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7 Reasons YouTube Is a Powerful Marketing Tool for Manufacturers

Humans process visual data better than any other type of information – 60,000 times faster than text, in fact.


Here are a few stats to support that statement: YouTube is the second most popular website after Google. More than 1 billion hours of YouTube videos are watched every day. 65% of people use YouTube to help them solve a problem.

Want to learn how to fix a tap? YouTube will tell you, replace a tyre? There's something on there.


Now ask yourself this question, are you helping your customers solve problems with videos?


Then dig a little deeper. Do you know what your customers' problems are, do you know what their goals are? Manufacturing companies that know this aren't 'product shifters', they're business partners committed to helping others.

Remember when manufacturers used to invent products because they have a genuine passion for that product and wanted to help people solve a problem? That's what you need to aim for.

In the world of inbound, where we strive to engage, convince, convert and nurture strangers into life-long advocates of our business, serving video as part of our marketing strategy is vital if we wish to do what all marketers want to do: give our audience what they want.


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We know a video is powerful, but why YouTube?

Wistia and Vimeo are enticing alternatives for manufacturing marketers, and you can use these platforms as well.

But a strong YouTube marketing strategy could be what pushes your marketing to the next level. It’s the most popular and well-known video distribution tool on the web, which is why you should concentrate on building a YouTube channel.


Here are 7 reasons YouTube is a powerful tool for manufacturing businesses:

1. The engagement benefits of visual content

Before we get specific, let’s look at the engagement benefits of harnessing visual content for manufacturing marketing. Here are three hard-line facts:

  1. 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual.
  2. When people hear information, they're likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later. When a relevant image is paired with that same information, people are expected to retain 65% of the information three days later.
  3. Using the word 'video' in an email subject line boosts open rates by 19% and clickthrough rates by 65%.

How do users engage with video content on YouTube?

By watching videos? That's the most important way someone can interact with a video, but there are other ways, such as liking, commenting and sharing, like any other social media network. YouTube also allows users to create video playlists, or you can save them to 'watch later'.

This video shows camera manufacturer GoPro teaming with Kelly McGarry for his backflip over a 72ft canyon. Needless to say, it went viral and has over 60 million views.



Take a look at the comments section from this video from HYPEBEAST about how Adidas make the Ultra Boost trainer. When people start to leave comments and other people like them, YouTube will begin to see your content as more authoritative.


youtube engagement


further reading

Want to learn more about manufacturing marketing? Read our Ultimate Guide!


2. YouTube has a vast audience, are your prospects out there?

Over 1.9 billion people use YouTube. That’s about one-third of the internet — but you only need to capture the audience that's relevant to you. It’s a great place to be, and no other video channel competes for audience size.

BMW know their audience is on YouTube, and they know their audience want to see high-quality videos of new cars driving around breathtaking landscapes.




3. You can advertise on YouTube

While you probably won't make a lot of money from YouTube itself by having a channel, you can make money from advertising. If done correctly, it can be a powerful revenue generator that bolsters inbound video efforts.

There are three types of adverts available on YouTube.

In-stream

In-stream ads appear in the first 5 seconds of viewing, after which the viewer is given a choice to continue watching the ad or skip to the content they intended to watch. These ads may take you to another video, your YouTube channel or a website landing page.

In-display

In-display YouTube ads appear to the side of the content you are watching on YouTube. The ability to target relevant audiences here means you can display these ads to people who are viewing similar content to that which you are promoting. In-display ads take people to your own video content or channel.

In-search

In-search ads appear in response to a search query typed into YouTube. They’re signified as ads by a small yellow box and drive people to a video within a channel. From there, you can incorporate additional calls to action to encourage people to sign up, visit or download additional content.


Have a look at this YouTube ad from Dollar Shave Club, a D2C manufacturer who created a subscription business model for men's shaving equipment. It's irreverent, fun, hilarious, and gets their message across, 'save money and stop forgetting to buy razors'.



You can retarget with YouTube

Retargeting shows personalised ads to viewers of your content as they travel around the internet. It’s also known as remarketing. It works by connecting your YouTube account with your Google AdWords account. Once they’ve seen, liked or engaged with your content on YouTube, you can retarget them with additional relevant content on other partner sites.

A video marketing YouTube strategy bolsters inbound efforts by serving relevant, engaging content again to those who are interested.


4. Add value to your overall marketing strategy

For the Inbound marketer, content is key. But it’s worth nothing without a strong distribution strategy. This is where the true power of YouTube lies. It not only provides a platform on which to place video content, but it also offers numerous distribution methods by which to promote your content.

Marketing on YouTube offers audience reach, hyper-targeted advertising options and remarketing opportunities. Add it to your inbound strategy, and you’ll reach more relevant people, more often.

43% of manufacturers say they used video snippets as part of their marketing strategy in the past 12 months


5. You can use YouTube to generate more referral traffic

We aren't saying plaster links all over your descriptions or comments section, but if you have a particular piece of content that relates to the video you're creating, link it to your video.

Referral traffic on YouTube works similarly to any social media channel. If you share an article on social media, you want people to click back to your website. The only difference with YouTube is that clicking to your website is a secondary priority. Watching the video is the main priority.

Take a look at this video description from Beretta on a gun making video, they link back to a blog, their store, social media sites, as well as other websites in different languages.


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6. You can use YouTube for SEO purposes

As we mentioned before, YouTube is the second most visited website other than Google. Google's video search results have also started to become more prominent as people look for visual results.

There's also the small issue that Google can't see your videos, it can't 'watch them' so a significant factor in why videos rank is based on what supporting text is provided.

There are various way you can improve your YouTube SEO, like pinning a comment or mentioning a keyword. Ahrefs even have a Google keyword tool, which you can see below. The search term lean manufacturing received 450 YouTube searches and 291 clicks.

youtube seo


7. You can create and segment playlists

YouTube allows to segment content and arrange it in lists. These lists make it easier for people to find what they're looking for, or they may stumble upon something they find interesting.

Here are a few ideas for segmenting your YouTube videos:

  • Behind the scenes footage
  • Product features and explainers
  • How to videos
  • Q&A videos
  • Team profiles

This image shows technology manufacturer IBM's playlist section, which focuses on how IBM helps businesses with security, and an exploration of how science, tech and business come together to make the world a better place.

youtube for manufacturers


66% of manufacturers increased their video/audio output in 2019



Have you set up your channel yet?

If you think you can grow your business by building your own YouTube channel, you should set one up now!

Be mindful though, a channel takes a while to grow, it won't happen overnight, but you'll reap the benefits above if you dedicate your time and patience to it.


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