Generating theme ideas

When you choose your theme, you want to generate as many themes for your content that you can and then pick the top handful that you think deliver to your marketing needs the best.

I suggest grabbing some sticky notes and a felt marker pen. Write each idea for a them on its own sticky note.

For example, if you’re a nationwide manufacturer of shoes, you may generate a big list of potential topics that includes things like

• Travel stories
• Types of shoes
• Shoes in history
• Our range of products and their features
• The people who sell our shoes
• Famous people who wear our shoes
• People who did amazing things in our shoes
• Shoes we’ve given to people in need

Now pick the best ideas from the list. In this example, if the marketing goal is to sell more shoes, the team may decide to make videos that focus on the theme of featuring their products, famous people who wear them, and places where you can buy them.

After you choose the best ideas, match your theme ideas to what your audience is most interested in to determine the themes of your YouTube channel. You’ll build video content based on these themes. Write on the sticky notes all the relevant things that you can think of that your audience cares about The shoe company in the preceding example may list the following audience interests:

• Sports
• Outdoors
• Travel
• Helping others in need
• Running
• Community
• Parenting

Sure, you can make videos featuring every store that sells your shoes, but does your audience care about that? Perhaps if you tell an interesting story about each shop owner and retail outlet, but, otherwise they may not want to hear about those stores. If your audience is interested in travel, outdoor activities, and sports, you can make video content on those themes.

Find the overlap between what your brand is all about, the themes that you can make videos for, and what your audience cares about and let that drive your marketing goals so that you can make videos that people want to watch.

When it comes to how many themes you should focus on, I have no specific answer. Instead, pick the theme or themes that you think delivers the most to your marketing goal and that best matches your audience’s interests.

For example, the nationwide manufacturer of shoes may choose three themes:

• Stories of how they were able to help people in need through their charitable efforts
• Stories of people who wear our shoes when they travel around the world
• Special product features that help wearers with specific sports activities

The first theme allows the shoe manufacturer to create videos throughout the year that tell a great brand story. The second theme allows them to create a series of entertaining travel vlog videos that people may like to watch over time. For the last theme, they can explain their product features and how specialist athletes may use them in how-to style videos that people may search for. These three themes deliver to a marketing and an audience need.

Lowe’s Home Improvement

Lowe’s Home Improvement has a clear and comprehensive YouTube content strategy that’s helped the store snag more than 575,000 subscribers and 200 million video views. The store’s playlists reveal its themes for video content:

• Help beginners navigate do-it-yourself (DIY) basics: This playlist features a series of short DIY basics videos that teach simple tasks, such as controlling sawdust when sanding, using a pressure washer, cleaning a fireplace, and removing a stripped screw. Lowe’s realize that a lot of people may not be familiar with these basic tasks, so in simple under 2-minute videos with nothing more than visuals, text, and some cute music, Lowe’s provides clear explanations that help people feel empowered to tackle those basics and get started with DIY projects (see Figure 9-1).
• Help more advanced DIYers tackle bigger home DIY projects with confidence: This more involved series of how-to project playlists targets more advanced DIY projects made simple by Lowe’s — for example, a playlist of videos that break down the steps required to install new flooring or build a wooden deck, as shown in Figure 9-2. The video playlist for how to install a new floor contains six videos, each around 4 minutes long, with clear instructions and narration that walks you through the steps.
• Inspire people to transform their spaces with simple projects that they can tackle within a budget and in only a day or two: Lastly, Lowe’s features a few different web series. One series is The Weekender, which has four seasons with episodes that are each about ten minutes (see Figure 9-3). In “The Weekender,” a host tackles exactly five projects per episode that take a weekend to transform a space in need of love. This nice series shows easy, cost-effective, and inspirational projects that people can take on over the course of two days with the help of supplies from Lowe’s.

These themes make perfect sense for a store like Lowe’s that has thought through the products and services it offer, and what its customers are interested in doing, are passionate about, and search for, creating videos that live in the intersection of those two criteria. Someone watching Lowe’s videos may leave feeling that the brand is one they can trust and confidently turn to for the right help. The videos may also convert people into paying customers online and in store.

Benefitting from a popular niche

A popular niche benefits anyone developing a YouTube content strategy.

The channel Primitive Technology, shown in Figure 9-5, is an excellent example of a popular niche because it’s somewhat surprising that so many people (600 million-plus video views) would want to watch videos of a man quietly and patiently building things with his hands in the woods of Australia. (For more on this channel, see the nearby sidebar “Primitive Technology.”)

Another excellent example of a popular niche is Hydraulic Press, shown in Figure 9-6, where someone with access to a press and endless curiosity found that millions of people love watching videos of things being crushed. (See the nearby sidebar for more on Hydraulic Press.)

Both Primitive Technology and Hydraulic Press have seen lots of me-too channels copying their successful formats, often to equally great success. However, eventually a niche gets saturated, leaving not a lot of room for copy cats unless they can bring something new or fresh to the category.

Finding a popular niche

Finding a popular niche can be tricky, but it’s possible. You want a balance between making videos that are too broad versus too specific. If your video is too broad, attracting an audience will be hard because a lot of video content is already out there. On the other hand, you’ll struggle to find an audience if you go too niche.

Think about how to take your themes and make them more niche. Then check to see how many people are watching YouTube videos for that niche.

For example, if you’re a manufacturer of high performance sports clothing and accessories and you want to make videos about people wearing your products as they take part in various activities, you can progressively add more niche to your videos by showing

• People who are into sports and adventure activities
• People who travel to take part in sports and adventure activities
• People who travel wearing your clothing taking part in sports and adventure activities
• People who travel wearing your clothes to take part in sports and adventure activities in exotic, far-flung, hard-to-reach locations
• People who travel wearing your clothes to take part in sports and adventure activities in exotic, far-flung, hard-to-reach locations who recite inspiring poetry as they rock climb

To find your own niche:

1. Research topics related to the videos you may make.

   Whatever you are marketing, look for all the related content on YouTube. Pick one video and then let YouTube take you on an adventure. You can watch the Up Next videos or click on tangentially related videos that appear on the right side of the screen.

   Consume as much of this content as you can. Make notes as you watch the different, interesting, unique, and unexpected angles people may have taken.

2. Type in the search box so that its autofill feature can give you clues about popular searches.

   For example, if I made and sold lights for bicycles, I might search bike lights and get autofills for

   • Bike light reviews, which shows video reviews of different types of bike lights available, helping people choose what’s best for their need
   • Bike light with turn signal, which are videos that demonstrate advanced bike lights that offer a turn signal feature
   • Bike lights are important, which shows a results page of videos that explain why bike lights are important for cyclist’s safety
   • Bike lights wheel, which are videos of how you can make the wheels of your bike light up with different colors and patterns (this was new to me)
   • Bike light accessories, which are videos showing additional complementary accessories related to bike lights
   • Bike light DIY hacks and tips, which are videos showing DIY solutions for bike lights

   Google Trends and Google Search can also be helpful tools to uncover related content and niches. You can also search on Google for YouTube keyword tool to find a variety of free and paid third-party tools that help you explore keyword searches and popular tags on YouTube. Check out Chapter 3 for more on these tools.

3. Check whether enough of a popular niche is available.

   Ask yourself the following questions:

   • How many video views do these videos have?
   • Are new videos being uploaded frequently and recently?
   • How many subscribers do these channels have?
   • Are people actively commenting, and if so, what are they saying?
   • Does this niche feel saturated and competitive, with lots of people making videos on this theme?
   • Can you think of unique angles you can bring to the niche, or would you be a me-too if you took this approach?

Trending videos

Trending videos can be a great way to grab an audience for a short time. They can also be an important part of your marketing mix if part of your brand is about being the first to talk about a particular topic in culture.

The biggest problem with trending videos is that they don’t have much of a long-term return. Once the trend cycle is over, people may not be searching for, discovering, and watching these videos again. As a result, trending videos tend to take a quick and easy production format approach so that they can be turned around quickly and published before the window closes.

Making trending or time-sensitive videos lets you to tap into things that are happening right now. Being the first person to create videos on current topics is hard to do, but you can find success if your video is first to meet people’s watching needs. For example, if you’re a news site, you’ll be making videos that break stories to get the most views possible in a short space of time before all the other news channels make their own videos about the same story.

Marketers can make use of trending videos by jumping on news stories. For example, if a large cereal manufacturer recalls its product due to possible contamination, a competitor organic cereal brand can make a quickly released video about its non-GMO and healthy ingredients in the hopes of snagging some views of people searching and discovering the trending news video about the recall.

If you’re going to make trending videos, you need to put in place a process that enables you to

• Quickly identify potential topics, research them, decide whether you should make a video about them, and then choose the best angle to take
• Have a production process that lets you quickly write the script and turn around the recording and editing of the video
• Have the resources and a clear plan for publishing, distributing, and promoting your video that you can follow each time your newest video is released

Evergreen videos

The major benefit of time spent investing in the creation of evergreen content is that it can pay off indefinitely, with people searching for topics every day and potentially finding your video time and again.

Evergreen videos come with their own challenges, though, because their content can be quite competitive. The best videos rise to the top and can monopolize the search results page, so usurping existing videos can be difficult. You need to ensure that your evergreen content is better than any other video on the same topic.

My favorite example of an evergreen video is “How to tie a bow tie.” Videos that show how to tie a bow tie will likely never date or become irrelevant (see Figure 9-7). The process of tying a bow tie is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future, and people will need to use YouTube to find out how to tie them before they are late for their event!

Especially with these kinds of how-to videos, where you are demonstrating something complicated that takes a few tries to get right, people may watch them several times, which racks up your video views.

If you’re going to make evergreen videos, you’ll need to

• Develop a process to research what people are searching for to decide which is the best evergreen video to make.
• Put in place a production process that enables you to make a volume of evergreen videos over time, such as one per week.
• Ensure that you publish your videos with well-written titles, descriptions, and tags.
• Find places to distribute your evergreen videos outside of YouTube, such as on blogs and websites.

If you’re wondering why some videos with fewer views end up higher in the search results than those with more views, see Chapter 18.

Making the choice

Using both trending and evergreen videos in your content strategy mix is often a wise choice. Virtually all marketers have an opportunity to create evergreen videos around their brand, products, and services, but many can also keep their eye on things happening in culture that can allow them to create a timely video and capitalize on a burst of audience.

Consider the following to help you make a choice:

• If you’re getting started, choose evergreen videos. A handy tip is to base your evergreen content on your Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).
• If your company is all about being the first to spot a trend or report something in culture or the news, then focus more on trending videos.
• If you think you have the opportunity to do both types of videos, make a plan to tackle evergreen videos on an ongoing basis, but keep your eye out for trending opportunities and have an action plan ready for when they do arise.

Hero videos

A hero video is a video that gets shared by millions of people. You may even call it a viral video.

Hero videos have something in common with how traditional marketers may use TV. A hero video tends to be a single piece of video creative that you publish three to four times per year as part of a campaign, supported with paid media, often in synch with a marketer’s campaign schedule. For example, if you’re a marketer who runs three big advertising campaigns throughout the year, you may decide to make three hero videos, one for each campaign. (Chapter 8 has great examples of hero videos.)

Although not all hero videos conform to the following criteria, a typical hero video,

• Usually falls into the inspiration bucket. While not limited to this bucket, hero videos are often focused on inspiring acts and stories.
• Are typically a one-off video. Although they aren’t part of a series or season of a show, they tend to be made for the sole purpose of being a hero video.
• Have an enormous audience. I like to say that hero videos “go off and champion on your behalf, just like a hero would.” They reach audiences in the millions of views.
• Tend to get their audience in a shorter space of time. Hero videos tend to have a velocity to them, in that they reach large numbers of people quite quickly. They may appear on the trending videos page, or they may come up in conversation with friends — “Did you see that video … ?”
• May continue to grow in audience over time. Even though they achieve a large share of views in a short space of time, hero videos continue to be relevant even with the passing of time and may rack up views year after year.
• May be popular with more than your target audience. Because hero videos have such a broad appeal, you may find that your hero video takes off in popularity around the globe.
• Are often supported by paid media. Viral videos are challenging to pull off, and although hero videos appear to be viral in nature, they are often supported with paid media to help them reach, or be pushed to, a big audience. Typically, an orchestrated approach to media helps hero videos reach big audiences.
• Are often part of a brand campaign. One of the most common uses for hero videos by marketers is to deliver to a brand campaign’s objective, such as creating awareness of a brand or changing how people see the brand. A marketer can make a hero video the central star of a coordinated effort, with support from other advertising channels like offline media, social media, and influencers.
• May be tied to a big event, important initiative, cultural moment, or universal human truth. Successful hero videos tend to tap into moments or truths because they must resonate with a large and broad audience.
• Tend to be very shareable thanks to use of emotion. Taking the creative approach of telling a story of personal triumph, pride, overcoming and other emotional angles helps ensure their shareability.
• Often require larger production budgets. Hero videos don’t have to be glossy productions in exotic locations, but often hero videos work hard to tell the stories they are telling and have a larger production effort and budget behind them.

Some or all of these things may be true. You can find examples of hero videos that don’t follow all these criteria, but these features tend to be the most common elements of what makes a video a hero video.

Ultimately, hero videos are an excellent choice for marketers who want to send a big bold message to a big, broad audience.

Visit Chapter 8 for examples of brands who create inspirational hero videos.

Hub videos

Hub videos are a series of episodes connected by a theme, such as a show idea or something relating to your audience’s passion points. Hub videos, unlike hero videos (see preceding section), are a core grounding feature of your YouTube channel on the platform.

Hub videos are similar to a TV series in that they are episodic in nature. For example, a brand like Under Armour has made lots of playlists for its hub videos. Take a look at www.youtube.com/user/underarmour/playlists and see Figure 9-8.

The following features tend to describe hub videos:

• Fall into the entertainment bucket. Your hub videos may be a hosted series where the host visits families and tells how they use your product or service, or it may be a series of vlogs from your brand ambassadors.
• Align to your audience’s passions. Hub videos align to the interests and passions of your audiences. These videos go beyond just marketing messages or how-to videos and instead work to broaden the appeal of your brand. In this respect, hub videos are more like the videos of a YouTube creator than a marketer.
• Are regularly scheduled usually each week. You can make a choice between publishing one hub video per week, or you can publish an entire season in one go. Clients always ask which approach is better. My answer is “If you’re sitting on great content, waiting for all the episodes to be finished, don’t. Publish what you have and let people know there will be more each week. However, don’t delay in getting more episodes live. If they like episode 1, they’ll want episode 2 immediately!”
• Are a series of episodes that follow a repeating format. Hub videos are a series of episodes that all relate to each other and follow a consistent format, just like a TV show. You may want to choose a clear editorial voice that matches your brand.
• Are collected on a playlist. The YouTube channel owner collects hub videos together by onto a playlist. That way, if your viewer finds episode 1, they can easily watch all the other episodes without hunting for them.
• Give viewers a reason to subscribe and build following. Hub videos give people a reason to subscribe to your channel because they’ll want to come back for more. This desire to watch more helps you build your subscriber base and keep your audience more regularly engaged.
• Are published consistently throughout the year. A full hub video strategy for a marketer can feature as many as four seasons of a show or shows throughout the year. The videos are published consistently and regularly, such as weekly.
• Are topically related to core marketing themes but speak to the audience’s interests and passions. Hub videos live in the intersection of the topics and themes a marketer wants to create content about, but crucially tap into the interests and passions of the desired audience. If you’re marketing your nationwide chain of laundromats, you don’t need to make a cooking show.
• Can be tied to a marketer’s campaign goals. Marketers should only make hub videos if they’re clear about the campaign goals they will be delivering to — for example, improving brand sentiment, encouraging consideration, or inspiring people to take on projects, tasks, adventures, and the like that make use of the brand’s products or services.
• Have medium-sized audiences in relation to your other videos. If hero videos have really big audiences, hub videos have a smaller, more medium-sized audience. Those numbers are relative! Success is often measured by how many subscribers join the channel and how many people watch all the episodes.
• Build audience over time. Hub videos build your audience over time. They’re often evergreen in nature. When people discover an episode, they’ll hopefully be encouraged to watch all the other episodes in the hub series.
• Are great to syndicate. Hub videos are excellent content to syndicate, or distribute, through your other owned channels (your website and blog), through your earned channels (your social media spaces), and through paid channels (paid syndication services that spread your content around the web).
• Can be large or simple production efforts. Hub videos can have production values more akin to that of a TV show, or they may be simpler in-house studio productions. Hub videos don’t have a standard quality or approach, but often they feel a bit like a TV show.
• Are great for your audience who want regular, engaging content from you. Ultimately, you want to deliver hub content to your audience that they want to watch on a continuous basis. They may subscribe to your channel and choose to receive alerts when you upload new content.

Hub videos are great for marketers who want to create content that builds a relationship with their audience by tapping into their passions and interests.

Hub videos do require some heavy lifting on the part of the marketer. For example, if you’re a marketer who decides to make four seasons of a show each year, with each season featuring eight ten-minute episodes, you’re committing to making 32 videos with more than five hours of video content. Even one season of a show is over an hour of content, which requires quite a bit of effort. All marketers should think carefully before committing to a strategy that features hub content. Of all components of a video strategy, hub is one of the hardest to pull off, but it can be well worth it.

Help videos

Help videos are your how-to videos. People find help videos by searching YouTube for answers to their questions. Brands have an opportunity to intercept in these moments of need with great educational content that helps them solve a challenge. Help videos can be one-offs, but typically larger brands with big marketing efforts will create a volume of help videos, sometimes numbering in the hundreds.

The following features describe a typical help video:

• Tend to fall into the education bucket. If hero videos are inspirational and hub videos tend to be entertainment, help videos fall into the educational bucket. They are your how-to videos.
• Are found through people searching on YouTube. Help videos are usually found when someone is searching YouTube looking for an answer to their question. Search YouTube for any question, and chances are you’ll have a variety of how-to videos pop up.
• Answer commonly asked questions. Help videos answer a question. If you’re a marketer who wants to make help videos, look for what people search for using Google Trends (see Chapter 3). You can also talk to your customer service team or consult your customer service inbox for the questions that are most frequently asked. Answer questions that your brand should be the one to answer; you don’t need to boil the ocean by trying to answer everything that is tangentially related.
• Are closer to the bottom of your marketing funnel. Help videos may be closer to the bottom of your marketing funnel in that viewers are either using your product or service already, or they are looking for your product or service as a solution to the problem in front of them. Help videos can be a good converter to purchase but shouldn’t feel like an ad or a sales pitch. (See Chapter 2 for more about the marketing funnel.)
• Are informational and practical, yet entertaining. The best help videos are short, sweet, and to the point. You can answer questions in a pragmatic way while finding simple ways to keep the videos entertaining.
• Need to be crystal clear to beat the competition. A client once told me that he fixed his TV over the weekend by looking for a how-to video on YouTube. In one video, the person doing the fix had large hands, which made it hard to see the fine and fiddlesome work being tackled. In another video, the person had smaller hands, which made the video clearer with its instructions on which part to replace. This simple example illustrates how the best help videos offer clear, effective explanations and are the ones that float to the top of the search results.
• Can play a customer service role. Help videos can often be an important part of a larger brand’s customer service operations. If you’re a marketer at a company where you have a customer service team, consider whether any of its members may be good on camera. With some training and a simple setup, they can set about creating videos that answer customer service queries. Not only can this approach reduce the call center and email volume of inquiries they receive, but it can build your YouTube presence. It’s a win-win!
• Can expand ideas of what people can do. Even though a help video should focus on answering the question at hand, the end of the video may be a chance to include some “Did you also know …?” tips that may inspire more use of your product or service or even a purchase of another product. For example, if you make a stain-removing bar of soap and your video shows how it can remove wine from carpets, perhaps you can end the video by mentioning the myriad other uses for your product and linking to additional help videos.
• Are always-on. While hero videos are one-off occasions a few times a year and hub videos are seasonal or tied to marketing campaigns, help videos are always on. Always on means that you can create help videos all day every day. There’s almost no limit to how many help videos you can make, so making a couple each week is a great idea. Over time, you’ll quickly build up a big catalog of videos that will grow your overall YouTube channel.
• Can be collected on playlists when they’re related. If you have a few help videos that relate to each other, you can collect them together on a playlist. It almost turns your help videos into a hub series, such as “Top Ten Stain Removal Uses,” “Ten Ideas to Use Widget X to Improve Your Life,” or “Easy and Quick Weekend projects.” As you create and publish help videos, look back to see whether you can recombine your videos into different playlists.
• Can be a nice entry point to the rest of your YouTube content. People are searching YouTube every day, often for help videos, and so they are a great way for people to discover you, your brand, and your YouTube channel. Think of your help videos as your calling card or invitation to the audience to watch more of your videos. You can end your help videos by letting them know about other help videos or hub series you have on your channel.
• Have a long-tail audience growth. A long-tail audience means that you grow a large audience of viewers by having many help videos that each have a small audience. A long-tail audience is in contrast to the large audience of a single hero video. Your many help videos grow an audience over time and collectively have a large audience, even though each video individually may have only a few thousand views.
• Are evergreen. Help videos may be the best example of evergreen videos you’ll find. For most marketers, the questions you’re answering with your help videos will live on for a long time, making help videos a great return on your production investment. (For more on evergreen videos, see the section “Exploring Trending and Evergreen Videos,” earlier in this chapter.)
• Can be easier to produce than hub or hero videos. Help videos don’t need to be the big glossy productions that may benefit a hero video, and they don’t require the commitment of a hub series. A lot of clients I’ve worked with in the past have chosen to create an in-house solution, with a simple backdrop, lighting, camera, and a contract resource to help shoot and edit the videos. Sometimes they’ve used a smaller agency to help create their first wave of help videos as they test out whether help videos can work for them.

For all these reasons, help videos are often the best place to start for a marketer entering into video creation for the first time. You can make a few, experiment with what works, tweak and refine your production process, and generally have a greater sense for what it takes to make videos in support of marketing and brand efforts. Rather than tackling something like a hero video or hub series, you can start with just one simple video that answers a common question that your customers or potential customers are searching for.

If you want to make help videos but aren’t sure where to start, create help videos for your top ten FAQs.