Tips For YouTube Creators

Sure, people watch YouTube crazy cat videos, gaming videos, music videos, etc. But many of you generate videos to promote a cause, promote a product, or grow your email list. If that is you then the following tips will help you create videos people watch and enjoy.

Especially if you are a new YouTube creator I would recommend doing a dry run through of your video. Don’t worry about perfect lighting or sound. Just commit your content to a video and then go back and see how many of the items below you have ticked off. Then, when you have made any corrections go ahead and shoot the final best version of your video. Here are my 10 best tips.

1. Tell the viewer exactly what they will be learning in the beginning of your video and how your information can transform their life.

2. Avoid speaking in a monotone. Use inflections of tone and volume in your voice to create a more enjoyable experience for your viewers.

3. Use brief pauses after making key points to let the concept to set into the minds of your viewers.

4. Look directly into the camera as you speak.

5. Minimize the number of “uhs” that work into your speaking.

6. Minimize the number of contracted “g’s” in your speaking. For example…
say going to, not gunna
say want to, not wanna
say doing, not doin
say working, not workin
…just a few examples

7. The viewer watch times on your videos are extremely important to get good rankings for them. Videos of 5-10 minutes or more are better than shorter videos if you can keep the average watch times high.

8. Keeping Item 7 above in mind, always try to be succinct in your delivery. Try to cut out any non-vital parts of your video. Cut your content to the bone without eliminating essential information.

9. Be energetic and enthusiastic in your delivery. Try to make viewers feel good about their choice to view your video.

10. Near the end of your video recap the key points you made and again remind the viewers of the transformation in their lives your information can bring about.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing can be a good way to begin an online income business. The video below shows how to get started in affiliate marketing and earnings commissions quickly.

MY FREE GIFT TO YOU
Get my free 40-page supplemental ebook for the above video. Contains extra topics and includes 70 images to clarify every step. This ebook will greatly accelerate the process of building your own affiliate marketing business.
Access Your Free Copy Here.

DIGITAL INFO PRODUCTS
When I discuss affiliate marketing here I’ll be talking about promoting digital info products rather than physical products. And true, one can make affiliate commissions promoting physical products like those found on Amazon, but that’s not the topic of this conversation today.

NO INVENTORY & NO SHIPPING
Promoting digital products means there is no inventory and no shipping involved. That means a low cost in getting started. The skills involved in setting up an affiliate marketing business do not have a high learning curve. They can be learned rather quickly and in the video above you will learn many of those skills.

SETTING UP A FRAMEWORK
Making sales SHOULD NOT be your main objective starting out. What? Your first goal should be in getting a framework in place to make everything that needs to happen, happen! This involves setting up an auto-responder account and learning how to use it, learning how to create some simple web pages and getting them online, and learning how to use WordPress to create a blog. If you can do those things you can begin building your sales machine. All of these things are covered in the video above.

BUILDING AN EMAIL SUBSCRIBER LIST
Your list of email subscribers will one day become your greatest source of income. Growing an email subscriber list requires having an auto-responder account. I happen to use a service called Aweber. Your auto-responder will allow you to create web forms you can use to collect email addresses from visitors to your web pages or blogs. A page devoted exclusively to collecting email subscribers is often referred to as a lead page, an opt-in page or a squeeze page.

COMMUNICATING WITH YOUR LIST
Once you have grown an email subscriber list to can begin sending your subscribers regular emails and send them useful, actionable tips related to your niche. You can also send out emails containing links to products you promote as an affiliate. This will earn you commissions.

Access Your Free Copy Here.

And know this: I wrote every word of this ebook myself. This is not a piece of PLR I grabbed for pennies and threw  up here. It’s a high quality instructional ebook I know you’ll love. Get it here.

Using ScreenFlow To Create & Edit Your Videos

ScreenFlow is a powerful screen capture and video editing application used by tens-of-thousands of video creators around the world. Whether you are creating YouTube videos, videos for your web site or blog, or videos for a training program or coaching program–ScreenFlow can be a huge help.

Now, ScreenFlow runs only on Macs and runs $129 and upgrades from earlier versions are $39. You can also download a free, fully-functional version to try it out but any videos you create will have a “free trial” watermark on them. Here is the link to the ScreenFlow product page. https://www.telestream.net

What Is An Auto-Responder?

If you’re just getting started in marketing info products online one of your very most important tools will be your auto-responder service. It will become the lifeblood of your business.

So what is an auto-responder and why does every online marketer have one? Let’s cover the basics to help you understand why you need one and what they can do for you.

An auto-responder service provides you with the ability to collect email addresses of visitors to your web site, blog, or any location online you control. In most cases a marketer will use their auto-responder service to place an opt-in form on one of their pages and offer visitors to that page some kind of free bonus product if they input their email address and join their list.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Within your auto-responder service you have the ability to direct new subscribers to where they can download your free bonus automatically. Through your auto-responder service you can create emails and have them sent out automatically to every subscriber on your list. You can send out emails in one of two ways. You can create an email whenever you wish and send it out to your list with the click of a button. This is called a broadcast type email. You can also create a sequence of emails ahead of time. You can set new subscribers to receive your first email immediately (or whenever you like. The second email could go out on, let’s say, day three after they subscribe. The third email could go out on the 7th day after they subscribe. You get the idea.

I am on a list of one online marketer who has over 100 emails loaded into his email sequence. Sure it took him time to create the emails, but once set up the whole thing runs on auto-pilot for month after month.

There are two purposes in having an email list. First, it allows you to keep in contact with your subscribers and establish a relationship of trust with them so they learn to respect your expertise and knowledge. Second, some or all of the emails you send out promote products, either your own or products you promote as an affiliate, with links to the promotional pages for those product. In time your email list will become the largest income producing asset in your business.

I use Aweber as my auto-responder service. It would run you about $20 a month starting out but they usually offer your first month free for for $1. As your list size grows the fee increase just a bit. I have tested out others in the past but I have had my Aweber account for many years and I highly recommend them. I have also used GetResponse and Infusionsoft.

Infusionsoft is more of a CRM. While it incorporates auto-responder functions, its service platform goes well beyond the basic auto-responder services. CRM (Customer Relationship Management) services allow emails to be sent to individuals based on specific interactions they take while on your sites. CRM services are often much, much more costly than basic auto-responder platforms. While many marketers use them, I don’t recommend them if you are just starting out because they can flatten your wallet quickly. Down the road you can look into CRM platforms once you are generating income and can afford the expense.

Aside from web hosting an auto responder service should be one of your first investments. It really is required!

Don’t Sleep With The Sheep!

This is really what it’s all about folks. This is where heroes are made and hearts are broken. More than anything else, without having your head screwed on right you have no chance of success.

They are everywhere; they are all around you. They will work to shave the jagged edges from your ideas. And it is those very edges that make your ideas unique, that make them cry and sing. Don’t give in to those who belittle the power of your ideas. A person with a great idea is a unique individual. Be that individual!

Focus on your goal and do not be dissuaded by limitation thinkers who cannot even imagine other ways of doing things; their disease is contagious.

There is a tremendous little book I read for the fist time many, many years ago. It is Og Mandino’s, The Greatest Salesman In The World. It is available on Amazon here.  I have reprinted the passage below the following image with permission from LifeTime Books.

“I will persist until I succeed.
I was not delivered unto this world in defeat, nor does failure course my veins. I am not a sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd. I am a lion and I refuse to talk, to walk, to sleep with the sheep. I will hear not those who weep and complain, for their disease is contagious. Let them join the sheep. The slaughterhouse of failure is not my destiny.”

You have a responsibility to use your great ideas of moment and purpose to benefit mankind. To do less is tantamount to cheating the world of your power to bring about meaningful change. I don’t care what the topic of your product is. It could be about building doll houses, collecting seashells, building dog houses–but your ideas can change the world. They can have an impact on how people live their lives.

Whatever you choose to write about, do it with passion–with a grit and honesty that will make you stand apart from the herd of non-thinking automatons that surround you. I expect nothing less from you; I demand that you do this!

Bring Me To Life

Way back in 2003 the goth metal band, Evanescence, recorded the song Bring Me To Life. Amy Lee’s vocal work in the song sends a chill up my spine every time I hear it. It’s beautiful, eerily soothing and a wonderment to behold.

In the third stanza of the song Amy sings,

“Now that I know what I’m without
You can’t just leave me
Breathe into me and make me real
Bring me to life!”

I think about her words whenever I create a new product. Whether it’s an ebook, a video, whatever. We all have a product inside of us. Hopefully you feel an ache, a hurt inside to get it out into the world. Our job, then, is to take our idea and, as Amy says, to bring it to life. Breathe into it and make it real. I sincerely hope you feel that way about your own ideas!

Affiliate Marketing Versus Product Development

There are hundreds, probably thousands of ways to make money online.

But for most beginners just starting out it really comes down to two choices: affiliate marketing or product development. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, however, capable marketers have made veritable fortunes using each of these methods. Let’s look at affiliate marketing first.

Affiliate marketing involves promoting products others have created and earning a commission on sales. The advantage here is that one can begin immediately, without having to take the time to create a product of their own. An over-simplistic example might be to find an affiliate product to promote, set up a short review page for that product, run an AdWords ad to drive traffic to your review page and include an affiliate link on that page so if people click on that link and buy the product you will earn a commission.

Now, that’s a gross oversimplification of the process. Just creating a profitable AdWords ad is a chore in itself. But running ads on various platforms such as YouTube or FaceBook can be profitable from the get go if done properly–but there is a science to that as well.

The most successful affiliate marketers drive traffic not to sales pages but to opt-in pages and grow an email list. They then market to that list by emails on a daily basis using affiliate links in all of their outgoing emails. The bigger your list, the more money you make. A large subscriber list is the lifeblood of successful affiliate marketers.

Product development is a different animal. Here you create a digital product of your own–an informational product most likely an ebook for those starting out. To generate sales for beginners it is essential they recruit affiliates, who have big lists to market to, to promote their product for them. A couple good places to list a new product for sale is through Clickbank or JVZoo. Both will handle all affiliate tracking and payouts for you. There are eager affiliates wanting to promote new products on each of these platforms.

It is common to give a minimum of 50% commissions to affiliates on these platforms. (Did you know that on some platforms, such as JVZoo product developers have made fortunes giving away 100% commissions to affiliates?) That probably seems counter-intuitive to you doesn’t it? We’ll show yo how that works in another post, OK?

To make money with digital products you create there are several things that must be in place. First, it must be an outstanding product whatever niche it is in. Affiliates hate refunds and won’t promote products they feel might have high refund rates. Quality, quality, quality! And, you must create a good online reputation with both buyers and affiliates. You do this by over-delivering value in your products!

Another “must do” is to create a high-converting sales page for your product. No matter how good your product is, without a well thought out sales page that converts visitors into buyers you have nothing. You also need to have a way to opt visitors into your email list. You do this with the use of your auto-responder service. Remember, over 95% of visitors to your sales page will not buy your product. You can’t just let them go forever. Your mailing list will eventually become your greatest asset.

And finally, the most successful info product developers have a strong sales funnel. It really is essential to maximize earnings. The initial product you create and sell should be thought of as a gateway through wish you present buyers with more expensive products or add-ons to your initial product.