Tom Breeze 0:00
It is such a big platform. And there's a heuristic or a mental shortcut that viewers will make as well to be like, if they see you advertising on that platform, they'll consider you a serious brand, just the reach and the impact you can have with people. I don't think it's rivaled. Then there's another platform quite like it.
Simon Banks 0:18
Joining me this week is YouTube expert Tom breeze, and he has a very different view on the type of content you should be creating for YouTube. You won't want to miss this episode. Welcome to the Simon Says video podcast with your host me Simon banks, where we talk about all things video, and how this powerful medium can help you grow your business, we focus on how you can get a return on any video content you create. We're talking about strategy production, content distribution, marketing, how you can get visible gain new leads and get new clients. Now joining me this week is Tom Brees that I've known Tom for several years. And he's always been in what I call the YouTube space. Tom is a leading video advertising expert. He is an entrepreneur, speaker, author and founder of video advertising agencies view ability. He's created over 1700 Video Ads campaigns for his clients focusing on lead generation, customer acquisition, brand awareness, and E commerce campaigns. He spent a small fortune testing and tracking the results. And with the knowledge, he now teaches many other business owners and entrepreneurs, the strategies that work and exactly how to advertise using YouTube. I'm really excited about this episode, because I've been saying for a while that you need to put some money behind your video content to make sure it gets into the right audience. And so having Tom on the show, that's sort of the the myth debug this whole thing about for YouTube. So Tom, welcome. Thank you for joining, let's start with why YouTube, why is YouTube still relevant here in 2023, YouTube is
Tom Breeze 2:03
such a huge platform, and it's growing every day in the way that people are using it every day is changing as well. So I think in the past people have you looked at YouTube, especially it's early days, it's just like a video hosting platform, perhaps, and then maybe another place to go and see cat videos, that type of thing. Like trying to look at those funny videos and things. But he's really starting to be adopted into just everyday life, you know, so it becomes the platform to go and watch video, if you're trying to search for any video that you wanted to watch or any content, which needs to be demonstrated, then you're going to immediately start to go to YouTube and YouTube is preferred and all the search results as well. Because it's a company owned by Google. And the platform itself is just on our devices, it's kind of our TVs now as well, kids are adopting it. So it's just become kind of the mainstay of where we go to watch video. And I think it will supersede TV in the future as well. There's always a place for TV, and there's always a place for movies and that type of thing. It's just that you look at the business models behind every type of broadcasting. And YouTube pays zero to its content, or to go and create content, you know, so look at someone like Netflix that has to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to directors and for production to create a film that would distract a viewer for two hours. YouTube didn't have any of the upfront cost of content creators to do that themselves. And now that make their money from the ad revenue that's generated. And so it's just a business model that works very well for YouTube. It's a great entertainment platform. And it's where the world goes to watch video is such a big platform. And there's a heuristic or a mental shortcut that viewers will make as well to be like, if they see you advertising on that platform, they'll consider you a serious brand. You know that it's like, if you see anyone running an ad on the Superbowl, not to say it's the same thing, of course, but there's a as a given or a mental shortcut that will make the bid to be like that brand must be doing pretty well. Therefore their products must be pretty good. Just the reach and the impact you can have with people on YouTube is isn't is a I don't think it's rivaled. Then there's another platform quite like,
Simon Banks 4:19
Yeah, we all go to YouTube to do a search or to find out something. And I think this is the key distinction is actually YouTube. It's not really a social media platform. It's a search engine first. And I think this is where a lot of businesses making mistake. They just see YouTube as basically a video hosting platform. And then they put the content out there and hope that you know, sort of think that people just discover it.
Tom Breeze 4:40
I think there's definitely an element of the platform being a search based platform where people will go to YouTube to search it i think i think it is changing over time. Like a lot of the advertising. targeting options that you have available to you are far list intent based these days. So And if you're to run certain types of advertising that leans on machine learning which you've got what you kind of want to be doing, if you're advertising on the platform, when you look at the way you can advertise, now they've taken away a lot of the contextual targeting. So things like, if you were to try and target people by the videos, they're watching all the keywords they type in, or topics information, those aren't available to you in the same way as they they used to be. Because YouTube just knows so much more information about segments and audiences general behavioral change in people. And when they notice those signals and those markers, it can tag people basically in different ways. So every user on the platform will be displaying different types of behavior. Nowadays, it's kind of becoming this thing for an advertiser to realize that you're not advertising to a person and their immediate behavior, you're not advertising to small pockets of groups of people that are showing behaviors that are kind of of the right type of interest. And it's, it changes the game a little bit, because it means that you can't turn up at exactly the right time with really relevant content, you're starting to be a little bit broader brush, and it's getting in front of people based on their interests. But it just means that you can target far more people. It's a, it's an ever changing world right now on YouTube, there's so many different changes that are happening, which is really unprecedented. Over the last, let's say, seven or eight years, it's been pretty smooth sailing with how the platform works. And over the last six months, it's been huge amounts of changes. So they are changing the platform, I think that people are using the platform more and more as a entertainment space, as well as an educational place as well.
Simon Banks 6:42
So as a business, where should you start with YouTube? If you haven't started already too late to start? And if and if you're thinking about as a business, yes, I need to have some sort of awareness on YouTube, I need to build my YouTube channel, where would you start?
Tom Breeze 6:59
I'd start by thinking about content that your customers really want to hear about, you know, so if you kind of think about your customer, and you think, right, what is it that they would be inspired by? You know, so it's not, it doesn't come to you immediately. Typically, it's more like, you get to kind of think about your customer, what it's like a day in the life of their, of that customer? And what can what, like information can you give to them that's very, very useful, very valuable, and hopefully quite unique. Somebody inspires you, perhaps as well, we think that people should really know this. And this is kind of, you're making a case for something and giving people really valuable content. I think that there's a lot of people who approach YouTube in the way that things are, what are all the search terms that people are typing in, and let's go create videos about every single search term. So we gain the SEO game, and hopefully get a bit more reach. And I think those days are gone. I think that trying to create, okay, content, for an audience, like the audience is so much more demanding these days, your content needs to be ridiculously good. You don't need to create so much of it, like it was beneficial to in the past. Now you can create a smaller volume of content, but make it so good. From a standpoint of like, this is the information that people need, again, production is can be useful. But if you look at most of the big videos on YouTube, production quality is not like it's movie sets. It's not like it's ridiculously high quality you can a DSLR is good. A mobile phone can be good, too, you can get your content done pretty well. But I'd really recommend people to take a step back from the whole YouTube ecosystem for a second before you start thinking, how do we play on this platform, think about your own brand, think about what you would like to talk about, and then bring that to the platform. Because you're gonna have so much more impact with the right people, you know, like, people will want to share your content. And that's, and they will like on it, and they'll comment, and that's what YouTube are looking for. They're looking for the best content that's out there. And they'll help you if you create great content, if you get really high retention, lots of likes, comments and subscribers. That's where I'd start with YouTube is like creating content you want to create, not what you've probably been told to create, you know, to go for a walk, think about like, the most inspiring idea you can think of. And that's kind of the video that you should probably create. Now, that's really
Simon Banks 9:29
interesting, because most of the people what I sort of watch and YouTube is, is you need to do create videos for search terms. And you need to be uploading a video at least once a week to sort of get the platform to know you and understand your content to put in front of others. And you're sort of going that's not the case anymore.
Tom Breeze 9:49
what everyone's doing it, you know, like it's so is boring content. Typically, unless you've got some amazing spin on things. It's probably been done before. All, and no one really cares, you know, or you create like videos about content that gets like three views a month or something it's like, okay, like, so you've got to go at it from a standpoint of pull your brand through. Okay, so we think about the customer and we think about what is it that they really want? Like, what's the outcome? Maybe this search term to begin with, like, you think, right? Okay, someone's looking for information about how to buy businesses, for example, like merger and acquisition content, I don't know, just kind of something off the cuff, you might then think, right? What does your audience really need to know about? Like, what's the inspiring content or story that you can share with somebody about that content? And and it's really important to think like, what's the headline of the video? what's the, what's the title of the video gonna be? And what's the thumbnail gonna look like? I would, I would spend a lot of time thinking about that, just to be like this. Every time you create your content, you want it to be your best content you've ever created, like, like, like you're giving a presentation in front of 10,000 people at a stadium, and it's your one chance to absolutely nail it. But at the same time, you're thinking about delivering this content to one person, but you know, that that's the kind of the stakes, you know, so you want to make it really good, average content, it's works against your brand, people don't want that you have one moment to be in front of them and inspire them, you know, and so people think I want more content from this person or this brand. So mediocre content about search terms, is this going to be like, it's just goes in the wash? You know, it's, it's boring, no one really wants it. And I just foresee that being hard work, boring work. And then people give up. And it's, it's, you see, so many channels like that, you know, just start creating content, and then think, Oh, this is really boring. And it is you're boring the pants of your viewers, if only pensive yourself. YouTube doesn't like it? What's going on? Like, why did you get into this in the first place? You want to start with content you really feel inspired by? So think about your brand, think about like, okay, cool. This is what they're presenting me with is like, this is their search terms. This is like what they're looking for great fine. Now, think of your content that would really resonate with that, which will be 10 times better than the content that's already out there. Like, how are you going to do that? And then you might think, well, I don't know, I don't know, sit with that question for a few days if you need to, and think what is the very best content is going to blow the rest of the content at the water. Because if you create that, and you get consistent at doing that, that's going to be really powerful for your brand. What you need to make sure you know is that your brand promise, which is what people really want to hear from you is like, you're gonna feel this when you do business with us. And as we've done in this type of way, like, here's our emotion, and here's our values, that kind of adds up to your brand promise. And that kind of comes through in a lot of your videos, you're gonna find that people really resonate with you, you know, and that's really like, when it comes to creating content on YouTube, if you can bring that across, people will find your content, like it, comment on it, share it, have high retention on it, and YouTube are looking for those markets, and they won't be long before you start getting a lot more exposure. Of course, we run ads to make sure that also that video gets a lot more exposure. And when we can amplify the content that you create, so you kind of create your own audience, and you can target your demographic and content your audiences based on their search behavior. But for anyone who doesn't want to do advertising, still, it's really important to create videos that are going to really resonate with your audience.
Simon Banks 13:35
And so do you still think it's going to be you lead with values rather than just creating like a glossy sales promo type of video.
Tom Breeze 13:43
And there's a time and a place for both. The approach I would probably recommend for people is to start with that content and that value, create a video so powerful that you feel very proud about it and you want to you want to show it off yourself, and then run it as an ad. So you want to have a call to action in it, you want to be really clear with that, but you want to lead with 80% of it is going to be pure value. But that value can be wrapped up in a we use a framework called advocate. So really your whole thing is selling, but you're kind of selling the idea to people so they really adopt it as quickly as possible. And and that's kind of the type of video I probably get started with once someone's engaged with your brand and then got to know like and trust you and would consider buying from you. At that point, you could afford to run more glossy style videos, as you say. But you could go for like a 92nd pitch video to get someone to take action and take the next step on the journey. Like I'm a direct response advertiser and have been for many years. And so I've got kind of that running through my veins. I want to make sure that every dollar I spend I make more than $1 back and I want to try and do that at scale as well. I just think when you're first getting started, you want to have this foundational body of work that is, you know, it doesn't have to be huge number of videos like 510 videos are really high quality content videos, you can, you can use those to amplify your brand. So if people have to check you out, they can be like, Wow, I love all your content you've created, I felt comfortable buying from you as well. But then once you're building that brand up, your ads will perform so much better, as well as the kind of the shorter, direct response ads, asking people to take action and going to buy something from you, those videos will work so much more effectively, when you already have an established brand.
Simon Banks 15:32
Let me unpack that a little bit. So it's basically saying it's best to invest in producing, you know, four or five really high quality videos, which you can upload to YouTube, sort of as your awareness to build your channel. And then the magic here or the key is then to put some money behind it to push it into your intended audience. And therefore you're not having this constant pressure, I guess in terms of our must do YouTube video this week and trying to rush something out. But I guess the key really here is before you do any video content is actually to think about the type of video you create. And I guess this will come down to basically the script, some of the production values as well. And how do you make that video, I guess, engaging enough that people will want to watch. So can we sort of unpack your your framework, your educate framework, just to help our audience understand the type of video that you should be creating,
Tom Breeze 16:31
we use a framework that helps us communicate really effectively, and helps us make sure that we have all of the persuasion points into the video, even as a content video to work really effectively. So like I said before, you want to make sure you come up with your idea, your content, your value that you provide to people and make it as sexy, as enticing, as compelling as possible, you know, so think you have a really good title, think of a really good thumbnail. And think like, that's going to be the opening hook, so to speak to your video. So if you look in your space, you could like type in a few key words, perhaps of like what you think your customer is going to be typing in. And you can look through all the videos that are out there, including the thumbnails and your neck, right, I could probably better that great, that's kind of a great opportunity for you. So have a look through that, gaining some inspiration, but stick with your original idea. So you need to make sure it's unique to you, you need to make sure that I've got a new approach to handling this question or this topic. So you start there. And then you use educators your framework to help with the educational piece of your content. So you might say great, this is want to teach people this is the hopefully build it into some sort of framework or method or unique proprietary system, something that you can communicate with people. And so like, for example, I've seen a video recently, from a friend of mine who created a video that is him presenting it, but he just brings up a screen shares his iPad. And all he does is just puts like a grid down like hand drawn with his pen on his iPad. And he literally just draws a line down and a few lines across to make a grid of six boxes and goes cool. I'm gonna teach you about six different ways of generating customers. Let's get into it. And that's kind of an immediate framework. I'm like, Okay, well, there's six boxes, I'm going to find out the six different ways of generating customers of my business. And it was like, that's as simple as it needs to be, you could get a whiteboard out, you could print out your methodology onto onto something but you want it to be like a tangible thing that people can see immediately that they're like, ah, that's going to be unpacked in this video. As if we will see that that upgrade I've got I can see what we're going to be going through. A lot of it's been concealed, a lot of will be revealed in the video. And it just opens that loop for people opens that hook but also knows it's gonna be an educational video. So right at the start the video that can be a really effective way of showing people what's to come. But then we use educate So educate is an acronym, it's ad you see a te a of educate stands for aim. And this is your viewers aim, right? So what you want to make sure you're doing when it comes to the beginning of your videos, get straight into the content, don't dilly dally and do an introduction or logo or anything like that just get straight into the content immediately. So let's say for example, you had a video about the top five businesses to start in 2023. And you might want to release that at the end of 2022. So it's the timing is right. If you were to do that, then you want to kind of like literally number out the top five. So like Oh, write down 12345 on a board or TV screen or whatever it be, and you're like alright, let's get straight into it. Number one, as you're immediately teaching in the video is really important you get into that no introduction to who you are no kind of logo Stinger or anything like that just straight away get into the content, it's really important because the viewer already knows what the what the content is about because they've seen the thumbnail and the headline, and they've clicked to play the video. Once you start teaching early on the video, you want to mention who this is for as in terms of the demographics and the psychographics. So if you're speaking to golfers, for example, you might say, so if you're over the age of 40, and you're a weekend golfer, then this is perfect for you. And so you want to call out who it is you're speaking to. So the psychographic being like the weekend golfer. That's how they're probably class themselves. And the demographic being like an older golfer, and you want to talk about their immediate wants, almost like what it is they're searching for what they want solved right now, and the desired outcome. So what's like, if they were to fix that, what would that mean? So let's say for example, someone's looking at a golf video because they want to fix their slice, for example. That's the immediate one, they want to fix their slice. So he will Bananarama off into the into the trees or the lake, the desired outcome, I wanted to hit go straight on the boards go straight, and I want my scores to be better than ever, you the other thing it's adding to this aim section would be your emotional benefits. So to say, right, if you were to achieve that and play better golf, the emotional benefit of that might be pride. It might be the competitive spirit, and you're coming out and beating your friends. And so you can see like your friends going like what the hell just happened? How does Tom all of a sudden improve his golf game overnight, it seems. So it's an emotional benefit of like, pride in my own game, but then perhaps I can then bloat in front of my friends, and finally beat my friends. And then it might be like, I can fall back in love with the game. Because once upon a time, I might have had the bug for golf. But now I've lost it. And I just get frustrated every single time I play the game. It sounds very true. To be honest, that's exactly describing myself. But that's kind of what you want to do in any part of your videos, you want to make sure that you are really tapping into the connecting with what it is that your customer really wants. And they're like, yes, and it can be done in like one or two sentences, we're just going to pepper that in early in the teaching of your content. So people thought this is really, really relevant for me.
Simon Banks 22:24
So that's just the the A is for a next is D.
Tom Breeze 22:28
D is for difficulty. So the difficulty in the video is again, a really quick peppering of a few sentences just at some point in the video, you can explain their current challenge, what it is they're going through, if you can describe it in a way that it's almost like the conversation that already having it in their mind, if you can explain it to them in a clearer way than they've ever thought possible. They're like, Oh, my word, you really get me You understand what I'm actually going through. So you want to make really clear that you understand what their current challenges like fixing that slice like what it feels like to have that slice what it looks like, what how they refer to it so banal entering off into the lake or the trees is what a lot of golfers will call it. And then the emotional pain or the frustration that caused the lack of confidence when you stand over the ball, if you're playing golf, the emotions that are kind of present, there can be really frustrating, it's going to snap your clubs, for example. But then you also want to tap into what they stand to lose if they don't fix this. So you want to start putting some tension on this situation. Tension is the number one thing that drives action is that people feel uncomfortable, feel like there's pent up emotion, hey, I need to release it. And they release it through their behavior. So what they would stand to lose if they don't fix this problem with their slice. Every time they go out and play golf or get embed bad bad habits, it's gonna actually get worse, if they don't fix this because they overcompensate and you don't play properly. And all of a sudden, you realize that you're creating more and more of a problem for yourself over the years. So you stand to lose big time because your slice is gonna get worse and worse. And your whole golf games get worse and worse, unless you nip this in the bud now, like now's the time to fix this right now. So that's kind of like the difficulty, you're going to explain that to them. Now, the next thing we want to tap into is the you have educate, which is the undertaking. This is the point where you start to say, okay, cool. So I'm teaching you this content. This is what you want the aims, this is the difficulties you're currently experiencing. But now I'm going to give you the training. And as I'm teaching you this, let me just give you some context to how this came about, like how my method works so well, how we were able to create this thing that I'm walking you through right now. So it's like you're undertaking given a bit of a story of like, why you did this in the first place. And as you do that, you're saying, Look, this, the system is tried and tested, but actually built it 15 years ago, because I realized there were two types of people. And that's what you want to do. You want to identify two types of people you'd like six As and losing groups, so to speak, like the people that can hit the ball straight, but people that keep on slicing, it felt like like you want to identify like, there's two types of golfer here, there's two, you can apply this to pretty much anything that you've ever tried to fix before, it's like, some people are able to do it, some people aren't able to do it. Once you do that, you want to explain why it was really important for you to tackle this problem. And it's got to tap into your values as a brand or as an individual. So you say, I saw this, and I had to fix it. Now, why did you have to fix it? Because people were struggling and you couldn't put up with that, or you had the problem yourself or a loved one had the same problem? What was it that really inspired you to go and fix this problem to create your whole business around kind of fixing this problem for people? What why did why were you inspired to do so. Because you want to share your values you want to share with people, this is what I stand for, and stand against at this point. So people feel very comfortable being like I can buy into your brand, because I'm going to get the outcome that get that emotional outcome. But also the way you do this is so important. Because if you can share your values, you do it in a methodical way, or you do it in a caring way, or you do it in a whatever way it is you do it, you want to kind of start sharing that in the video, that's your values that used to stand for, and also stand against. And that will just allow it gives you this opening to talk a little bit more about your brand. First, I'm not talking about very long, so one or two sentences again, but you can share with people like why it was so important to you. And that will really rally people emotionally that connects with people a lot. So you want to share that undertaking of what it is you you why it is you started this journey to try and fix this problem how that solution that you're presenting in the video came about. By that point, you're probably sparking off I thought process that going on in your viewers head. So as you go through educate the next letter is the C ame difficulty undertaking and then credibility isn't see. So credibility at this point, we were thinking, okay, cool. You took on this undertaking? Well, why were you qualified to do this. And that's where you really want to identify with people and say, This is my experience, I came at this from a different point of view that no one else had come up before. I have a wealth of experience in various different disciplines. I've won awards for things I've done, and I build up your credibility at that point.
But if you can have a have an approach on this like to Why were you able to fix it, it might be because you have a different point of view to everybody else, because you come from a slightly different way, you're not the obvious, trained person. So you see this in science quite a bit like, you might have the people in the lab discovering things all the time, which is great. But something they come across problems they can't solve. There's not an easy solution to everything. And it can take an outsider sometimes to look at it and think Hang on a second minus not doing it this way. And it's that outsider's perspective, that different point of view on things that can get the breakthrough. The next letter on educators the A, it says to adapt. And the reason being what we want to do is we want to share with people like okay, cool, I've given you the solution. By this point, I've given you the framework or the unique method or system that's going to really help you like educate, for example, when I teach educate, I'll do it in such a way whereby we go deep on like, the values and everything else. But over the years educate is actually developed and evolved. And based on lots of different things that are happening on YouTube. So over the last six months, lots has happened on YouTube. And we've had to adapt a little bit the actual, the Educate framework to make sure it stays ahead of the curve. And it's still a framework that works. It just It needs a tweak from time to time, it could be like a little drawback, there's not going to damage the integrity of that of that solution is more so the solution is great. It works really, really, really powerfully, but it wasn't quite ready yet. And I had to tweak it, I had to adapt it to make it ready. Because by sharing with people like the struggle that you had to bring this, it kind of adds more value to the product, but also by owning up and being honest about the product itself, then people believe you more and people with that they build trust with you, they feel like at because you're telling me that it wasn't perfect. I can believe in what you're talking about, because you've been honest with me. And then you want to say but we fix that through this methodology, we now find that this system was a lot more efficient efficiently because we fixed it. And here's how we fixed it. So now with this change, you can now talk about all the trust that has been generated in the marketplace as a result of this tweak to this. So you might talk about all the times this product has been featured in the press or all the testimonials you've got that type of thing. All the accolades and the emergence of this product being adopted by the, by the wider group of people, but you want people to you want to on the video to see people just like you. So choose your testimonials really carefully to show that people like us people, like your customers, or just like your viewer, and they're doing things like buying your product, because it'll make you feel so much more certain and confident about making that purchasing decision. So you want to that's the T of educate that trust element, the testimonials, the endorsements, the press coverage. And the last thing, then in the E of advocates is your exit. This is your call to action, basically. So it can be as subtle as you'd like to be, or you can be very kind of overt and talk literally about the products you have for people that you want people to go by. And so you want to provide that. And at some point, whether you do it on the video, or whether you do it on the website, you're gonna have your core offering, what it is you're offering for people, quote, the price, obviously. And then the Shoebill, who it's for and who it's not for, if there's any objections that people will have, then you want to make sure you create bonus content. And that will just handle that our bonus products that will just handle that and name those bonuses, have a really good guarantee. So people feel very comfortable making doing business with you. And then pulling that tension again to say this is your moment in the video to be like, Who are you going to be, they're going to be the dabbler or you're gonna be the real guitar player, you're going to be the which identity are you choosing? Because you're you're not you really want to build tension at this point of the video around the identity, you want to say, this is your moment, are you going to be the gym goer, we're going to be the person that's a slob and stay at home all day, that might be a bit aggressive. But you get my point, right? You're you're talking about this decision, whether it's a click and goodbye is not about whether you want to buy this product or not. This is about decision you're making about your own identity, who you decided to be as a result of this video. And if you can be that person, here's what the status level looks like for you. Like, here's what life will look like, here's the sort of people you'll be hanging around with, here's the sort of things you'll own, here's the sort of lifestyle you will now have is that status that comes with that decision about their identity now. So you're putting a lot of tension on them about this decision they're making where they're going to click and go buy in the video. And it's not about buying the product so much as it is to say, the product will make sense logically, yeah, you can justify that. But the emotion behind it is to say, who you're going to be. And if you really want what like the outcome and emotional benefits, and the status of of getting success. This is the decision you need to make today. And that point you do the call to action. And that is kind of the whole thing unpacked the whole of educates. So hopefully that was useful and and valuable.
Simon Banks 32:44
Now, educate for probably longer, we're going well, how long is this video? Sounds like it's going to be like a mini documentary. I mean, in terms of duration. And now what do you think, you know, if someone was thinking, Yeah, I think you know, I want to produce this piece of content. But you know, what, what is there an optimal length that YouTube likes for this.
Tom Breeze 33:04
So all of the parts of advocates are just peppering in a few sentences here and there. So you could probably do advocate in the space of a minute, if you really wanted to, you have to be quite concise and get things down. But we've done plenty of ads that combined all of these elements and put them into one ad. And so whilst that framework works really well, that could be a one minute video, that could be a 10 minute video could be an hour long video if you really wanted to. We've got ads that work really well at 45 minutes, and their content rich content. We've got ads that work really well at 10 minutes. Ads, it really worked well, it's 60 seconds, I would say that when it comes to creating your content for your channel, I think the sweet spot is over eight minutes, and probably less than 20 minutes, I think around about 12 minute 10 to 12 minutes is like a sweet spot for this type of thing. Sometimes a YouTube video of about 10 minutes can really violate a schema that you currently have, where you're thinking, hang on a second, I've always done it this way. So you're telling me to do it a different way? Why does it why like, so that's what you want to try and do for people. You want to try and tackle a big subject matter that people that people have to change quite like change the way they're thinking about things. They're gonna be like, wait a second, okay, you're telling me to do this in a completely new way. All right, once, so walk me through it. And so then you literally are walking them through it, you're showing them the education, you're going through the educate, train, the Educate, model, or to expand your framework and things. So it's almost like right, unpack that for people, you really want to make it easy for people to feel like I've had an old belief but prior to watching this video, now I have a new way of thinking as a result of this video. And I'm gonna generalize it across everything I'm doing. But as you're knitting it back together, what you're finding is that you're embedding your brand into that message. So follow up. This person once taught me this and it changed how I think about things forever. And that's the impact you want to try and think about when you're having on your YouTube videos.
Simon Banks 35:04
So presumably, you create this video, whether it's one minute or 10 minutes, 12 minutes, you upload it onto your channel as a public viewing video, and then where you come in, then it was you basically then put some money behind it some ad spend to make sure it gets in front of the right audience. Now, when I think of an audience, yeah, I think we all sort of hover over that skip heads. Now, I must admit, sometimes I do get hooked into it, I do watch it, then I skip it. I always find interesting when when I see the skip air to see a video, which is 12 minutes. And again, why are they doing a 12 minute video? So you're saying basically, if you're doing a skippable ad, for example, you know, it can doesn't have to be 30 seconds or a minute doesn't have to be an ad as we know, but it can actually be longer content. Is that correct?
Tom Breeze 35:49
I think the the there's so many hangovers that I see from advertising of years gone by, right? So people believe that ads have to be a certain way because of it. No, because they just believe that's going to be the way it is. So like the schema that most people have in the advertisers was because of TV they'd like right, you have a 32nd spot, you have a 62nd spot, you have a 92nd spot, and that's it. What, no, you can have a 10 second spot if you really wanted to get a two hour spot if you really wanted to, and who's to say what's gonna work best, you know, and also people are saying, oh, with YouTube, the thing you really want to do is the ad just gets the click. And then the click after that point, the website takes over that point, that's complete rubbish, as well. Like, you can have a YouTube video as an ad that has all the whole customer journey, everything all the way up to the point of checkout. So you can say, here's what you're buying, here's everything you're getting. And now go and click this link, it takes them to the checkout, no big website, No, literally go and make your purchase here from my YouTube video. And you can bypass so much and and that works ridiculously effectively. And there's so many reasons for it. But like, literally you can reinvent the wheel here, you you don't need to adhere to the old schemas, the old ways of thinking of years gone by with advertising, because that's what works well for TV spots, you know, so how TV is created in the past was like, make sure there's enough advertising in it. And it sounds good enough brands advertising and this is. And so it's like, Why do we feel like we have to do that same thing on YouTube, we can do it in a completely different way. Obviously, we're going to create a longer video, it needs to be really good to hold people's attention. But on YouTube, that happens, people on average, people spend 40 minutes on YouTube 40 minutes is an insanely long period of time. And they're actively engaged, they're clicking, they're watching videos, they're they're not passively watching TV, they're leaning in clicking and watching. So when someone's watching for 14 minutes, and you have a video for 20 minutes, you're only taking up half of their viewer experience with your ad. But if it's good content, it's good value that people will get to know you like you trust you and will consider buying from you. So in the video, give them a call to action. If it makes sense. I think every organic video you put put out there kind of a call to action. It has to be done elegantly. And you don't want to do like a big, like a huge sales pitch for your video with fake scarcity. And all sorts of the biggest thing you can do is pull on identity and say who you really want to be you want to be this person or this person. And that's enough tension to be able to feel like okay, cool, I don't want to be that person in my life. I don't want to stand to lose all this. So you want people to kind of click go by and you can change it all together. So yeah, don't adhere to the rules that people say like you can play around with a few things and it can work really effectively.
Simon Banks 38:41
I think the key there was actually to test out just out of interest. So could you create like a shorter video, like a two minute video or three minute video, and then point them to a longer video, for example. So you sort of educate them through the journey so rather than because often see an ad and I think I was 10 minutes not gonna watch that. But sometimes it's two or three minutes, I might I might persevere, it might be a bit more than maybe could the call to action then be then watch this video here. And then you're starting that sort of educational process. With that, if
Tom Breeze 39:08
we had a really successful video campaign with Tony Policastro, who's like a guitar tutor, teach people how to play guitar, acoustic guitar, and we created a video. The first video was like an introduction to learning how to play guitar. And he said, the basically the divide would be as like, hey, look, if you're actually looking to properly learn guitar, let us know where you're at. Are you someone who's in a rut right now? Or are you someone in like so you've played a long time and you're kind of not getting the results and you're just it's kind of like you may have not touched your guitar for 20 years and just in a bit of a rut with it. What we'd end up doing is, is at the end of the video gave people a choice. So like a choose your own adventure as we called it. So you could click one or two thumbnails to then go through to the relevant video after that point is using Going in screen. And so then you would click through to your divide your audience up to people who are in a rut or self identified with that. And people who are brand new or new was the word we used, and new tickets. And then then we give them separate messages based on where they're at. And we got so many really positive reviews about that, like, normally, when you run an ad, you get negative comments, and people don't like it. And you frustrates people. This, like we had so much positivity behind all the videos, so many comments, etc, about how cool the ad was. At the end of that second video, once they click through either through from a rut or new, they're going to different offers off the back of that. And that works really well. I think there's something around the ability to binge watch your brand. And so if you said right, go here next and then go here next, and but not just here's another video that you might find useful. It's a purposeful, go watch this one, to then further deepen your knowledge on this. Or if you're this person, click here. If you're this sub person, click here. And you kind of like giving them an adventure, you know, if you can, if you can create that little mini ecosystem for people, then people will really binge watch your content and really like it. That's something that I think is really unexplored and should be a lot deeper. Because right now it's such a linear thing on YouTube. It's like, go watch this video. Next week, I've got a new video, and it's go watch this video. It's like TV, again, we can create experiences for people on YouTube. And so there's so much more to do on the platform, it's just people haven't really broken their schemas of what the platform is all about, you know. So instead of its thinking of like, this is one video, think of a journey, think of like, what it is you would do, I have a three part masters masterclass, and I get so much positivity around that. And so it's that type of thing, you want to try and provide a bit of a journey and experience people bit more thought needs to go into it. But if you're able to do it, you're gonna find that you've really resonate with people. And it's really exciting to watch that content.
Simon Banks 41:55
Now, they've advocate for creating consistent video content, but more than one video as well. And using those videos to help you cut through the customer journey, not of interest on top. So what kind of results are you getting with your clients when when you're using this process and, you know, promoting ads through YouTube?
Tom Breeze 42:14
Yeah, so we have like two different divisions, I suppose in our YouTube ad agency. So we have one division that's like doing all the big spend stuff. And that's kind of the dark response activity, that kind of the shorter ads, typically, that would then lead into an offer sale from YouTube. And we run the In Stream Ads is like the pre roll ads. And we can use and lots of other types of advertising like performance, Max, and, and Google and things. But when we run that stuff, it's like, you can really scale up. And we have some brands spending north of $50,000 a day running their ad campaigns. So that's kind of like one side of the agency, so to speak, the big side of the agency as big a volume of spend, so to speak. And then we have another side about agency that are normally for not necessarily smaller brands, but brands that want to have a deep impact with people that their monthly budget on ads can be less than $1,000. Something it can be like you spent $5 a day, sometimes as well, those sorts of people are creating really good content and running their videos as infeed ads, it's difficult to scale those campaigns up, it's difficult to get like so much exposure for those campaigns, but you're saying create your content, put five to $10 a day behind it. And through that process, you're gonna see what works, what doesn't work, refine it a little bit. But as you go down that route, you're going to find that you can spend very small budgets but have ridiculously good results like really high row as and as such a big impact on people. So row as being return on adspend. But for every dollar you spend, you can find that you can break even or make good profit from it, whilst you can't scale it very well. So you can't go spend $50,000 a day on that activity of envied video ads, what you can do is you can say, right, I'm gonna put $10 a day, it's going to be consistent, it's gonna keep on generating really good audience by my brand on YouTube. And you start to get like, why the cost per view typically hovers at around five, five cents. So if you're spending $10, my mouse isn't quick enough, but I think it's 200 views a day. And so you can immediately see how that would really rack up very quickly. And if you're able to make that work profitably as well, and typically we do, then you're like, great, my channel was growing, that just that video alone is growing by 200 views a day, which was just $10 and it's making me money. It's like cool, doesn't take long before they start really adding up. You know, all of a sudden you're doing over 1000 views a week. And by the end of the year, you've got over 50,000 views. They've all been profitable. But imagine the reach you've had, imagine the connections you've had with so many people, but with advertising, the beautiful thing about it is that you optimize for retention to ensure that you're getting really, really good retention from people. Also what you're doing as you're optimizing for leads and sales, of course, the beauty is that you're getting so many more views, likes, subscribers, shares, building that brand out, and getting so much data from that whole journey as well. So you're realizing what works, what doesn't work, what demographics work, which you kind of defining your audience defining their search terms, defining what they find really useful, what content they find really useful. And it sets you up perfectly for the bigger stuff later on.
Simon Banks 45:28
So what you're saying is start small, it's I think it's probably, you know, building, make sure you've got YouTube channel set up, start creating some really high value, good videos. And then what so how do you start with actually pushing the content out of to the YouTube network? I mean, is it easy to do is something you can do yourself or always, I suspect, it's not as simple as that there's quite a lot to understand and to look at. So as a, as a business owner, you're thinking, You know what, this is great. Yeah, I want to get in front of my audience wanting in front of a new audience. Yes, I can create a video, but I got no idea how to set this this campaign up. Where would you start?
Tom Breeze 46:07
Yeah, good question. So, so create your video and get on YouTube. That's kind of a one process in itself. And so you just upload it to YouTube, and release that video as a public video on your channel when you're ready. As soon as it's released, or even before it's released, if you really want to, you can run it as an ad. So you'd run it as an infeed video ad. So through the Google ads platform, you just choose in the video ad,
Simon Banks 46:31
because I know you've probably lots of choices. So infeed is infeed video ad is whereby
Tom Breeze 46:35
if you're on YouTube, you're going to see the video thumbnail appear at the top of search results. On the right hand side, as you're watching a video, on a desktop or below the video, if you're watching the video on a mobile device, and sometimes even on the home screen, as well. So you lost different locations you turn up, it's just you literally your thumbnail being shown as well as the title of the ad and a couple of exactly what other information but there's kind of kind of use, it looks very much like a organic video being promoted, basically. And that's kind of exactly what it is really as well. So when you when you've got your video, you run it as you choose in feed video ad, make sure your thumbnail and your title is strong. But you really have to be prompted through like, Okay, I need two lines of a description now. And so you just write in what you think those two lines descriptions should be and all good. Just make sure you have a call to action in the video and a clickable link through to your site that can be done with no screens, or it can be done with a card or it can be done with a link in the description or a pinned comment. Lots of different ways of making sure that once people start watching that video, lots of ways to click into the site to get the next step from you. And when you're doing the setup of your account, set up your account, you set up a new campaign, you set up the ad. And then you can choose the targeting that goes with that ad, and really just want to go and grab a load of keywords that you think would be relevant for that content. So if it's like, how to fix your slice in golf, for example, you've got like a 10 minute content video about how to do that, then you're going to want to all the keywords you can think of around how to fix your slice, how to hit your ions, pure how to gentleman all the relevant keywords that you think would be right for that, then you start running your ad and you just optimize based on retention. And then you keep a very close eye on how many leads and sales have been generated from that activity, or how many clicks leads and sales have been generated from that activity or books calls, whatever it is you're wanting to track tracking is a relatively simple thing to do. But it's almost like you just need to do it. Lots of brands advertise without tracking, which is insane to me, you just download something called Google Tag Manager or set up a free account using Google Tag Manager. inside of your ad account, you'd be given the or you can create your own tags or your pixels, which is kind of like little pixels that you put onto the website that fire when someone has completed a task. So like, how did you get to the page? Yes, cool. Well fire pixel on the landing page. And then it'll tell your ad account that from that ad and that demographic, and on this date, you had someone hit your landing page, which is like your link clicks your ad. And then like Did they sign up call pixel on the thank you page as he just reports all that data back into your ad accounts and you can see exactly how you're doing. And then you can play around with the budgets and how things are working and YouTube try and or Google Ads try and make it as simple as possible for you. They do a bad job of that they make it look more complicated than it needs to be. But it's a beast of a platform. But if you stick in that lane of infeed video ads you can't really go too far wrong. It's a great way of of of running campaigns and it just needs someone to look at it on a regular basis you know and keep it adding more videos keep adding more keywords keep testing things out. Videos strong in your in your offers. wrong from a content perspective and a value perspective, that's all you kind of need. And you're off and running.
Simon Banks 50:05
I think, I guess my big tip here, and takeaway is, I think it's very easy to do ads on on Google and YouTube, for example. Of course, they make it as easy as possible, because they want your money, right. And I think my biggest tip here, because I have tried it myself before, it's quite easy to spend quite a lot and not get a lot of results, unless you've got someone who actually knows the platform well, and can optimize it for your content. And I think the key also is to test and turn things on and off, change things around, you know, change the change the span, change the demographic, you know, targeting, you know, and I think if you do that, it's really about the testing. And you're right, it's about the measurement, measuring, you know, don't just put the ad out there and let it go. And then forget about it without actually trying to track the results and see if it's working or not working, you can switch it off, and then you know, then try something else, you know, Ted, something else, it's all about the testing. You know, Tom, this has been great content. If we got some listeners and watchers going, Yeah, I like this idea. But where do I start? How can people get in touch with you? Or how can they know more about you and what you do,
Tom Breeze 51:11
and probably the best thing would be to go to either if people are interested in our agency, that's viewability.co.uk. And you can apply to become a client there, if that was something that would be of interest. If you are, if you have a YouTube channel, and you want us to do an audit of your complete a channel, we call it an x ray, we have a tool that will do that, for completely free, you can go to the duck.com, which is B ID you rk.com Strange name, but a works very well for us lots of ways of reaching out and finding us. And we're releasing content and updates like this all the time. So if you're watching this show, and you're finding it useful, please do reach out, I'll put all the
Simon Banks 51:55
links in the description in the show notes. But I think this having this X ray, this audit of your current channel is a great way to start. And then you can actually have a conversation with Tom and see where you are, and see how you can help the businesses, you know, basically my motto is, you know, create video content to make sure to help us grow your business. And I think in this day and age, you do actually need to what I call pay to play. So YouTube ads, I think is definitely worth looking at. So much to unpack. Thank you, Tom for your time. I am sure I'm gonna have you back at some stage. Particularly when I you know, you've inspired me to actually go right, I'm going to do this as well. And I'm sure I'll be reaching out you, sir, for your help and advice. Thank you, Tom, for joining me today.
Tom Breeze 52:39
Thank you so great to be here.
Simon Banks 52:41
A postscript to this episode, I was inspired by Tom to actually test promoting one of my videos. It was video trends for 2023. I spent 30 pounds just over seven days and promoted the video to 1600 views and gained some new subscribers. So it's a small spend but I did get results and it's definitely worth testing and I shall continue to do so. So thanks for listening. Don't forget to follow, please leave a review. If there's any topics you want me to cover, please email me at ask Simon at Gibbs do right.com Have a great week and I shall catch you in the next episode.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
