Does your YouTube channel have a trailer?

YouTube channel trailers are important for letting new users know what they should expect and why they should subscribe.

You can set up a video on your homepage on YouTube that’s shown only to people who have not yet subscribed to your channel.

In this tutorial, I’m going to assume that you already know how to record, edit and upload a video to YouTube. If not, you can check out this link on how to record and edit your first YouTube video.

5 things that make a great channel trailer:

1. It’s short. Your trailer should only be 30 seconds to one minute long. You need to be able to maintain your viewer’s attention, so it has to be short.

2. It hooks you in the first 5 seconds. It’s in these first five seconds that you’re going to let your visitors know what they should expect from your channel (what they’re going to get) and why it’s important to them.

3. It lets them know when you regularly post new content. Let your potential subscriber know when you release new videos so they know when to expect them.

4. It describes what you do on your channel. If you’re doing YouTube interviews with other experts in your field of interest, you can show some video clips while talking over them to give them a clearer image of what they’re going to get out of their subscription.

5. A call to action. This is basically you just asking them to subscribe to your channel by clicking the link to Subscribe or the Subscribe button at the end of the video.

Setting up your YouTube channel trailer

1. Make sure you’re logged into YouTube. You will see your avatar in the upper right-hand corner when you’re logged in.

2. Head over to the drop-down button beside the YouTube icon (the button with three horizontal lines) and click on ‘My Channel’.

3. Set your channel with a custom homepage. To do this, click on the cog icon next to the subscribe button.

4. Click the slider next to “Customize the layout of your channel.) Click ‘Save.’

5. Click ‘For new visitors.’ This is where you can put your channel trailer for unsubscribed visitors. The purpose of the channel trailer is to get people to subscribe, so this only shows up for those that are unsubscribed to your channel.

6. Click on the ‘(+) Channel trailer’ button and find the video that is your channel trailer. Click ‘Save.’

Once you’ve added your channel trailer, you can edit the description beside it. Here you can welcome them to your channel, let them know what you do, when your content comes out, what they should expect and ask them to subscribe.

Now you have a channel trailer every time a new person shows up that isn’t yet subscribed!