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If your firm isn’t leveraging a YouTube channel for its brand, you may be missing out. According to HubSpot, in 2021, “84% of video marketers say video has been effective for generating leads.”
Benefits of YouTube for B2B Marketing
When your video channel is optimized—meaning with keyword-focused titles and descriptions—you can reach a wider audience than with traditional marketing efforts.
In addition, video marketing helps you strengthen your brand and boost search rankings (Google owns YouTube).
Before You Begin
Before jumping on your phone and creating video content, consider your audience and their pain points. Also, consider how often you plan to generate content. Posting once or twice a year isn’t going to give you the boost you’re expecting.
For example, if you want to increase leads in a real estate market, consider the pain points in that industry. Then define how you can help brokers and agency owners relieve those pains. Look at the content you already have, maybe a blog article or two, case study, tip sheet, or checklist. Those items become the foundation of your video and script if you plan to do a voice-over.
A Simple Video Example
I took high-level information about the Child Care Tax Credit and used Canva to make a video presentation. Then added some music, branding, and a call to action. View the sample video here (https://youtu.be/1UdgRr-xHyY).
Build Your Channel
YouTube is unlike any other social media platform. It’s more like a website, where you’d showcase your brand with a profile image, powerful banner, video thumbnail, thought-provoking channel description, and keyword-centered playlists.
Once you have a series of videos posted, share it with your audience in other media, such as email signatures, newsletters, other social media platforms, conferences, and advertising campaigns.
Keep Search in Mind
With billions of videos uploaded to YouTube each day, help people find your content organically by focusing on channel optimization. Here are some tips.
- Choose a URL with your brand and business keyword in mind, for example, the brand acronym and accounting or CPA firm.
- Include keywords in the channel profile description
- Identify the country location to assist with ad campaign targeting (if you plan to monetize by accepting ads) and organic search.
- Engage with other brands and “favorite” their videos. Also, include influencers in your client’s industries or high-profile accounting resources.
- Upload content on a schedule, e.g., weekly, semi-monthly, or monthly.
- Optimize each video with a keyword in the title, description, category, and tags.
Promotion
But how do you generate leads? There are a few tricks you can use to generate leads, including:
- Cards: Preformatted notifications that appear in the top right corner of the video. It’s best to coordinate it with a call to action on the screen, such as contact us or learn more. They give the viewer an option to click. If they don’t, it disappears from their view. Use it to link to other videos, playlists, or a website.
- End Screens: Direct viewers to something next at the end of your videos. They appear only in the last 5-20 seconds of the video. Similar to cards, it can direct viewers to other videos, a playlist, or website.
See how both options work in the YouTube Creator Academy (https://creatoracademy.youtube.com).
Final Tip
One of the best ways to appeal to a prospect is with storytelling. It gives your brand a chance to become humanized, which resonates with your clients, eh-hem…humans.
Create videos that tell a story about your brand, the firm’s culture, its community involvement, and staff. Withum does a nice job in their annual culture videos (https://www.withum.com/withums-culture/).
How might you highlight your staff?
Create a monthly theme and ask for volunteers. Here is a year’s worth of ideas:
- Tell us about a hobby you have and how it helps you in your career.
- Do you have a pet? Be in our highlight reel featuring our staff and their pets.
- Why do you work in the accounting industry—no matter your role? We’d love to hear from you.
- If you could tell your younger self one thing about taxes, what would it be? Wrong answers only.
- Seeking QuickBooks Quick Tips – What is one QB tip clients will love?
- It’s National Volunteer Day at our firm. Where will you be volunteering? Tell us about it and why you chose that organization.
- We’re recruiting new talent. Tell us why you joined our firm.
- What do you love most about working here?
- What is one thing you wish more people knew about the accounting industry?
- What do your kids think you do all day at work? Let’s ask them.
- What’s your favorite local landmark, park, or museum, and why?
- Tell us one piece of money advice you would tell your younger self.
Looking for Inspiration
Feedspot highlights the top 20 CPA YouTube Channels, including how often they post; their focus; length of time on YouTube; and a contact link. Now’s the time to create video that will help you generate leads, increase brand awareness, influence search rankings, and engage prospects. What are you waiting for? Lights, camera, action!
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