The YouTube Publishing Challenge

I just don't feel like a scheduling cast. If I'm being honest. Because I don't have any other speed here, but. In this episode, as I mentioned before, we're going to talk about my YouTube publishing challenge. I want to tell the story about that challenge and how it went. And all the juicy deets in between. So. What is, what was the challenge? So I want to talk about YouTube in general.

So. Aye. Obviously, if you know me and you followed me for a long time, you know, I have a website called swim university. And. I've I was looking for some sort of like consistent content to put out. Uh, for money labs specifically. I know I'm saying so university, but I'm actually talking about money lab. And so to me, diversity. We, you know, we put out blog posts on a more consistent basis. And when we're looking at.

Uh, YouTube. We have a YouTube plaque because we've been putting out tons and tons of weekly videos. On this from university channel and it's grown because of it. And it's at a complete SEO play for us. And. Honestly, it's been very rewarding and it's actually really helped our business because obviously the blog gets a ton of visitors. I think the last time. Uh, in the last time I checked, it was like 5 million visitors. A year, which is awesome. Right?

And that's 5 million pool owners or hot tub owners specifically. And so we know a lot of our people are on YouTube. I know YouTube has always been something that I wanted to. You really double down on for a very long time, but creating consistent videos. When you have to do a lot of research, when you, you know, you can't just do a reaction video, you can't, I mean, you could, uh, or you could, you know, be the biggest pool.

YouTube where there is, and just clean people's pools and film with your iPhone and then edit it down. And it's just, it's a lot of work. But it makes sense over there. Right. It makes sense that we do that. It makes sense that we put the time in for that. Just the same way we do what our blog posts now, money lab. Is a little different, but I want to share with you what happens over at some universities. So it's from university.

Uh, we have a couple of goals, but our main goal is for them to buy our courses. We have a course on pool care. We have a course on hot tub care and they're completely different audiences. So we create videos for those people. Now for an example in January of 2021. And now this is between, or, sorry, not January, 2021, but just in 20 20, 20. In 2021 between January and September. We had 62,483 new email subscribers to our list, specifically pool owners.

Okay. Now. 43,491 of them came from our websites. There's just standard. Google. SCO. Right through our blog posts. 3,873 subscribed from our YouTube channel. Now you might be thinking, well, that's a much lower number. However. We've only been pitching the email. You know, subscribing to our email list. In 2021. So we have videos that are absolutely. Massive. Right. And they're doing, uh, like they're, they're not promoting this thing. So this is new for us to promote our email list.

So. 4,000 people is a lot of people to come from YouTube. Okay in. And it's first year. What's interesting though, when you look at the conversion rates between the people who subscribe on the website and people who subscribe on YouTube, It's basically the same. It's about five and a half percent conversion rate. Which is nuts. Now, when I say conversion rate, I don't mean from viewers to subscribers. I mean, those subscribers that we got. Became customers.

So, what does that tell me that tells me that the YouTube audience is highly engaged. Like they're taking the time to watch your video. They want your cheat sheet in our case, it's a cheat sheet. They're going to our website or they're clicking the description. And they're entering their email address and they're buying our products because they've watched us on YouTube. Right. Just like they read our blog posts. So. I'm thinking I got to tap into that right.

With, with money lab, but with money lab. I thought let's, let's try to do, you know, edited content or just, you know, screen grabs, whatever. I've tried that in the past, didn't really work for me. Uh, it was hard to come up with ideas, to be honest. And because of the way money lab works, I'm constantly working on different projects. Like obviously I'm working on a YouTube challenge. This Mo you know, in October, this month, I'm doing Facebook ads next month.

Who knows what I'm going to be doing. I'm even recording this podcast. That's a whole different project. So I'm always doing different stuff and I, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I wanted to publish content on YouTube and tap into the same sort of success we've seen with some university, but over it, money lab. And. Something happened. So. I constantly bring this up to staff who is, uh, my life partner, my girlfriend, my future wife.

And I am constantly saying, like, I wish I could just be on YouTube, but I don't have a YouTube ID. I don't have, what is the content? What is money lab? What am I going to do there? And I never know what to do. And she came up. She said, you know what? You should do. You should do website tear downs on YouTube. I think people would find that really interesting. And I immediately scoffed at that idea. I. No, there's no, who's going to sit there and watch me.

Do with like, uh, you know, Uh, reaction a reaction video to, you know, a website. Yeah, it's just. I don't know. I didn't see the, I didn't see the value in it. So I kind of ignored it. But I thought it was like, all right, it's an idea. It's sitting there. You know, I remembered it. And. I have a community called money lab pro. Where there's a bunch of other. Online entrepreneurs. And I, I spent a lot of my time there actually, cause I like to ask questions.

I like to help other people and, uh, who are working on the same things that I'm working on. And so I, I, so every Friday we do, what's called happy hour. Uh, where we jump on a zoom call for an hour. And I had brought up this idea to the group. I think there was about 10 of us on the call that day. And I said, you know, I really want to go on YouTube, but I don't know if this is. Steph had this idea and I kind of like website tear downs, blah, blah, blah.

And I just watched everyone's face go like, oh, that's interesting. And it was like, oh, what do you mean? It's interesting. I'm like, why would you, why would you watch that? Well, it turns out it's like, well, I just want to see what other people are doing. It's like you're showcasing other sites. And, you know, That's interesting. I want to see you, you know, I have a site. I want to see what other people are doing. I was like, all right. That's an interesting idea.

Okay. And then I was, and then, you know, I was driving, driving up to the mountains with staff and I, you know, I told her that. You know, the community responded really well to the idea. And then I said, man, maybe there is something to this because what am I really doing? I'm going on YouTube. And I'm showcasing. I know what I'm talking about, right. By looking at somebody's website and offering critiques on how to improve it. Which I could do all day. I can do that in my sleep.

I don't look at. A lot of websites, but when I do, I, I have stuff to say. Because I, this, I mean, I've been doing designing websites for, I want to say 20 years now. I know what am I? 38. Yeah. 20 years. It's just a long time and I, you know, I've done it professionally. I've worked for a company doing it. I've done it for myself, obviously a lot more than anything else. I've done it for sites. I've started and taken down.

Uh, I've built, you know, a social network for dogs in my, in my career. I've done a lot of sites and I have a lot to say about them and, and. So I, you know, I thought, okay, Uh, you know, the process aside, let me just try one and I put one up and I'm like, okay, this was really easy. I used a. Uh, e-comm live. To record everything, just like I did the live videos for money lab life, which was a whole nother experiment, which we will talk about. On a future episode.

And so I did the exact same thing, but it was a little bit more, you know, my first episode I put out Was bad. It was really bad because I, I, so I had this like camera set up. I have this, uh, Canon, uh, M 50, which was a $600 DSLR camera that I bought. It came with a stock lens, whatever lenses on it. I have this one little light that I got for like a hundred bucks on Amazon and I got it on a tripod and it kind of acts as my. Uh, As my webcam, because it kind of sits directly above my monitor.

If you go on to. If you go to money, lab.co/youtube-challenge. I have pictures of the setup. So you can see that if you want to see that. Uh, if you're interested in this, but I actually, I love it because I, my monitors do have webcams built into them, but they're bad. They make B12. The camera's I guess are fine. They pick up what they need to pick up. They make me look terrible. Uh, and I just was like, okay, like, I use them for talking to friends on zoom and stuff, but.

I really wish I had like a high quality webcam that was permanently set up. I've tried all different things where I've attached it to the desk. And honestly, the best solution for me was to just put on a tripod behind my desk. So that way, if I, you know, if I bang on the table, which I just did, if you didn't hear that You know, it doesn't shake the camera because the camera's not on or mounted to the desk. It's slightly behind the desk. And that's really been the best setup for me.

And it's pointed directly at me at all times. The screens flipped out. I could go on and on about the technical tactical parts of that, because since I'm a nerd, But it actually acts as my webcam and pugs right on my computer. And it's always on, I have a plugged in permanently to a power outlet and it's always on. So whenever I fire up zoom, whenever I fire up bloom, whenever I fire up, I'm live. The camera just comes on and it's a nice camera.

It's got a little bit of Boca it's, you know, Not a huge, crazy amount of depth of field. I think it's only like, Like a 3.2 aperture. But the wall behind me is a little bit farming. The guitars are clear in the, in the shot. And then I have this like one accent light behind me that I, you know, I just press it with my foot and it turns on. Anyway. So the first one I did the first video that I did, I. Somebody submitted it. So I put up a reform.

So I use this company called reform for my, just to collect data. It's like, instead of using Google forms or Typeform, it's like a cheaper version of type form. That's a little bit just simpler for even the user and for myself. And I say, I sent an email out, I think, or. I sent an email. I think I just tweeted it or something. And I was like, Hey, if you want me to do a website, tear down, you know, throw your, throw your, uh, URL in here.

And I asked a couple of bits of information, like, you know, how many, how many, how much traffic do you get that sort of thing. So the first one that you can watch on YouTube, It was rambly. It was like 30 minutes. It was rambly. Uh, and, uh, People liked it, but my friend who is not into this whatsoever, like he does not have a website. He's just like a friend who works in a totally different industry. Uh, he texted me and said, Hey, I saw your YouTube video. And I really like it.

I was like, okay, well, why. Well, first of all, why are you watching that? It's doesn't you don't have a website, but he's like, I don't know. I just like you, you're kind of entertaining. And I liked watching it. I was like, I, you know, and this is a guy who. He never says a Syria. He never says a serious thing. Like everything's a bit with him.

So I'm just surprised to hear this like sincerity that he liked the video, but then he gave some feedback, which he does often with like, uh, grammar mistakes that I made on Twitter. He's the first to text me and said like, oh fuck. Well, knowing that you don't know anything about grammar, you're, you're a terrible writer. But. He had some critiques and they were really good critiques. Like, Hey, you know, you rambled. And so I started the next video.

I decided to like clean it up, add some scenes with, with E cam and sort of like create, okay, what am I constantly talking about? I talk about. Paid speed a lot. I talk about SEO. I talk about branding, a lot color schemes, all that stuff. So I devise this sort of like a blueprint, this template. For how I critique the video, how I critique the websites. Right. So, so far. I have. This form. To collect the submission. So I don't have to come up with a content or find websites. They come to me.

Right. Then I have a format where, and I'm using it by the way, I'm using a stream deck. To just hit buttons. And doing it all on the fly. So when you watch those videos on YouTube, none of them were edited whatsoever. Everything that you see on those videos as me clicking buttons in real time. And then I just, when I hit stop, I The E cam just prompts me and I just upload it directly to YouTube, right from there. And then.

I I'm basically done at that point because my assistant takes over and she. Adds the thumbnail. She adds a description, you know, that we have like a pre-written description that she copies and paste over from a sauna. You know, into YouTube, she creates the end cards. She schedules it for, for publishing it. It was like the process. Couldn't, couldn't be easier. I literally have the website at my disposal from reform. I just pull up the next one in the queue. I hit the record button.

I have a little timer that I also hit at the same time. That sets for 15 minutes. And I just, I do my thing and I move through it. And a lot of times, I don't even look at the website before I record, because I want that sort of natural reaction because I think it's entertaining. So I have the, the format, right. I have the setup of all the equipment. That's just all ready to go.

The only thing I have to do is I have to turn on the lights and, you know, I always have my speakers on, I always have my microphone plugged in. Like my setup is my setup. It's always here. I had to click a few buttons and I have to pull up reform and I have to pull up e-comm live. But once that's all up, Then I can just bang out videos. You know, I could do four videos in an hour because they're 15 minutes piece. That's great. So. I have the setup.

And then I have the, the process, the process was super easy. The process is. I did. I think I did the first three or four, maybe even five videos. Where I was sort of working out the kinks, like what's the thumbnail gonna look like? You know, Is it going to be me? Is it going to be the. The website that I'm critiquing. Uh, do I want some sort of branding on it for what it is? All this stuff.

So I had to work a few things out, you know, come up with what I was writing in the description, come up with the end card I wanted to use, or the end screen I wanted to use. How to put tags and just like basic SEO. Publishing on YouTube stuff. Right. But everything I did, I would, I would do it myself. And then I would write down what I did. And then I was able to film a loom video. Teaching my assistant how to do it.

So I sent that to her and then I sent the pre-written or I sent whatever I wrote down as the process, all of that is stored in a sauna. So shit, if she ever needs it, she can just go into a sauna and pull those things up. The descriptions there it's all on the sauna. And then whenever a new video is uploaded, I just create a task in a sauna for her, what the name of the video, and then she can log into YouTube.

Uh, she's a team member within my channel, which you can set up and she can go in and do those things. Right. So the only other thing I've I did. Was I implemented a promotion engine. It's very, it's very simple. All I do. Is I have a zap set up that every time a new video is published. It automatically tweets it out. It automatically puts it up on my Facebook page and it automatically puts it on LinkedIn. And it's funny because I was like, well, who cares? Right. As anybody.

It works on Twitter. Uh, cause I, cause I have a following there and a friend of mine that I went to high school with and it's still friends with. He's V found the video on Twitter or sorry, in the LinkedIn. It was like, it didn't texted me about it. So I'm like, okay, I guess it works. And I guess people are watching it on LinkedIn. That's pretty cool. It's not, it's not a native video. It's just like a link to the YouTube video. But it's working now.

I don't send it out to my email list because I don't want to be. You know, when I was doing 31 videos. In a row. I didn't want to have to send an email out every day. Like new video, new video, I just did it. You know, wants to promote it. Maybe like, you know, as I, as I was updating this challenge, I would send those out. So. I'm going to fast forward here because that's the setup. And each time I did a video, I changed something.

I improved something and what's great about YouTube is there's comments, which is not something you get on a podcast. But the comments were like, Hey, this, and I would talk to my community and they would say, Hey, well, you know, you need a better this. Or I would sit there and, you know, watch the video and say, what can I do better here? What, you know, And the whole goal of this. If, if. If I go back to the beginning. Right. The the actual like challenge.

Was to publish 31 videos in a row in the month of October. And document the results and the revenue. Because I wanted this to actually make money. Now, originally I ju I, you know, I had ads turned on because I have enough subscribers and I had enough watch time to be able to. Get a, what is it called? Like, just be a part of the YouTube advertising program or whatever. And I had them turned on for probably 20 days.

And then, you know, miles Beckler and, uh, tweeted me and said like, why do you have, why do you have ads turned on? Because I had updated. The list and said, like I had made like $200 from ads in the month, sort of bragging about it. And he's like, why do you have ads turned on? Like what? You're just going to have like frigging fake gurus, like Ty Lopez. You know, running ads in the front of your content, like screw that noise.

You know, and I, and I, at first I was like, yeah, but that's money. I'm. I'm throwing away and. But. Because I was doing a video every day and I was, and I was kind of like trying to get subscribers. And that was sort of, not that I, not that I use that metric as like a goal, but. I am servicing an audience. And I figured, well, there's better ways to make money. And even miles was like, there's better ways to make money than advertising. And it's like, it's just not.

So do your audience a favor and take the ads off. So that way they can watch your content. Ad-free. But, you know, you're still promote something. And at the time, at the beginning of the videos, I had nothing to promote. I had at first I was promoting just affiliate links. Right. So I would just, if I mentioned, uh, if I was looking at it, it was that. If I was critiquing a website and the website was slow. I would say, you know, you should install WP rocket.

And if you go to money, lab.co/rocket, then. You know, you can download. You know, you download, I get an affiliate code, whatever. Right. That's my affiliate link. That's you can't measure that. You know, you can't, uh, It's just not a good system for revenue. So I'm like, all right, I need something a little bit more predictable, a little bit more measurable. Like how do I know that? These YouTube videos specifically are paying off.

And what we did on swimming university in our first two years, when we were like, when we started making consistent videos, I've been on YouTube since 2011, but. In the last, like from 20 19, 20 20. Those two years where we were producing a video every single week, an animated video every single week. We were offering a coupon code for our course, which at the time was only $49. So we were saying, Hey, you know, use this coupon video and get.

I think it was like 10% off or whatever the course and people would use that coupon code. And we could do, we could go into Podio, which is what we use to sell our course and we could pull up, okay, how many people used the video coupon code? Then we know that they watched our video, but. They could have watched it on embedded on our website or they could have watched it on YouTube. So we really didn't know, but it was the YouTube video that was specifically resulting in those sales.

So we knew that. In 2021, we switched to everything because we set up a whole new funnel system, which is going to be another episode of this podcast. We set up a whole nother system where it made more sense for us to collect leads from YouTube, as opposed to just getting them to buy our product. So we created a cheat sheet by pool care cheat sheet, and I did a whole bunch of testing to see what worked and what didn't work. I tried checklist. I tried. eBooks.

I try to video, I try to cheat sheet and a cheat sheet just like convert at the best. And I guess, you know, in hindsight it makes sense why it would. At least for me. And again, we'll go into that in different episode. So. For me, it was, I was like, okay. You know, At first, I was like that. You can see a couple of videos if you go back and watch them. Where I promote all of my courses. So I have. You know, for courses or, sorry. I have five courses on money lab that I sell.

And I have a WordPress theme, so I put all those together. And it was six, six products. And I was like, Hey, if you use the promo code video, you'll get 20% off. Uh, whatever. And. It worked. I had two people use the promo code, but they bought carbonate, which is my cheapest product. And I was just like, well, I'm not really giving anybody a directive into what to buy. And it just felt like. It just felt very, like I was. You know, Spraying as opposed to target shooting.

You know, if I could, I can't find a better analogy than that. So I think it was probably halfway through the challenge I decided to Create a cheat sheet. And I came up with this idea, cause we were like, well, what's the, what's something I could offer. For free as a free downloadable that in exchange for your email address, like what's, what's the easiest thing I can offer. And also, I wanted to think about something that aligned with what I was doing. So I was, you know, talking about.

You know, improving your website. And so I thought, oh, okay. Like I could create this cheat sheet of all the things that I use. To optimize my individual blog posts. I was like that. That's a great idea. And then it was like perfect post, you know, the perfect post. Kind of alliteration showed up in my head and I'm like, oh, I'll, I'll, I'll run with that. And so I sat down and I, I think it took me. An hour. To make the cheat sheet because I already had everything.

I mean, I've been doing it for years and I had it all written down. I just needed to design it. So I designed it in Adobe XD. As a PDF export at it. Uh, and then created a lead page. And. There, there you go. Aye. Now all you had to do was subscribe. And I sent you the cheat sheet. So that was the first step. Second step was. Well, I needed a product to sell after the download the cheat sheet. And so I created a workshop.

Based on the cheat sheet where I went in depth into individual blog posts on some university, the highest earning blog posts. And showed how I optimized those using the principles in the cheat sheet. So it's an hour long workshop on the practical side of actually using the cheat sheet to create. Posts that are highly ranked and make a lot of money. And I also added a bonus lesson to that workshop about setting up. Google analytics and other tools so that you can find out how much a blog post is.

A blog post post is worth to you. So. All of this and I, and I, and for that, that's a relatively inexpensive product. So. I set that up, like middle of the challenge, maybe towards the end of the challenge. And I started promoting this cheat sheet and check in all the videos and people were subscribing. Like, I think I got like three or 400 subscribers, which is pretty good. And I know I have an existing audience, but it's not that huge. So all of these people were mostly coming from YouTube.

Cause it's all really all I. You know, I only had it on YouTube now it's everywhere, but that's where I started. I ended up selling, uh, if we, if we S if I scroll to the bottom here, this post just to kind of give you the numbers of everything. So that, so in YouTube ads for that month, I made only $202 and 56 cents. And that's because. One, you don't make shit with YouTube ads, but also I turned off the YouTube ads. You know, maybe three quarters of the way through.

Uh, I had those two carbonate purchases, those two WordPress team purchase that I said that use the coupon code. I made $126 and 40 cents from that. But that workshop that I kind of, I only want to say I threw it together, but, uh, you know, I think I spent a day putting it together and then filming it. And, you know, obviously I could film things pretty quickly. Aye. Made $936. And that was huge. And so I'm like, oh, okay, got the system. So. You so total, I made $1,264 and 96 cents.

And my assistant charged me roughly 300 bucks. So I did pretty good at like 900 bucks. For that month. Now, obviously I did a video every single day, which is a lot of work, but those videos now exist on the platform and people are still subscribing and people are still buying that workshop. And then now it's my job to create a deeper funnel where I could sell my other products and create, uh, and create more revenue for myself.

You know, once they subscribed and that's up to me to do going forward. And we can get into that, but. Yeah. I only gained 178 new subscribers, but overall, because I was just putting out content. Consistently. I just was, I was, I was just around more often. To my own audience. And money lab saw a 15% increase in overall revenue just from, just from being there. And I went and had a beer with my friend. And he's like, dude, you're blowing up my YouTube feed.

Cause you're just, you know, you're publishing a video every day and I didn't even think. That, that would be sort of a by-product of that, but it was, and so. Yeah. Did it revolutionize my business? No. When I do challenges, they're pretty short term and they never really do. But. It has completely opened me up. Into a new direction for money lab.

And that is why you're listening to this podcast because the videos and doing a consistent piece of content and hearing the feedback from the YouTube comments and on Twitter saying. Bring the goddamn podcast back. This is this just awakened, all of that. And. I love that it's streamlined. I love that I can just show up and be myself. And be an expert in the thing that I've studied 20 years of my life doing. I could do this for pools too. If I. If I could go on.

I could do a podcast about pools and B. You know, I could do a, I could do a video. I could do live videos on Facebook, about pools. I could do it on YouTube about pools. It's the same thing I can do here. I can do. What about homebrewing to. It's things that I'm into. So that's the story. Of this 31 day challenge it. It is just ignited a. Fire again, that I'm very excited about because I really, I really liked doing it. I thought, you know, 31 episodes in a row, that's a lot of work.

It's a lot of episodes. I had such a blast doing it. And I think it's because I could turn on the camera. I was by myself. I could do it whenever I was in like a positive mood. And I had a ton of caffeine in me and I'm like, all right, let's do it. You know, you can look at my apple watch. Anytime I did a review. Like I like. It's like I'm working out, I guess, like my heart's racing or whatever's happening in. And it was just like so much fun to do.

And I'm like, well, I, you know, if that, and it was easy, I mean, I could do again one hour and I had four days covered. You know of work. So, and I'm, and I'm not going to do it daily going forward. I think I'm just going to stick to. You know, Uh, probably twice, maybe three times a week, but all of a sudden I'm like, all right, cool. Let's do a podcast. Let's do multiple podcasts. Let's do multiple videos. Let's do different shows on YouTube.

Uh, the sky's the limit and I'm just going to point everybody to one place. And that is. My perfect post cheat sheet. And that's what I'm doing right now. You can download it. If you go to money, lab.co/cheat sheet. And I know that you're probably in the car, you're probably going to treadmill. But if you can open up your phone and if you're driving, please don't do this. But if you did you, did you guys hear that, that you did hear that? That was my 30 minute timer.

I don't know if I want that to play. But you heard it. Oh, also what's cool about the podcast. Anyway, we'll start. What was I saying? I'm saying. If you, if you're driving. Or your, uh, on a treadmill or whatever, and you could just like stop and just write down or memorize money, lab.co/cheat sheet and go home and download it. You will. People love it. I've gotten all good feedback about it. I'm very, very happy with it.

I'm planning on adding even more stuff to it and making it a little beefier, but like not telling anybody, just kind of doing it. You know And yeah. Aye. I'm I'm pumped. Also, what's super cool about this podcast too, is I'm doing it by myself. Uh, for now, and I'm planning on having some guests here and there, but I want the guest here in my home because I have a setup to do it. It's much easier to do it here than it is to schedule it on zoom. It's to pain in my ass.

You know, schedule it on zoom. I don't want to do that. I just don't. I want them here in studio and, and thankfully there's a ton of people around me that do this. So, uh, there's definitely people to talk about. And now we can maybe start traveling again, so maybe people can fly in for this. That would be cool. Right. Uh, so. Money lab.co/cheat sheet. And. Yeah, the other thing I want to mention just about this podcast really quick before we, before I wrap it all up.

Uh, It's I kind of feel like I'm doing some old school broadcasting shit here because I have my little stream deck and I can control things. And so far I just have a timer. And I have some theme music to play, which I'll play on the way out. But I'm going to have a lot more things. There's going to be a lot more stuff happening during this show. Anyway. Uh, I hope you like it. I hope you found it. If hope you liked the story. He'll be like this episode.

And if you did, let's talk to each other because I, I, you know, this whole idea of podcasting into a vacuum sucks. So if you could, I've put links in the show notes where you can contact me on Twitter and just email me@mattatmoneylab.co. All right. Email me. Tell me what you think, or if you have any ideas for show topics or things that you want to hear me talk about, I will absolutely do them. And I will put them out as episodes. And that's the end of the show. So appreciate it.

And I will see you guys next time. Bye. Bye.