AUDIENCE(56)

What a majority of marketers don’t seem to grasp, however, is that YouTube also affords you the opportunity to build SUBSCRIBERS who are automatically notified by YouTube via email and in-site messaging whenever you post a new video. Consider these head-to-head competitors’ stats as of September 2013:

Brand YouTube SUBSCRIBERS

RedBull (@RedBull) 2,835,338

Monster Energy (@MonsterEnergy) 321,217

Old Spice (@OldSpice) 370,861

AXE (@AXE) 23,384

Orabrush (@Orabrush) 191,919

Oral-B (@OralB) 1,371

Measured on YouTube SUBSCRIBERS alone, there’s no question of which competitor you’d rather be. Red Bull, Old Spice, and Orabrush have developed push-button, proprietary audiences for their video content. As a result, they immediately generate VIEWERS who may become AMPLIFIERS of that content every time they post a new video. Talk about audience as asset.





SUBSCRIBERS on the Tip of Their Tongue


If your leadership still needs convincing about the power of proprietary YouTube VIEWERS and SUBSCRIBERS, look no further than the story of Orabrush—the little tongue cleaner that could. The brainchild of Dr. Bob Wagstaff, the Orabrush offered consumers an innovative way to fight bad breath. His problem? After spending over $40,000 on an infomercial, Dr. Bob received only 100 orders for Orabrush.

After consulting then college student Jeffrey Harmon (@JeffreyHarmon), Dr. Bob tried something radical. He paid $500 to create a humorous video explaining how Orabrush fights bad breath and posted it to YouTube on September 10, 2009.3 The rest, as they say, is history:

The original “Bad Breath Test” video has generated over 18 million views to date.

Orabrush landed shelf space in Walmart (@Walmart) as well as the major retail pharmacies.

Orabrush has sold millions of units to customers around the world.

Dr. Bob promoted that student, Jeffrey Harmon, to CMO of Orabrush.



Today, Orabrush has amassed over 42 million views of all its YouTube videos and has used that platform to help it launch a product line for dogs (@Orapup). Oh, and it still has more VIEWERS and SUBSCRIBERS than its next three biggest oral care competitors combined. Yes, YouTube should be on the tip of every marketer’s tongue.





Ask for the SUBSCRIBE


There are a number of reasons for the great disparity in YouTube SUBSCRIBERS among competitive brands. First, some brands have emphasized YouTube growth over other channels like Facebook or Twitter. Second, up until recently, YouTube didn’t do a great job presenting the subscription option to VIEWERS. In fact, according to Alex Carloss, YouTube’s head of entertainment partnerships, SUBSCRIBERS were a big reason for the site’s recent design.

When speaking to Entertainment Weekly (@EW) in March 2013, Alex said:

We know that when people subscribe, they’ll watch twice as much. The rearchitecture of the site has resulted in subscriptions doubling in a very short period of time.4

While YouTube’s redesign has boosted the prominence of the subscription option, your company cannot rely on organic SUBSCRIBER acquisition only. You must proactively ask YouTube VIEWERS to become SUBSCRIBERS via:

In-video CTAs

Video “Click to Subscribe” overlays

Inclusion of a YouTube SUBSCRIBE button on your Owned Media

Creating and promoting a video devoted solely to promoting the benefit of subscribing to your YouTube channel (for example, search YouTube for “Red Bull Subscribers Have Wings”)



As video engagement becomes increasingly mobile, YouTube’s importance to marketers will only increase. Wouldn’t you rather be there with a bigger on-demand, proprietary audience of VIEWERS and SUBSCRIBERS than your competition? That’s what I thought.

Judson Laipply and the Evolution of Proprietary Audiences

Before the “Harlem Shake,” “Gangnam Style,” and “Charlie Bit My Finger,” there was one video that ruled them all: “The Evolution of Dance” by Judson Laipply (@JudsonLaipply). A professional speaker and inspirational comedian, Judson had little idea that the video he uploaded to YouTube on April 6, 2006, would change his life forever.5

Within days, however, the video of his humorous mash-up of dance moves traveled the world around, and within eight months, it had garnered over 70 million views. Judson went from local stages to national ones like Ellen, Oprah, The Today Show, America’s Got Talent, Tosh.0, and even the Weezer (@Weezer) video for “Pork and Beans.” Today, “The Evolution of Dance” and its sequel have been viewed over 300 million times.

To say that YouTube was a blessing to Judson would be an understatement. But Judson would be the first to tell you he could have done even more with his YouTube celebrity. He could have built and engaged more SUBSCRIBERS, developed more Facebook FANS, and attracted more FOLLOWERS. Judson gives himself a pass on those efforts because he continues to have more work than he can handle. As his own boss, he can make that decision. To paraphrase Bobby Brown (@KingBobbyBrown), “It’s his prerogative.”