How To Grow on YouTube With a Niche Audience (Improving Your Media Strategies)
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How To Grow on YouTube With a Niche Audience (Improving Your Media Strategies)
YouTube is a unique platform that straddles social media and search engines. In fact, YouTube is the second most popular search engine after Google. Boasting a massive audience of over 2 billion monthly active users. YouTube also has a broad demographic that doesn’t drop off for older users, unlike other social platforms.
Brand media strategies should leverage YouTube as part of their digital lead investing. It radically increases engagement with your followers, generating the traction you need to make an impact.
Today we’re going to share one of our YouTube success stories — TekamoHD.
TekamoHD is a network of heavy equipment technicians who repair and service heavy equipment on-site. Their audience is about as niche as it gets. We turned it into one of the fastest-growing YouTube channels for heavy equipment maintenance and repair.
Now the channel averages 97,000–164,000 views per month.
So let’s dive into how we started the Tekamo HD YouTube channel and developed a digital strategy that grew it from zero to over 3 million views amongst a niche audience.
Table of Contents
Digital Lead Investing for YouTube Begins With Equipment
If you’re looking for a quick win with a low investment, this isn’t it. Filming high-quality video content requires equipment. Editing and producing that video content into catchy YouTube videos needs time and expertise.
Our digital marketing company has creatives such as videographers, editors, and graphic designers to cover all aspects of high-quality media production. If your resources are more limited then you’ll need to account for this when developing your media strategies.
Be realistic about what you can produce.
YouTube favors channels that consistently produce content. It’s better to post one video a week you filmed on your phone than go long periods of time without posting due to budget constraints.
For Your Niche Topics, Talk to Your Niche Audience
TekamoHD wanted to teach emerging heavy-duty mechanics, owner-operators, and ordinary people how to service and maintain their own machines. Something most companies wouldn’t do.
Not many within the heavy equipment industry had gotten into YouTube when we first began. Researching what major brands or other creators were doing with their channels couldn’t give us strong insights into successful content.
We took a UX approach and did customer research instead, using our contacts at TekamoHD to talk to the target audience. We asked people within the industry what kind of content they wished they could find on YouTube or things they found interesting about their job.
The channel has grown to the point where we hardly have to come up with our own topics. The viewers in the comments section are giving us content ideas.
We still look at similar channels to see what they are doing as well as check what’s popular in our niche. But when dealing with niche content, our primary source of inspiration is the people consuming it.
Find Niche Content Adjacent to Your Niche
Explore adjacent niches within your industry to come up with new content ideas. This kind of cross-over content can be a great way to draw in new audiences.
As part of our digital media strategy for TekamoHD, we don’t only focus on heavy equipment because there aren’t a huge number of HD operators. It’s a niche audience so naturally, there’s a limited audience size for potential subscribers to the YouTube channel.
Once we looked outside heavy-duty mechanics specifically, we found it’s related to many different industries. Which gave us a lot more to cover. For instance, sometimes heavy-duty mechanics have to get a metal fabricator to create custom parts. So we did a tour of a metal fabricator shop showcasing all the heavy-duty machinery and what it was being used for.
Take Keyword Research With a Grain of Salt
After generating content topics, we do some good old-fashioned keyword research. Mostly to figure out how searches for these topics are being performed, what kind of frequency or popularity it has, as well as any relevant questions branching off these topics.
Through our own experimentation, we discovered keyword research could only get us so far when dealing with niche content. Often you’ll find the topics have less than 10 searches per month in traffic volume for Google and YouTube.
We continued despite this because our audience research indicated people wanted those topics.
We took those low-volume, low competition, keywords and built a whole content strategy around them. The videos that have been published based on those keywords have had massive success, even though the keyword research showed zero to 10 searches a month in the US and Canada.
Consequently, keyword research no longer plays a significant role in the ideation process for the TekamoHD YouTube channel.
Establishing Your Video Personality
Being a digital marketing company, we couldn’t be the video personality in front of the camera. We found a well-respected industry professional who was willing to be on video.
Finding the right video personality is key to reaching your niche. They know when the person isn’t an expert or someone with a passion for the subject. So choose wisely.
It quickly became apparent to us that the videos where the mechanic was involved in the creative process performed better. Because of how passionate the mechanics were when filming, it established a rapport with our audience. Not to mention their expertise gave them greater insights into the content.
The main drawback to using experts though, is they’re not always available for filming. To get around this issue, we found additional video personalities. Creating a rotating cast of mechanics to be on camera for our videos. Not only did this solve our issue — it gave us more insights into the community we were trying to reach.
Picking Your Video Personalities
With the TekamoHDchannel, the viewers are people who are in the industry, students and apprentices trying to get into the industry, or just people interested in the industry.
All these people seem to have different video personalities that resonate with them.
For instance, students are usually more interested in the no-nonsense educator personality. Conversely, those already in the industry really connect with a mechanic joking around while getting the job done.
Every viewer has a personality they relate to the most. Usually, the personality who most closely resembles the reason they’re watching these videos in the first place.
Experiment With Different Video Styles
Topics can be delivered in a variety of ways. Through constant experimentation, we were able to settle into a style that really engages the viewer.
Initially, we began the channel with videos about how-to topics delivered in a straightforward guide format. For instance, If someone were looking to find out how to replace their tracks on an excavator, the video would demonstrate it like a classroom instruction.
Since then, TekamoHD videos have evolved into an edutainment (educational entertainment) style.
Since then, TekamoHD videos have evolved into an edutainment (educational entertainment) style.
Since then, TekamoHD videos have evolved into an edutainment (educational entertainment) style. We started to show the more human side of the job, such as including the banter between the mechanic and the apprentice. Jokes with the camera crew or the audience. Even directly addressing people we frequently see in the comments.
Experimenting with different styles helped us to connect with the target audience in a more profound way. Which in turn boosts our engagement on those videos.
We’re always looking at new video styles and formats as well as different video lengths. As you can see, experimentation is key to media strategies. That’s how to grow on YouTube when dealing with niche audiences.
Creating Attention-Grabbing Thumbnails
Crafting the perfect video thumbnail can feel like a high-stakes game of first impressions. One tiny image has to lure in viewers, pique their curiosity, and convince them that your video is the one they simply can’t miss.
So, how can you make your thumbnail shine brighter than the rest?
That’s right — experimentation. Testing different visual styles to see what people click on. A/B testing thumbnails to see if they can get a higher CTR rate or if the video performs better.
It’s not a cookie-cutter approach. It’s continuously evolving based on testing.
Final Advice
- Really think about what you can achieve rather than what you want to achieve.
- Be realistic about the platform and what it can do for you. It’s not a straight shot from there to sales.
- Be consistent. If you don’t upload min 1-2 videos per week you won’t get any traction.
- YouTube is a search engine — do your SEO!
- Know your content likely isn’t a good candidate for viral videos. Be patient and set long-term goals.
- Think about why people go to YouTube (entertainment, education, or information). Align your content to one of those reasons.
- Be smart with your time so you have a positive ROI. Repurpose your content across different channels (blog, podcast, infographics, social media posts, etc).
- Learn to analyze the data you get on YouTube and look for patterns so you have to replicate successes and avoid repeating failures.
- Don’t compare your content to what’s popular outside your niche. Compare your content to what’s popular in your niche.
By listening to our audience and subject matter experts, we were able to create highly relevant content for the people we were trying to reach on YouTube. This tactic helped us to make TekamoHD one of our fastest growing youtube channels.