For brands, one of the keys to suc­cess on YouTube is defin­ing pri­or­i­ty objec­tives. Is it to build aware­ness? Influ­ence con­sid­er­a­tion? Dri­ve online or offline sales? Grow loy­al­ty? What role do you want your videos to play in your con­tent mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy?

Last week, we unlearned what we had learned about suc­cess­ful TV adver­tis­ing strate­gies. Now, we’re ready to learn the first of sev­en ways to improve your video mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy.

To begin with, your YouTube videos should be part of your over­all con­tent mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy. Although this appears obvi­ous, some senior mar­keters have put mak­ing videos into an orga­ni­za­tion­al silo, or (worse) have out­sourced this to an agency that isn’t a mem­ber of their ded­i­cat­ed con­tent mar­ket­ing group. As a result, their YouTube videos aren’t appro­pri­ate­ly con­ceived, tar­get­ed and mea­sured, or (worse) are mere­ly a mon­tage of B‑roll post­ed in hopes that the clips will wind up on TV in future super PAC ads.

If you want an exam­ple, just watch “McConnell Work­ing for Ken­tuck­ians,” which was pub­lished on March 11, 2014.

Jaime Fuller of The Wash­ing­ton Post wrote about this YouTube video in a sto­ry, “How ‘McConnelling’ came to be the hottest thing on the polit­i­cal web.” She said, “Ear­li­er this week, the cam­paign of Sen­ate Minor­i­ty Leader Mitch McConnell (R‑Ky.) released an ad with no words. Only Mitch McConnel­l’s smil­ing face. The Inter­net respond­ed in kind by insert­ing McConnel­l’s face where it was meant to be. No, not in super PAC ads. At the end of ’90s sit­com title sequences, obvi­ous­ly.”

So, how do you avoid being “that guy”? Well, there are three key steps to build­ing YouTube videos into your con­tent mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy:

• Define your core con­tent strat­e­gy. There are four main ways you can pro­vide intrin­sic val­ue to your view­ers.
  • Inspi­ra­tion: YouTube has brought to light thou­sands of inspir­ing sto­ries. For exam­ple, watch “Dan­ny MacAskill – ‘Way Back Home’” on the Red Bull chan­nel.
  • Enter­tain­ment: Some videos are plan-and-sim­ple guf­faw­ing­ly fun­ny. For exam­ple, watch “Girls Don’t Poop — PooPourri.com.”
  • Enlight­en­ment: These are doc­u­men­taries sim­i­lar to what you’d see on PBS. For exam­ple, watch “Always #LikeA­Girl.”
  • Edu­ca­tion: Edu­ca­tion­al videos show how to do things and use prod­ucts. For exam­ple, watch “Google Search: Reunion.”
• Define your con­tent cre­ation strat­e­gy.
  • Hygiene con­tent: What is your audi­ence active­ly search­ing for regard­ing your brand or indus­try? What can serve as your 365-day-rel­e­vant, always-on, PULL con­tent pro­gram­ming? For exam­ple, prod­uct tuto­ri­als, how-to con­tent, cus­tomer ser­vice, etc.
  • Hub con­tent: The con­tent you devel­op on a reg­u­lar basis to give a fresh per­spec­tive on your target’s pas­sion points. (For exam­ple, ver­ti­cal­ized con­tent about a prod­uct line.) This is often stag­gered through­out the year.
  • Hero con­tent: What con­tent do you want to PUSH to a big, broad audi­ence? What would be your Super Bowl moment? A brand may have only a few hero moments in a year, such as prod­uct launch­es or indus­try tent-pole events.
• Define your con­tent dis­tri­b­u­tion strat­e­gy.
  • Store: You’ll need a cen­tral place to store and orga­nize your con­tent to ensure that it’s acces­si­ble to your audi­ence any­where, any­time. Con­sid­er using a YouTube chan­nel linked to your oth­er prop­er­ties as your con­tent hub.
  • Deliv­er: An edi­to­r­i­al cal­en­dar will help you ensure your brand’s con­sis­tent pres­ence through­out the year and align con­tent pro­gram­ming with your mar­ket­ing cal­en­dar. Con­sid­er a three-tiered cal­en­dar that includes hygiene, hub, and hero con­tent.
  • Acti­vate: Giv­en the abun­dance of con­tent on YouTube, it’s key to not only pro­duce great con­tent but also to ensure it’ll reach your desired audi­ence with a sol­id acti­va­tion and pro­mo­tion strat­e­gy. The right acti­va­tion strat­e­gy depends on the con­tent type. Hero con­tent should be acti­vat­ed by a mas­sive pro­mo­tion­al cam­paign across mul­ti­ple chan­nels. Hub con­tent calls for more tar­get­ed acti­va­tion.

There are also five guid­ing prin­ci­ples will help define how YouTube videos should fit into your con­tent mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy.

• Know who you are try­ing to reach. You know your core audi­ence and your tar­get demo­graph­ic; now you need to inves­ti­gate exact­ly how they behave on YouTube. What videos do they watch? How active are they on social net­works? How do they use their mobile devices?
• Know what prob­lem you’re try­ing to solve. Define your brand’s pri­or­i­ty objec­tives on YouTube. What role do you want your videos to play in the mar­ket­ing mix?
  • Build­ing aware­ness: Will users be able to recall and rec­og­nize your brand, prod­uct, or ser­vice after watch­ing the video
  • Influ­enc­ing con­sid­er­a­tion: Will users con­sid­er pur­chas­ing your prod­uct or ser­vice after watch­ing this video?
  • Dri­ving online or offline sales: Will users be more like­ly to vis­it your web­site or store or pur­chase your prod­uct after watch­ing this video?
  • Grow­ing loy­al­ty: Will users be more like­ly to rec­om­mend your brand, prod­uct, or ser­vice after watch­ing this video?
• Know your brand on YouTube. What does your brand stand for with your tar­get demo on YouTube? What do they know about your brand? Do they know what you do or make? YouTube Ana­lyt­ics can help you see how your con­tent is cur­rent­ly res­onat­ing (or not) with your tar­get demo.
• Know the com­pe­ti­tion. Spend some time look­ing at what your top com­peti­tors are doing with their online video con­tent. Vis­it their YouTube chan­nels and see what’s per­formed well for them, and look at what they’re up to across the entire dig­i­tal ecosys­tem. What are they doing suc­cess­ful­ly? Where are there oppor­tu­ni­ties for your brand?
• Know what suc­cess looks like. Now that you’re on the path to mak­ing great brand­ed videos, how are you think­ing about suc­cess? Is suc­cess about views? User engage­ment? Or oth­er met­rics fur­ther down the fun­nel? Once you’ve deter­mined what suc­cess looks like, you’ll need to track relat­ed met­rics before, dur­ing, and after the video release to see if it moved the nee­dle.

That’s how to ensure that your YouTube videos are part of your over­all con­tent mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy. Up next: we’ll take a look at 10 fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples have emerged for cre­at­ing con­tent that peo­ple will love.