Meredith 0:00
This might be a controversial statement, but a YouTube trailer on your YouTube channel is just a waste of space. That is, if you use YouTube to market your business, and you use your YouTube videos to generate revenue in your business, so today I'm gonna tell you what to do instead of a channel trailer, and we're gonna talk about the three videos that every online business owner should have on your channel right now. Today, this is episode number 13 of the video brand infusion podcast. My name is Meredith, and I'm here to help you infuse the best video marketing strategies into your business so that you can generate revenue with the content you are creating. Something came up recently with a client that I was talking to about her channel. And, you know, what should I create next? What should I be working on next? You know, what are the topics that I should make? What are the tweaks do I need to change my thumbnails and that kind of thing? And in our discussion, I asked, Do you have like, where's your video? That's like, how to blank so she has a niche. And I want to know, like, Where's the video that's like, how to niche, like, how to do the thing that you have hundreds of videos on your channel about, like, Where's, where's the one, how to the one place to start, for a brand new person on her channel, and she was like, I don't really have A video like that. I've said before on this podcast, and I've I'll say it again. You want to create content around your niche. You don't necessarily always just make content about your niche. It's not always how to blank, how to blank, how to blank, right? You can't just keep making the same topic over and over again, but you should at least have the topic there. So if you just take a take a 30,000 foot view. Is that? How you say it at your channel and like, Do you have a video where you could tell somebody who is totally brand new to whatever it is that you talk about on your channel, to your niche, to what you talk about, to what you teach, to what you help people with, if they're brand new, is there an obvious video for them to watch first, or even the ultimate guide to blank and you're just telling people How to Do the thing you may not have to show exactly every single step, especially if you have a course or a program where you're teaching people every single step. And in one of maybe, like episode four or so, there's, there's an episode where I talk about, what do you put on your channel if you have a paid program, like what, what goes where? Because you can't have your everything in both places otherwise. Why would people pay for your course? Right? But you can talk about the steps of what to do or how to get started, or give the overview to a complete beginner without getting into the nitty gritty details that you teach your clients and students or teach people in your course or program. So if you don't have a video like that on your channel, it's time for you to go back to the basics. And you might even be able to film something where you're just talking to the camera and you use B roll from previous videos that you've recorded. If you do have a video on your channel that is like a very basic, you know, my niche 101, ultimate guide to blank, or how to blank, maybe it's time to update it if it's not performing very well, or if it's over a year old, maybe freshen that up a little bit update that video. So not only will it be clear for a brand new viewer of like, where they should start on your channel, like, what should they watch first? Or, you know, if they find one of your videos and now they're like, ready to go down the rabbit hole, because you've created this binge worthy YouTube channel experience for them, not only will it be obvious to them, but it'll probably also be a good SEO topic people are searching for how to blank, right? So number two, another good SEO topic for you would be whatever it is that you teach. I know this is kind of it feels vague to just be like whatever, whatever, blank, blank, blank, but whatever it is that you teach people to do to reach the desired result that people want on your channel, versus some alternative way that they're trying to get to that desire. Weird result. In my last episode, episode 12, I used the analogy of a train and a train track when you're thinking about, you know, getting really clear on what or who your niche is on YouTube, you have to have a who, you have to have a what, and those are your train tracks. But you have to have a destination, a direction of where you're going, and that is like the why and the like the desired result, it's the destination. It's like, where are we going? And so your viewers have that desired result, desired destination. And there's probably more than one way to get there, but you specialize in one particular way. If you were talking to somebody for the very first time, if I was on a call with you, and I was like, How do I get to that desired result, that desired destination? What is it that you're going to tell me to do? For example, if you tell me I want to grow my audience online, I'm gonna say YouTube is the most powerful way to grow your audience online, not Instagram, not LinkedIn, not Facebook, not Pinterest. I'm not saying those things are wrong or bad, but what I teach is YouTube, and so I think YouTube is the most powerful. I think YouTube is the best. It's the most fun. So people are searching this versus that when they're making a decision because they haven't started doing something yet. So what do you teach? What do you help people with? What's your niche? What is in marketing and messaging, speak, what is your vehicle that you teach people to use to get to that desired result. And then, what is an alternative counting macros versus high intensity workouts? You know, for a dog trainer, like a shock collar versus some, some other alternative way, whatever it is that you teach, what's the alternative that people are using that you think it'd really be better if you did it the way that I teach how to do it. Make a video about that. It's the perfect opportunity to not only show up as a search result, but also educate your potential clients and customers, your viewers on these topics that you're a subject matter expert in and they may have questions that they leave in the comments that you can then use in future videos as well, or they might ask about other ways. And now you can make another video, same concept, same video, but introduce another alternative that you see people using and make the case why that's not as good as what you teach people how to do. And the third thing you heard me mention that a YouTube trailer is just a waste of space on your channel. And what I mean by this, I have to pull up some notes here, because if you're not aware, and not everybody is, by the way, YouTube has a feature on your channel, on every channel where you can upload what it calls a channel trailer, and it defines this as your channel. Trailer offers a preview of your channel so viewers can learn more and subscribe. The whole point of a channel trailer is to introduce your channel and entice people to hit that subscribe button.
Meredith 8:26
But if you're here making videos to market your business, you already know, I mean, if you've watched my other episodes, you already know that hitting the subscribe button doesn't really help you grow your business. It's kind of a vanity metric. Yes, we all want subscribers, of course we do, but it doesn't actually help your business grow. It doesn't actually help you generate revenue, but the feature, the channel trailer, feature that YouTube gives you is a prominent spot on your channel. It's at the very top of your channel, and the video is big. It's bigger than the regular videos, and it will play for people who aren't subscribed, and if they are subscribed, then it won't play at all, which then you can use a featured video, which is another feature of YouTube that goes in the same spot in the back end of your channel. Under the customizations, you can decide which video on your channel you want to select as your channel trailer and which one you want to select as your featured video. So you could choose the same video there, so that everybody who lands on your channel is getting a video that you select at the very top of your channel. But it's not designed to get people to hit subscribe. This is very important. It's designed as a billboard to get your ideal customers attention. Attention, your ideal client's attention, because you're addressing the thing that they're there for. You're addressing that desired result, that desired destination, the whole reason they're watching your videos to begin with. So what I mean by this is, put a video at the top. I like to think of it as a billboard, because it's big and it's meant to get people's attention. It's meant to get the right person's attention, your ideal client or customer, which might not be every viewer on your channel, but it's meant to get your ideal client or customer's attention by calling out the thing that they want, the desired result that they want build a thriving YouTube channel without spending forever creating videos. The thing people want is to they want a thriving YouTube channel. They want a YouTube channel that grows, but they don't want to spend forever creating videos. They don't want to spend forever recording and editing and and I get that people don't really want to have to do that. The video that I have for my channel, trailer or featured video at the top of my channel is exactly that. It's how to build your binge worthy or how to build your thriving YouTube channel without spending forever creating videos. The key here is that I've got the attention of my ideal client or customer, but I'm not teaching you every single thing, every single step, because I teach that in my course, but I am telling you where you can start to eliminate that obstacle of spending forever creating videos. And the way that I have it structured is that you opt in to my freebie as a free video. It's not a download, it's a video you opt in to watch that you get my three by four method. And I'm teaching you how to create one. No, I'm teaching how to create 12 videos in the same amount of time it would normally take you to create just one video, and that's the top of my YouTube funnel. So I don't have a channel trailer trying to get you to subscribe. It doesn't matter if you subscribe. What I really want is to help you to build your thriving YouTube channel and help you figure out a way to do it where you don't have to spend forever creating your content and spend hours and hours recording and editing every single week. So I put that billboard video at the top of my channel instead of a channel trailer. Now you already know that I love the set it and forget it. YouTube funnel, I teach that in episode one is where I dive into how that works on my channel and how you could apply it to your channel. But you don't have to even have something to sell. You don't have to have a course or a program. You don't even really have to have a freebie to create this billboard video at the top of your channel and put it in your trailer position. I do really strongly think that it's good practice to think about what what do I What would the title be? What would I have to say in my video to make sure that my ideal clients and customers and my ideal audience knows right away, this channel is for me. This person is for me. This is the go to person that I'm like. So glad I found this person on YouTube. So like I said, I already gave this example, but I like the title structure of how to get desired result without some obstacle or objection that people think they have to do that you're you're going to help them eliminate that, or at least reduce that obstacle. And this is really fun. This should be really fun. I hope this is really fun for you, because it gives you an opportunity to come up with ways. How could you help somebody eliminate that obstacle? I remember coming up with the concept of my billboard video, my lead getter video, and my three by four method, by thinking about how, like, the number one thing that I hear people say when I'm asking, What are you struggling with with YouTube or video or like, why haven't you started YouTube or video? It's always time. It's always time. I don't have time to figure it out. I don't have time to make videos. I don't have time to edit my videos, and I can't do it for you. I can teach you how to edit videos, but i can't i. Can teach you tips to edit videos faster, but I can't really make you edit videos faster. I can't really make you create videos faster, because everybody's different. Your videos are different from my videos, but I can give you a little I guess I like to think of it like a toolbox. I can give you a little toolbox of here are 12 videos that you could make really easily and really quickly in the same amount of time it would normally take you to create just one. And they might not be the same videos that you normally create on your channel, but these videos are going to perform really well for you, and they're going to be easy to create. And I just put this little toolbox together. I called it the three by four method. It's, well, you can find it at the top of my funnel, at the top of my channel. You've probably already seen it, but I had to, kind of like, Get Get creative and come up with a way of helping solve that obstacle, of that this just takes too much time. So if you are currently working on, I don't, I don't have a lead magnet or a freebie or anything like that to give away.
Meredith 16:18
What could you create that could eliminate your clients and customers biggest obstacle or biggest pain point. Now you have a lead magnet, you have a freebie, you have a reason for people to join your list. Now you create that billboard video at the top of your channel, in the trailer position, in the Featured Video position, and instead of letting that video try and get people to hit subscribe, it's actually getting people to subscribe to your email list and subscribe to a way to hear from you outside of YouTube, which is really powerful. It's sort of the glue that makes the whole YouTube funnel stick together, getting people onto your email list. So to recap, if you don't have a bare bones, basics, where to start, what to do, a 101, type of video on your channel, for your niche, for what it is that your clients, customers, viewers are on your channel to accomplish. Make sure that you focus on that maybe not in your very next video. Maybe take a little time to figure out what exactly do I want to put in here, where I'm not going to give away everything that I teach, but that's going to be a really important video to have on your channel for SEO and for the people who are just finding you for the first time and going down the rabbit hole. And number two, a video comparing the way that you teach how to do something versus alternative ways of doing the thing. And then the third thing is instead of a trailer as a preview of your channel to get people to subscribe, create a billboard video that attracts your ideal clients and customers and gets them into your email list. And if you want to hear more about that billboard video and how it fits into a set it and forget it. YouTube funnel, I covered all of those details in episode one, there's some great visuals of how it all works together, so that the content you create on your channel actually funnels traffic to ways of working with you, so that your channel can generate revenue and not just grow subscribers.
