100m Views and $900 Return

0:00All right. So we are going to talk about how this one guy grew his YouTube channel. And it started in April. April 15th. grew it to 100 million views, but the return was only$900. So Neil, I'm going to share my screen over here. So those of you that are following us on YouTube, definitely subscribe to us on YouTube, but I'm sharing my screen over here. Tell me what you think about this. So this guy over here, Isaac, he says, my greatest skill, new YouTube channel launched on April 15th, now at 100 million views with a reasonable budget. I can do this for any niche, any category. So here's the proof, right so 109 million views and then you can see estimated revenue 900 391k subscribers watch time 931k what are his videos on i'm assuming it's general consumer which makes it go viral yes smart so his video is on like mini katanas so you know like the knives or the swords japanese knife swords yep so it is consumer based correct and all his videos are on katanas yeah this at least for this channel.

1:03It's so funny. Everyone optimizes for views. And I'm not saying Isaac did a bad job. Congrats on the success. Isaac a hundred million views is actually a, well, hold on one more thing before you go. So just some more context for everyone here. So it was done through 20 shorts and one long form. So that does say a lot as well. Go ahead, Neil. In marketing, don't emphasize too much on views, focus more on generating revenue. And even though the screenshot shows an estimated$907 in revenue, you probably could generate much more revenue than that. But the key is a lot of people focus on vanity metrics.

1:35Oh, look how many followers I got. Look how many subscribers I have. I have a lot of subscribers. Well, it depends who you're compared to, but like to Kardashian, no, but to the average person, sure. I have a lot of channels with over a million subscribers or followers, but if it doesn't convert into revenue, it doesn't matter. Don't focus on views, focus on conversions, whatever you're doing, try to figure out who your ideal customer is, create a persona and create content that helps them solve their problems, do everything you can to please out one single persona type. That is how you generate the most revenue out there.

2:10Yep. So here's what I'll say too. So Neil, this is my fault for not mentioning this, but someone said only$900 for 100 million views. And so this guy responds, Isaac, he says, one, it's a low CPM niche. Two, he was dumb and forgot to apply the partner program. Okay. That's a big one. Three, I don't care about the ad revenue either way. So to your point, it was more so about driving more consumer revenue. Yeah. And I don't think he was monetizing. That's why I said it's an estimated 900, which is what the stat shows in that screenshot. I think he could have made more money. My point is he did make money.

2:41He drove it to the Katana thing. So, you know, he drove conversions that way. So because it wasn't important to him, he forgot to turn the partner program on. So money was never like ad revenue was never a priority for him. So he basically How much revenue he drove for his Katana sales? He didn't. He didn't. I could be wrong, but I'm assuming if it was massive, he would have shared that number. Yeah. So he's, I mean, in this thread, he says he does this all the time. He's like, we produce like 200 new videos a month. I'm messaging him right now just to talk to him because he's based in LA. So I'm going to try to meet up with him.

3:10And then someone asked, right? That's a lot of traffic. So I'll more, I mean, dude, you know, who's responding to him? Like Jason Lemkin's responding to him, right? The founder of Saster. He's like, you're hired. And then someone else, this guy, Turner Novak, who's kind of influential on Twitter, also responded. So people are asking questions here. And this is like his tweet that went viral. It actually got like 400K views on this one tweet. And he only has like 13 ,000 subscribers or followers. It's hard to do that in all niches. He's not going to get 100 million views really quickly in B2B. I'm going to talk to him and then maybe I can share the data with everyone.

3:40So stay tuned here. Stay tuned to marketing school, everyone. This is how we're going to hook you for the future. And someone else asked, like, are you running ads? He says, I don't believe in ads. So I think this guy is really interesting. I want to talk to him and figure out how this might work. But here's the other thing, Neil. Someone asked, like, what's a reasonable budget? He said 20K for each channel. That's not bad. This guy is doing well. Congrats to him. I'm just a big believer if you're getting tons and tons of views, depending on your niche, not all niches, but some niches, it is really hard to monetize or get those views at scale, either one or the other.

4:10And the reason I'm saying this is, let's say your law firm specializing in mesothelioma, you're not going to get 100 million views. If you do get a hundred million views, 99 % of those people are not qualified to become your customer. So I wouldn't focus on views. I would focus on revenue. And typically what we see is if you get tons of views and you're going viral, most of those people are not buying. But on the flip side, if you create really niche content, and I don't mean like a ton of like a sword, but niche content that appeals to very specific people. Like I'm an engineer in a company and I'm focused on cybersecurity and you're creating content very specifically for that one person, you're not going to get the views, but you can generate more revenue just because of how related it is to their problems.

4:53So here's what I'll say about this guy that grew to a hundred million for his shorts. So one thing is you want to drive to a better monetization engine. And so he mentioned ads weren't important to him. So I have to assume that it was to drive to e-commerce store to drive better conversions. You have a higher average order value and your revenues are going to be better. Okay. That's one. The second thing is you're unable to establish a strong relationship when you're just doing shorts. I don't remember many people that do shorts. And I remember there would be these conferences where let's say someone has like TikTok 20 million followers on it.

5:25And when it came time for them to speak, nobody was watching their stuff because nobody knew who they were. So when you think about relationships in real life, do you think about all the people that you had these two minute interactions with? Or do you think about the people that you've talked to for hours? Like you remember those longer interactions. And so the thinking here is you might use shorts, but you're ideally trying to drive them to a long form type of thing where you can build a longer term relationship. And that's going to be, you're going to be able to foster a better audience and then therefore a better community long-term.

5:53And then you want to drive to a better monetization engine, right? So drive to a longer term relationship and drive to a better monetization engine. And that's how you can, you can win with this long-term. Anything else, Neil? No, that's it. All right. That is it for today. If anyone, you know, wants more views, check out his stuff. All right, that's it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe. It helps us grow, and we'll catch you later.