all bases covered. From ‘how to build a car’ to ‘how to get my boss to like me’. You can find answers to questions that start with what, why, when, where, and how. Imagination is your limit.
Another reason YouTube is popular is because of its visual content. Your brain is better equipped to process visual data compared to written data. Why? The same reason that we remember stories better than facts. Additionally, the human brain retains about 95% of video data. And about 11% of written data. Not saying that Nat Geo is better than textbooks.
Hence, YouTube is an excellent SaaS marketing platform, if there ever was one. It is a crucial platform for SaaS businesses since it allows you to connect with your audiences and share high-value content. Additionally, SaaS products are not very easy-to-use products. There are a lot of technicalities and issues that may be hard for a layperson to understand. YouTube lets you easily educate your audience about your product and highlight features and their uses. Therefore, YouTube is one of the best platforms for reaching all demographics. And that is why you need the below YouTube strategies. Read More: 5 Effective LinkedIn Ads Strategies for SaaS Businesses
Here are a few YouTube strategies for SaaS that you can use:
You can think of these as best practices for YouTube. These elements will help you set up your plan and optimize it.
Who is your audience?
And what are they getting out of it?I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Know your audience! Half the battle is knowing your audience better than they know themselves. It's more than their ages and locations. You need to know what they like, what they hate, their interests, and the result of the “what kind of bread are you” BuzzFeed quiz. The better you know your audience, the better you can curate content for them. It’s the fine line between a student trying to memorize code for an exam and a professional looking up code for a project.
And the other half of the battle is knowing what content your audience needs. SaaS products are technical, and by extension they become tricky. Customers expect you to give them some value before they buy your product. It may sound dubious, but it is a common practice. Many companies provide high value through their content. This helps build trust between a customer and a brand. Plus, it helps your customers understand what they are getting out of the deal. It allows them to get a feel for your products and services. To see is to believe. And what's better than a video that explains your product? Plus, not everyone in your customer base has the same level of understanding of your product. Therefore, you need to create content to help beginners and advanced users. It is imperative to include demographic research in your YouTube strategy. Read More: B2B vs B2C SaaS Marketing: Understanding key differences
What is your competition doing?
Sometimes stalking your competition can help you. Be careful you do not want to like a post from 2016 accidentally. But why would you want to stalk your competition? Well, it is definitely not to spend time on social media during working hours. Because it is essential to know what your competition is up to.
What are they doing? How are they doing it? What is their engagement like? Who are their customers? All these questions will help you frame your YouTube strategy. Plus, this will give you insight into current trends and new features in the market. It is the easiest way to know what's happening in the industry. Now, you do not need to use the exact strategy as your competitor. But it helps to know how audiences respond to certain ads.
You can even go a step further and conduct a competitor or competition analysis. It will help you understand your and your competitor's YouTube strategies. Plus, it equips you to optimize your strategy. It also provides insight into gaps in supply and demand, customer behavior, and current trends. Hence, it is a widely accepted analysis tool used by all companies. Especially SaaS businesses.
There are six steps in the competitor analysis:
Determine products and pricing
Analyze their online presence (SEO, social media, other content)
Check out their marketing strategy and content
Boil down all the information to a SWOT analysis for team presentationThe competition analysis will also help you identify areas of improvement in your YouTube strategy by comparing them to others.
Including keywords in your YouTube strategy
You might be familiar with the term keywords. Let's go over it once, anyway. Keywords are the holy grail for SEO and rankings. Because they are the best way to attract organic traffic. When you search for something in Google, you use certain words that best describe what you are looking for. The more specific you get, they show the better results. For example, the results for “SaaS products” and “vertical SaaS products” are very different. One word can change the results page. Therefore, pick your keywords wisely and with much research. You can also use hashtags as a part of your keyword strategy. Moreover, adding keywords to your title can boost its visibility. You can also include channel keywords, video descriptions, and tags in your YouTube strategy. Read More: 5 UX Design Best Practices for SaaS Businesses
Why should you care about timestamps? And what are video chapters?
Time stamps are a great way to navigate a video. Time stamps tell you where certain content is within the video. With this, your audiences can skip to the part relevant to their query. It seems counter-intuitive. After all, you would want your audience to see the entire video, right? Right and wrong. You want your audience to see the whole video. However, by providing time stamps, you improve customer experience. And search engines love accounts that do it. The more search engines love your content, the more it is shown. Therefore, do not forget to add timestamps to your YouTube strategy. It also boosts your views since audiences know where to find the content they want.
Unfortunately, you have to add the timestamps manually. You can add these in the video description when you upload the video. Or the comments. Fortunately, YouTube recognizes timestamps and automatically links them so that the user can click. Plus, the format to add timestamps is pretty simple.
Format: [hours]:[minutes]:[seconds]
For example
1:20:08 is 1 hour, 20 minutes, and 8 seconds
38:20 is 38 minutes and 20 seconds
Another example,
0:45 Topic 1
1:50 Topic 2
2:37 Topic 3
3:40 Topic 4
4:44 End
Video chapters are a chapter index but for videos. YouTube auto-generates them from the timestamps you provide. How do you know if your video has video chapters? You’ll be able to see ‘nooks’ in the timeline if the chapters are in place. These Make the chapters. It might seem pretty straightforward. However, there are a few things you should keep in mind. For YouTube to auto-generate video chapters, your timestamp should start with ‘0:00’. If you miss this, YouTube will not mark video chapters. Plus, you must have at least three timestamps. And each chapter should be longer than ten seconds.
An example to help you visualize it:
0:00 Start
0:45 Topic 1
1:50 Topic 2
2:37 Topic 3
3:40 Topic 4
4:44 End Read More: A Founders Guide to SaaS Affiliate Marketing
Why should you add thumbnails to your YouTube strategies?
A thumbnail is a snapshot of what your video is about. A thumbnail is the first thing an audience will see in your video. It helps your audiences understand what the video is about and what they might expect to get out of it. It’s the still image you see before the actual video plays.
Thumbnails help attract viewers and get them to watch the videos. They are like book covers. And your video will definitely get judged by it. Additionally, it is an excellent way to build your band aesthetic.
Now, YouTube has two options when it comes to thumbnails:
Choose from automatically generated ones
Create and upload your own (1280 pixels x 720 pixels)
Creating thumbnails is the better option. While you can choose any from the generated options, it does not encapsulate the video. When you are creating thumbnails, you can add text. This text is a preview of what the video is about. As opposed to an automatically generated one, which is a random still selected from the video. What would you pick? Between a random image of a dashboard or a customized thumbnail with the title “how to use a dashboard?”
A thumbnail is the last polish of the shoe. Therefore, you should not miss using a customized thumbnail. Also, you can easily design a thumbnail in Canva in just a few minutes. Simply using a thumbnail can boost your efforts in your YouTube strategy. Read More: 10 SaaS Growth Strategies to Try in 2022
Make the most of Community and Playlists in your YouTube strategy
The audience that follows your YouTube channel can view community posts. You can include polls, text, and visuals such as GIFs, videos, etc. The community tab allows you to connect with your customers or audiences meaningfully. It isn't the space to be sale-sy. You should use it to promote your services with brand storytelling, etc. The playlist is another crucial tab that SaaS businesses should use and optimize. It is an excellent way to segment videos in a way that helps your customers. You can categorize them by topic: new features, tricks and tips, guides and tutorials, and more. This way, your audiences can see the same type of videos. Read More: 20+ SaaS Marketing Tools That Every Company Needs