How to sell courses using YouTube?

Video is currently the most widely consumed content format on the internet. Before we get into doing justice to the title with the rest of the article, let’s look at some interesting statistics about videos and YouTube. 

• 6 out of 10 people prefer would choose online videos over television 
• The consumptions of mobile videos rise by 100% every year.
• Online videos will result in more than 82% of all internet traffic by 2022
• YouTube is the second most popular website after Google, with over 2 billion logged-in monthly users.
• YouTube is also the second-most preferred video streaming platform after Netflix.
• Each visitor spends around approx. 11 minutes daily on YouTube.

Pretty compelling, right? Now if you are an online educator, you can use the power of YouTube in your course to make it more saleable. 

In this post, we have covered some tips and strategies to help you understand how to sell courses using YouTube. Read on. 

Why should you publish videos related to your courses on YouTube?

If the points mentioned at the beginning of this article have not convinced you to consider YouTube as a platform to publish your video courses, let’s dig a little deeper and understand why you should publish them on YouTube – 

• It won’t cost you anything: There are lots of costs associated with getting your online education business up on the internet. So, you must make the most out of free platforms like YouTube to max out on promotional efforts. Publishing videos on YouTube is free. But creating the actual video itself will take effort and cost depending on the complexity of the videos you plan to produce. This includes research, scripting, filming, editing, and everything else that leads to a video getting ultimately published. But once published, these videos can drive relevant traffic to your course’s website. 
• It is a natural choice for educational video content: Most online courses will have videos in their content repository. This means you don’t have to create anything from scratch specifically for YouTube. The most you’d have to do is edit what you already have produced. What you create for YouTube can be like a trailer for your course. 
• It will help you be found by your target audience: YouTube is coincidentally the second largest search engine after Google. Want to guess who owns YouTube? Google! This means that your videos are SEO optimized and stand a high chance of ranking well on Google search result pages. For example, if your course teaches accounting, you can create videos about it for YouTube, optimize it for SEO and start seeing it on Google and YouTube search results for relevant keywords like accountancy courses and accountancy classes.
• Increased brand awareness and credibility: For someone new to the business, carving a name for yourself can be tough. But, since videos are the most persuasive forms of content, strategically it can make a huge difference. Create thought leadership content and establish trust with your target audience by being authentic and consistent. 

How to get started with YouTube to sell your online courses?

You need to lay down a strategy before you can start creating videos for YouTube. The following are the main factors that should be considered for your YouTube strategy. 

Research

Good research is the secret behind every video that does well on YouTube. Research should ideally include the following: 

• Finding out the topics that your audience and potential audience are interested in.
• What questions does your audience have about the course that you can answer?
• What all are the keywords (including long-tail keywords) that your audiences are using to find what they want online?

This is not a one-time process. This should be done for every single video you are creating. 

What type of video to create?

This is the biggest question anyone starting out on YouTube is faced with. The silver lining is that you probably already have all the video content you’d need. It is just the question of optimizing it for YouTube. Don’t shy away from giving away free content. In reality, publishing quality content consistently will increase the likelihood of someone actually signing up for a course. Here are some types of videos that you can create for your course’s YouTube channel. 

• Channel trailer: This is the first video viewers will see once they land on your channel. Use it to tell them who you are, what kind of videos you’ll be posting, and how they can benefit from your videos.
• Course Demo: This video should have an attention-grabbing hook, address the viewer’s problems and your solutions through storytelling. Finally, it should establish scarcity/urgency.
• Who, what, why, how: Create a video that explains the benefits of taking your course and how they can take it. How much will it cost? How long will the course be? All these questions should be answered.  

What are the ways to promote your courses on YouTube?

Creating videos for YouTube is part one. Part two is promoting it so that your target audience knows about your videos and your course. A high-quality, relevant video should be able to promote itself to an extent. To give your course an extra push, you can do the following:

• Teasers and previews: As the name suggests, the purpose of a teaser is to tease. Typically, not more than a minute long, they are designed to increase expectations about something. You can use it to show off some of your course materials. Previews, on the other hand, are real scenes from videos in their original form. You can make YouTube shorts as a preview, and market them on your site by opting to embed YouTube shorts on website. It will help you in fetching more audiences.
• Product Reviews: Create original, informative videos, critically analyzing and evaluating products and services related to your course. This will help you further solidify your reputation as an expert on the subject at hand.
• Specialist advice: Like the above, you can also provide expert advice on matters related to your subject matter. You can even invite specialists to give video testimonials about your course. 
• Events: If you attend seminars and other events related to your subject, create videos about it. The best part is that it will show everyday people interacting with you, which can be difficult to achieve elsewhere.

How to ensure your courses on YouTube can drive traffic back to your site?

One of the primary goals of creating videos on YouTube is to ultimately drive traffic to your website. Here are some tips to ensure your YouTube channel drives quality traffic back to your website.

• Include a clear Call To Action (CTA) directing people to visit your company’s website 
• Use cards and end screens linked to specific URLs to take users to where you want them to go on your website
• Visually and vocally integrate your brand as much as possible into your videos to register it in your viewer’s minds.
• When it comes to SEO, pick keywords that have enough search volumes but don’t have high competition. Use these keywords in your videos’ titles and descriptions. 
• Maintain the same visual identity as your website on your YouTube channel.
• Make sure your branding is cohesive across your platform so that viewers can easily recognize your page and refer back to it; use a YouTube banner maker to ensure your logo, thumbnails, and banner follow a similar design.

Combine the power of YouTube with Learnyst 

Learnyst is one of the most flexible and technologically advanced Learning Management Systems (LMS). You can create your courses and promote them in minutes by building your own SEO-friendly website and your own mobile application. 

There are several other ways in which you can combine Learnyst with YouTube. For instance, in case you have some of your educational content hosted on YouTube, you can easily embed them on Learnyst as part of the course creation process. Also if you’re conducting a live webinar on YouTube and would like your students to attend, you can integrate YouTube Live into your Learnyst courses too.

To fully understand the power of YouTube and Learnyst together, reach out to us today.