How to Design YouTube Advertisements That Grab Attention

More and more marketers are turning to YouTube marketing everyday. YouTube has more than 1 billion users that spend hours on YouTube and generate billions of views every day. As a digital marketer you cannot afford to ignore this opportunity simply because it’s a very powerful marketing tool!

As in the case of any marketing strategy, you need to understand your target audience before using YouTube advertising in order to optimise your marketing efforts.

Bear in mind, most people watch YouTube not for the ads, but for the videos they are interested in. So, it makes sense in a way if people feel that advertisements can be annoying, irrelevant, or persistent thus provoking them to skip your ads altogether. Ensuring that your advertisement is resourceful, relevant and attractive is the key to success!

If you don’t want your advertisement to be blocked or skipped, skim through the following tips that will help you develop more content-driven ads for your target audience.

 1. Know Your Customer

YouTube is an extremely large platform, has audiences from different backgrounds, cultures, and demographics and an array of users with different interests or behaviours. Therefore, you need to narrow down your target audience first, as your advertisement may not be suitable for everyone.

Inbound marketing is all about marketers who find the right customer at the right time. For example, if your advertisement is about gaming, then your target audience can be people who always watch gaming videos on YouTube, because there’s a high possibility that they will be interested in your product.

The advertisement should always try to compliment the type of video they’re watching since there’s a higher likelihood that they will not skip your ad. The bottom line here is finding your target audience and specifically marketing to this group of people, mostly because it will be more effective than marketing to the general audience which may/may not deliver the results you expect.

 2. Design your Advertisement

When you see an advertisement on YouTube and find it interesting, you will most probably watch the entire without pressing the “Skip the Ad” button. Therefore, craft your product well in the advertisement to draw people’s attention.

Don’t try to force products, services or hard-sell to people, as they tend to despise advertisements that are too pushy. Try to develop an advertisement that is in line with the user’s needs and wants. Also, advertisements should be short so as to capture their attention. If it’s too long, they will just skip your Ad and BOOM! your Ad will not fulfil its purpose. You can also choose to direct them to your website or social media accounts if they take interest in your advertisement.

According to the Inbound methodology, the first step is to attract people’s attention. Hence, the design of your advertisement is crucial.

 3. Include a Follow-up Link

Keep in mind to always include a link to your website or content offer page, for those who want to understand and learn more about your product and services. By doing so, you capture their attention. If not, your ad will be forgotten in a matter of seconds!

Don’t forget, YouTube is a highly interactive platform with active users who comment. So, companies can make use of the reviews/feedback given by these people to improve in the future. This will enable businesses to garner a deeper understanding of the audience they are marketing to.

I really believe that these tips will help you to develop and create successful YouTube ads that will have an impact on your audience. Trust me, you will be amazed by the staggering results that YouTube advertising can bring to your business if done correctly!