According to HubSpot, the French spend on average 13.2 hours per week to watch videos. YouTube ranks second among the platforms to choose for your influencer marketing, just after TikTok.
With its 2.5 billion users connected each month, YouTube represents a golden opportunity for businesses wishing to reach a large audience. But how to get the most out of this platform?
Sponsoring a YouTube video is a method that allows brands to connect with their audience in an authentic and engaging way. Let’s find out together how this strategy works, how to implement it and the criteria for choosing the relevant influencers for your sponsorship success!
What is YouTube video sponsorship?
What exactly is sponsoring a YouTube video? Imagine a cosmetics brand that decides to work with a popular beauty YouTuber. It funds the creation of a video where the influencer presents her products and talks about them to her audience.
Result ? The brand benefits not only from direct exposure to potential consumers, but also from the credibility and trust that the content creator has been able to develop with her subscribers.
Why sponsor a YouTube video for your brand?
The advantages of this strategy are numerous. YouTube is the platform on which Internet users spend the most time after TikTok : 23 hours and 10 minutes per month according to We Are Social. Additionally, the video site often alternates between first and second place among the most visited sites in the world via Google, with monthly traffic of approximately 1.4 billion visitors. So why not take advantage of this popularity?
Especially since YouTube is not only a channel for capturing attention: it is also a conversion machine. Nearly 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations according to the Digital Marketing Institute. Furthermore, 82% of consumers trust the reviews they see on social media, whether shared by friends, family or web personalities.
For a brand, this means that sponsoring a YouTube video helps acquire better customers, as noted by 51% of marketers.
And the return on investment? Impressive. For every dollar invested in an influencer marketing campaign, businesses saw an average return of $5.78. No wonder 42% of marketers consider influencers to be an essential strategy!
How to choose which influencers to sponsor?
The numbers speak for themselves: every day, 720,000 hours of videos are published on YouTube. That’s 500 hours of content downloaded every minute! This constant stream of updates provides brands with a multitude of opportunities to connect with diverse audiences.
But among this imposing volume of videos and the countless number of existing YouTube channels, how do you choose which influencers to collaborate with?
The number of subscribers of the YouTube channel
Very often, the first criterion considered by companies when sponsoring a YouTube video is the volume of the community. It is true that in 2023, YouTube influencers with between 1,000 and 5,000 subscribers had an engagement rate of 1.9%, while those with more than a million followers achieved a score of 3.47%. according to Statista.
However, audience size isn’t everything. What really matters is the quality of engagement and audience profile.
You should also keep in mind that the biggest YouTubers necessarily cost more to sponsor than a YouTuber who has a few tens of thousands of subscribers.
The content creator’s audience
To choose a spokesperson who will convince their community, start by understanding their audience. Does it match your target market? Will a fashion influencer attract the same viewers as a gaming-focused content creator? Not really.
Thanks to tools like YouTube’s recently added “Media Kit,” creators can now present their audience, engagement metrics, and demographics much more transparently to businesses.
Use it to determine the suitability of the YouTuber and make an informed choice to achieve your goals.
Video engagement and authenticity
Look beyond raw subscriber numbers. An influencer with 100,000 followers, but low engagement, will likely provide less value than a smaller creator with a very active following.
The key is to find someone whose audience regularly engages with the content – comments, likes, shares. It’s this type of engagement that can really boost visits to your website and conversions.
Aligning values with your brand
The authenticity and positioning of the content creator are two criteria to analyze before sponsoring a YouTube video. A partnership seems more credible when there is a real connection between the influencer and the brand.
In addition to watching their latest videos, also check the influencer’s previous collaborations: were they aligned with your brand image? Were they successful?
How to contact YouTube influencers to sponsor?
Once you have found the ideal influencer, how do you contact them? Several options are available to you.
Find contacts on YouTube
The easiest method is to search in the “About” section of the influencer’s YouTube channel. Many leave a contact email address for partnerships.
Find contact information on social media
Sometimes this information is also present in video descriptions or on other social networks like Instagram or TikTok.
Don’t overlook content creators’ personal websites, either, which often include a contact form or email address for professional collaborations.
Best practices for properly sponsoring a YouTube video
Choosing your influencers carefully and contacting them is already a good start, but there are still steps to follow to maximize the impact of your sponsored video.
Compare prices of content creators
Sponsorship rates vary from one creator to another, in particular depending on the volume of their community, their field of activity and their level of expertise.
Take the time to compare prices and negotiate to find a deal that suits both parties. Once you’ve selected your influencer, prepare a comprehensive brief and formal contract to ensure you get a video that aligns with your goals.
Prepare a strategy adapted to YouTube
Furthermore, you can edit a promotion plan. Create, for example, a landing page dedicated to visitors who click on the sponsored video. This makes it possible to precisely measure the impact of the campaign and optimize the conversion rate.
Also think about the channels on which you will distribute it: social networks, newsletter, blog, product page, Google Ads, etc.
Optimize the site for traffic
Imagine your campaign is a total success and your site explodes with traffic. Great, right? Unless your site is not ready to handle an influx of visitors!
Make sure your website can handle a peak in visits and that you have enough inventory to meet demand. Also consider offering an exclusive offer to the influencer’s followers, such as a discount code or gift for the first 50 orders.
Analyze and adjust your sponsored video
Monitoring and analysis are essential to improve this campaign… and subsequent ones! To this end, you must define KPIs to follow according to the sponsorship objective and evaluate them using tracking tools.
For a complete analysis, you can ask the influencer to send you their statistics, in order to know the performance of your sponsored video on YouTube.
Our final tip for sponsoring a YouTube video
YouTube video sponsorship is a powerful strategy to improve your awareness, launch a new product or boost your sales. However, when you have found the ideal partner, whose community is responsive, consider developing a long-term collaboration. Sponsorship can become permanent with an ad at the start of each video, for example, or your product highlighted on the influencer’s desktop.
In addition to creating a relationship of trust with the YouTuber, your brand increases loyalty among its audience.
Ready to sponsor a YouTube video? Call on a freelance influencer marketing expert on Codeur.com to support you and maximize your results!