YouTube Influencer Marketing Guide for Small Businesses and Startup Companies
Among the digital marketing channels that have quickly become very popular in the world of business, YouTube indeed stands right at the top. It has quickly become one of the most valuable marketing channels to use to promote your business to a much broader audience base.
There are a number of methods available in the market for promoting your brand through YouTube. Which one is the most helpful for your small business? That’s the question that you need to find the answer to.
If your business falls under startup and small business categories, you can indeed look into the YouTube influencer marketing strategies. In today’s market, where competition is getting ruthless each day, earning a name for your small business is not easy.
But what if you get some help from someone having considerable influence on the market? What if that person helps your brand earn a place on the market through his/her influence on YouTube? Imagine getting all that reach of one influencer and using it for your brand!
Sounds exciting?
Well, this is exactly what this post is all about. Let’s take a look at them one by one. But first, let’s look at how influencer marketing works on YouTube.
How Does YouTube Influencer Marketing Work?
Influencer marketing is very beneficial, but using it on YouTube can change the whole game for you and your brand. This platform has hundreds and thousands of popular channels that possess a much better reach than most other social media sites. Plus, thanks to the already existing advertising set-up, you can come up with various promotional marketing campaigns – quite lucrative ones, actually.
The viewer base of YouTube is spanned across multiple generations; however, it perhaps attracts the Millennials and young generations the most. Some of them consume YouTube content much more than they watch on television. This gives you an excellent opportunity to tap this huge viewer section and promote your small brand.
Even though YouTube is a social media platform, it is much different from the rest of others, and also, this is something beyond just a clip-sharing platform. So the ads you see here, during or before a video, are much like the traditional advertisements you see on your television. This happens when brands pay for you to see their ads.
This is why influencer marketing on YouTube is much more like various brands using a formal mode of advertisements on television. As you might know, the revenue earned from these ads is not really paid to the network or YouTube, for that matter, in the case of influencer marketing. In the same way, they don’t give you any behind-the-scene assistance as they often do for traditional advertising. To put it simply, influencer marketing is just similar to television ads where you see various products being promoted by celebs.
Despite being a bit different from many other social media networks, YouTube does have some similarities with other platforms. Here, most of the viewers expect the influencers to be genuine and authentic, and it is based on this very fact, the products are sold. The belief that the viewers have in the influencers compels them to place the order.
Influencers are always ready to use this opportunity whenever possible. This is a great scope for you to promote your brand. Take unboxing videos, for example, almost every kind of brand use them, and they are a great hit among the viewers.
How to Choose the Right YouTube Influencers for Your Small Brand
Here, we are going to look at a few points about how you can choose the right YouTube influencer for your brand.
Multi-Channel Networks
First off, you can hire some talent management services. They are adept enough to recruit the right influencers for your brand, who can set up a good campaign for you. Some of the most well-known networks are Maker Studios (a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company), Fullscreen, etc.
They have earned a reputation for reaching out to various YouTube channels and finding the right talent as influencers for your brand. Upon request, they can even strike the deals for you as well.
Once they are done with their research, they will help you with the complete list of influencers, their proposed campaigns, and the cost. These agencies have become quite popular these days since, for many brands, they are the only ray of hope to find the right influencer.
Influencer Exchange Platforms
This is another solution when it comes to finding the right influencer for your brand. The exchange platform is like a virtual marketplace, where you get to connect your brand with influencers. On these platforms, brands can submit their expectations and receive suitable proposals from various YouTubers on the internet. This can be a very useful feature for small businesses as you can accept proposals according to your budget.
The only limitation that you might have here is that there is no such filter to judge the talent of the YouTubers responding to your proposition.
Reaching Out Directly
Lastly, you have the option of directly contacting any Influencer on YouTube. Most individuals and brands often publish their email addresses in the “About” section, and you can even use the Send Message option also.
You can simply go ahead and write them an email expressing your interest and your goals and why you think they can be the right influencer for your brand on YouTube.
Never forget to do some research as well so that you can tell some valuable info to the influencer. It will indeed depend on various factors such as the niche of his/her YouTube channel, the kind of exposure coming from his/her channel, and the reach and engagement. Based on all this info, you can talk about the promotion and establish a long-term partnership where your product will be benefitted from deeper audience engagement and other promotional methods such as contests, giveaways, etc.
How to Work with Influencers on YouTube?
- Firstly, you need to find the right influencer for your brand. We have talked about it earlier, and I believe you can understand that you need to find someone who can be a good match for you and your brand. You can just look up a few channels or YouTubers that you might find interesting. Just go to their channels and do some research, look at their videos and see if that matches your requirement.
- It’s you need to find the right influencer for your brand. We have talked about it earlier, and I believe you can understand that you need to find someone who can be a good match for you and your brand. You can just look up a few channels or YouTubers that you might find interesting. Just go to their channels and do some research, look at their videos and see if that matches your requirement.
- Now, once you are done with finding the right influencers, it’s time for you to contact them and pitch them your offer. You should be transparent about it and disclose all your terms and conditions in simple terms. Also, allow them to have some creative freedom regarding your products and services. Since it is their channel and they are the ones running it, they will know the audience better than you do. With their knowledge and expertise, they will help you get the maximum benefit out of the campaign.
- Now, you should discuss the disclosure part as well. You need to discuss everything clearly about the paid mentions and sponsorships. This is an essential part of the whole process to avoid complications in the future. The more transparent everything will be, the better it is for you.
- Lastly, you need to start working on the campaign. When you are done with finalizing the influencer, and all the terms and conditions are sorted, it’s time for you to collaborate and make the campaign a success. Try to make the most out of their reach on YouTube. Try to reach out to them whenever you need it and also use your social media channels and website to promote the video. Needless to say, videos can be a great tool to do your content marketing and make it much more appealing to the customers. They will engage more with a video than just plain text. You just have to join forces with the right influencer and take your business to the next level.
Final Words on YouTube Influencer Marketing for Small Businesses
Working with YouTube influencers will help you create an image for your brand that will surely attract more customers. If you can rope in a few personalities having substantial credibility on YouTube, that trust will be transferred to your brand as well. This can be very beneficial for any small business.
Also, you should be open to hiring a reputed digital marketing agency that can manage your YouTube influencer marketing campaigns seamlessly and acquire high ROI for your brand.
So, what is your experience with YouTube influencer marketing? Have you tried it before for your small business? If yes, then let us know about your experience, as it will help a ton of other aspiring business owners out there.
