How To Use YouTube For Lead Generation- 11 Most Effective Ways

There are so many ways to generate leads online. But do you know, you can generate valuable leads from YouTube as well? 

Yes!!! You can use YouTube for lead generation.

Most of you feel that it is difficult to generate leads from YouTube because you have fewer likes and subscribers.

You obviously feel disappointed, when you see your competitors have more engagement, likes, and views than you have.

After all, there are 2.3 billion users worldwide and if you are not able to get engagement and views on your YouTube channel, then it may cause you a lot of trouble my friend!!!

But don’t worry, I am not here to scare you, I’m here to help you. 

In this article, you will learn about the most effective ways that can help you to generate leads from YouTube.

How To Use YouTube For Lead Generation

So, you know you can generate leads from Youtube…

Now, let’s see some ways for Youtube Lead Generation:

Find Your Audience

You really need to find your target audience first for Youtube lead generation. 

What is the point of creating content when your target audience isn’t able to watch it?

Here you need to have an understanding of your users’ search intent.

Before you create any video you must think about the needs and wants of the users. You can also optimize your content for search intent. 

This will help you come up with the relevant content to target your audience.

Now the thing is; you need to understand your target audience’s priority, condition, and goals.

And then create content while keeping these things in mind. You’ll get a better understanding by looking at the image below.

Your content must lie in between What Your Audience Wants and Your Channel’s Identity. 

If you create exactly what your audience wants from you, you give them an opportunity to get engaged with you. This way, you don’t need to do so much hard work to keep your audience stick with your videos because your content will eventually do that for you. 

YouTube keeps an eye on the engagement of your videos. Sees how much your viewers spend time on your videos. Also, see if your content is relevant to them.  

That’s why metrics on YouTube like; “Watch Time” and “Session Watch Time” are necessary, mainly for Youtube lead generation. 

And the thing is, How is your watch time going to enhance if you don’t have relevant content for your viewers? 

So, first of all, carefully decide your niche and then create a channel. It will improve your session watch time. While creating videos, make sure you don’t forget the intent of users’ search queries. 

For example, you can look at the picture below. 

Here you can clearly see that when I searched for a keyword, “Important SEO Plugins 2022”, we got our video ranking at Number.1. 

Basically, your user engagement brings a higher ranking on YouTube. If you carefully choose your video content to target your audience and always keep in mind the “wants of your audience”, you will eventually rank higher. 

And, when you organically rank on number 1, viewers tend to see you as an authentic source of information and click on your video to get that information.   

That’s how you get more and more clicks on your video, and chances are, you can generate high leads. 

Create Attractive Thumbnails For Your Videos 

When a user searches for something on YouTube, what does he see first when he gets the search results?

The Thumbnails. Right?

Creating an attractive thumbnail is a must so that you can grab the attention of the right audience. 

Your Thumbnail must be attractive and must speak about your video. The main goal of creating a thumbnail is to attract viewers and get more clicks on the video. 

Do you know,90% of the best-performing videos on YouTube have a custom thumbnail?

Your thumbnail must portray the exact content of what your video contains. It should excite them to click on your video and increase their interest. 

Your viewers don’t know what content you are going to show but they get an idea just by watching the thumbnail. Make sure you give them the right one.

You can create an attractive thumbnail by keeping a few things in your mind: 

• Select a suitable size of font. Make sure you use an appropriate font size that is visible to everyone. 

• Choose a great photo for the thumbnail. Your photo must be very attractive as your viewers do notice your photo. Also, the ideal thumbnail size is 1280 x 720 pixels. 

• Use the logo of your brand in your thumbnail because people recognize you through your brand identity. Make sure you don’t forget your identity. 

• Use good color contrast in your thumbnail. There must be a good color contrast in between the font color and background color, and make sure you don’t use the same color of the background as your fonts. 

• Display a face in your thumbnail. Your face is your identity. Also, when you yourself appear and explain the concept in the video, the audience feels a connection with you rather than a video explaining a concept with some sentences running on the screen. 

Your thumbnail must be according to the tips I have mentioned above. Then, only your video will be clickable. 

If your video has a simple and boring thumbnail like others, how will you be able to get more clicks? 

Always keep in your mind; 

Create Such Thumbnails That Make Your Audience To Click On Your Videos.  

To convert your viewers into leads, you need to give them a “Call To Action”, and before giving them a call to action it is important to welcome them on your videos. 

How would you be able to give them a CTA if they don’t watch your video?

Think about it.

Welcoming Your Audience To Your Videos Is The First Step Before You Turn Them Into Leads.  

Use CTA (Call To Action) In Your Videos 

A strong Call To Action in your videos gives the opportunity to your viewers to take action that is beneficial for you.         

Try to add an important link in your description so that when viewers go through the description, they will also click on that link. 

Before creating a CTA, you must be very clear about what you want your viewers to do. 

Q.1 Do you want your viewers to visit your website?

Q.2 Do you want your viewers to contact you for your services?

Q.3 Do you want your viewers to watch your other videos?

After making your objective clear, create a CTA so that you can attract the right audience.

You can look at this image, here, I have added some icons so that our viewers can take action when the video ends. 

For instance, here in this video, I have shown the end screens and cards present at the end of the video, so that my audience can take action and watch my other videos too.   

After the video finishes, I have given the “Call To Action” button so that my viewers can respond accordingly when the video finishes and increase my “Session Watch Time”. CTA is important on YouTube for lead generation. 

If I talk about Youtube CTA for lead generation, your videos could either be about educating others about the services you are going to provide or it could be the preview video of your products or services.

When you create the right content according to the wants of your audience, there is a higher chance that they will take the desired action as you want. 

Use Tools Like VidIQ and Tubebuddy

Do you know there are so many free and paid tools out there that can help you increase your engagement on YouTube? 

You can do keyword research with the help of free versions of VidIQ and Tubebuddy. 

It is a bonus if you use paid versions of such tools to enhance your engagement on YouTube. These tools help as marketing resources. 

I will give you a brief explanation about both the tools. 

First of all, let’s understand VidIQ.

VidIQ is a SAAS (software as a service) software that helps YouTubers to find relevant keywords for their video content. It also creates SEO-friendly titles and descriptions.

The key features of VidIQ are:

1. YouTube keyword research
2. VidIQ Analytics
3. Best time to post
4. Top playlists

Since you get many services from it, you can generate high leads from vidIQ by targeting the right audience. 

Basically, it provides you with data of your competition that guide you in making strategies.

And if I talk about Tubebuddy,

Tubebuddy is a research and planning software for YouTubers. 

The best thing about Tubebuddy is, it tells you what strategy is going to work and guides your decisions.

There are so many features in Tubebuddy that will seem overwhelming to you but the truth is, it is really mesmerizing. 

The great features of Tubebuddy are:

1. Thumbnail generation
2. Playlist actions
3. Canned responses

It also has the potential to target the right audience.

You can compare both the tools and choose according to your needs and with the help of such tools, you can use YouTube for lead generation. 

Wisely Write Your YouTube Video Description

The fifth most important thing about your YouTube video is; Video Description. Your viewers do read your video description. Make sure you impress them with your words. 

When there are millions or even billions of users on YouTube, you must optimize your content to get this content to more and more viewers. 

If you don’t know how to write your YouTube description wisely, the chances are you might be losing lots of viewers on your video. 

YouTube is one of the largest search engine platforms, and writing descriptions with the perfect keyword can help your video to be found.

Tips to write a perfect description: 

1. Write your video description in simple language, so that your audience can feel a connection.
2. Put your main target keyword at the beginning of your description.
3. Choose 1-2 main keywords that perfectly describe your video content and also use them in the titles.
4. Take the help of Google Ads keyword planner to find the popular keywords in trends that can bring you lots of traffic.
5. Write your content in such a way that it generates curiosity.

Source: YouTube creator academy

Also, you have a chance to add the link to your website in the description.

Your video description is seen along with your video when somebody searches for the content relevant to your video. 

Like I have shown you in this image. 

If you have a good description with the right keywords, the chances of ranking your video are higher.  

Viewers will see the thumbnail of the video and read the description. They make the decision if the video is relevant for them or not on the basis of these two pieces of information. 

So, try your best to impress them. And, if you get a pass to do this you get to generate leads from YouTube. 

Use YouTube Cards 

Now, you might be wondering what a YouTube card is? 

How is it of any use to me?

YouTube cards are just some videos that are tagged in the (i) icon in the upper right corner of the YouTube video like I have shown in this picture below:

Adding YouTube cards to your videos is just another easiest way to generate leads from YouTube. 

Your YouTube cards must be relevant to your current video because it acts as marketing resources. 

YouTube Cards could be useful in such a way; 

1. It will help you increase “session watch time” 

2. It will help the user get engaged with your videos

3. YouTube Cards encourages the user to take participation in the polls

4. It is also useful in promoting the external link. 

When a viewer clicks on the (i) icon, the menu drops down from your channel. It is one of the best lead generation strategies to go with.  

When you give your viewers an opportunity to watch other videos of your channel, it tends to increase the “session watch time” of your channel.

With increased session watch time, the YouTube Algorithm will automatically suggest your videos to other viewers. 

And once you have many viewers for your content video, who knows how many leads you can generate on YouTube by using YouTube cards.  

Use Video Tags For Being Found

“YouTube video tags” or “video tags” are the group of words given at the back of the video that is used to give the context of the video to the algorithm of YouTube.

That’s how YouTube understands the context and category of the video and associates it with similar videos to enhance the “suggested video” results for other users. 

So, just think about it, if you don’t use the right video tags, how would your video be able to rank on keywords?

It’s important to learn to use the right tag for the video. 

Let’s learn how to add tags to your video

Add tags: 

New videos

1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.

2. In the top right-hand corner, click CREATE and then Upload Video.

3. Select the file that you’d like to upload.

4. In the upload flow, click MORE OPTIONS and add your tags. 

Uploaded videos

1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.

2. From the left menu, select Content and select your video.

3. Add your tags. 

Source: YouTubehelp

Now, let’s learn how you can best use the video tags:

1. Choose your targeted keyword as a first tag and then arrange them according to their relevance to your video. 

2. Try to use some keyword phrases in which the rest of the other keywords are also included.

3. Try to keep most of your keywords in 2-3 words. 

4. Make sure you don’t do unnecessary keyword stuffing 

5. You can also use keywords like “YouTube Auto Suggestion” 

By choosing the right keyword for your video, the YouTube algorithm will automatically associate your video with other videos and show it as a ‘video suggestion’ to viewers. And hence, you will get more and more views. 

Don’t ever underestimate the power of keywords. 

Also, you can use some paid or free tools for video tags like Keywordtool.io, Rapidtags, YouTube tool, etc. 

Use Playlists For Different Categories In Your Niche

Keeping your videos in a group of your niche is the best thing you can do on YouTube for lead generation and attracting new customers. 

This technique will actually help you filter your content as per the title viewers’ needs and wants. 

As you can see in this image, we have created 4 playlists according to the title. Shorts, learn digital marketing, grow your website traffic and conversion, and the last one is: grow your business.  

So, it is a vantage for the visitors who want to learn only a single thing.

When you create a playlist and upload the video in it, you are filtering the video content for your viewers so that they don’t find it difficult to search any video on your channel. 

Also, when you create a playlist, it gives a chance for your video to get indexed twice. More viewers can see your videos. Playlists are the best way to enhance engagement. 

This is how you can use the playlists on YouTube for lead generation.

YouTube Ads For Lead Generation

The advertisement is the best way you can promote your content and channel. Why? Because it is something worth doing for attracting new customers. 

There are billions of users on YouTube who regularly stay active on the platform and hence you have a great opportunity to use YouTube ads for lead generation. 

In this crowd of videos, YouTube advertisements will boost your engagement as it acts as marketing resources. On YouTube, you can run a specialized advertisement video to target your audience and that too offers you a high ROI (return on investment). 

While going for lead generation YouTube ads, keep these things in your mind: 

1. Don’t make your advertisement video too long. The time duration of 15 – 60 seconds is enough for an Ad. 

2. Have a creative design for your video. Creativity speaks. Nobody is going to watch your video if you have a simple and boring ad. You’ll have to be creative to grab the attention of viewers. 

3. Involve CTA in your advertisements.  What’s the point of showing an Ad video when you don’t give your audience an option to take action. Without CTA your Ad would be just storytelling. 

You can add CTA(Call To Action) in your YouTube Ads like, “visit the channel”, “visit your social media platform” or if you have a product or service website, you can add CTA like, “sign up for free”. 

These are just the examples of CTAs in Ads. You can create your own CTA as per your need. 

Make them do what you want to do. 

Let your audience know what they have to do next after they watch the video. Get them to purchase your product or service, get them to watch your videos, or get them to connect with you on social media.

You can choose anything.

That’s how you can use advertisements on YouTube ads for lead generation.  

Read more: 42 Best Creative Advertising Ideas to Get Inspiration

Have A Partnership With Influencers 

I believe now you have got the point of what I am going to talk about only by reading the word “Influencers” 

Here we use influencers who have millions or even billions of followers on social media to do marketing. With this tactic, you can hit a large number of markets. Mainly, Influencers use social media advertising. 

They play their role as a social leader by having a large fan following base. People look at them as trustworthy sources.

When an influencer promotes your brand video, people tend to watch it because they take it as an authentic source.  

This is what is called Influencer Marketing.

Just think about it, Isn’t this one of the best and most beneficial lead generation strategies?

Before choosing an ideal influencer for your business, you need to keep some things in your mind like; 

1. Their reach and engagement on social media.  

2. Have they worked with other brands before?

3. The charges per post. 

4. The message you want to convey to the world. 

5. Check if they really know about social media advertising. 

When you have all of these things clear, you can find an ideal influencer for the promotion of your YouTube video that can generate high leads. 

You can use an influencer to share your YouTube video, and when people watch the video, they take it very seriously on the behalf of the influencer’s image. 

Your customer may contact you by seeing all this and you can generate higher leads from there. 

Work on Overall Optimization 

If you think you need to go to an expert for the optimization of your YouTube video or channel, then you are wrong. 

You can also do optimization on your own. 

To know-how, you can go through the list below: 

1. Choose relevant keywords for your video. So that when somebody searches for a particular keyword, your video will rank higher. You can also use tools like; VidIQ and Tubebuddy. 

2. Try to put keywords in your titles to be found on a particular keyword.

3. Optimize your video description. I have already explained above how you can do that. 

4. Use video hashtags. The hashtags on YouTube work the same way it works on

. The popular hashtags on YouTube are: 

#YouTubechannel #YouTube #YouTuber #YouTubers #subscribe #YouTubevideos #sub #YouTubevideo #like #Instagram 

5. Carefully select your video category. Analyze your video, and try to understand what kind of viewers are going to watch your video, and then select your video category. 

6. Add attractive subtitles for a better understanding of your viewers. 

If you work on these things on your YouTube video, it would be beneficial for your ranking, so mind these things while uploading your video and targeting your audience. 

Read more: YouTube Marketing Tips to Promote Your YouTube Channel

Bonus Tip

Respond To Each Comment 

You might be thinking; does it really matter to respond to each comment?

Yes, it does matter. Because it shows your caring attitude towards the ones who engage with your content. 

You can even pin to others’ comments so that your visitors can also see that. 

Along with engaging with viewers on your comment section, you can engage in other YouTubers’ comment sections of your niche. 

This creates a positive impression on people and they get to engage with you even more than before. 

Also, they think of you as a leader. This technique will likely enhance your visits to your channel. 

Conclusion 

Generating leads from YouTube is not as difficult as you think it is. You just need to stick to the right lead generation strategies and things will start happening on their own. 

By using all the tactics I have explained above, you can use YouTube for lead generation and attracting new customers. Also, you always need to understand the needs and desires of your targeted audience. 

If you pick the intent right of your audience then nobody can stop you.