YouTube Strategies that can Turn Your First-Time Viewers into Subscribers
It will be a huge mistake to think of YouTube as just another video watching or content creation platform. Instead, it’s a very powerful medium where you can turn your viewers into subscribers, subscribers into potential customers, and significantly improve your sales conversion rate and boost brand image.
All you need to know is how to develop intriguing content for YouTube, which will instantly compel your viewers to click the ‘subscribe’ button happily.
Now, much like various other social media platforms, YouTube also has a boatload of fantastic features you can use to lure your potential customers. Amidst all that, you need to come up with something that will attract a new visitor to your channel and induce him/her to subscribe to it.
This is exactly what this content is all about. In fact, in this post, we will talk about how you can get more viewers to like your videos and become your loyal subscribers.
After all, you put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into making, editing, and marketing a YouTube video. So you must get a high return from all that!
So, here are our eleven insanely powerful ways to grow your subscribers on YouTube.
Clean and Tidy up Your YouTube Channel
You might think that whatever content you create and post on YouTube is absolutely clean, tidy, and flawless. But believe me, there is always room for improvement.
So you need to leave the shoes of a YouTuber or your brand and think from the perspective of a viewer to understand what’s going on with your YouTube channel.
This role reversal will help you evaluate your channel and reconsider the content that’s there.
It is very much possible that there is a huge chunk of content that needs to be deleted or recreated. In fact, you indeed have some content on your YouTube channel, which are outdated, poorly produced, or just flop pieces that will never gain anything for your brand or even can potentially damage its image.
So meticulously go through all of them and identify the ones that would certainly compel your viewers and remove the garbage.
Post Nothing but Highly Attractive Content
Now, this particular tip might seem too obvious but keep in mind that since YouTube is full of needless things, brands often think that they can get away with posting mediocre content.
Now, there is no doubt that when it comes to YouTube, the only way to grow is to have a massive subscriber base. Now, there are a few ways you can do that:
- First, you need to do your research about your competitors. Make notes about them, especially the most attractive parts. You don’t have to copy exactly what your competitors are doing. Instead, you need to find new and creative ways to make things work for your brand. Check more and more videos from relevant industries and gather the necessary ideas.
- Never forget to script before making the video. Even if you can make it work on screen, you should never do that. Instead, you should make the perfect script beforehand, consult with others, modify it again to make it even more captivating, and then only go for shooting the video. Most businesses tend to undervalue the power of the scripted approach. But that’s where you will be two steps ahead of the rest.
- Make sure to buy some standard equipment to turn one of your office corners into a functional Most entrepreneurs think that buying video gears can be a costly affair and can be easily postponed. In reality, that is not the case. Contrary to what you believe, a camera is not the most important piece of equipment you need. Even your iPhone camera can produce a much better video quality. Instead, you should focus on getting a professional green screen, some studio lights, and, of course, a sturdy tripod. Plus, if you have a decent, functioning audio recorder, then you are certainly ready to go.
- Your videos should have an insanely engaging first ten seconds. Believe it or not, a large percentage of viewers stop watching the video right after the first five seconds. So you need to hook them up right there. Make sure you don’t start the video with a bland introduction. Instead, you can use the final screen of your video right in the beginning, which shows what you achieved at the end and what value it would add to your viewers. This will make the viewers glued to your video.
Use a Top-Notch YouTube Channel Trailer
You must have a killer channel trailer. YouTube has this fantastic feature that marketers can leverage to grow their subscriber base.
What is it exactly?
Well, just as the name suggests, a channel trailer is nothing but a short video trailer that will automatically be played when a visitor arrives on your YouTube channel.
This can prove to be an excellent opportunity to build your audience base, provided you create mind-blowing, compelling video content.
Remember, they don’t need to be too long. Instead, keep them under 30 to 60 seconds. YouTube channel trailer needs to give your visitors the reason to stay and look around the channel.
Do you need to come up with something hilarious? Or do they need to be stunningly beautiful or emotionally charged? Make it in a way where they can be helpful, impactful along with a call-to-action that will give the viewers a reason to subscribe.
Keep Your Videos Under 5 Minutes
Maybe you are making videos on complex topics like digital marketing or software engineering, and less than 30 minutes is not enough for you to explain the topic properly. Or maybe you are dealing with law-related content where you think a long video with countless testimonials can evoke the trust in the viewers for your content.
However, generally, long videos and YouTube rarely go hand-in-hand for newbie brands. Despite the complexity of your topic, the length of your video should never exceed 5 minutes.
Instead of making one long video of 30 minutes length, create six videos of 5 minutes each, and put them under one playlist.
This is also proven in several studies that online video viewers have a short attention span. Just like I said a few moments ago, around 20% of the viewers leave the video within the first five seconds. This is why you need to re-edit your videos and make them short, sweet, concise, yet compelling at the end.
Create a Binge-Worthy YouTube Playlist
Do you often make a series of videos that are related to each other? Then you will definitely have a set of videos that go together! If not, you should make these types of videos like educational videos or webinars on the same recurring theme.
Now, regardless of the topic, you should take the entire lot and turn it into a YouTube playlist. This will allow the users to continuously watch your content without manually searching for them.
How can it work for your subscriber-number growth?
Well, it will keep the visitors engaged longer on the channel and allow them to explore a plethora of content. This will indeed compel them to subscribe to your channel.
Plus, YouTube playlists will keep your videos in a much more organized way and save the channel from being unnecessarily cluttered.
If you think you lack ideas, feel free to visit some channels of famous brands on YouTube and check out how they have created compelling playlists of videos on the same topic.
Your Videos Must Have Powerful CTAs
The idea of including a CTA inside your video may seem a bit complicated. You might think that your technical capabilities are not enough to pull this off. But the best part is it is not so difficult.
Marketers can simply use end screens and cards in their videos. Let me give you the details about these two:
YouTube End Screens
The end screen is exactly what it sounds like. It’s just the end-screen where the call-to-action will appear for the viewers at the end of the video. If you want to encourage your viewers to subscribe to your channel, watch your next videos, or visit your official website, all these are possible using the YouTube end screen.
You can use the feature to promote four types of elements.
- Entice viewers to subscribe to your channel.
- Watch a video or playlist.
- Cross-promote another YouTube channel.
- Link to an approved website, crowd-funding campaign, or merchandise.
End screen usually appears during the last 5-20 seconds of the video, provided your video is at least 25 seconds long.
YouTube Cards
Next option is the YouTube cards. If YouTube screens are not something you are comfy with, you can indeed check out YouTube cards! These cool little cards will allow you to add more interactivity during your video.
Cards can be used to point viewers to a specific URL, show a video or playlist, or you can also use them to promote your YouTube channel and create a poll for your audience.
There is one little thing to keep in mind about YouTube cards, and that is the users will have to press the little “i” icon at the right-hand top corner of the YouTube video to make the cards appear.
Create Custom YouTube Thumbnails
You might often hear the proverb; don’t judge a book by its cover. But the reason for using this so frequently is because we tend to do it all the time.
The thumbnail of your YouTube video represents exactly the same thing here. So you need to use the best of your creativity and make the thumbnail super engaging.
As a matter of fact, the YouTube thumbnail is one of the most critical items in determining whether or not a visitor will click and watch your video.
Now the best way to ensure that is using a smiling image on the thumbnail of your videos. Also, make sure the face makes the eye-contact with your visitors.
Now, why do you need to put a smile through that?
Well, because humans relate to themselves much better than anything else!
Post Content as Often and Consistently as Possible
Yes, I know what you are thinking. This is not at all an easy job to pull off. Because not every company will have their professional team to back them with grinding content.
But, as I have said earlier, if you purchase the video gears and have an in-house small yet functional studio, scripting and creating valuable videos is likely achievable. Plus, you can do it by maintaining your weekly workflow.
Here, consistency is the key. This is because your subscribers will not stay there if you can’t provide them with regular contents. So you need to publish videos as frequently and consistently as you can.
For example, you can look into the videos published by Moz. They have a series called Whiteboard Fridays. Here they publish a weekly video where they explain various complex SEO concepts in a simpler manner.
If you can do something similar relevant to your business, maintaining quality and consistency, you will not only retain your existing subscribers but attract new subscribers as well.
Invest in YouTube Advertising
If you are following the aforementioned YouTube growth strategies for a while and have acquired a decent number of subscribers, this is the time when you need to bring your wallet out and spend some money to make it grow even faster.
Obviously, everything cannot be free of cost. Isn’t it?
Now, you don’t have to spend too much money, but you need to have some kind of a budget for promoting your channel and videos. If properly targeted and meticulously executed, this can be a full-proof way to expedite the channel growth and significantly increase your YouTube subscribers.
The internet is crowded! Hence, you need money because money attracts money.
So, it’s imperative that you have a decent budget to invest in your YouTube channel.
You can even go for some customization and make better use of available YouTube ad types:
- Display ads
- Overlay ads
- Skippable and non-skippable video ads
- Bumper ads
- Sponsored cards
Much like other platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, YouTube also allows video targeting based on the interest, demographics, and in-market audiences. But if you are new to all these and don’t have much expertise, you should look into some online tutorials to grab knowledge about different YouTube advertising methods.
Promote Your YouTube Channel on Relevant Online Communities
Be it a Twitter chat, LinkedIn group, Reddit, or another popular online community in your industry; you should never fail to keep the engagement going and promote your channel and videos strategically.
No fuss, no muss; just find the relevant places and get started.
For example, suppose you run an accounting firm and participate in an online community conversation with various people having issues with their taxes. In that case, you have the perfect opportunity to promote your YouTube channel there.
Share your helpful videos to educate them about personal and corporate taxation, and let them check out the rest and eventually subscribe to your channel.
Incentivize People to Subscribe to Your YouTube Channel
You can leverage the power of incentives to increase your YouTube channel subscribers.
This works like a charm on almost all age groups, and you can also use it for your Youtube channel growth. Give away gifts, coupons, special promotional discounts, and the list goes on. Use these to incentivize people who subscribe to your channel.
Final Thoughts on Converting First-Time Viewers into Your YouTube Subscribers
So there you go – our eleven tips to increase your YouTube subscribers in leaps and bounds. I believe, with the above discussion, you now have clear ideas about starting off even if you are new to YouTube.
Remember, you have to do a lot of experiments and analyses to find the right ways that will work in your favor and turn your first-time viewers into YouTube subscribers.
So what are your views on this? Did we miss out on something important, which helped you quickly grow your YouTube subscribers?
We would love to hear your methods. Also, we are sure that your ideas will benefit many of our readers who want to try their hand on YouTube or find it challenging to grow their channel subscribers.
Till then, happy YouTubing!
