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Meet the King of Video: Matt Hughes
I had a video production company for seven years. The company specialized in creating videos for B2B companies but also created videos for a wide variety of clients.
I did that for years, and that's how I learned how you could earn from YouTube, how to make content for YouTube successfully, and everything YouTube-related.
I then switched careers and became a YouTube mentor, and I mentor business owners and businesses and help them get started on YouTube. I work with them to establish their business brand on YouTube and monetize it.
I am a dad, a rebel, and unapologetically myself, and that's the number one piece of advice I will give you all today: Be Yourself.
If you're stepping into content creation, being who you are is very important. Don't try to imitate someone on YouTube. You can take inspiration from other content creators, but you should never try to imitate their work. Research their content to learn, but never try to copy it. It doesn't work that way.
Why Video Content?
"According to a study by HubSpot, video content on social media platforms generates 12 times more shares than text and image posts combined. Videos have a higher likelihood of grabbing users' attention, encouraging them to like, comment, and share, thus increasing engagement with your brand."
HubSpot is all about content and content marketing, and one of their studies proved that video content gets more attention on social media platforms. Matt has the same belief that video content gets more attention and engagement on social media platforms.
Businesses need to grab their customer's attention. It all starts with having their target audience's attention because you can't solve a problem for them if they aren't listening to you.
Video is the best medium for you to get your message across. You can have fun with video content creation because there's so much you can do to make great videos.
It's just not about recording a video and posting it online. It's a whole process.
The time you spend in the process will always be more than the time you spend shooting and editing a video, and that's where the real difference lies. If you do not spend time getting it right in the process, the idea won't translate on the screen.
What does the video process look like?
The process behind video content creation is very important, regardless of whether you're making it for YouTube or any other social media platform.
- Review past videos - research should always be the starting point for your videos.
- Lock in the complete concept before going to the shooting stage.
- Brief your team; this specifically applies to companies and agencies.
- Get props before starting the shoot. If you're a small business shooting a product video, buy all the props before you go on the floor to shoot it.
- Choose your equipment. If you're a small business and shoot videos on your phone, figure out everything before you start shooting.
- Decide the app and tools you will be using to edit
- Give the final content to your social team to create copy and schedules for the posts.
Many people skip this process, but it saves you hours you would spend redoing your content if you didn't follow it. Following a process gives you clarity on what you need to make a video for YouTube from an idea. If you don't really go through these steps with your idea, then it will be all over the place.
So, now you know how to make YouTube videos, but how do you monetize them? You don't just want to make videos; you also want to get business from them.
How Do You Monetize Your YouTube Videos?
YouTube has helped people make careers. They are earning a substantial amount of money on and off the platform. YouTube influencers have successfully made a career out of the platform and are now earning a living out of it.
Whether you're a business starting out on YouTube or an individual creator, it is essential to have a strategy in place. If you start making YouTube videos without a strategy in place, it will be tough to earn from it.
Most people think the only way to earn money from YouTube is through the platform, which isn't right. Most successful YouTubers don't earn money from the platform but off it.
95% of their money is off-platform, and that's what Matt will teach you in the webinar.
Don't just dump stuff on YouTube
Whenever I start a session, I ask the listeners: "What is YouTube"?
Most people think it's where people post cat videos, life hacks, cooking recipes, workout videos, inspirational videos, and vlogs. I will tell you what YouTube isn't today.
What businesses do on YouTube isn't what YouTube is. If you're a business and you're already on YouTube, and all you do is dump stuff there, then that's exactly what YouTube isn't.
If you're posting your Zoom sessions, webinars, and podcasts there without any strategy, then it will never work for you.
Most businesses do this dumping, and when the analytics show nothing, they don't understand where they went wrong. Many business owners don't know how these platforms work. They don't understand the difference between aimlessly posting something and having a strategy.
"It's not that YouTube isn't working for your business; you're not doing YouTube right for your business."
Let me share a story. I came across this woman named Erica Kohlberg, and she had around 10,000 subscribers on YouTube then. She had 75000 subscribers two years ago, and today, when I updated this presentation, she now has 1.26 million followers.
You might think that this is an ordinary journey, but what fascinates me about her is that she was a lawyer before she became a YouTuber. She took a risk and decided that she would pursue this and strategically started it.
She wasn't just dumping content but had an obvious strategy for what she wanted and how to achieve it.
This is not to say you should quit your day job because that's not the right approach. Erica did because she was very strategic and knew precisely how to get what she wanted.
She created a video on stimulus checks during covid, which blew up. Why would such a video blow up? It went viral because she took a legal and complex concept and made it simple for the audience to understand.
Your target audience will appreciate it if you can solve a problem without making it unnecessarily complex. If you can get your message across and keep it simple, then that's a content creation win for you.
She then knew what she could do for her audiences. She started talking about money, investments, and savings, which became her niche. You can build an audience and authority when your content resonates with people. Your audience is your community, which differentiates you from everyone on the internet. Your community differentiates your business from others.
It puts you and your business at an advantage. You can sell your product/services to them, and building trust and authority will make them buy it. These can be either physical or digital products, like courses or downloads.
If you're a small creator or business, the five A's are for you. It is for you if you have just started or looking to start out on YouTube.
What if I tell you that you don't need to spend on paid ads to trend on Google?
Matt shared that his most famous YouTube video is the one that he hates. It's 90 seconds long, and he made it when he had around 100 subscribers. He was trending at the top of Google searches with that video.
Isn't it better to make a video and answer something someone is searching for?
But how do you make videos that actually solve a problem for your target audience?
- ICP research
- Know their pain points
- Niche down
ICP research
If you're a YouTube content creator, first and foremost, you should define your "Ideal Customer Profile." It is very important to know your ideal customer and their pain points. The more you know who you're making videos, the higher chance of you solving a problem for them.
If you're making YouTube videos without knowing your ideal customer, you're trying to hit the bullseye in the dark. It's the same with any social media platform, but especially with YouTube, as there's tons of content lying there, and you don't want to get lost somewhere there.
Know your target audience's pain points
If there's one thing that you should master when you're starting to figure out your ideal customer, then that is to understand their pain points. You can't make content that resonates with your target audience if you don't understand their pain points.
You can't add value to their lives with your content if you don't know what they need help with. When starting out on YouTube, many people miss this part, and it's not usually too late when they realize the mistake.
You can't build an active community for your YouTube channel if your audience's pain points aren't at your fingertips. It's easy to start a YouTube channel, but it's difficult to understand what content your audience interacts with.
Niche it down
"More than 500 hours of video content are uploaded to YouTube every minute."
There is tons of content being posted every minute on YouTube, so you should niche it down. YouTube has content divided into different niches, and people search for niche content. Do you want to make food videos? Make the food industry your niche. Make a name for yourself in that niche. This is how you stand out from the crowd.
If you have gone through these three steps, you have topics for your videos. The researched pain points of your audience are your video topics. This process gives you weeks of content. You don't have to worry about video topics if you research them correctly.
Direct Your Audience to Other Platforms
Once you have figured all this out, and as I discussed above that 95% will be earned from the platform. People aren't just earning directly from YouTube, but they are using YouTube and their established authority on YouTube to earn on multiple other platforms.
Think of it as when LinkedIn creators actively build their email lists. Why do they do that? They build their email lists and newsletter to earn money through PR, courses, and webinars.
It's similar to having a YouTube subscribers list; you can direct your audience to your Instagram, Twitter, and email lists. You can give links to your different channels, courses, and podcasts in the description and ask them to follow you there.
You should always leave your audience with a call to action. You should always clearly tell them what action you want from them. For example, if you sell merch on Etsy, ask viewers to support your channel by buying the merch. You should always clearly tell them what action you want from them.
Think of your YouTube videos as an asset library. You can keep using this library to repurpose content. You can use your videos in your newsletter. You can send out an old video, but why make new content if it's relevant? You should always work smart with your content.
Every creator does this. Every creator repurposes content. No one gets into shooting a new video every time. It can be used if someone is asking something and you have done a video on it years ago. YouTube videos are an asset to be utilized over time, and when you think of it this way, you get all the more reasons to keep shooting videos.
Send clients the YouTube playlist
YouTube is an asset library, as we have discussed above, but how do you share these assets? Everyone is busy. Attention spans are short. People like to skim through content. They wouldn't want to get the link to a YouTube video that diverts them to an unnecessary video towards the end, wasting their time.
As a business and content creator, your content is your social proof. It builds your authority. It positions you as an expert in your niche. When someone asks a question, and you want to send something from your asset library, it's always a good practice to have playlists.
Playlists are a better way of organizing content. Send them the link to the specific playlist and save them time. Your potential business clients will appreciate this.
They will likely watch the following video in your playlist if the first one keeps them hooked. Organize your playlist in a way that tells a story, solves a problem, builds curiosity, and keeps them hooked.
This gives you a chance to establish your authority and trust. The more content they watch, the better chance of you securing business.
The best example of this is HubSpot playlists. They have organized their videos so that you automatically keep watching. Every video is an extension of the last video and solves the problem in even future or adds value.
This is exactly what you want to achieve with your YouTube playlists.
Make Long Form YouTube Content and Repurpose
YouTube is a long-form content medium. It thrives with long-form content, but you need short-form content for your other platforms.
You don't have the time to create both long-form and short-form content separately, and that's understandable. You should create long-form content for YouTube and use that long video and trim it into shorter videos.
You can post those short videos on LinkedIn. Write Twitter threads on the same topics and add snippets of videos in that thread.
Learn to repurpose content cleverly. It's a skill that every creator should learn and ace.
Ways to earn indirectly from YouTube
- YouTube Adsense
- Affiliate marketing
- Video Ads
- Leads
Matt shared how he had a client who offered 1:1 coaching services. She didn't have that many subscribers or views on YouTube, but she managed to close a deal worth 6000 pounds from a troll in the comments.
She secured a high-paying client with 150 subscribers, which shows how subscribers aren't the only measure of your chances to earn from YouTube. You can have thousands of subscribers and might never close a high-ticket deal; you might close a high-ticket deal with a hundred subscribers.
As discussed above, give your audience a clear CTA. You want to tell them what you need them to do towards the end of the video. Do you want them to join your Facebook group? Link it in the description box and write a clear copy asking them to join it.
This way, you're leaving them with some action. You are building a community in that Facebook group to help you get business later.
YouTube isn't just restricted to earning opportunities directly from the platform. It's much more than that. You might have seen how TikTok content creators divert their audiences to YouTube. Instagram influencers are doing the same. The platform is more secure for content creators and has more opportunities to earn and grow hence the shift.
If you're considering starting out or are already on the platform, you must have a strategy. You need to know your target audience, their pain points, and what they search for on the platform. You must divert your audience to a mailing list to generate more revenue streams.
With the right strategy in place, the progress might be slow initially but will compound over time. Don't hesitate to add more when you don't see much initially. All good things take time; the same is true with YouTube. Diversify your revenue streams, and you will have more than one avenue to earn.
Want to create YouTube video content with one tool? Start with BIGVU today.
Don't forget to get your hands on Matt's playbook to get started on YouTube.
