YOUTUBE

YouTube is an online video-sharing website that provides a forum

for its users to connect, inform, and inspire others all around the world.

Launched in 2005, YouTube was swiftly purchased by Google and is

currently one of their most notable subsidiaries. What makes YouTube

special is its capacity to connect billions of people and allow them to

quickly and easily discover, watch, and share originally created videos.

YouTube is localized in 75 countries and available in 61 languages,

which presents a great opportunity for Gifts.com to increase brand

awareness globally. With the support of a reputable and credible

organization such as Google, YouTube has the potential to expand their

influence among more consumers than ever before.

Our communication objective is to increase subscriptions to the

Gifts.com YouTube channel, especially among male consumers in our

target market, by 40% within the next year. To increase the current

number of subscribers (259) by 40%, we must acquire roughly 100

new male subscribers in the next year- approximately 9 new men each

month. Our primary strategy to achieve this objective is to implement

a stronger presence on YouTube by utilizing the advertising tools

YouTube provides to their users. One of our proposed tactics is to

create a variety of campaigns for Gifts.com using content that is

relevant and engaging to their consumers. The company can easily

take advantage of YouTube’s advertising tools such as their TrueView

ads, FanFinder and Adwords, in order to reach their target market

more effectively. These consumer-oriented campaigns can be featured

as brief advertisements during other segments, as well as integrated

into our other social media channels.

YOUTUBE CAMPAIGN 1 - Expert Advice Segments

One of our ideas for Gifts.com is to create a collection of videos

providing expert help from a compelling spokesperson in order to

attract our target male consumers. These brief videos, one minute or

less, will feature dynamic employees or popular bloggers, in order to

engage male consumers and offer them helpful gift suggestions.

Gifts.com should use an outgoing, friendly, and knowledgeable

individual to represent their brand and effectively communicate the

offerings featured on Gifts.com to their consumers. These experts will

discuss the features and benefits of three to five different gifts, as a

way to generate both intrigue and awareness of the brand.

Our team recommends using a spokesperson like Jim Chapman.

Jim, nicknamed “The Gentleman”, is a young, stylish, and handsome

26-year-old best known for his Q&A advice videos on the web. Our

team believes Jim would make a great spokesperson to engage male

viewers looking for advice to find the perfect gift. Because Jim is a

young male who is also in a relationship, he will be able to connect

with both the younger, single male consumers (Joey) as well as the

older, off-the-market males (Michael) as well. Jim even features his

fiancé Tanya in his videos; one video where he does her make-up has

had over 1.2 million views.

Jim’s personal style and fashion sense have also been admired

by men’s fashion brands and magazines – GQ profiled him in March

and Topman invited him to their London Fashion Week show. This

recognition further strengthens his credibility as a trendy man who is

respected for his good taste. He also regularly appears on Viral Tap,

the ITV2 panel-show hosted by Caroline Flack. With 1.4 million

YouTube subscribers, 438K Facebook likes, and nearly 700K Twitter

followers, Jim is a strong candidate for representing the brand and

engaging our target market.

Our team further recommends developing these expert-help

videos in a variety of genres, in order to reach as many of our target

male consumers as possible. For example, if a popular search is for

“gift fails”, create a video with Jim recommending ways to never fail at

gift-giving again. By customizing this campaign to coincide with trends

in popular culture, Gifts.com will have a better chance of reaching their

target consumer and spreading awareness of their brand.  Gifts.com

can promote their ads directly to their target market, by implementing

a combination of the promotional tools YouTube offers to paying

members. Below is a brief overview of the main tools our team

suggests the company incorporate within their YouTube strategy:

FanFinder - allows users to provide a video ad that tells viewers

about their channel, and will run before other videos across

YouTube.com at no cost to the creator.

o YouTube finds potential fans by using signals from viewers’

activities on the website: other channels they watch and

engage with, their existing channel subscriptions and their

engagement levels with different types of content.

TrueView Ads -

o 4 standard types of ad formats:

1. In-search: ad shows up above YouTube search results.

Least expensive ad format option

2. In-slate: ad shows up in suggested videos after your

video ended.

3. In-display: ad shows up on suggested videos beside the

video you are watching.

Ads appear as a thumbnail and text on

‘YouTube watch pages’ in the right-hand pane

of suggested and recommended videos.

You pay a “cost-per-view” when a user clicks-

through your ad and begins watching your

video on a watch page.

4. In-stream : ad plays before you can watch your video.

Viewers see five seconds of your ad and then

can keep watching or can skip it.

You pay a “cost-per-view” if they choose to

watch at least 30 seconds of your ad.

Most expensive ad format option

o Three Targeting Types:

1. Video Remarketing: promote an ad to users that

have performed an action on your channel, such as

viewing, liking or commenting.

Using an AdWords feature called “custom

combinations” you’re also able to combine

these groups to target, for example, audiences

that have viewed your video, but who are not

yet subscribers.

2. Placement Targeting: Allows you to show your ad

on other YouTube channels your audience may

appreciate

o Used specifically with In-stream or In-display

format

3. Interest Category Targeting: Allows you to show

your ad only to users that have a particular interest.

o For example, if you create cooking tutorials,

you can target YouTube users that are

interested in food, or “foodies”.

AdWords for Video - allows you to promote your videos and

your channel with the TrueView family of ad formats

o First, create an AdWords account at

adwords.google.com, then create a new

“online video campaign”, set a budget and

target an audience.

o Budget is flexible; invest as much or as little as

you want

Insights Page - Shows you more about fans within your circle

and lets you reach out and connect with them.

Google+ - If your channel is connected to Google+, you can

add fans to circles, or share a post.

Top Fans - Helps you find partners to collaborate with, by

considering the criteria that may be important to your

audience, in order to create a successful collaboration for all

involved.

YOUTUBE CAMPAIGN 2 - Commercials

An additional tactic our team suggests, is the implementation of

a combination of 10-20 second ads to be aired in-between related

YouTube videos and channels. We want Gifts.com to create videos

based on the most popular channel searches among males in the

target market. By using the YouTube Insight software tools, Gifts.com

has a better chance of accurately reaching their target market and can

avoid wasting time and money advertising elsewhere. For example, we

want to create romantic commercials to be aired on channels related

to love, relationships, or romance. By doing so, our team feels that

Gifts.com will have a better chance of engaging their target male

consumers and creating top-of-the-mind awareness for the brand.

These commercials should be integrated into our other marketing

channels by simply adjusting their format to fit the different channel

capacities. We can use the audio portion of our clips to air on Pandora,

and use both the audio and visual ads on Facebook, Instagram, and

even on the website.

BUDGETING

One reason YouTube is such a beneficial platform for Gifts.com to

implement, is the flexibility and ease of advertising. YouTube offers

several options for members to promote their channel and allows the

advertiser to choose how much they are willing to spend. The pricing

varies slightly per ad unit, with in-display ads ranging towards the

higher-end ($.30) and in-search toward the lower-end ($.10). Gifts.com

can choose from a variety of ad formats, depending on how aggressive

they want to be with their promotions. One great thing about

advertising on YouTube is that you only pay when viewers choose to

watch at least 30 seconds of your ad. Overall, YouTube ads are an

excellent means of boosting your web presence at an affordable rate.

For most ad units, potential customers actually choose to watch your

advertisement. Also, the overall boost in views gives more credibility to

your company and gives it a better chance of showing up organically in

YouTube or other search engines.

MEASURING EFFECTIVENESS

By already having a membership with YouTube, Gifts.com has

access to their analytical software that can provide the company with

substantial statistical information about how their channel is doing and

which videos are performing the best. One easy and straightforward way

to measure the effectiveness of the implemented tactics, is by looking at

the number of new channel subscriptions. We can also monitor the

channel through the associated hashtags being used throughout the

campaigns on the other social media platforms. In addition to the number

of subscriptions, we can also evaluate the number of times the videos are

being shared between users, the amount of likes or dislikes, and the

number of views each video receives. This data will allow Gifts.com to

better connect with their audience and learn about who is sharing, liking,

and viewing their videos. Although one of the most tedious measures to

analyze, direct feedback from user comments may by far, be one of the

best methods for measuring the effectiveness of a video. When a

consumer takes the time to comment, they are providing the company

with valuable insight, whether or not the feedback is positive or negative.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Our team recommends that Gifts.com use high quality equipment

and either hire professional videographers or have employees that are

skillful with a camera, coordinate the production of these videos. By doing

so, Gifts.com will come across to the consumer as legitimate and

knowledgeable about the e-commerce industry. Buying anything online

can be nerve-racking for people who may not be as comfortable with the

Internet, or do not like providing credit card information over a computer.

By exuding a professional image through their online presence, Gifts.com

can leave their consumers with greater reassurance that they are a

dependable and trustworthy brand. In the world of business, reputation is

everything, and Gifts.com must strive to create a positive perception of

their brand among consumers.