It’s no secret that there has been a rapid change in the world of technology over the years. These changes have positively impacted business operations and have even led to a shift in the business paradigm—now you can get online and carry out business transactions and process deliveries, which of course contributes to the success of an e-commerce businesses.

The e-commerce model takes into account different considerations on how to promote and perceive a business. Whether it is rendering a service or selling a product, the widespread knowledge of setting up shop on the Internet has triggered new goals and strategies for e-commerce businesses, with companies constantly trying to use creative methods to monetize their business and create digital traction. But one of the most successful mediums is YouTube, and knowing how to optimize is key.

Creative Ways to Optimize Your YouTube Channel as an E-Commerce Company

YouTube optimization involves setting up a YouTube channel and uploading relevant content to market a product or service. Some of the ways you can optimize your YouTube channel for eCommerce include:

Consistent Branding

It is important to always align your e-commerce brand with your YouTube brand. Brand consistency and uniformity in your YouTube channel will only develop and refine your audience’s confidence and increase the likelihood of subscribing to your YouTube channels. As a result, your viewers will feel more inclined to visit your website to see the product for themselves. Branding consistency is critical in ensuring that more people subscribe to your channel and this will have a positive effect on your business. It’s all about instant recognition.

Probably the best example of this (and highly referenced), is BlendTec. A seamlessly “boring” industry and product, their branding and consistency brought them YouTube videos where views reach upwards of 18 million (and this was several years ago). Find their YouTube channel here.

Visibility and Engagement

Videos for your YouTube channels should be visible and engage the audience to watch more of your videos, or, if possible, have your video drive traffic to your website. While these days many businesses are inferring that their great content will drive traffic, more and more businesses are starting to get creative and just ask.

There are five features for YouTube videos that can be used to achieve different goals for engaging your audience. These annotations include; speech bubbles, spotlights, titles, notes, and labels. Below is a great example of a screenshot from Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen:

Collaboration and Categorization

This involves collaborating with other YouTubers who have many subscribers. This can help promote your brand and your YouTube channel to their audience. Using celebrities and other influencers who can review and share your products/services can help secure the trust you need from your audience and perspective buyer. People trust celebrities and most influencers so using them to leverage video content will increase your YouTube traffic and boost sales for your e-commerce business. Of course celebrities aren’t always possible for the average small business owner, but working with complimentary companies can be. While many businesses are leveraging this on their website, it hasn’t taken off on YouTube just yet. Learn more about this creative tip here.

Note on technical talk: One of the best ways to retain viewers’ interest is by making your conversational, savvy but technical. In other words, all information should be brief and easy to understand. Viewers should be captivated, triggered to learn more, or act. Provide links to your eCommerce website and other social media handles.

YouTube channels have always been effective tools for optimizing e-commerce businesses when the right strategies are used to optimize it. While the above tactics are more creative, make sure you have the basics down as well, such as SEO optimization (and surprise surprise, we can help with that!).

Utilize Thought Leaders

Going along with the last point, most times, it is better for customers that have used the service or product to get customers talking about their positive experience; this creative strategy will give future customers the confidence they need to carry out their purchase. Other companies have experimented with featuring their CEO or a leader in their field to talk directly to viewers as if they were having a conversation. For example, in the video below from Johnson & Johnson, they feature content about what they’re doing for their industry, but also give leaders of the brand an opportunity to talk to consumers by way of video.

Benefits to Optimizing an E-Commerce YouTube Channel

There are certainly benefits of optimizing Youtube for e-commerce, and it’s important to realize why an e-commerce channel is so different than your traditional business’s channel. For both e-commerce websites and traditional businesses, YouTube optimization will give you access to the customer in a variety of ways:

  • Find your global audience. YouTube optimization helps to increase the reach of e-commerce to the public. This is because millions of people visit YouTube on a daily basis. Having access to a larger population will inevitably increase sales for your company.
  • Share-ability. Another benefit of optimizing YouTube for e-commerce is the fact that video content on YouTube can easily be shared on other e-commerce sites, social media platforms, and blogs. This makes it easy to spread YouTube content to the target audience.
  • Developing a real relationship between buyers and sellers. Demonstrating the unique features and qualities of a product or service can help develop a more realistic interactive relationship between buyers and sellers. Optimizing YouTube can help to create a total lifestyle marketing strategy for an e-commerce brand.
  • Easy to create. YouTube videos are easy to make, as no special equipment is required to develop a video aside from a camera. With a good smartphone or laptop with a webcam, you can start developing your own unique YouTube videos that will set your company apart from the rest. However, whatever device you are using, always take the audio portion of the video to heart. The audience may not pay much attention to the quality of the video, but a clear message will give your YouTube channel an edge over others.
  • Cost effectiveness. Optimizing YouTube for your online business is an effective way to indirectly advert for your e-commerce website while costing nothing to post a video. This will increase the traffic to your website and increase sales.

Plain and simple, when YouTube is properly optimized for your online business, it can help exceed your company’s potential. The only real difference for an e-commerce business is the creative strategies you use to sell products as opposed to just market them—the benefits are generally the same across the board for all businesses. If you’re interested in getting into paid advertising on YouTube for your e-commerce business, visit here.

Do you have a story about how your YouTube channel brought your e-commerce company to the next level? What other creative tips would you add to the list? Let us know in the comment section below!

Image Credit: All screenshots taken by the author May 2017