How To Use YouTube for B2B

The saddest thing in the world is when your kid drops their ice cream, pops their balloon, etc and immediately bursts into tears because their life is completely ruined without that half-melted scoop of chocolate 💔

The SECOND saddest thing is looking at B2B YouTube channels with dozens of videos like “5 Important Tips For Effective Restaurant Marketing” that have 42 views each.

The root of the issue is that YouTube is a consumer entertainment app, and they’re treating it like B2B direct response marketing. That’s like pounding a nail with an iPhone: technically you could do it… but I don’t recommend it.

And BTW if you're wondering why you should believe me, I grew my own YouTube channels to 750k subs, our company channel to 125k and growing and I've worked on many other channels with 100k+ subs.

Before I get into the strategy, you need to understand this first:

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YouTube is NOT a search-first platform!

You've probably heard someone tell you that YouTube is the world’s second biggest search engine, and that’s true.

But it’s NOT the way you get views on YouTube. Typically 80% or more of the views on a scaled YouTube channel will come from the home screen and suggested videos.

So if you want to make SEO content for YouTube, just close the tab now, and come back in 3 months when you realized it doesn't work.

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The entire game on YouTube is to get the algorithm to like your videos and suggest them.

You know how you keep seeing the same video on your home screen, recommended over and over until finally you say "okay fine, I'll watch the damn video"?

That’s where you want to be! And here’s how you do it:

First, decide on your strategy. There are two basic options:

Direct acquisition

This is what 99% of companies do- treating YouTube like SEO content:

Make videos for your ICP, include a CTA, and hope that they click through and buy from you. Eg "How to integrate WooCommerce with Mailchimp and Zapier.” The thinking is that although these videos won't get a lot of views, the people that do click will be very qualified so it’ll still work out.

Nice idea on paper! But in reality, it usually ends up being a ghost town:

No views, no clicks, no nothing 👻

Indirect acquisition

Make videos targeted at a broad, more mainstream audience (NOT just your ICP).

Eg, if you're in ecom, you do breakdowns of well-known ecom brands (Skims, Ridge, Native, etc) that get 50-100k views and make you an authority in the space.

Even if they never watch your videos, just seeing that you have a big audience around this stuff dramatically elevates your perceived value in the eyes of your ICP- social proof is a hell of a drug.

“But the traffic won’t convert unless it’s my ICP!!” 😱

True. But if you ask me, 10s or 100s of thousands of people remembering your name is worth waaaaaay more than a few dozen people clicking your link.

We’re playing the long game here and building a BRAND, which is much bigger moat than a blip of traffic.

Think about the YouTube channels or podcasters you follow: you feel like you know them, right? You've listened to them talk for dozens or maybe even hundreds of hours so in a way, you DO know them.

Now pply that to B2B... When you meet someone at a conference, DM them on LinkedIn, etc, they already know who you are and they're 10x more likely to do business with you. Your ads are more effective, you get more inbound, etc etc.

It’s essentially a multiplier on everything you do.

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“Sounds great, how do we actually DO it?”

Just to make sure my point is clear, here's where we're at:

You want to get big views on YouTube, and the way to do that is by getting YouTube to recommend your videos on the home screen and suggested videos (this is typically 80%+ of traffic).

But you can’t do that by making videos about dry, B2B topics.

This is the specific way that you will get people to watch videos related to the niche B2B topics you want to be known for but you'll also get views by making them YouTube-friendly.

This is the closest thing to the secret sauce: I think of it is as “niching up”:

Start with your niche idea. This is the thing you actually want to talk about, usually it's something too niche for the YouTube audience to know or care about.

Example: How to monetize a B2C app without killing engagement. That would do fine on LinkedIn with an audience of product managers, but it's waaaaaay too technical and dry for YouTube.

You solve that with the next part: the mainstream wrapper.

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This is the a larger topic that you use to Trojan horse your niche idea. Big consumer brands, celebrities, TV shows, current events, etc are all good options for this.

In this case they use the downfall of the BeReal app-- the video goes into detail about how the app's core features are inherently at odds with maximizing engagement and revenue.

It's still the same idea, but because it it's wrapped in the context of a (semi) popular app, now it works on YouTube.

Another hypothetical example:

• Niche idea: the B2B sales cycle, and all the nuances of the buying committee, procurement, accounts payable, etc.
• Wrapper: The Office. Your video is called “Dwight & Michael’s CRINGE Sales Tactics (Salesperson reacts)” and you use scenes from their sales meetings to illustrate your points instead of a boring lecture that would be a better fit for LinkedIn.

Again, same core idea but MUCH more YouTube-friendly. I go into more details about this content strategy here (with examples).

In summary:

If you’re still reading, respect! I know this is a lot but I wanted to have every detail about this all in one place. Here’s the highlights:

→ Making SEO content for YouTube completely misses the point: it's a CONSUMER ENTERTAINMENT app, not B2B direct response marketing.

→ You want to get into the get your videos into the algorithm, where they can get recommended to millions and millions of people literally overnight.

→ And you’ll do that by making accessible, ENTERTAINING content for a mainstream audience.

YouTube isn’t search, it's more like TV. Act accordingly!

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