Getting people to your page is one thing. Getting them to watch end enjoy your videos is a whole other thing. And it all starts with being consistent.
Once you've built that trust with your audience, look at how you can structure your and take advantage of tools like end cards to keep viewers engaged.
Hi. I’m Matt Brown from HubSpot, and this is Skill Up. The show where you’ll learn how to take your sales, marketing, and service skills to the next level.
Think about your favorite podcast. Ah, bashful, me? No, no. But think of that podcast. Do you know which day new episodes drop? Thought so.
You should aim for the same sort of consistency with your YouTube videos. So when you're setting your goals, create one for frequency.
You want to set expectations for your subscribers.
[LADINO: You want to be as consistent as you would be with any friend you asked to go to coffee.]
That’s Amy Ladino of AmyTV.
[LADINO: If you tell your friend you're going to coffee every Wednesday afternoon at 4:00 PM. Then you should probably be there. And if you don't show up, you should probably let them know. But if it's something you're committed to and you know, your relationship is going to get better every time you show up, then show up.
That's what consistency really means at a basic level. If you can't at least come and show up at the time and day, you said you're going to be there. All the other things you can do to be consistent like branding and how you present yourself. Isn't going to matter because. You didn't show up some of the time. So be consistent. That's the first thing that people really see and start to connect with when they're thinking, Oh, I can rely on this brand.]
You also really need to think about the content and how it will map to what your buyer wants. That's a tricky part of this made-up equation. Because you know your product. But it's not as easy to understand how your audience wants to learn about that product or service.
Ben U-whey-da of HomeMade Modern explains.
[UEYDA: So I've recently worked with a company that makes garbage disposals and there are amazing garbage disposals. They can chew up and spit out anything, but they kept trying to make the focus about look at how Epic this garbage disposal is. But there is no such thing as an Epic, beautiful, garbage disposal.
It's supposed to go under the sink. What's cool about a garbage disposal is when you don't see it. And it just works perfectly every time, but because they're offering this, this product, they so want every piece of the content to be this like beautiful photo of a garbage disposal. And it's like, no, the same thing happens with individual influencers, right?
If you're a travel blogger and you think it's all about you rather than sharing it. Yeah. Experience for other people, you're probably not going to be successful unless you're just so ridiculously aesthetically charismatic that people just don't care what you're doing. Um, but that's very few of us, uh, unfortunately, so I think, you know, setting aside to vanity, seeing how other people actually see you and what sort of utility they want out of your content matters a lot because people throw around like quality of content, but what does that mean?
No one really knows. So it's really just being objective about what you do. I think your audience wants doing little experiments learning and then adapting and incorporating the results.]
In the end, what actually resonated with the garbage disposal audience was videos that demonstrated all the crazy things that could go into it and be disposed of easily. Like eggplants and three-foot long gummy worms.
So step outside yourself a bit and figure out what your audience wants versus what you think they want.
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Ok, let’s talk about structuring your videos. When done right, you bring your audience into the video and get them to subscribe or click through to your content.
[NIMMIN: I do have a formula that I follow in my videos]
That man with the plan? YouTube content creator and expert Nick Nimmin.
[NIMMIN: It's important because part of YouTube and in terms of making YouTube work, part of the things that make that happen is how long people are watching your videos for. So when I open up my videos, I always let people know that they're in the right place. So let's say that I have a specific title for my video wins. When the video itself opens up, then I reconfirm that they're in the right place and that they didn't get clickbait or something like that. And I basically restate what it is that the title promised them when they click on the video.
So that. They know that you know, that, that they haven't been misled, so to speak. Um, and then from there, you know, I drop an intro for the sake of branding, but, and less, it is critical for your or target market. So to speak something that they would respond to personally, I don't even recommend using intros at all, if you can, because they can actually hurt your audience retention.
But past that. Um, once I do get past the intro, um, I do also add a, an introductory, uh, call to action, which basically invites people to subscribe to the channel. And with that, I tell people exactly what it is that I do on the channel. And then I invite them to subscribe. So instead of saying, you know, Hey, you know, welcome to the channel.
Sure. That you subscribe. Um, I say, you know, if this is your first time here and you want to learn how to grow your channel, make videos and all types of other YouTube related stuff, start now by subscribing and clicking the bell. So what I'm doing there is I'm structuring all of their pain points right at the beginning, because I want them to say yes, yes.
And yes. And then hit the subscribe button from there. And then once I get through that part, then, of course, I get into the actual body content to where I deliver, you know, all the, all the stuff that they clicked on the video to watch. And then, of course, you know, I close it out at the end with additional calls to action.]
Ben Ueyda, of HomeMade Modern, has a different reason why you need to structure your videos, especially if you're a little short on resources.
[UEYDA: So people will often ask me about the format or structures of the videos I produce. It's important, but not normally for the reasons that they would guess people think that you create the format or the structure.
Because you think that that's what the audience wants, but there's, there are two sides of content production. There's the consumer side, which is meaning the audience finds it desirable, uh, and engaging. And so they click on it, share it and talk about it and engage in the comment section. But that's not why I'm creating a structure or a format.
I'm creating it to keep my production costs and times low. So structure and format. Makes it on more on the, on the supply side, it's you got to treat this like a product and that's what really, what content is these days. So it's not just about making the most desirable content. It's making it in a time-efficient resource, efficient manner.
And so that's why format a structure is important. So an example is early on, I found, uh, me talking on camera makes me a little bit self-conscious and I would have to do a lot of takes because I'd be like, I just. Little things like even just the way, like my, my facial expression, when I said that word to seemed odd, or my eyes went over here.
And I found that I was doing multiple takes. So I changed the format to reduce the amount of time and I switched to voiceover. And for then it made it really easy. Cause I felt like I was just building stuff or designing stuff and no one was watching and I could just post rationalize in with the. The voiceover later. So the structure was about the efficiency of production, not guessing at what the audience wanted.]
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Ok, so I want to talk about scripts real quick. Do you need to write out a script for every YouTube video?
The answer is: Not necessarily. Speaking to someone off the cuff with written notes as a guide gives you the opportunity to really talk to your audience like they're standing in front of you. It brings life and authenticity to your videos in a way that scripted video just can’t.
Now, I’m not gonna say there’s never a good use case for scripts. It just really depends on how effective you or the person in your video can be without them. Me personally, I crumble like cardboard in a rainstorm. That’s why every word in every episode of this show is scripted. Welcome behind the curtain. That too, part of the script.
Now the real tip to be had here is YouTube cards. When you use YouTube cards, you can add visual calls to action into your video that can include images, links, polls, and downloadable content. This can break up the images in your video. Especially helpful for less natural on-camera talent.
However, it’s important to note, you can't include links until you've hit a thousand subscribers.
You can add up to five cards per video, and there are five types of cards: Video & playlist, another channel, donation, multiple-choice poll, and Link.
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That brings us to the end of your video. What a ride. You definitely want to use an end screen to close out your videos. These help boost subscriptions and watch retention rates.
And for Nick Nimmin, there’s a bit of artistry to the timing of these end screens.
[NIMMIN: So when it comes to how you actually structure your in screens, um, personally, I recommend that you have the in-screen element showing on the screen while you are still on the screen.
And the reason for that is because as soon as the video ends, as soon as there's an indicator, you can do it verbally sometimes as well. But as soon as there's an indicator to where people say, okay, the video is done, then people are going to start leaving. So because of that, while you are on the screen, they're going to see that indicator, or they're going to see the other things that are happening on the screen when you, when those elements pop up.
But because you're still communicating, they don't know what it is that you're going to be saying. So depending on how you structure your content and all of that, you can actually lead people into your, screen to where you don't even end your video, per se. You keep sharing whatever content it is that you're sharing and maybe even save the best part for that last 20 seconds of your video.]
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So to recap.
Start by thinking about the frequency you’ll be releasing videos at. What schedule works for you? Because once you’re locked in, stay consistent.
And when it comes structuring your videos, consider what your audience wants to see and what you can deliver with the resources you have. Find that balance.
And to close us out, be sure to use an end screen when your video wraps up. This’ll help viewers subscribe, watch more videos, and improve all those key metrics we talked about the last episode. Oh, you haven't’ listened to that one yet? Good thing it’s right there in our feed for you to listen to once we’re done here.
Next episode, we’re shaking hands and kissing babies. We’re talking about all the best ways to engage with your audience. See you there.
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