1. Keep Your Videos Short
Most people come to YouTube with intention. They are there to watch something that they have chosen to watch with the understanding that they might have to watch some ads while they are there. If your goal is getting a direct response, your video should sit between 15-60 seconds.
Of course, there is no golden rule here. The message and the presentation are far more important than the length of the ad, though when it comes to practicality and production, the shorter the better! Unskippable Labs conducted a study showing the 30-second ad is the best choice.
These ads also had the highest view-through rates.
Get Your Branding Together
If you are showing videos to a new audience that doesn’t know the first thing about your brand, you want to make sure that everything is as clear as possible. When it comes to retail brands, you want to show some of your most popular products used in real life. If you are a B2B brand you might want to throw in product demo shots or shots of your interface.
C.R.A.
C.R.A stands for “Captivate, Relate, Associate.”
For starters, you want to quickly captivate your audience. Right off the bat, emphasize pain points, and make use of characters or scenes that your audience knows well. Include a well-known celebrity or influencer, utilize some popular music, create a humorous ad, or pose a compelling question.
Next, you want to relate to your audience by empathizing with their needs, wants, pain points, etc. We often recommend segmenting audiences by characteristics or demographics as well.
Lastly, you want to associate your brand with the solution to those needs, wants, and pain points. Adding logos in the corners of your videos is a wonderful way to do this!
Design Mobile Ads
The majority of YouTube watch through mobile devices. You want to make sure that you gear your creativity toward mobile ads. Keep the frames tight, use scenes and backgrounds that pop, and leverage graphics or text that are clear.
Note that YouTube supports ads with vertical video as well. Utilizing vertical videos creates a far more immersive experience for viewers.
While YouTube has been a wonderful channel for branding for quite some time, it has gotten much better over the past few years as a direct response channel. Don’t be intimidated by creating compelling YouTube ads. Just make sure to keep our best practices in mind and you’ll drive your business towards success.
