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Marketing videos are a great way to build your audience, generate leads, and close sales today…and there’s a strategy behind each approach. Video marketing expert Owen Video shares his secrets on what type of videos will help grow your business in this week’s Agent of Change podcast.
Rich: My guest today is the award-winning YouTube growth strategist and high-performance coach behind the nation’s most visible leaders and influential brands. Period, full stop. It’s often said that you can judge a man by the length of his bio. The shorter it is, the more confident he is in his own skill set. No one actually ever said that, but I have found that to be true. And that’s all I got from as a bio from today’s guest. Thankfully he has a YouTube channel with an ‘about’ section. So here are a few more juicy tidbits for you all.
He has consulted for major brands like North Face, Oracle, and Exelon. He’s helped his clients achieve millions of views and generate millions of dollars in sales and brand sponsorship. He has been invited to speak all over the globe, and has been featured in major media like ABC, NBC QC, and Social Media Examiner. He won the Entrepreneur of the Year award and the Business of the Year award in California. He’s the author of the book, Social Media Etiquette. And today we’re going to be talking about how to leverage videos for more followers, more leads, and more sales, with Owen Video. Owen, welcome to the podcast.
Owen: Hey, thanks for having me. That was a great bio. I need to have my team turn what you just said into a transcript that we give to everybody else. That was fantastic.
Rich: I will just follow you around. And when people ask who you are, I will jump in front, and I’ll just do that bit again.
Owen: Oh, my gosh. It’s done. You’re on the payroll.
Rich: Excellent. I’m excited. You and I met at Social Media Week Lima. We may have met another time at a Social Media Marketing World event. But bottom line is, that’s when I got to know you, sitting on the party bus as we were going somewhere in Lima. Anyways, really enjoyed your presentation there. And just starting from scratch, how did you get started in video and helping others create videos that perform?
Owen: Yeah, I have had a video camera in my hand as long as I can remember. It was back actually in the year Nintendo had come out. Nintendo just was the big Christmas gift that year. And we grew up as a poor family in Long Beach, California, and so we had two big presents under the tree. One was a Nintendo, and the other was one of these big shoulder mount video cameras. And you put the full VHS cassette, it’s like first generation of video cameras. Very exciting year.
I played the Nintendo for about 10 minutes, but I had the camera in my hand for the next 10 years. I was doing stop motion animations with my brothers. I was doing you Lego toys, magic movies, and things like this. So I always had a video camera in my hand. And I went through the high school system. I was in a sketch comedy troupe, and we would record those and play them at the end of the year rally. And so I think if you were to go to high school with me and say, oh, when’s a YouTuber. You’d say, oh, you know, shocker, you know?
But I actually put it down after high school. Nobody prepared me for college. Nobody prepared me for the real world. And I found myself in a place where I needed to find work.
And so I got involved in sales and marketing and business, and I had a very lucrative career. And then one day in 2008, I had been let go from a company where I was excelling. I was the number one salesperson in two different categories, of two categories. So I had both categories at this company, and they fired me for personality conflicts. And the personality problem was that I’m fantastic at this job and you’re not. That’s why they didn’t like me.
But all things said and done, I remember walking out with my box and my plant, that walk of shame sort of termination walk that you do to your car. And I made a commitment that day to myself that I would never again be put in a position where someone else can control my income. So I decided that I was going to give this new YouTube thing a shot. And so what I had done is I started making sketch comedy videos. The first videos I ever uploaded to YouTube were sketch comedy videos. And they did extremely well in the early days of YouTube, but they didn’t pay bills. So what I discovered is that like the gold rush, the people who really made the money were not the people digging for gold. It was the people who sold the shovels. And so I decided that I would start teaching other people – business owners – how to use video to get all of these views.
And I went knocking on doors in downtown San Diego with my camera in hand, and I said, “Hey, I’ll make you a YouTube video for your business right now for $20.” And I’ll tell you, I made a ton of money that way. And they were very simple, they very systematic and that turned into the thriving business that we have today, where we still coach business owners on how to create a YouTube channel. They actually generate six figures in revenue every year, that’s what our specialty is. That’s where we live. I don’t work with slime channels. I don’t work with family vlogs. We love those guys and we wish them well, but we really appeal to the six or seven figure business owner who wants to get out their message and wants to use YouTube, but doesn’t know all the details. And so that’s how it all started and that’s where we are today.
Rich: That’s awesome. I loved everything about the story. But for me, the moment when you said ‘magic videos’ brought me back to my childhood, when my dad had his super eight camera, and we would do the cheesiest magic tricks possible, with my brother disappearing behind a sheet or something like that. And then he would go downstairs, and he would literally cut the film and trim it together and stuff like that.
Owen: Wow. See, that’s exciting. That’s really exciting. I never worked with live film, but I did work with P2 cards, and I saw the transformation from analog to digital. And I’m so grateful for that experience. Because the terms that we use on YouTube today and in editing today are still based on the bin. Which was literally the bin you’d cut film and you’d throw it into a bin, you know? So that’s a real exciting experience to have been a part of that transition.
Rich: Awesome. When I saw you speak at Social Media Week Lima, you talked about three core strategies when it comes to videos. One for building your following, one for generating leads, and one for making sales right now. The question I have is, why not just create a video that does all three?
Owen: Yeah. So what a great question to start with. And I’ll tell you right now, that is what most entrepreneurs and CEOs want to do is they want to make the super video, right? It’s a video that shows everyone how great I am. It’s a video that shows all about my products and services. It’s a video that explains to you all the objections and shows you all the things. And it ends up being this super packed, one size fits all video that nobody wants to watch. And that’s really key.
The other part of that is, well, let me say this, that mindset is based on scarcity. It’s based on, I don’t know what to do, or I’ve done video in the past and it hasn’t worked so I’m going to put everything into this video so I don’t waste any of my own time, so I get it done one time. And if it doesn’t work, I’ll fire my videographer and I’ll never do this again. That whole mindset of the super video is based on scarcity, and scarcity is simply not how we grow our businesses. We grow our businesses through abundance and an abundance mindset.
Now that’s part one. Your mindsets off part two is the YouTube algorithm does not respond to super videos, right? The algorithm responds to binge-watching chain-link viewing, right? Because YouTube is more like Netflix than it is like social media. YouTube actually has more in common with Hulu. And when the YouTube board of directors are all getting around, they’re not looking at how many shares did we get? They’re not looking around at how many likes did we get? They’re looking at how many hours of video watch time, how many hours are Americans and globally people spending on the youtube.com platform. That’s the number.
And so when you make videos, you want to step off the ledge of, it has to work right now. It does not. And it will work over time if you’re consistent, like everything else in your life. The second thing is you need to create binge watchable moments. So when a client comes to me and they get the super video, I want to do this, I want to do that, I want to do this. What we help them do is break that video down into four main categories. And we make multiple videos in each of those categories so that the viewer can binge watch. And they can watch one piece and then another piece and it leads to another piece. That’s the kind of thing that’s going to generate revenue for you.
Believe it or not, the revenue my clients make, we had a client close $1.2 million in wired funds. He’s an investment guy. $1.2 million in wired in wired funds from seven videos, none of which asked for a sale. And that’s key, right? Your customers are going to come in because they chose to watch, not because you ran some ad and force fed down their throats for five seconds, right? So you want to make videos. This is what we help you to do. Make videos that teach people about your value one piece at a time and get them to view in like a chain link fashion. That’ll solve everything. That’ll change everything for you.
Rich: All right. I want to get into each one of the three types of videos we want to create, or the four categories. But before we get there, I just have a question. We’ve been talking strictly about YouTube, and I think of YouTube as the platform for marketing videos. But is that the secret, should we just be focusing on YouTube? You know, you do hear about these occasional businesses or videographers who love Wistia or love Vimeo or whatever it is. What’s the argument for focusing on YouTube?
Owen: Yeah. What the hell is Vimeo? Like you and I know what that is. And only a handful of people know what Wistia is. Fine services. Those are filmmaker services. Those are marketing services. And YouTube is an open door to a global audience from day one. Wistia is usually designed to only serve the people that visit your website. It’s driven traffic largely. The same is true for Vimeo. Vimeo is not a discovery platform. No one’s like hey, I needed to learn how to make a website, so I went to Vimeo and Googled it. No, not at all.
YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world, that’s owned by the first biggest search engine in the world, which is Google. Google’s become synonymous with search. So YouTube is where people go to look for information on a given variety of topics. And this includes the big opportunities right now are in financial help, in self-care, and in business building. These are three big opportunities. Why? Because something like 48% of Americans are working from home and they’re realizing that they can do their job in four hours a day when they don’t have to be at the office. So they’re spending the other four hours a day learning how to build businesses, taking care of better care of themselves. There’s big opportunities on YouTube right now through search.
And that’s the argument is that when you upload YouTube you’re going to a global audience and you’re attracting people that are already searching for you. Whereas the other platforms are really more designed for like your resume. If you have videos embedded in your website, I might put them on Vimeo. But I’ll tell you, we put everything on YouTube. We have a whole lot of front facing public videos, but we also put our course videos in YouTube. So when you’re in my course, you’re watching a video embedded in a website that’s unlisted on YouTube, which is giving my channel more watch time. So we actually moved all of our training off of Vimeo to get more watch time numbers onto our channel. And it’s made a huge difference.
Rich: So if I’m hearing you correctly, watch time is something that lifts your entire channel, gives you more visibility on YouTube, because you’re making the execs day because you’re giving them more… Interesting, never thought of it that way. All right. Awesome.
So, three core strategies versus four categories. What do we want to tackle first? You mentioned four categories as you were talking about the types.
Owen: Well, the four categories fall into these three core strategies. So it’s the whole idea is that you have a plan. And the first thing that every client does, every client on any of our programs, every client comes in with a blueprint call. The authority architecture. What videos do we need to make? And when do we need to make them?
And then we look at the titles of those videos – titles, topics – you know, look, your title is what you enter into YouTube when you upload the video. That’s what title means up until that moment. Your video has a very flexible working title. You know what I mean? Maybe we call it a topic, but we’re going to get these 20 topics down. And then we’re going to see, okay, which of these should be collaborations, which of these should be live streams, which of these should be five-minute short minute videos?
So the three core strategies that we should talk about today are really about accomplishing three different goals. A goal of growing your views on YouTube. Right? Because if nobody watches you, then nobody can buy from you. The second strategy is about how do I turn that into revenue for the company? And then the other middle one is actually, how do I turn that into lead generation for the business?
Rich: So let’s look at those each one at a time. So I’m starting, I want to build my following on YouTube, thought leadership, whatever it is. What should I do first?
Owen: Yeah, a great method. The first thing that I want to talk about is YouTube Live collaboration model. This is a zero barrier to entry model. You don’t need anything other than what you need to log into zoom every single day. You know, you probably remember, Rich, there was a time when you had to tell people to buy a camera. But you don’t have to do that anymore. Everybody has a camera, and that’s all you need. If you can show up on zoom, then you can show up on YouTube now. Does it help to get a better camera? You know, when the timing is right, I think it’s actually better to develop your message first.
But here’s how the YouTube collaboration model works, is that your goal is to get 10,000 views on YouTube. When we have duplicated this over and over again, how you do this is you’re going to partner with your existing clients, your existing team members, your employees, your staff, or other influencers in your area, maybe it’s your city could be the mayor. It could be the owner of the local restaurant, but it could also be that you are going to interview thought leaders on social media. You will interview view them on a live stream and they will share it to their list and you will share it to your list. That’s the core essence. And in this place, all you have to do is schedule the dang thing. You know, you schedule the dang thing, you have five good questions to ask, and that’s a good 30-minute conversation. At the end of the interview they’ll share it out. You’ll share it out. And the search engine will find it, hopefully, and get you 10,000 views on a video. My goal for you, like here’s the problem…
Rich: 10,000 views on one video?
Owen: Yeah. Hell yeah, bro. Yes. We set our expectations too low. I’d love to get a couple views, maybe get a couple sales… Screw that, man. Like you should get 1,000 to 10,000 views on every video, and you should be making five figures on YouTube in 90 days. That’s actually what we promise our clients. We guarantee it to them.
Now we’re not speaking to clients. So I just want to let you guys know that these numbers are not impossible, but you got to have a strategy to do that and partnering with other influencers. So give me a good example of someone in your audience, what kind of business are they in?
Rich: Well we have one person who I really like, and they do a lot of showers. This will be tough. Shower stall install, so they’ll rehab your bathroom. But a big one is showing people what the showers are going to look like.
Owen: Okay. You got to give me one harder than that, man. I grew up in construction. I was just talking to a construction guy right now and I told them that you’re about to make six figures. Like this is going to be huge at $25,000 on the low end. Let me tell you what you do. You partner with a local designer, and you talk about great looking bathrooms. How to make your cabinets and your countertops look good. You partner with your shower guy, right? I’m saying you’re the CEO of the company or the marketing director. Interview your staff. “Hey, today on our show we have Jim Jones, who actually installs the showers, and we’re going to be talking about three shower designs that you’re going to love. One of them is an open model, no shower door. One of them is a single shower. And then one of them is going to be like a bathtub type of shower. So we’re going to look at all three of those today and give you guys some ideas that you can remodel and live in the home that you dream of.” Right? You do a 10-part series, even a five-part series.
Let’s go to those four legs, five videos in each. Five videos where you interview a different aspect; a countertop guy, a designer. I actually did this with a friend of mine. We did it years ago and we built out a home construction and we interviewed a home stager, we interviewed a furniture person. It was a great series. And what you’re doing is 30 minutes. And so now imagine this power, number one, you have these videos on the web. It’s like how to design a bathroom you’ll love, right? Or three shower designs for your bathroom remodel. You’re number one, you’re going to get calls from areas you can’t serve. And you know what, if I were you, I would monetize that lead. I would be like, “Hey, I can’t serve you. I’m going to refer you to somebody who does” And then charge that guy a hundred bucks to take the call, or get paid 10% on the back end, whatever it is. But the idea is that these experts are in front of you and all you have to do is bring them on the show and ask them, “Hey, what do you like? What are you seeing? What are some of the costs involved?”
Now, you’ve got two things. You got all these videos working on the web for you, but you also now have videos you can send your clients when they ask about bathroom remodels. You guys know in the construction business, you guys know you get tire kickers. I’m a tire kicker. We’re remodeling our upstairs and now I’m just going to kick tires. I’m going to see what flooring options I got. You know, we’re not going to move till probably Christmas. So you guys know, you get tire kickers.
So imagine someone says, “Hey, I’m looking to redo my bathroom. I’m in no rush. I just want a price. It’s more price, man.” You say great. It’s $15 to $20 grand, but here are some videos that will really help you decide what you want.” And you send them video one that week, and then next week you send them video two. “Hey Jim, wanted to just follow up with you. Here’s another video.” And obviously your email software’s doing this, but the idea is that you’re nurturing your clients to a call. And let me tell you something, they’re going to call you. And they’re just going to say you’re the guy. It doesn’t matter what the price is. We know what we want. Thank you for educating me. Let’s get moving. So that’s how our core strategy works.
Now I kind of went into sales there a little bit, but the idea is that Mom and Pop Kent are going to Google things like ‘best shower designs’, ‘what cabinet or what countertop should I get in my bathroom’, and then your video pops up where you engage them, grab them onto your lead list, and you sell them from there.
Rich: And so I just want to play devil’s advocate. I can see getting and doing the live video on YouTube, putting it up there. I’m just astounded that you would get 10,000 views, whether it’s in the first week, or first year, or first five years, for a video where I’m interviewing my interior decorator. So please prove me wrong, but that to me seems like such a huge leap to drive those traffic. What are we doing besides that occasional person who reaches out to us saying ‘check out my videos’ to get that many people to watch that video?
Owen: That’s a great question. And it really goes back to dispelling some of the myths of what YouTube is. Right? So there’s two basic components that I want to answer with. Number one is, don’t be a total dud on camera. That’s part of it. I will say that 90% of our clients are charismatic, outgoing cult leaders. Right? These are people that are ready to lead the crowd. The other 10% have the desire, but not the personality. So we have to be able to train people that don’t have the energy that I have.
I’m a stage four cancer survivor. I beat cancer without any chemotherapy, so I feel alive. Every day I want to live each day to the fullest. I know not everybody has that same sort of passion. So what do you do? You structure the video correctly. From the moment you press ‘live’ you are on the air. Remember, this is a TV show it’s not a marketing video, right? So you press ‘live’ and you are talking to the customer. We teach this in our ROS system. You’re going to wat to say something like, “Hey, welcome to today’s video, where we’re going to show you five different bathtub designs that you could use to remodel your home. So whether you’re going to remodel today or you’re in the middle of a remodel, or you got a remodel coming up in the next couple years today, we’re going to look at some trends and some styles. I’m going to bring on my shower expert. He’s going to go through a bunch of FAQs so that when you meet with a contractor you’re educated, you know what you want, and you can get the best price. I want to welcome my friend, Rich Brooks to the show. Welcome, Rich. Talk to us today about what we should know about shower heads.” Okay. Pause. What did I just do there? The very first thing I said was about the viewer and their why they should watch. It had nothing to do with, “Welcome everybody. My name is Owen Video and my company is a construction company and we serve…”
I was working with a home remodel company recently. He did a test video for me. Man, the first two minutes were just him, “Here’s my phone number. Here’s my email.” Nobody frigging cares. Right? Why should I spend 20 minutes on this video? So you open up the video, you introduce your guest, and you tell them, now, look, we’re talking about baths. You don’t have to have a guest. If you are good enough and you want to show pictures of bathrooms by yourself, do it.
We’re working with a collab model because that’s an easy model live. You don’t need any prepping, any editors. My point is that I didn’t go, “Rich, how are you today?” “Oh, good.” “I’m Owen. Good. You’re good. Are you good? Are your kids good? Good, good, man.” You’re like five minutes into the video and I’m as a homeowner going, I don’t have time for this, I got soccer practice, man.
You know, I want you to imagine this with YouTube. I go to YouTube and I search ‘how to stop a leaky sink’. Rich, what do you, think’s going on in the background when I’m searching that video?
Rich: Probably a lot of water.
Owen: Yeah. Right. You get this vision of a faucet that’s leaking, towels under the bathroom sink, kids running around screaming at any age. Teenager won’t help, he’s on the phone. Meanwhile, mom doesn’t get home for another couple hours. I know how to fix it, I don’t want to fix it. So I’m going to YouTube. The same is true when somebody Googles ‘best bathroom fixtures’, they either want to get this started and they finally went to Google to look at it. You guys know that your answers are a Google away, but sometimes I didn’t Google that thing today. Right? I didn’t find a plumber today. I didn’t look at bathrooms today. Oh, I’m so busy. I’m so busy.
So we think about why would anybody watch my video? Because they want to spend $40 grand on a bathroom remodel. You know, it’s hard for me to deal with a customer who says, “I just don’t think that my customers are on YouTube.” Dude, 4 billion people are on YouTube, but you have the one industry that… no, it’s not true. I think that there’s a bigger issue with, “Well Owen, what if somebody calls me from Minnesota? I can’t serve Minnesota.” And it’s, I know you’re going to get 10,000 views on a video because you put the right title on and because when I pressed ‘play’, I immediately got satisfied.
So titles are huge. And how you start your videos is huge. But let me say this, you’re going to get 10,000 views on a video because people from all over the world appreciated it. But when someone in your neighborhood sees that you have 10,000 views on a video, you are the star. So you want views from people you can’t serve because it increases your credibility with the people you do serve.
Rich: That’s a great approach, a great way of looking at it. You’re talking about some of the stuff I’m interested in. You mentioned the title, and as we were chatting before we hit the record button, I love SEO. So what are some of the tactics that are going to help people find our videos? What should we be thinking about as we create the titles for these videos, say it’s whether it’s one of these collaborative live videos or any other type of video?
Owen: Or a self-shooter video? Yeah. And I always recommend self-shooter videos. You’ve got to get good at sitting at your computer and cranking out a video. We actually want our clients cranking out like three to five at a time. If you were to make a five-minute video, three times. It’s 15 minutes of your time, dude. And if you can’t talk for five minutes about a given topic, are you really an expert in that thing? Of course you could, right? So the idea is batch producing.
Now your question goes to titles. There are two things I want you to really focus on, it’s the title and the takeaway. Title and the takeaway. So the title has two components to it, right? Your title has to be structured in a way that a brainless godless, heartless, soulless computer system called the algorithm can put it into a category. I’ve had clients come to me and their videos are like, Monday morning thoughts with Jim. And it’s like, what the hell does that mean? I don’t want to name any names here, but it’s just these really clever ideas like, The Better Business Show with Gene, Episode 5: Hard work. And the algorithm has no idea where to put that, so it puts it in the trashcan. Literally, it puts it in the ‘other’ section.
You need to have a title that has a keyword in it. And what keyword you use, it doesn’t really matter to me. Whether you use, “how to sell a course” or “how to sell your course”, the algorithm puts it in the same category. But the goal is not one video, one keyword. The goal is one keyword, lots of videos. And that’s where the takeaway comes in. So you want to have a title that at least has one keyword that the search engine can put into a category.
But the second part the title has to have is human emotional drivers. Right? You got to have a human component to it because a human’s going to click it. So your algorithm can put it in the right category, but it still has to be juicy, man. You know, like you can enroll in a dating site, but you still got to look juicy. And that’s the part that I think is key.
So your title has two parts to it now. Your takeaway, this is key. You’ve got to make videos that have a takeaway that the audience says, that was valuable for me. And if you’re going to do “five mistakes to avoid when remodeling your bathroom,” let’s say that’s the video you’re going to do. And your keywords are ‘bathroom remodel’. So, remodeling your bathroom, or five big mistakes bathroom remodel homeowners make. You’re putting that keyword in there somewhere. Your takeaway is not the five things. Your takeaway is homeowners can save thousands of dollars if they avoid some very simple mistakes.
Rich: So where does that takeaway go? Is that before they watch the video because we’ve teased something up, or is that the message that we give them at the end of the video?
Owen: Your takeaway acts as the bumpers of the video, so that you’re sure to bowl a strike. The bumpers give you a clear starting point and stopping point so that you don’t wander into a super video where you end up giving them your website address and put your phone number on the video, and all these things that belong in the description box, for sure. But in your video, you want to have a very clear, this is what I need the viewer to understand. So I’m sure there’s more than five mistakes, but you’re going to pick the five that communicate a one major takeaway, that you could save thousands of dollars by avoiding these mistakes.
So mistake number one, maybe you could say something like, “Hey, if you avoid this mistake, you could save $3,500 to $4,500.” “Mistake number two is blah, blah, blah. Now, if you avoid this mistake, you could save up to $1,000 on just your demo costs.” And you’re now applying that takeaway to every point so that your video has purpose and it’s not just another… I searched these videos, “how to increase sleep,“ and it’s all the same BS over. And over. Like, I get it. I am a big sleep packer kind of guy. I’m so tired of hearing, “stretch before bed”, “journal down your day”. All good things, but everybody says those things. You’ve got to give me something extra, you know? And you, as the business owner, you figure out what that is. That’s why we train you in the takeaway. We train you and come up with a good takeaway so that you’re building your video towards that takeaway your viewer should watch that and go, yes, that was my takeaway, that’s what I got out of this. I want to watch the next video.
Rich: So that leads beautifully into what I wanted to talk about next, which is you mentioned chaining these together. So the idea here is I finish one video and I am immediately ready, queued up to watch the next video. Now anybody who spends time on YouTube – and I spent an insane amount of time on YouTube between learning how to do woodworking, gardening, and every breakdown of comic books ever – those are my three core areas. But at the end of the video, YouTube will often just go right into the next video. So are we talking about auto play, or are we talking about getting somebody to take an action so they watch the next in the series?
Owen: Oh, big question. I think these are the best questions I have been asked in a podcast in a long time. So kudos to you, my friend.
So look, there are two big ways to get discovered on YouTube. Now, if you ask one of my nerdy friends, one of my YouTuber insider friends, you know, they’re going to tell you dollars like 15,000 17,000 different ways. The 80/20 rule. At the end of the day, people are going to search for you on YouTube. And then while they’re watching you, they’re going to be scrolling other videos. This is really unique, because on Facebook, you can’t do this. Maybe they have a popup player now, but before it’s like you switch off that Instagram reel and you’re watching another video. You can’t watch a video and scroll the menu at the same time, but you can on YouTube.
So what happens is viewers are watching your video that they searched for, but they’re also looking down below and they’re seeing like, hey, what else does he have? And that’s your second big opportunity. This is the suggested algorithm. So our strategy is that you want to make videos that will get you found in search to trigger watch time. Then you want to have a series of videos on that same topic for binge watching, but you also want to have a series of ancillary videos on related topics. Right? If I’m interested in how to build a website, it’s very likely I’ll be interested in how to make a blog site.
Rich: Or how to optimize that website for search engines.
Owen: Exactly. So you’ve got two legs, right? You’ve got how to build a website, and then you’ve got how to optimize a blog. And so you’ve got a viewer who likes you, but they’ve had their fill of one content. So now they still like you so they want to find more on your…and not every channel does this, there’s a blending channel, but it’s not what we do. This is one of those YouTubey channels. YouTubey channels are different, right? Like some of this stuff is some eight-year-old playing with Play-Doh for 17 hours. You and me and our clients, you’re not going to do that. You’re going to do talking head informational videos. So we have to be careful when we’re talking about YouTube. Are we talking about professional YouTube? Are we talking about playtime YouTube? But there’s these channels, like blending channels. All they do is blend stuff. It’s the only thing that they do.
Rich: What do you mean blending? Is this the blender guy who was famous?
Owen: Yeah. He just puts stuff in a blender and every day it’s something new. It’s like blending an iPhone, blending two iPhones, blending an orange with an iPhone. Like it’s just, you know. But I’ll tell you, he survived for 13 years. I got a friend of mine who’s got millions and millions of subscribers on hair care. And so you can imagine how many times those videos get repeated over and over again. And that’s okay. But I digress from the point. The thing is, search brings them in, and then suggested keeps them watching.
Rich: So Owen, what are we doing to teach the algorithm to suggest our videos more often once they’re in the flow?
Owen: Yeah, man. The answer is a technical SEO answer. So here’s the thing is. You find your keyword. And honestly, man, we don’t even do keyword research. Like, what’s your business? Bathroom remodels is what we want to sell, that’s the keyword. And it’s going to be like, how much should a bathroom remodel cost, how to remodel your bathroom for under $50,000, best bathroom remodels with walk-in showers, you know, like you’re building out this playlist of videos that all repeat a phrase but all have an interesting spin to them. We call this the ‘silo strategy’ and this is what will put six figures in your pocket. You’re going to have a client, they’re going to watch three of these videos. They’re going to call you and they’re going to give you money.
I actually had a client say to me, “take my money” the other day. It was very funny. He says, I didn’t even tell him a price. He’s just, “take my money”. So that’s number one is those titles, truthfully, you don’t even need tags. All this SEO optimization, it’s more about the title and using the word in the video. Because YouTube reads your transcripts, you can put whatever the hell you want in the tags. And people do. YouTube knows what you titled it, and they know what you’re saying in the video.
So if you do that, how to remodel your bathroom for under $10 grand, and then in the video you’re talking about beach and beer and bikinis, it’s a spam thing. YouTube’s going to figure that out real quick. But if you’re saying words like ‘bathroom remodel’ or LSI keywords like ‘bathroom remodel’ and ‘demo’ and ‘shower’, YouTube knows exactly who to send that video to. YouTube is owned by Google. YouTube knows that Bill and Sam and Frank and Sally and Jordan and all these millions of people all over the United States, YouTube knows they were all on bathroom remodel websites this week, so they’re going to surface that video to those people without you having to do a thing.
Our whole, YouTube will replace your social media, if you’re doing paid ads and it’s working, great. But most people are struggling to get something to work. It’s feast or famine. It’s, now we’re getting a lot of leads, but it costs us a lot of money. Or like we were doing well in the algorithm change. If you want to have that steady growth line, you’re going to get it on YouTube, and you don’t have to do the other social media stuff. I’m barely on because YouTube is where all of our business comes from. So you title the video, and you got to make sure that your content is right. Like you start talking about your website and how many years in business, YouTube is like, what the hell is this video about?
Rich: So you want to be as narrowly focused as possible, it sounds like.
Owen: Yeah. And we teach an ROS system. So we have a software in our company that we use with all of our clients, where you log in. Like I’m logged into a zoom call with you right now. You log in with me and we write out your first 12 videos together. And we do six and six, and here’s what we do. We do six videos in one content silo, one. And then we figure out what you’re going to say, what’s the takeaway, what’s the next video each one’s going to lead into. So there’s like a Daisy chain. And then we do six more in another ancillary silo. And then what we do is we give you this ROS. And this ROS is, how are you going to open up the video? What’s the first thing you say when you press record?
We have a script that we give you and it’s all very much like stuff you know internally. It takes us a minute to get the wheels moving, you know what I mean? Like you get on camera. You’re like, okay, well we’re recording. “Hey everybody, welcome. I’m Owen”, you know? And it’s you’re wandering. We teach that you memorize the first sentence, and you stare at the camera so that when you press ‘record’, it sounds more like, “Today, we’re going to talk about the five different shower heads that you need for your bathroom remodel.” Okay, now you can take a break, take a look at your notes. And we often recommend that you film with the notes in front of you like it’s a speech. Like, just have your notes out.
But you deliver the first part with power and authority into the camera to get the viewer to take their finger off the X. That’s huge. Like look, I Googled ‘how to do a bathroom remodel’ and I found 4 billion videos. I picked yours. You’ve got 10 seconds to prove me. You know what I mean? Strong, powerful openings. Get them to, what I say, put the finger down. Put the trigger down. Once they put their finger down, man, you got them for another three to four minutes, easy. So, you know, having that ROS system, the structure, the format, so you’re not wondering, what do I say in every video? Oh, I say this, I just say this script. I just put my keyword in.
Rich: When you are trying to develop this, are you looking for people to subscribe to your channel? Because you’re taking a look at this from a different way from a YouTuber. Like the people who are listening now, you and me, we would use YouTube as a way of promoting our businesses. We are not YouTubers. We’re not making money just from the ads that are running within this. We’re looking to promote our business. Right? So from that standpoint, are we doing things like having, you know, the next video shows and there’s a clickable link there. Is that still part of the…?
Owen: Absolutely a part of it. But you know, each video has a purpose and that’s big, right? Some of your videos, we talked about the four legs of your table. First of all, a good YouTube channel will have more than four legs, but we like to start with four legs. Imagine one of those legs videos that get ranked on the search engine. So you have one leg of videos where the only metric that you are concerned about is ranking those videos for keywords. That’s big. So now you’re not expecting sales, you’re not expecting subscribers. That’s the biggest problem is you make a super video, and you think it’s going to get you subscribers and make you sales and generate leads and get you podcast interviews. It won’t happen.
When we make a video, we know what to expect, right? So we might make videos. We want those videos to rank, which means like I just made a video the other day it’s called how to shoot video on a mobile phone, something like that. We knew that it would not do well when we published it and it did not. But what we do know is because it’s a search engine video, it’s going to take about 90 days and we will have thousands of views on that video before Black Friday. We know that. So we don’t expect it to blow up when we publish it. Some people will publish a video and go, man, it didn’t go viral. Yeah, it’s just a search engine video, man. Give it 30 days, give it 90 days, move on to the next video.
So some videos will have an express goal of ranking, other videos will have an express goal of generating leads, and you’ll structure those videos differently. You’ll say things like, ‘click on my link in bio to grab my free blah, blah, blah guide’. Right? This is what I hear people doing. They’re not putting links at all. We had a client who called me frustrated. He goes, “Man, we put out six videos. They’re getting views, but nobody is calling us.” So we went to those videos. He never asked them to click on a link and there was no link in the description. So we added those links, and nine sales came in over the weekend. So you’ve got videos that are designed to get sales, but you have to make sure that all the sales stuff is there.
The biggest mistake I was going to say is, ‘contact us below’. Nobody’s going to freaking contact you, man. Give them, “I got a whole guide on 15 shower heads that you’re going to love. And you could pick out your shower head right from there. Anyway, grab that guide. It’s over on my website.”
I was just talking to a guy right now and I asked for his email, and his website’s three different abbreviations. And I said, that was the most confusing website I’ve ever heard. And he says, yeah, it stands for go throughout your day and be brilliant always, or something. And I’m like, okay, the first thing we’ll do when you come into my program is we’re going to buy you a new website domain called calebmakesdeals.com, you know? And I said okay, calebmakesdeals.com/youtube, like your call to action has to be clear.
So you’re still going to have other videos that their express goal is to get subscribers. A lot of times keyword optimized videos will get subscribers. That’s like a killer combo there. So the essence is just…
Rich: Sorry to clarify a second here. When you’re talking about subscribers, are we talking email subscribers or YouTube subscribers?
Owen: I’m talking about YouTube subscribers. I would call email subscribers, lead gen. But you know, you can do a keyword silo and you go, my goal on these videos is to rank at least one for the keyword, but I would like to see 10 leads come in within the first 60 days. Completely reasonable, totally reasonable to have a two-part goal.
But as you’re making the videos, now they have to be crafted to that end. So you got to know one video is not going to do all the things for. You’ve got to say, I need a video that gets us subscribers. And so the goal would be to rank a couple videos on the search engine, and you’ll grow.
But here’s the thing about subscribers. If you’re trying to make money, it doesn’t freaking matter. Look, my goal with my clients is you need to be getting at least 30 new subscribers every single month. Okay. That’s like the minimum standard. Most of my clients come in and thye’re getting two. So you got to get subscribers, but your subscribers are only an indication of where you are at this moment in time.
You know, I got 65,000 subscribers on my check. Maybe it is 70,000. Anyway, they’re not all watching. You know what I mean? 40,000 of those came from when I was doing website tutorials. They’re probably not even in business anymore, much less watching my channel. Channel subscriber is a good thing. I like it, but we’re not YouTubers.
Rich: Right. So I was going to say, so if you are that shower installer, those subscribers – in some ways – outside being a vanity metric or social proof, nobody’s going to subscribe so that they can buy from you. That’s like a different model. And YouTubers that are advertised powered, they need subscribers more than somebody who just needs to make a sale of a shower head, or of a website, or of consulting, or what have you.
Owen: You’re a hundred percent right. Yeah. We don’t get paid on the algorithm. We get paid on product sales. And even YouTubers today are like, they’re not leaving the platform, but the platform is continually taking money away from creators and giving it to people like Disney and the already wealthy. And it’s tragic, but it’s what institutions do. They feed their own.
So what YouTubers are doing are creating products and courses. And that’s a good model. Like us as business owners, we’ve already created our products. So what we need to do is to create an infrastructure that leads people back to those products. And that’s why we guarantee five figures in 90 days, right? Because if you follow the program, five figures in 90 days is a matter of process, not probability, right? You already have an offer, you know people want it, so you make videos that lead back. And the expectation should absolutely be at least a thousand views on it, but you’re not going to get that right away. I said 10,000 views on a video, that’s going to be 90 days. Four months later, it will gather up to 10,000. But I want you to be in a place where you launch a video and in your first week you get a thousand views on it. You know, not every video will do that. But if we make a video with the express goal of getting those video views, you’ll see that it’s really a matter of process. Just make a video worthy of a thousand views and you’ll get it.
Rich: Owen, we’ve had an amazing conversation today. I don’t think we started… we started with one idea, and we went in a different direction. Totally. So let me just ask you one question, so the people who tuned in for the three things will feel like they got their money’s worth. The building the following we’ve definitely covered. I guess my only question left in this is how do you differentiate leads focused video versus a buy now focused video or the sales video?
Owen: Yeah. We call those conversion level events. So there will be videos where you sell, and we sell in webinars, we sell in live videos, and we do sell in… I take it back. When you upload like a seven-minute video and you make an offer, that’s more lead gen. Because they’re going to opt into something and then they’re going to buy it. Your funnel will convert them in a lot of cases.
So what we do is we like to build up your email list. Or what we do is if you already have an email list, we’ll make videos and then send the videos out, too. We’ll bring that together in a conversion level event, let’s just call it a live stream. So it’s different than a webinar, right? Because everyone can come, but you’re selling on that webinar. You are actively going, okay, here’s what we’re doing. We are giving you guys the bathroom remodel today. We’re giving you $3,000 off, and all you have to do is call the number on your screen right now. I got my guys in the next room waiting to get your calls. And for every person that calls, I’m going to give you a shout out on the live stream. So you’re actually on the live stream asking people to buy from you like a telephone, and that will generate big spikes in your revenue.
You say, why would somebody buy from me? Why would someone buy from Home Shopping Network? But they do. And it’s our beliefs that keep thinking nobody would ever do that, so you don’t do it. And then you watch 22-year-olds become millionaires. You know what? They’re doing it. It burns me when I see a 20-year-old kid by a Lamborghini. Dude, I was fricking a Deadhead in my twenties. I was doing nothing valuable with my life or anyone else’s life. But you know what? That’s their journey, not mine. I’m not going to not do it because some 20-year-old punk, no way, man. What’s he doing? How do I do that? Guys do live streams and ask for sales, give a coupon away, and you’ll blow up. You’ll be surprised at how you could earn six figures in one, one hour live stream.
Rich: But you did see a lot of good shows, so there’s that.
Owen: Yeah, no. There’s… yeah. So yeah, there’s a good part of that.
Rich: Yeah. Okay. Hey, this has been fantastic, Owen. And if people want to learn more about you, learn more about your courses, check out some of your videos, where can we send them online?
Owen: Go to thevideomarketingschool.com, that’s my main website and there’s links to our programs. There’s also links to my social, my channel. I’m everywhere on the web at @OwenVideo. And I would love to hear from you. Especially if you’re a six-figure business, you want to scale, you’re able to scale, but you’re just wasting all this time on social media and internet marketing. Let’s clear the plate, like an etch sketch. Let’s shake that stuff clean and start with a YouTube program that works right away and it’s something that you can hire a team to do. You don’t need to edit all your videos. You go live for five minutes once a week, you’ll blow up. So, look me up. Tell me you came from the podcast. I’d love to meet you.
Rich: Awesome. Owen, thanks so much. Always a pleasure to see you, my friend. And we’ll be seeing you again. Take care.
Show Notes:
Owen “Video” Hemsath is a growth strategist and coach that teaches his clients how to use videos to do much of the heavy lifting when it comes to making their businesses profitable. Head over to his website to see how he’s helping businesses get the most ROI from their videos. And of course, check out his YouTube channel for inspiration.
Rich Brooks is the President of flyte new media, a web design & digital marketing agency in Portland, Maine, and founder of the Agents of Change. He’s passionate about helping small businesses grow online and has put his 20+ years of experience into the book, The Lead Machine: The Small Business Guide to Digital Marketing.