Hi everyone,
My name is Peter and I run an apparel store called Mango Rabbit with my wife. This would be my second guest post for EFS as I love getting a catch to connect with fellow operators and marketers.
My first guest post was about Instagram because we have 1/2 million followers there. However, we should have spent more time on YouTube.
We’ve recently landed our second “viral” SEO’d video with 80k views compared to our average of 4k views. It’s interesting to see how YouTube’s algorithm works in real time. Here is how we are using YouTube to market our clothing store.
Realness is Everything
Realness is everything, you can’t photoshop a video.
Realness on YouTube means you have to be flawed, yet cool. Honest, but politically correct. Relatable, yet unique. Bonus points for good looking people.
Think it’s not that hard? Imagine trying to hold the attention of the average teenager for more than 5 minutes.
The punishment for being “fake” means top tier YouTubers might do exposés on the bad products. These get millions of views and are often quite funny to watch. In this case, I don’t think “any publicity is good publicity”.
Video Reviews
My wife makes detailed reviews for Mango Rabbit and other brands. These are 6-9hr long projects but it always gets many sales.
I’ve also contacted several other YouTube influencers hoping they will review our clothes for payment. However, none has replied and I think it’s because they do not want our money or clothes.
It comes back to realness again, if a YouTuber has a history of reviewing name brands, then suddenly does a review for a boutique store, then she might be a “sellout”. However, encouraged by my wife’s results, I will keep searching as we improve our selection.
YouTube Does Wonders for Affiliates
In my Instagram post I talked about how we use affiliate programs on Instagram.
YouTube is even better. An influencer gets to put many clickable links in the caption. We get many comments that thank us for creating such a smooth shopping experience.
As a brand, having your own YouTube channel may be beneficial if you have the budget. However, your branded channel won’t pass the “realness” test, viewers will know you have a business motive.
YouTube SEO
YouTube videos gets preference in text-based Google searches. Google sometimes pushes video results right near the top.
We take YouTube SEO very seriously. The video title, thumbnail, the first few lines of the caption, the hashtags, the video category, playlist’s, end cards, location tags… all executed strategically. We need multiple reviewers to make sure we don’t miss something.
YouTube for Small / Mid-Size
Given rising PPC costs, I think the industry will see brands either branch out or dig in.
I am experimenting with workflows and fellow business owners to build YouTube channels that scale smoothly for small and mid-size businesses. Hopefully I’ll have good news to report to you in the future.
What Do Ya Think?
If you have time, please check out www.ShopMangoRabbit.com or drop a line at hi@ShopMangoRabbit.com. Your feedback on our shop would mean a lot to us!
Thanks for reading!
Sincerely,
Peter Peng and Kerina Wang
hi@ShopMangoRabbit.com
www.KerinaMango.com (Kerina)
www.LucasCreatives.com (Peter)