Advertising On Youtube: A guide for musicians

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Advertising on YouTube: A Guide For Musicians A digital marketing guide by @million__media

This presentation is based upon the short eBook, ‘Advertising on YouTube – A Guide for Musicians”. See our full series of digital marketing guides and online eLearning courses for the music industry at:

www.millionmedia.com &

www.theartistnetwork.ws


•  The popularity of YouTube •  Introducing Google Adwords •  How does Adwords work? •  How to target your audience using Last.fm & Amazon •  How to use keywords and placements to focus •  Small changes can make a big difference •  Images vs Text – which is more effective? •  The importance of a good landing page •  Continuous changes can work wonders •  How to use remarketing to avoid treating everyone the same •  Using Adwords as a research tool to save and make money


Advertise on YouTube! - Bob Leftsetz


YouTube’s growth has been phenomenal, especially amongst passionate music fans, who quickly realised it offered an enourmous free jukebox of music-on-demand. Music videos are amongst the most watched videos on the website as fans discover, share, embed and playlist their favourite

tracks.

•  Three times more people watch music videos on YouTube than download music.

•  Over 800 million unique users visit

YouTube each month

•  Over 3 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube

•  72 hours of video are uploaded to

YouTube every minute

YouTube is the world’s most popular video website and rivals TV for time watched


Google developed Adwords to enable anyone to create adverts that could target people searching for a specified keyword. After they bought YouTube, Google developed Adwords to provide a way of placing an advert before or on a video by a specific artist.

Google Adwords enables artists, record labels & promoters to advertise to a targeted audience

Adwords earns Google over $40bn per year. It’s a remarkable tool because anyone can set up an account and within minutes use the same advertising mechanics employed by multi-national corporations. Once the audience and keywords have been defined the budget can be set to suit each campaign, from £1 to £1m – the amount differs but the principles remain the same.


Since Adwords enables us to target videos by specific artists, we can create a very effective campaign promoting our own music or releases. Imagine if you could place an advert on TV that is only seen by fans of bands you specify. Adwords enables this and further more, at a very low cost-per-

click rate.

YouTube makes money by placing adverts either before a video – called a ‘pre-roll’ – or an overlay, like the example above. The overlay can be either text or an image and comprises of a headline, a promotional message and a link. Clicking on the advert takes the use away from YouTube to the advertiser’s specified destination.

Adwords can place messages on videos watched by highly engaged & passionate music fans


Tools such as Last.fm and Amazon can be used to identify artists with a similar audience

Last.fm has been analysing the songs played by millions of people to determine an accurate list of ‘Similar Artists’. In other words, we can carefully target fans on YouTube who like similar artists assuming they are more likely to be interested in what we’re promoting.

When people play music on sites such as Spotify, MySpace, Facebook, Deezer or many others, Last.fm make a note, called a ‘Scrobble’. As a result they can calculate ‘similar artists’ to one specified based upon millions of plays.


Using Keywords & Placements enables the message to be targeted to the right audience.

Having determined the list of similar artists we can use the tools provided by Adwords to target fans watching the videos. Using the artist names as keywords, and by specifying the location, device and audience we can set a precise audience of people to see our advert. No other media provides so much

targeting and for such low cost.

Google Adwords enable you to target an advert based upon location, demographic and device. Defining location means you can promote gigs at a local level. You can also specify the device, so for instance, can place a clickable phone number on adverts seen on mobile phones.


Small changes in the message can result in significant changes in the effectiveness.

Writing Google Adverts is 90% common sense and 10% science. Words are limited so the message must be very clear. However, the science is using very small changes to have big effect on results. The use of a single letter, a capital, a full stop or a phrase can dramatically improve your click through

rates.

Music For Meditation Change your energy and state of mind. Unique, exclusive free lessons

Music For Meditation Changes your energy and state of mind. Unique, exclusive free lessons

In the example above the only difference is the ‘s’ at the end of ‘change’. Yet this one letter made the advert on the left more than 180% more effective. This is because ‘Changes’ implies automatic and subliminal while ‘change’ implies the process can be controlled, something important to people who meditate.


The word ‘Show’ is more effective than the word ‘Gig’ or ‘Tour’.

One result we found was calling a live performance a ‘Show’ resulted in almost double the number of clicks than the word ‘gig’ or ‘tour’. The reason isn’t clear but we suspect the public like to think they’re seeing a ‘show’ rather than see a band on ‘tour’. It’s a very subtle difference and yet the vast

majority of live press & outdoor advertising still use the word ‘Tour’.

Elton John Red Piano Show Elton John Red Piano Tour

Spot The Difference

In an advertising campaign for Elton John we trialed two different words in the headline. The word ‘Tour’ is often used by Promoters when they advertise the live dates. And yet our research highlighted that using the word ‘show’ was actually 2.5x more effective. We think this is because the public prefer to think they’re seeing a show, while the live industry think of an artist going on tour.


Using an image overlay can result in 3x more clicks than a text advert

By creating an image overlay you can increase click through by over 300%. The advert can be word-for-word identical to a text overlay. However, an image can catch the eye by using a darker background, enhanced fonts and a small image of the band or artwork. If paying using CPM this increase in effectiveness can have dramatic results

on click throughs.

Using an image for the overlay can be over 3x more effective. The use of a small image, which could be artwork or the band, increased the likelihood of someone clicking. Further, we found creating a local advert and including the name of the venue increased click through, as did naming one of the songs the artist would play at the show.


Having paid for a click through you must ensure the fan gets the information they want. Note: this may not be the ‘Buy Now’ page you would like, but a page giving them more information. For instance, research has shown fans do a lot of research before buying a gig ticket. Provide them

with the information and the ability to invite their friends.

Make sure your Landing Page is as close to the fan’s final destination as possible

Have you ever booked a flight with one of the budget airlines? And, it’s only when you land you find out the airport is actually 50 miles away from your destination and the coach journey takes longer than the flight? This is similar to your website landing page. People don’t want to be several clicks away from their final destination. Take people as close to where they want to be, which may not be your home page.

BARCELONA?


Unlike traditional advertising Adwords can continuously change as the campaign is optimised

Adwords allows you to continuously change and optimise your advert, even after it’s gone live. This can have far reaching consequences as you learn which words, phrases and images your audience respond to.

Once an advert is booked on radio, TV, press or outdoor it is very difficult to change. However, Adwords can be continuously optimised to work towards the most effective clcik through rate. Different words and images can be used to learn and test. Each insight can increase the effectiveness of an advert. We could often increase click through rate TENfold through making continual changes.


Adwords provides the tools to target fans who have already visited your website or bought your album. The message can differ, for instance, to people who have already heard the album you can ask them what they thought of it. A review can actually be an extremely strong form of marketing,

triggered by your advert.

Re-marketing is a powerful way of targeting fans with a different message, ‘coz they’re not the same

Adwords has a feature called Remarketing, which can track a user on a website and subsequently target adverts at them. This could be used, say, to target fans who visit the official site. By identifying themselves as a fan they can receive a different advertising message, perhaps asking them to rate the album.


Running adverts using different images can quickly determine which image your fans respond to. This may be different to the image you would choose as your personal favourite. The ‘winning’ image could be used for future artwork, tour posters or advertising, saving you money in expensive

research or focus groups.

Adwords can be used as a very cheap but highly effective market research tool

When working with Master Shortie (above) we used a number of different images using Google Adwords. The image that got the most clicks was subsequently used as the artwork for the single. This is an example of how Adwords can be used simultaneously as a research tool, perhaps before significant sums of money are spent on poster or press advertising.



This presentation is based upon the short eBook, ‘Advertising on YouTube – A Guide for Musicians”. See our full series of digital marketing guides and online eLearning courses for the music industry at:

www.millionmedia.com &

www.theartistnetwork.ws


Neil Cartwright is a veteran of Digital Marketing, having built his first website in 1995. He joined Sony Music as their first dedicated digital marketing manager in 1997 and pioneered in areas such as social media, online PR, digital distribution & Direct to Fan. He now runs his own agency and

training academy

About the author

Million Media Website www.millionmedia.com Learning Academy www.theartistnetwork.ws

Credentials: •  Invited to present Digital Marketing at MIDEM 7

years running •  Lectures on The Music Industry at The Institute,

Europe’s finest school of modern music. •  Presented Digital Marketing at conferences

around the world •  Was voted by The Observer as one of the 500

people who will change the future of the UK •  Chair of music charity, Community Music, one of

the UK’s longest established music training courses

Advertising On Youtube: A guide for musicians

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