YouTube Growth Strategies with Evan Carmichael

24:43So yeah, that's a great question. It's like, it always comes back to what do you want to sell? I want to help you sell stuff, right? I went to a YouTube event and this guy had 6 million YouTube subscribers and just hired his first VA to help him because he's doing everything himself. It's like, how do you not have a business? This is crazy, right? Where I started with like business in mind first. So what are you trying to sell? And then show me the process. You mentioned micro content. So like you're taking your videos and you're you're spicing them by spicing them up into a bunch of content. Like are you filming individual things for micro clips?

25:16Are you taking? I do both. So I have long and short form content that I create. Okay. So let me pull up. This is what's called an audience retention curve. This is the most important thing for data. I love data. I love data driven decisions. I don't know if you guys love data nerds in the house. I love it. YouTube gives you the most data of all the platforms, and so you can geek out forever. But if you don't love data, this is the most important thing that you have to pay attention to. This shows you, so Curve, if I try to kind of replicate what's on there, it's kind of like going like this here, up, down, and then, you know, across, right?

25:47And that's a, this is a 14-minute video, right? But this could be an hour. This could be two hours. This is showing you second by second where people are falling off in your video, right? So if you look at the start here, this sucks. Like you just lost half of the people in the first 30 seconds of this video. This isn't me saying that you suck. This is, I love you. This is like your structure here sucks. Right. And for a lot of videos, this is actually not new for most people here, right? Like you have a hook on a landing page, but then when we go to YouTube, we kind of forget all of this stuff, right?

26:25So, you know, on rolling on one of your videos, like your most recent video here, you're doing a thing on stage, but it's not you at the start. It's somebody doing an intro with you. Okay. If I don't know you, I don't want to sit through this intro, right? So same thing, like if you were making a landing page, what would the opening be? You have a headline and a sub-headline, not somebody saying who this person is. And definitely not saying, hey guys, welcome back, it's me, Evan, thank you, wow, happy Thursday, great to be here. This is how we start our videos. But you know you'd never use that opening for anything else in any of your other marketing.

27:04But then when we go to YouTube, we kind of forget all the stuff that we know about marketing. So when you see something like this, it's like, okay, well, this sucks. We need to fix our intro. Because we're assuming we're targeting people who have no idea who we are. So Roland's got 10 ,000 subscribers. Cool. Like let's 100x out. Let's get him a million The way to do that is to target people have no idea who he is So if i'm watching the video and it's not capturing my attention right away, i'm out But if you catch him for the first minute They'll watch two hours Because you're the only guy teaching the something you know So the intro sucks, but then you have these moments right like on here.

27:40Oh, let me go back here You have these moments like you have a little you have a little peak here. You have a little peak here, right? And this is a big peak on that graph. What is that? How does that happen? People are leaving the video. How do we have a spike in the middle? Or? Or rewinding. So they're either like, this sucks so much that I'm going to fast forward and just skip it. Or it's like, wait, what did he just say? And they rewind it to go watch it again. When you're looking at doing your micro clips, this is the stuff that you click. You like that one? That was good? That was good. Right?

28:19It's like you don't have to have your team sit there and like fight over which clip was good and which one wasn't good. Like the data is showing you. And in enrolling a 40-minute presentation, this is going to have lots of these little spiky moments. And so you just have to go like here and here and here and here. Like these are all little clips that you can put across all the channels. Those become like 45-second Instagram reels. Those become one-liner tweets. and especially when you're working with somebody you're gonna say tons of genius things that maybe you've never said before and I have clips for yeah yeah what we had been doing was because we have we have video calls that are group training calls and so we've been clipping the things that were questions that were answered in those calls and they just haven't made it here so we'll have to get on that because we have that content already from the zoom calls in the training and putting that up is great.

29:15Yeah. Yeah. I like that a lot. When you release long form content on YouTube, because you're releasing your one hour shows, your one hour consults, you posted to YouTube, you get the best data here saying where people are falling off. And then that gives you 40 different clips to put across all your channels. So you don't have, you're definitely not doing it. And even team doesn't have to sit there and struggle to figure out like, what are we going to post? You look at the data. Yeah. So I'm thinking about how do we create content without having to create more content. Um, but that content that I I'm guessing, and I'm asking for everybody here, if we're doing coaching calls effectively within our community, then posting that content shows us doing what we're doing.

29:54Does that something, is that something that seems like it would be something that would work here? Cause it is giving them examples of you literally doing the thing that you do. Yeah, for sure. If they get a, if they get a change in the call. Yeah. Right. Like if you end the call, I go, that's yeah, no, we're solving problems all the time. I mean, it's in, so that's actually kind of cool because I, because you don't want to have to create more content. So if you're doing coaching calls or trainings or any of those kinds of things already, then that's a great place to get that. Right. As long as there's ideally buying at the beginning or you ask for permission afterwards, but if you're doing a show show, then you get the buy-in or they're not coming on.

30:29You don't get rolling. Right. If they're clients and that may not be part of the buying, then you have to ask afterwards, Hey, do you mind who put that up there. I just surprised them. Just hope everything works out okay. Just, you didn't get that one from me. So audience retention curve, like super important, most important piece of data to pay attention to. It also helps you make better data. Like quite often, you'd be shocked at how often this is some, like, that was the moment? Like if you watched it back, you said, what did I do there? What did I say there? And you're shocked that that was the moment.

31:01But the audience is telling you, yeah, that's the moment. So do more stuff like that. not just clip it, but do more. Maybe you have another video just dedicated to whatever topic this was. Right? So you're just using data to become better creators. Not anything new to you guys. You guys know what you're doing, but just I'm helping you bring it into a YouTube world. I think you have a couple of people with questions. Oh yeah. A question on this? You're saying the intro sucks. So does a bumper work or does it need to be more organic? A bumper meaning a pre-edited log line to ensure you're not going to work?

31:32structure. Okay. And I won't go like soup, like this is, let me give you a structure. And this is good for Roland. It's good for everybody. Okay. So the beginning, we need our hook. Okay. Nothing new. You guys know we need a hook. So what does the hook look like in video? Well, if Roland's going to speak on stage or if Roland's going to do a consulting call, you don't know what the best, like the beginning kind of sucks. Hey, Susan, nice to meet you. Like, tell me about your business and where you're all about. And then you're going to ask eight questions and then you're going to get to the goal that's coming up and you can get there faster, but it's still a couple minutes of rapport building and it kind of sucks.

32:06We're assuming people have no idea who you are. It's the first time seeing it. What am I watching? Right? So what you do is you take the highlight moments and put it at the beginning. I need Susan saying, Roland, you just saved me a million dollars. I love you. That's the first 20 seconds of the video. That's good. Right? When you're doing a speech, same thing. Like whatever the highlight moments are, whenever you get the most animated or the most claps, like clips. This is not anything new, right? You go to watch a TV show coming up on this episode of Survivor, the drama, whatever happens, right?

32:37Like we're just taking those same things and we're putting it into a YouTube video. When you were doing a standalone video, like it's you just direct the camera, you can control that better. You can lead with a hook. You can have a powerful opinion out of the gate, right? You're not going to say, hey guys, welcome back, it's me. But when you're with somebody else, you can't control the intro. It's going to be kind of crappy, a podcast, you know, you have Arnold on, he's going to say something great, but probably not the first thing out of his mouth. Right. Right. Now I know who Arnold is. So cool.

33:04That's going to help. But in general, when you're with somebody else, you take the highlight moments and you, you have a, the bumper is not a look at how fancy I am and New York times bestselling off it. Like nobody cares about that stuff yet. Cause they don't know who you are. They give to give me a reason to watch. And so it's the most emotional moment from whatever happened there bumper at the beginning. So yes, bumper, I forget who asked that question. Yeah. Yes, bumper but not a stock thing that's on every single video it's from inside that video the best moment and cut right next got one more oh yeah okay yeah hey i'm steve siebold the thing i've watched you do this for years and what i don't get is the quantum leap like when you show the numbers of your subscribers like you get more videos on the video the more views on the video you did about me years ago than i get on my own okay and so what i don't understand is how did you go like from the first the quantum leap in in subscribers how how does that happen because it's just so it seems like such a slow build yeah a lot of it is just getting smarter right if i go back you look at the growth here yeah i don't know where quantum leap is for you on this chart is it like from 2000 to 9000 well looks like 9000 to 38 38 to 294 yeah compared to your first four you know four years or three years whatever i like it's following this like a lot of it i got smarter.

34:20In this structure that I'm going through now, this is it. Even leading with a hook is so important. Imagine having a killer product and a killer landing page, but the headline and subheadlines suck. It doesn't matter what's below it. Nobody's going to watch it because the headline and subheadlines suck, so they're bouncing. A lot of it is coming to stuff like this. You guys are awesome. When I first started, I would never have come to this. I would be too embarrassed. I'm shy. I'm introverted. It doesn't come across like when I'm on stage doing stuff, but I would never have come here. I would have never asked questions.

34:52I'd never attend sessions. And so you guys, I bet I've already seen huge growth in your business as a result of coming to TNC, whether it's this time or previous times. And so it's like it's the investment in learning to really go off and do it. So teaching you the structure. But it's not just the growth, right? Like I want you to make money. What do you sell? Let's make that happen. Okay. Thanks, Seth. Just a really quick one on the strategy you shared with recording the client calls. How do you title and optimize that for discoverability? Or is that not for discoverability? You do other videos for discoverability and these are just for more like value?

35:27This is great. So this is great for everybody. How do you call the video? What do you title it so they can start getting views? Most people think YouTube is a search engine. And it is. We all heard YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. Most views don't happen on search though. Most views happen by what gets recommended to you in suggested. So the game is not ranking for keywords in search, the game is ranking after other existing videos. So if I'm rolling, I'm doing a consulting video, I don't care about ranking for how to be a consultant, or how to earn equity as a consultant.

36:06I'm looking at what are the other videos that have already done well on those channels currently on YouTube, and I want to rank after them because Roland's better than those guys, right? And hopefully, like, you are better than the people. This is what is frustrating is that there's so much demand. Like, everybody's going to YouTube to search for this stuff, and there's so little supply. When you say, oh, am I too late? Is it oversaturated? Like, who's actually posting? Who's talking about this on YouTube? Zero. in your industry, like relationships, who's actually good? Like how much supply is there?

36:40Not a lot. What do you talk about? What's your business? Well, I do, I'm the head of marketing for a software company, but my YouTube channel is, I do affiliate marketing. Cool. So there are some people doing affiliate marketing on YouTube? Yeah. Are you better than them? In some ways. Well, but that's what we focus on. Like for most industries, am I too late? There's only a handful of people who are doing it. There aren't 50 people making videos on affiliate marketing that have any level of quality. And how many people care about affiliate marketing that are going to YouTube to search? Millions, right?

37:15So there's giant demand, little supply, and maybe almost zero quality supply. Right. So the game becomes people like a 25-year-old life coach example, right? Like coming on, they're getting millions of views off of their video. affiliate marketers sharing their advice they're already getting millions of views off of their videos consultants already getting millions of views off their videos awesome your job isn't to rank for the term your job is to rank after their video right and and just a quick follow-up on that is it not to get too nerdy with the algorithm but you have like a small window there where good where youtube will push you for a little bit to see if your video is good is that no it's all like that's that's a different game that's a news cycle browse game so if you're This strategy does not work if you're covering new stuff, right?

38:01If you're talking about Russia or COVID or whatever, right? That matters, what happens right now. Suggested is evergreen content. We don't even look at our numbers until 30, 60, 90 days out. This is a difference between a Mr. Beast-like launch, we need to get it popping hard, versus evergreen thought leadership education content. Got it. Because the stuff that you share is evergreen. How do you rank? Do you do anything different to rank after the other guys or? The easiest way to do it is a similar title to what they used. Okay. So you're taking a similar title, you call your video almost the same thing or the same thing depending on, you know, what it is.

38:41Okay. And then it's about getting people to watch. Cool. So the hook is important, right? Like the first minute matters. If any data nerds here, 70 % at one minute becomes the goal. 70, this is hard. 70 % at one minute. You got one more person. Can you hold them, hold their attention so that one minute into the video, 70 % of people are still watching. Yeah. Hey, Evan. Sally Hogshead. Hey, Sally. Hi. I have a question I'm a little shy about asking. Let's go. You got it. Let's go, Sally. Come on. Woo!

39:19I think this might be a dirty little secret and I wanted to find out your take on it. Okay. Okay. Can I have permission to say something that's embarrassing? I was talking with a group of entrepreneurs and we were talking about how it can be more difficult for women to do impromptu video because there's a higher level of expectation for how a woman looks on video that it's, it's more, I mean, we can all agree a woman can't just roll out of bed and do a video in quite the same way that a guy can, unless that's your brand, which is cool. And so what we were talking about was how if you look at video quality, production quality in terms of A, B, and C, an A quality video is one that you have hair and makeup, you have practice, it's articulate, maybe you have a teleprompter, but it's killer.

40:07C quality is like, hey guys, I'm here at the burger stand eating my hot dog what the the the concept that this group of entrepreneurs came up with was women can either do an a or a c but you can't have a b what do you think of that so first off i'm not a woman so you know obviously but you're a viewer you're a critic and an expert and a connoisseur yeah and and so it depends on like what does your audience actually care about like does it does it matter to the audience or not and what's the ideal client that you're trying to bring it just like everything else who is your ideal market what are they looking at in you and is that the brand that you want to be if you're positioning yourself as i am the perfect woman who's got it all figured out then you better look that you better be that because that's what you're selling if you're saying what about branding up until a certain point because up until recently great branding especially for women was really more about having a certain look and style and attitude and only recently has it become a lot more authentic and deconstructed and so it's a difficult shift i mean for guys too there's a lot there's a lot of momentum towards just being authentic like in my industry mel robbins is probably the number one yeah i was just about to say she's a she's an outstanding example of somebody who's really kind of broken that glass ceiling but she does both i mean the mirror and like she'll do super high-end tv show level fancy stuff and then she'll be in the back of her taxi or like I just woke up in bed and hey everybody I've got a message on my heart right and she shares it so how much of it is actually like just a story in your head versus actually what's real but it's more like who are the people who I want to attract in in me in this presentation I care about education and thought leadership that's what I'm great at I don't want I don't want the news or the crazy trending stuff it's like you i want to help you sell more stuff which brings some people in and kick some people up okay that's helpful so you're saying we shouldn't do catfishing i don't know what's catfishing what is what's catfishing i'm i don't know i'm a canadian i don't know that we have that word in canada capping is when you look a certain way in real life but you don't look that way in your social media profiles i love authenticity like yeah i I think that's the best marketing of all time, but you can like that works.

42:27If, but as soon as that crumbles, then like, as soon as people see you without your makeup on or whatever, then does that just destroy the brand that you built for yourself? So I should take off my toupee. Go for it. Okay, cool. Thanks. Cheers. We got another one. Okay. Let me ask a question about the, um, the first minute. Yeah. So real quick, um, I run a channel called HubSpot hacks and I teach people how to use HubSpot on YouTube. like we've we've seen very similar growth on our subscribers like you have so that's good to know yeah um and i look like this on my videos like i don't have a dress and like i shoot it and like check it out that the answer to that question is right there yeah but in the first minute we used to use a bumper so that we actually had like our brands but we we found that we were losing some like like eyeballs in that first minute yeah but like if i haven't watched your videos roll and i to after this what are you suggesting for making sure that there's a brand visibility and like like any logos or graphics or whatever in that first minute nobody cares yet no like you don't need to have it in the first minute nobody cares about your brand yet you have to earn that you got to earn that by saying something awesome this is where most people that chart that i showed you here is like if i if i actually were to watch this video it's probably all brands like i don't know who you are i don't care yet teach me something okay you might have to maybe test that a little bit.

43:45The best brand equity that you can build with them is not them seeing the logo, it's them spending time with you. Okay. Okay. So do you love Roland because of his logo and the color scheme? It's no, like this guy's a genius and he's teaching me something. He's changing my life. That's the brand. Okay. Oh, yeah. Let me finish this because I think this would be helpful, like in structuring a video that will actually help you convert to sales. So like the hook matters, 70 % retention at one minute. The hook at the beginning is you pitching something like the value of this video, or if you're doing coaching, the highlight moments, 20, 30 seconds, highlight moments at the beginning to get people to watch.

44:20Okay. Two, we need to call to action in the middle of the video. This is where people screw up. People put the call to action at the end, get Joe's free book at the end, right? Or, or hire me or whatever at the end. No, no, no, you put it in the middle of the video. I want everybody to have a lead magnet. You guys know what that is? A lead magnet in the middle of the video, but then you're linking in the description below. So halfway through a video, if you're doing a coaching call, you're not going to interrupt yourself. You know, hey, by the way, guys, like, hey, if you want my lead magnet, there's something below.

44:49But you filmed, I mean, Joe did this. He's doing interviews with people or 10-minute talks on his channel for Genius Network. And Joe comes on five minutes in and says, hey, guys, I got a book, Joe's free book. And he started generating leads for his free book while being on sabbatical for an entire year, just filming this video and generating leads for his business. Like, I need people to go off of social and into your email list, right? So we can sell them stuff. Once they're on your email list, you guys know way better than I do on what to do with them. But how do we generate leads? And so inside your video is a lead magnet that they get for their email address exchange.

45:24So halfway through, you interrupt video either yourself or an ad that says, hey, you want to know XYZ? There's a link in the description below. Go click it. I'll see you there, right? In the middle. You do it at the beginning, everybody's going to bounce. You do it at the end, everybody's going to bounce. You do it in the middle so that, like, that's interesting, but they'll keep watching the video, right? And the ones who aren't, they stop watching the video because they've gone to go click on your lead packet. What would you rather have? I want them to click on my lead packet because I got their email address, right?

45:48So the call to action needs to happen and needs to be in the middle. And then just quickly, last thing here is the ending is what's next. What you want to do, and if you need an example, just look at any of my videos, you'll see at the end of every video, you lead them to another video. Don't say thank you for watching. Don't ask them to subscribe to your channel. I have three and a half million subscribers on my channel. I never ask anybody to subscribe to my channel. They'll subscribe because they love you. So your job is to get them to watch the next video. At the end of the video, use no language that feels like it's over.

46:22No closing language. You know, like, thank you guys for watching. No. It's the end of the session for you, but it's not the end of the session for them. Right? Treat it like it's the end of the first quarter in a basketball game. So after they're done that first video, if they watch one video of Roland on stage crushing it, there should be a thing at the end saying, hey, if you want to see another speech where I did at TNC last year, go click there. I'll see you there. Not I'll see you later or I'll see you soon. Go click on it. I'll see you there. You're continuing the journey with them. At the last 20 seconds of every video, you can actually show something on, it's called an end screen.

46:55You can have a video on there that you can go and lead people to. So if you follow this format, we're hooking people so that they watch it, right? We're getting people. to actually stay on the video, YouTube's going to reward us. We're getting a call to action so that we can start collecting email addresses on sell the stuff that we're trying to sell. And at the end, we'll continue the session and go to the next video so YouTube continues to reward us and we're building our brand with the audience. That's what I got. That's awesome. Thank you. Let's give him a hand. Thank you. I will, we've got to move on and there's other things happening, but I will go to the carpet outside if you guys have questions.

47:27Happy to, it's my favorite thing to do. So let's give it up one more time for Evan and Roland, you guys.

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