YouTube as a long-term play
A few weeks ago I shared how businesses are using YouTube to generate leads and sales. But it's more than a direct sales driver, it's just the sexiest to talk about, who doesn't want to hear about more money? Well, there are some..
My business coach mentioned something very interestingly: "People either want revenue or ego". Ego here is the attention, the eyeballs, the status, credibility, authority, ...
Here are my insights on how to use YouTube as a long-term play for your business and personal brand.
1. Consistency
There is nothing more frustrating than someone not fulfilling their promise (trust me, my wife will let me know). When setting the expectations that you will post [insest timeframe eg weekly, daily, ...] and you are not, it breaks the trust of the viewer, on top of that it makes you less relevant.
Being out there consistently, delivering value consistently, motivating consistently, ... all of this creates momentum, in the way people see you and the effectiveness of your content. So many indirect benefits from this.
With consistency also comes the quality of what you post, not just the frequency. Far too often I see people use their YouTube as a media dump. "Oh we had some testimonials we needed to share.." All the effort and resources that was put in are now obsolete, not only from an audience perspective but the actual algorithm will punish you. And if you been reading my newsletters before, algorithm = audience.
Find a format or style that you can post consistently forever without burning out. This will lead to better results.
2. Niche Niche Niche
"a specialized segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service."
By far the most used word of the event, just ahead of authenticity.
The most successful business owners at the event were catering to a small niche in the market. Same for your content, who are you targeting?
3. Core, Casual, New
There are different approaches to creating content for your audience. Part of that depends on who you are creating for.
- Core: This is the audience that will watch every video, your true following. You want to keep them happy. This is also your smallest group but will give you the most average watch time.
- Casual: They'll watch some of your videos when the topic is right. There are more of them than your core audience.
- New: This is the hardest group to attract and by far the most amount of people.
Core + Casual + New = total addressable market (TAD).
The goal is to take your new and casual audience through a journey so they become your core audience. Here is what that looks like from a 30,000 ft overview:
Every channel needs a foundation of content, How-to's, case studies, and tutorials. These are the least sexy but targeted at your core audience that provides the most value. This type of content is less likely to go "viral" as it's only for that small pocket of your TAD. You must have this foundation for the next step.
To double down on value, you can put full-on courses on your YouTube channel. This is the ultimate authority and credibility builder. A 2-hour course on everything SEO, or "How to build a chair in 2 hours". Often this can be a combination of multiple "How-to" videos you've made before on a topic. This will be the content that you will refer your new audience to in the next step.
The above can take years for some, the sooner you realize you need this and you start building this foundation, the sooner you will start growing and seeing results to your business.
The final step is to create content for your new audience while keeping your core and casual audience in mind. Look at it as you are making the topic you are talking about more sexy, and attractive but in the end still providing value.
These are usually formats that are used on TV or in mainstream media, packaged in your topic.
- "How to rank #1 on Google using only AI"
- "I painted like Bob Ross blindfolded"
- "$1 car vs $1,000,000 car"
- ...
You get the idea.
You can get quick wins on YouTube and go viral, that being said, it's more effective when your system is in place. Within YouTube to guide new audiences and turn them into core audiences. But also in your business, the step after core is to turn them into a customer or even better an ambassador of your brand as they are so invested in what you do through all the value you've shared.
