2023 was filled with fears of a looming recession, some say it happened others say it's about to happen, and there are those who say it won’t happen altogether.
How will businesses continue to grow in a post-recession era? Can YouTube Ads serve as an upper hand for smaller local businesses looking to rise above their competition and attract more leads?
Let’s dive in and analyze YouTube ads for Local Businesses
Local Businesses and YouTube Ads
YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine and the most popular video-sharing platform. YouTube offers a significant opportunity for local businesses of all sizes and niches to reach and engage their target audience through the power of targeted video Ads.
YouTube Ads has often been looked at by smaller businesses as a bridge to far or a big lift, but with the power of the internet, AI, and access to cost-effective equipment, local businesses can and should consider YouTube Ads
If your local businesses is looking to expand your online visibility, get more leads and contribute to your pipeline opportunity, this blog is for you. We will discuss how YouTube Ads can help local businesses and smaller enterprises acquire more leads and generate more revenue.
How can you leverage YouTube ads for your local business?
If you are a local business owner or a smaller owner-driven business YouTube Ads can help transform your business by acquiring more leads, improving conversion rates, creating customer loyalty, and creating brand awareness.
One of the main benefits of YouTube ads is that they can help you increase your brand awareness and recognition to a highly targeted audience, which is key for local businesses. Whether you have a shop or you are a tradesman, creating awareness of your services in a geo-location can be very powerful for creating “new-business” opportunities.
Local Businesses thrive on brand awareness and market recognition
By creating and promoting engaging video ads that showcase your brand personality, values, and unique selling proposition, you can attract the attention of potential customers and make them remember you. You can also use various ad formats, such as skippable and non-skippable in-stream ads, bumper ads, discovery ads, and masthead ads, to suit your budget and objectives.
Here are 2 types of content that you can create to increase brand awareness and recognition.
Show “before and after” content or customer stories with YouTube Ads
Record content that showcases of your clients' stories or before vs. after content if you are a tradesman. These videos can be prompted with a call to action to book a call or request a quote. In the case you have a local shop you can film customer stories in front of your shop or inside your premises and showcase their positive experiences. The call-to-action for these ads could be to get directions or call in.
Show YouTube Ads that are filmed at a “local” recognizable place
Another smart way to get people's attention to your local business is to film content in local places that people can easily recognize and familiarize themselves with. This way people will associate your brand with local landmarks creating more brand awareness and recognition.
Reach wider audiences with Local YouTube Ads
Another advantage of YouTube ads for your local business is that they can help you reach a wider and more diverse audience than other advertising channels, such as billboards, magazines, etc. YouTube has over 2 billion monthly active users from different countries, cultures, ages, genders, and interests. You can use YouTube’s advanced targeting options to reach the right people in your local area at the right time with the right message. You can target your audience based on very specific demographics, location, language, device, topics, keywords, placements, interests, life events, custom audiences, and more. You can also use remarketing to reach people who have already interacted with your website or YouTube channel.
Advanced Targeting Options
You can use YouTube’s advanced targeting options to reach the right people in your local area at the right time with the right message. You can target your audience based on very specific demographics, location, language, device, topics, keywords, placements, interests, life events, custom audiences, and more. You can also use remarketing to reach people who have already interacted with your website or YouTube channel.
Drive Qualified Traffic to Your Website
YouTube ads can also help you drive more traffic to your website and landing pages. By adding a call-to-action button or an end screen to your video ads, you can encourage viewers to visit your website and learn more about your products or services. You can also use display ads or overlay ads to direct viewers to your website from the YouTube watch page. YouTube ads can also improve your organic traffic by boosting your SEO and search visibility.
Lead Generation and Email List Growth
Another way that YouTube ads can transform your business is by helping you generate more leads and grow your email list. By creating and promoting valuable video content that educates, entertains, or inspires your audience, you can build trust and authority in your niche and motivate viewers to sign up for your lead magnet or offer. You can also use YouTube’s lead form extension to collect leads directly from your video ads without requiring viewers to leave the platform.
Increase Sales, New Businesses Opportunities, and Conversions
Of course, one of the most important goals of any business is to increase sales and conversions. We call this ROAS, which stands for Return On Ad Spend. YouTube ads can help you achieve this by showcasing your products or services in action and demonstrating how they can solve your audience’s problems or needs. You can also use YouTube’s shopping extension to display your product catalog or specific products alongside your video ads. This way, viewers can easily browse and purchase your products without leaving YouTube. You can also use conversion tracking to measure how many sales or conversions your video ads generate.
Improve Customer Engagement and Loyalty
Engagement is everything in the online landscape. YouTube ads can also help you improve your engagement and customer loyalty by creating two-way communication with your audience. By showing your content to existing customers such as “success stories” you can increase your social proof and word-of-mouth marketing.
Promote New Local Products
If your local business sells physical tangible products, YouTube Ads is a great way of getting that product to your local audience at record speed. YouTube ads can help you promote new products or services and generate buzz around them. By creating and promoting teaser videos or product demos that highlight the features and benefits of your new offerings, you can create curiosity and anticipation among your audience.
Build Credibility and Trust
YouTube ads can also help you build credibility and trust with your audience by showcasing social proof and testimonials from your satisfied customers.
Especially if your local business depends on local referrals and recognized customer stories, utilize this to level up your “trust factor” by showcasing this to specific audiences that are either considering your services/products or bottom of the funnel ready to convert.
Target-Specific Demographics and Interests
Another advantage of YouTube ads is that they can help you target specific demographics and interests that match your ideal customer profile by using YouTube’s detailed audience insights. You can also use YouTube’s affinity audiences and custom affinity audiences to target people who have a strong interest in specific topics or categories that are relevant to your business.
Segment, Retarget, Specific Website Visitors
Here at Yugo Media we often talk about Segmentation. Which is ultimately breaking down the buyer journey into stages and showing the user the right ad at the right time, sensitive to the “segment” they are in.
YouTube ads can be extremely powerful, by retargeting website visitors who have shown interest in your products or services but have not yet converted by creating and promoting video ads that remind them of the benefits and value of your offerings. You can also use YouTube’s dynamic remarketing feature to show personalized video ads to website visitors based on their past browsing behavior.
Attribution: Measure and Track Performance
YouTube ads allow you to measure and track your ad performance and optimize your campaigns accordingly by using either Google Ads conversion tracking or Google Analytics 4. There are also other tools and services out there that can help you track conversions and interpret the data.
Gain Audience Insights
YouTube ads can also help you gain insights into your audience's behavior and preferences by using YouTube’s survey feature. You can create and run surveys alongside your video ads to collect feedback from viewers on various aspects of your business.
Competitive Edge in the Local Market
Finally, YouTube ads can help you stay ahead of your local competitors by giving you a competitive edge in the market by using powerful segmentation and creating compelling ad creatives to attract high-intent leads.
Additional Advantages of YouTube Ads as a Paid Media Platform:
After reading this article you are still considering YouTube Ads for your local business, here are a couple more reasons why you should consider YouTube as a go-to for lead generation and growing your business in 2023 and beyond:
- 98 percent of videos on YouTube are listened to with the volume on, while most videos on Facebook are watched silently. This means that you can capture the attention and emotion of your audience with sound and music on YouTube.
- 68 percent of people use YouTube to make shopping decisions. This means that you have a higher probability of influencing the purchase behavior of your audience with YouTube ads.
- You pay per view or click, not per impression. This means that you only pay for the number of people who have interacted with your ad, not for the number of times your ad is shown. This makes YouTube ads more cost-effective and efficient than other platforms.
- Your audience will understand you better. This means that by using video to communicate your message can be clearer and more persuasive than text or images. You can also use video to show your personality, emotion, and passion for your business.
- It is easier to watch a video than to read a text. This means that you can appeal to the preference and convenience of your audience who are more likely to watch a video than to read a long article or a sales page. You can also use video to entertain or educate your audience and keep them engaged.
If you want to learn more about how to create and run successful YouTube ads for your business, contact us today and we will be happy to help you.
Thank you for choosing us as your YouTube ads partner. 🙏
