Ecom Youtube Challenge - Building a channel with 120 videos in 120 days

[fastattack03]

Love it! Just from the beginning of your vid, I could tell this is gonna be a great channel.

Highly tempted to start a youtube channel myself so I'll definitely follow this new thread of yours, Phikey!

 

[fastlanedoll]

His video editing kicks a$$.

 

[Boychamp]

Haven't taken the time to go and watch but subbed regardless to support and follow your journey! (Also in the same market so I'm sure I'll find your content helpful + inspiring.
Kudos to you for going after it. Keep it up.

 

[Phikey]

Hi man your videos are very well done, I'd maybe consider having your own style, like something that people can remember after watching one of your videos.

There is a famous italian youtuber(not only) who's called montemagno, you see bookshelve and a bald head and you already know you've seen the guy.
Maybe instead of books keep some accessories, just give the background your own twist.

That was my 0,02 good luck!

That's some really good advice. I was thinking about wearing a yellow beanie that I always wear and my team know me by it. I'll work something out! Thanks!

 

[Bobby_italy]

That's some really good advice. I was thinking about wearing a yellow beanie that I always wear and my team know me by it. I'll work something out! Thanks!

Exactly!
Also things like that provide for MEMEs, which sometimes can be viral.
Also I'd try to fit some entraitainment stuff here and there, like "24 H challenge: FROM ZERO TO SALES" etc.. like once a week something that potentially anyone would watch, to act as a catch, you know build some audience.

 

[ApparentHorizon]

Day 2, video 2!
Videos: 2
Subscribers: 43

I've been getting some great feedback from friends also in this space and the sort of content they want to learn. It seems that a lot of people in Ecom are tied up with Amazon and feel like they don't have control over their brand. They want to get their store over to a standalone platform and grow it separately from Amazon or eBay so they have more control over their list and the buying experience.

Awesome stuff. Definitely subbed!

A few observations:

• You may want to clean up that title screen. I had to rewatch it 2-3 times to see what it was saying.
• That key sound effect at the beginning feels like I'm getting stabbed in the brain

Q:

Are you familiar with WooComm + Variable products -> MC? I can't for the life of me get the variable products to show price properly to the crawler.

 

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[NateKruse]

Haven't taken the time to go and watch but subbed regardless to support and follow your journey! (Also in the same market so I'm sure I'll find your content helpful + inspiring.
Kudos to you for going after it. Keep it up.

I’m not a YouTube expert but I’ve heard that the YouTube algorithm is primarily based on watch duration and clicks per exposure. So while subscribing to someone to support their channel is well-intentioned, if you are presented with their videos in your feed and you don’t actually click them and watch them for the duration you are actually making the algorithm disfavor their videos.

If I’m completely off on that, please let me know.

 

[Phikey]

1. They get you started.
2. When it comes to creating talking head videos or recording podcasts, they help you get over yourself.
3. You learn blazingly fast.
4. You get into a habit and a rhythm.
5. You develop and hone an end to end process.
6. You can learn things when you make "mistakes" and do something different and get a different reaction.

Yep I agree @Andy Black
I see it like going skiing. You can go once a year for a weekend or you can book a cabin next to the slopes and ski every day for 3 months. The first way (1 weekend per year) is going to result in incredibly slow progress on your skiing skills. You'll get there eventually, but if you can ski every single day for 90 days then you'll quickly learn from your mistakes, improve your technique and be the king of the slopes by the end.

My goal here is constant and quick improvement. I can already see a huge difference in my videos since I started. I've been filming for 3 weeks and have 50 videos now filmed and in the editing stages/SEO stages with my content manager and editors. I present in front of the camera a million times better in the recent videos. I also have spent more time on my lighting, audio and how positive I present in the videos. I know that I should smile now, and that I should pause after filming a sentence so it looks much better for the jump cuts.

Later, I definitely want to explore the high-quality and more entertaining ecommerce videos. Right now I'm learning the ropes and getting some foundation content on the channel. The thing is, when people do enjoy those entertaining videos that I spend a lot of time on, I want them to be able to go to my channel and then have a tonne of other tutorial videos to work through. Ones that provide massive value to their Ecom business and not just entertain them. This way I build also authority as an actual expert which is powerful for my brand.

Video 7:

 

[Phikey]

Today I logged into Youtube to post my next video and I got some incredible feedback on my channel in a comment.


I had a feeling this was the case and hearing it from an audience member really drove it home. I've been focusing on technical tutorials that might be great for getting keyword traffic but I'm not really providing value to the complete newbies finding my channel. The video I released today is more directed to the new-to-ecommerce audience, but it's still not for the total beginners. I'm going to now direct more attention to getting these beginner videos up and into a good playlist called "Start Here - Ecommerce Beginners", so that people just starting out have a clear starting point and path to follow.

My response:


Wherever you are Seattle Sideshow, I appreciate it! I've got a lot of technical videos already made and ready to be uploaded, it's time to create some great beginner tutorials ASAP so I can get them up and start helping the new people.

Here's the video for today:

Day 11, video 11!
Subscribers: 70

 

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[eqqi]

I'm testing out different lengths. For these ecom marketing videos, a lot of videos by others are getting a lot of traction when they are 1+ hours long. I think if I'm providing value throughout then people will stay on for the long haul - especially if it's a very targeted video towards a specific problem that the person searched for on Youtube rather than just stumbling upon it via the suggestions in the sidebar. I'll see how they go!

This is just what I heard and what I see many of the youtubers I follow do: they have videos with at least 10 min (they usually have a bit over 10 min, when they don't have too much to say about a subject). They say that it helps the algorithms to push your videos up.

 

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[Phikey]

Day 15, video 15.

Getting about 4-5 new subscribers per day at this point.
Looking at my analytics I'm getting a greater amount of views and watch time every single day. The first videos I uploaded are still getting views (slowly) but it's this little army of videos that will keep getting exposure now!
Really exciting to see it all on the small scale. Can't wait to see how it's going in 2-3 months after consistent work.

 

[Phikey]

Day 17 vid 17, a simple tutorial video very targeted towards a fantastic keyword.

Subs: 96!

By the end of this week I'll have filmed 73 videos while only 20 will have been published on my channel. I'm way ahead of schedule and put in a lot of time at the start so I can now work on the other marketing systems around my content. We'll now go through and fix up all these thumbnails, build the website so it's another incredible resource for Ecommerce learners.
Even though I've just been publishing 1 video per day, I've been scripting and filming about 20 videos per week consistently over the past 4 weeks. This has been possible because I'm big on systems and have built a really nice little factory for making these videos. It's also helped me to quickly become comfortable writing content and being in front of the camera. My first video was so bad I was embarrassed to post it (still set to private on my channel). I am so boring that I put myself to sleep if I watch that video now. Even though it probably has some of my best knowledge content because it goes deep into optimizing google shopping campaigns on an incredibly high level.
I have this video set to be rescripted/filmed so it's engaging and entertaining too. This will come soon.

After this week I want to stop and focus on just 7 videos scripted/filmed per week but increase the quality of those videos, big time. I have been targeting longer-tail keywords in the Youtube search that will be easier to rank for. I want to now go after the big mumma keywords like "Google Shopping", "Shopify' and other strong Ecom related keywords that have the potential to generated 100k+ views on a video if you create incredibly helpful content, rank well and play into the Youtube algorithm.

It's a marathon race here and I've come out the gate strong and learned a lot already. I'm honestly very happy with the results so far, 58 subs since starting. It's going to be slow goings at the start and I'm really excited to see how it goes after the 120 days.

 

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[Phikey]

I'd like to run ads to videos I post in my Andy Black channel. I'd figure out where people drop off and keep amending the video till I've dialled it in, then I'd upload the optimised video it to a completely separate channel. I'm not trying to rank for anything on the Andy Black channel.

That's a good idea for testing out the drop-off in engagement on a separate channel/video so you don't tank the original. I want to explore youtube ads later - probably after 30 days so that I can get a good starting benchmark for the engagement stats on my videos so I know if I'm tanking them with ads. It's a tough call because I haven't found anyone that's done this well but maybe I can crack it with some testing.

Hit a big milestone today. 100 subscribers!


I honestly thought it would take longer than this with my style of content. I'm getting good engagement and people asking questions on my videos which is really awesome.
I've also had people messaging me on facebook, twitter and here on the FLF with questions which has been great to hear what people need help with. It also provides some new video ideas too.

Today is day 18.

We've also started trying out some new thumbnail designs
Here's the first 2 from the designer:




I think we need to go even further and reduce the text on these because they're very wordy and just keep things really basic.

 

[Phikey]

I put a play-now button in some of my thumbnails.

Here's a mess about channel I created. I'll go back to adding videos to that sometime:

View attachment 33582

Awesome content @Andy Black . I think the subtitles on the screen work well and it’s nicely edited. You’ve already got a good amount of starting views already. Are you going to keep going with this one?

Btw, I’ve been learning a lot about self-liquidating offers to grow my email list recently and that’s something I want to tackle in the coming weeks.

 

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[Phikey]

Yeah, I think they look much better, I really like the second one! Not sure if you can reduce the word count on that one, but maybe you could try switching "shopify" with "google analytics."

"Shopify" is easier to read subconsciously and so even without actually reading "google analytics," I can't help but read "shopify full set up 2020" in an instant... and that already is pretty interesting. I hope that makes sense.

Thanks @CountMonteCristo . Something that I think people do really well is use their thumbnail and title like a dance. They don't say the same thing but the thumbnail basically stokes the viewers curiosity. E.g. checking out this channel's thumbnails here:

The title is much more about the content of the video (dropshipping, required info, 2020)
The thumbnail is about the emotional side. The worried face and the copy "Why 99% fail" makes you start wondering "Am I part of the 99%?? How do I become part of the 1%? This video must save me a lot of pain". I imagine this would be really effective for the CTR and boosting these videos.
I'm not pushing dropshipping on my channel, that's not what I'm about - but this is the approach I want to have towards thumbnails. We've had a few more designs from our designer but it's not quite there yet.
What are your thoughts here?
We also now have a TubeBuddy subscription and we're going to use that software to A/B test thumbnails and titles. It basically swaps out your thumbnail/title/description with another variable one that you set on a rolling 24hr period. After a few days, with enough impressions, you'll get a clear idea of the winner and you can keep testing. They allow you to run 10 tests at once.

At 107 subs now! I've slowed down my filming schedule. Still posting 1 video per day and will do for 120 days but I'm now focusing on quality. I spent a lot of time the past few weeks trying to get well ahead of schedule in case I was sick or couldn't film. Now I'm changing to 7 videos per week but I'm going to go for the massive value add. In my niche, the highest traffic videos are those that are 1-2+ hours long and have a full walkthrough of a complicated task or setup. E.g. Full google shopping feed and campaign setup, full shopify store build from scratch, full facebook ads campaign setup, full conversion tracking setup.

I like this channel. I like how the funny faces look like stills from the video (kinda how a lot of mine are because I rarely bother creating thumbnails):

recordingrevolution

Home studio owners - are you looking for tips on how to record vocals, mix drums, or simply what home studio setup you really need? You're in the right place...

www.youtube.com

Wow, funny you quoted that. He also has another channel where he teaches people how to make great content. It's not my favourite channel for marketing/content learning at all (he still seems to hold back a bit on the value and he pushes his affiliates so much that it makes me distrust his content) but he definitely knows what he's doing.
Here's his other channel: Graham Cochrane

How's this for video editing!

@Andy Black Looks like you have a potential new content manager!!

 

[Phikey]

Yeah, 100%. You only have so much space to "sell" your video that putting your title in the thumbnail is a waste of opportunity. The only purpose of your thumbnail is to stand out from the thumbnails next to it. No more, no less. Then, once you have a split second of people's attention, you can elaborate in your title, however, that too can be very open ended and vague, as long as it sparks curiosity and promises a good use of the viewer's time.

What I think is really interesting about people who go viral is they tend to think backwards about making videos. They start with the thumbnail and title, not the content. They don't go "what kind of video can I make" but first they think "what is the most outrageous, shocking, weird, impossible, provocative image or image-text combo I can make that would spark irresistible curiosity?" And only then they ask how that could fit into their niche or how that could be a video.

For anyone else lurking this thread - this is awesome advice. Take not of this. Gold.

Here's my latest video: video 20
It's very keyword targeted (a video my subscribers probably won't care about, but it brings fresh keyword-intent traffic to the channel).

@CountMonteCristo what are your thoughts on this thumbnail?
Title of video:
Google Merchant Center Shopify Verification - Easy Tutorial in 5 Minutes

Here's the original thumbnail design we had:

• Very wordy,
• Hard to read because thumbnails are usually small in the search results
• Just has the title repeated in the thumbnail

And here's the new updated thumbnail design:

• Has the dance between thumbnail and title where the thumbnail complements the title and encourages people to click (shows that it's under 5 mins so people can get it done quickly - it solves their problem when they are searching on youtube for a quick and easy solution)
• Has logos of Merchant Center and Shopify - people will see these, it will stand out and they will know it's for their specific problem which is with Shopify (not another platform)

This week I'm changing my filming routine up, big time. I'm still publishing every day because I have a nice queue of videos ready for publishing, but I'm now focusing on extremely high-level and valuable content. In my niche, the videos that kill it and bring in $100k+ views (even up to 3 million views for some) are those that are full 1-2 hour walkthrough of complex set ups.
E.g.

• Full Google Shopping Setup
• Full Shopify Setup and Website build
• Full Ecom Email Marketing Setup
• Full Facebook Funnel Setup for Ecom

Big videos to make but these guys generate so much traffic, subs, and they help so many people in one go.
We're already doing this stuff for our clients on a weekly basis so I just need to compile them into the script and then film it and teach it in a way that people can follow and understand.
When I've been looking at other channels in the tutorial space - they post a lot of videos that target smaller keywords but then they try making a big video and it explodes their channel.
The reason I didn't do this from the start is because those smaller videos still drive traffic - just not at the same level. When you make the big videos and try to go viral - you are gambling, in a way. It can either pay off big time, or generate a few views (like the smaller keyword researched videos videos) but you spent weeks making that video. This is because those big videos target the high-traffic-volume keywords. In my space those searches are much more competitive. They've optimised the videos well, and their channels already have a lot of subs/views and so they can rank more easily.
I'm looking forward to giving it a try.

We're at day 20 and at day 30 I'll do a report on the analytics and make a video showing how it's gone so far.

 

[Phikey]

Day 23 video 23.

Subs: 118. It's pretty slow progress but after comparing my stats to others that have done a similar challenge I'm 2-3x ahead of where they were at this stage which is very exciting. Right now it's a real time thing - just gotta keep posting and letting Youtube work its magic with the algorithm.
My 2nd video is now killing it with 437 views! Really happy about that. I had posted videos last year and they never got more than 200 views in 12 months. This has done 437 views in 3 weeks, all from Youtube Search because it's keyword video towards a really good keyword. It's averaging 1.5 views per hour which means 1000 views per month of new people that have a clear problem that have never heard of me before.

I've been very active, helping people in the comments and getting some new video ideas. Just keeping at it every day!

 

[Phikey]

Marked notable. Let us know when you get your first client or course customer from this and I’ll upgrade to Gold.

Wow! Thanks @Andy Black . Yep that's right, I think views and subs for numbers sake can be the goal if you're making money purely off of the Youtube Ads being run on your videos but that hasn't been my approach. I don't think I'll ever enable youtube ads, also because there are so many dodgy characters in my niche that would love to get their ads in front of my audience (ecommerce learners).

This blog post explains what I'm doing, really well: 1,000 True Fans

This idea of 1,000 true fans means that you just need 1,000 people to buy your product with $100 in profit per product and you have a 6 figure income source. I'm ok with not having 1 million subs if it means I have a targeted niche of Ecommerce learners that will buy everything I sell (courses, services, affiliate products). I've already started using my content in my sales calls to show that I'm an authority in the space and am teaching what we're doing. They can go check out my videos and really see that it's not all just talk but there are people getting value from it.

I see folks are already asking you for a course as well as to hire you. Why not? You’re doing them a disservice if they’ve money in hand asking to hand it to you.

Don’t be apologetic about asking for emails or money when you’re providing value.

Yep, you're right. I'm going to make a course eventually - I'm going to first get the systems in place to keep building the audience (lead magnet, funnel for lead magnet, automatic email sequence) so that I can then turn to the course. I'm also getting a bunch of die-hard fans messaging me on Facebook with specific questions and video topic requests. This is perfect for market research for the course because they're asking a lot of questions on things that aren't covered in other courses or elsewhere. If I focus on building this audience of die-hard fans (Youtube subscribers and an email list), then I can make sure the course is insanely valuable for them, build up suspense, and then launch the course to all of them in one go.

This just goes to show (in case we didn’t realise already) the power of YouTube. People search on Google and YouTube for very specific things, because they have specific problems they’re trying to solve. If I had to create content for one channel only then I’d choose YouTube. Meh to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

I agree with you 100% on Youtube vs Facebook, Twitter, etc. Youtube is fantastic for what I'm doing because once I create a great piece of content, it's there forever. When you make a facebook post, it's not really searchable, it gets shown to your audience but it has a life of like 3 days. My 2nd video is now getting 1-2 new views per hour (which equals 13,000 views per year!). It took me about 1hour to make that video with my system and it's going to just keep bringing in the traffic and promoting my brand for years to come. Like Youtube, other platforms are just other tools and everyone needs to decide which works towards what they're trying to achieve.

How are you finding Loom? I was super excited when I started using it, but occasionally it fails to upload the video to their platform and I lose everything I’ve done. It also messes about with my mic gain.

It's painful and we always need to fix the audio that goes out of sync.
I have been exploring camtasia but it's so expensive. I'm on a Mac so I think I'm going to try using Quicktime and see how I go.

EDIT: I watched the first minute of that latest video. Are you creating one ad group per item in the shopping feed? I did that for about 20k products via a bit of Excel messing about. It seems to work pretty good although I must go back and check it.

The way I showed in the video is a bit different from one ad group per item - you have one ad group but then you split up, within that ad group, by Item ID. Splitting up by ad group can be tedious (unless you're an excel wiz) and is great if you want to segment your negative keywords between products while keeping them in the one campaign. If you have 20k SKUs that would be a pain in the butt. That's a huge account to manage (I hope you're charging well for it!!).

I think you did well. Another way would be to segment the products by campaign based on product category so you can limit budgets based on category performance as well as add category-specific negatives on the campaign level. I didn't want to go too advanced there in that video because there are a lot of newbies watching the channel. The thing is, a lot of what we do is just testing testing testing and finding what works best in their situation.

I've had a guy on facebook messaging me with a tonne of questions and a lot of beginners really want a set of rules they can follow. As you know, there are some guidelines with what we do in digital marketing but so much of it is just testing, testing, testing and using our experience. I think I need to make a video on this to explain how this works for people. It's a real mindset shift. This guy was disillusioned because I was recommending a strategy that was different from what another teacher was recommending. Another guy on Youtube was saying 'Maximize Clicks' was the best bidding strategy (which is bonkers to me.. I'd only use that for branding campaigns).. but I'm sure it could also work in other situations. The student said he was going to completely 'disown' the other teacher and just copy everything I did because of this difference in opinion. I felt like I saw this student's conversion from an audience member to a TRUE FAN while we were speaking. But maybe he's just a TRUE FAN for now while I'm the flavour of the month?

Here we have a window into a really bizarre relationship between gurus and students in the info-products space. How some people treat teachers as gurus and latch onto them, rather than focusing on their knowledge that's actually useful. It's very strange. As soon as their favourite teacher says one thing that doesn't seem right, they discount everything else they've said and learned and jump to the next one.

 

[Phikey]

Have you considered running YouTube ads for your best performing videos? That might help bring in people and you’ve more than enough content to get people to binge watch.

Yes, definitely. I've thought about this a lot and it's hard because there isn't a lot of resources out there on how to do this well. The videos I watched all basically showed how it was a bad idea because of all the hate they got. I think I could find a way to do it well but it will require testing and being very careful. I'd hate to ruin the progress so far and drop a video out of the algorithm because I ran traffic to it. What I would prefer to do is to run a facebook ads funnel with the content there and then have the CTA to a lead magnet and my youtube channel embedded within the lead magnet so it's a soft changeover. That way I can protect my engagement rates and just have the more committed viewers transfer over. Still mulling this one over though.

I’m using Camtasia. I love it, but I likely have to get a faster PC for video editing/processing. It doesn’t have the nice round selfie-cam though, which is a shame, but you get to move, resize, or hide/unhide yourself because it’s on its own track. I’ll have a look at recording intro, meat, and outro on the webcam in one session. @Lex DeVille uses Camtasia too.

Ok I'm close to being sold on it. I'll do a bit more research on it. The last few videos I've used Quicktime and that's been ok but it's a bit fiddly sometimes. It does work though.

Oh, and isn’t it great when you have videos/content you can direct prospects to? It saves time, AND does that “show, don’t tell” that you’re an expert.

Exactly! I was speaking to a friend of mine and he suggested setting up an automated email flow for when prospects book a call with my on calendly. They'll get a basic flow of emails that have a few case studies and link to my channel for some videos that show I know my stuff. Still thinking about this one too.

Very nice video. Reminds me a bit of Nick Nimms (link below). The editing is pretty good but zooms in and out a bit too much for me. I think simple jump cuts would suffice and not make the audience too sea sick?

Yep, I’m with you on that feedback. I’ve been thinking the same thing. It’s funny how our edits started on video 1 and we have all this editing and we’ve gotten feedback from multiple viewers to just keep it simple. No zoom cuts, just regular cuts, no crazy animations. They just want value. It’s not about trying to entertain them, it’s about insanely valuable knowledge packaged in a way that’s efficient to consume.

BTW... smart to keep people on your channel and not have a CTA to go to your website (yet?). That’s aligning with YouTube’s goal of increased watch time so they’ll love showing your video. I was just going to do ads so would put a CTA to signup in my videos. I should mix it up actually, or figure out how to create a win-win for YouTube, their audience, and me.

Yeah, I’m very focused on trying to play by Youtube’s rules. That’s why I’m trying not to link out (too much) to my website or externally. If I can boost up all the metrics that tells Youtube that people love my videos and they stay on my channel (or at least stay on Youtube) then that’s going to play well in my favour.


I’ve posted a video every single day the last few videos but I haven’t made it to this thread to update!

Day 29:

Day 30:

Here a fan actually reached out to me to help him with his account and I made it into a video. Easy way to create insanely valuable content! He loved it and watched it all the way through.. twice!! I’m hoping that will give it a nice boost in the algorithm in the early stages.

Today I also filmed a video update on the 30 days of daily uploads. I’ll post this tomorrow and it will update my viewers as well as the FLF here on the progress. Going to dive into some analytics and talk a bit about my system.

I think it breaks the 3rd wall a bit and tells my audience more about what I’m doing, who I am, and my goals here for the channel. I have a really strong gut feeling that the more authentic I can be with my channel, the better it’s going to perform.

 

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[Phikey]

Wondering if that could/should be on a completely separate channel about growing a YouTube channel?

That was my original plan @Andy Black but I knew that it would potentially split up my focus between two topics (one being Ecommerce and the other being growing a youtube channel). There’s a lot you can do with the growing a youtube topic but I know that if I do that I’ll need to go all in. It’s very competitive because the people already making videos on it are doing it really really well. I could definitely do it but I would need to create a whole channel brand and strategy for that niche and I’d rather just keep it under Keycommerce.

I also really like the idea of keeping it on my one channel so I can break the 3rd wall with my audience and show them what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. It allows me to really connect with them and talk about how I’m answering their questions and making better and better content towards what they’re asking for.

 

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[Madame Peccato]

Great work Phikey! I don't watch your videos (except your last one as I'm considering starting a channel myself) since I don't do ecommerce, but I'm following your process closely.

 

[Andy Black]

BIG MILESTONE - just got my first client from Youtube!! $1500 per month PPC client. He gave the verbal agreement and we're starting in 3 weeks.

He found me from Youtube Search and had consumed ALL my videos. The sales call didn't feel anything like a normal sales call for me. He was sold before the call, we just talked through the strategy. This is the power of content marketing. Trust and authority was built way before I even spoke to him.

He gave me some great feedback on the channel:

• He said that I was very different from all the other youtubers in my niche.
• He said that he could clearly tell that I knew my stuff and that I had REAL experience because I was showing real accounts and had a depth of knowledge that you can't get from just repeating what you read on a blog (he said some competitors do this).
• He said that my marketing audits were the most helpful videos on my channel. The videos where I go deep into marketing accounts and talk through my recommendations.
• His feedback was to do more videos about how to THINK like an expert ecom marketer. How to get the mindset so he could solve all the problems specific to his store, himself.

Current stats:
Subscribers: 212
Videos: 43 (been posting every day but just not in this thread)

I'm only at 212 subscribers and I'm getting a new contact form submission on my site every 2-3 days. Often it's requesting help on little problems and they're new stores (so not a qualified lead). I'll help them via email (not spending too much time doing this) but I'm waiting for the more qualified guys like the guy that's now a new client.
I can imagine that when I'm at 1k subs, or 10k+ it's going to be an incredible source of leads and traffic for my brand. I haven't thought about this too much as I've just been focused on getting good content out there.

Awesome! Tell us when the money is in your account and we'll upgrade this to Gold. Well done.

 

[Phikey]

Unbelievable. This really is Gold. Thanks learning already.

Thanks for the feedback @JohnD Realestate ! Glad people out there are learning from my journey.

This is Gold. Good luck. I can see you at 2k+ subs by 120 videos.

Thanks @Pero123 . I hope so! I can't even imagine the return I'd be getting at 2k subs.

If you guys have any questions on what I'm doing, let me know! I'm happy to help.

If this journey has taught me anything it's that content is still KING and even it takes work to get going, it can form the foundation of a very successful business.
I had another sales call today (we're going to do an audit for her store) and though she didn't come from Youtube initially, she still went through my Youtube videos after booking the call. This meant that on the call she already knew me, my expertise, and I was set apart from the other people she was interviewing for the project. Made it so much easier to close on the audit.

In other news, this whole content project has made me insanely busy. Even though just one client has come purely from Youtube, we've been closing other clients with our Youtube content as part of our sales process. I've now brought on someone to manage the operations of the agency (project manager) while I focus on top-level strategy and sales. Very soon I'll find my first salesperson to take on the sales side (we already have a sales development rep that sends all my followup emails and manages our CRM). I'll then no longer be tied directly into the business. I'll still be overseeing the team and processes but it is a big step back in removing myself from the day-to-day operations. Looking forward to that! My real skills are in strategy and vision - seeing where we need to go as a team and leading us to get there.

Recently just made some more videos on reviews because they are really important for Ecom and it's one of the biggest things people don't have when I audit their stores.

I haven't filmed or scripted any videos for about a month now (except the 60 day update). I was way ahead of schedule and so everything was all automated but now it's time to get back to scripting and filming. I'm going to script 10 more videos this week and get them filmed next week. I've got a lot of great feedback from my subscribers with content ideas and so I'm going to give the people what they are asking for!

 

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[Flint]

Interesting. My question was mainly about individual costs arising from running an ecommerce business and pricing was just an afterthought. Let's look into this.

This is the theoretical "sweet-spot" is where you make a lot of money, and you sell to a lot of people.

That's not how it works and not how I'd approach it. Starting with a product puts the cart before the horse and leads to the race to the bottom. Nobody wins.

I look at price as something that a buyer is willing and able to pay in exchange for the benefit of using/owning a product. Start with the benefit. Solve a problem, satisfy a need or a want. Only then think of a product that helps you get there (and adds further considerations to price, such as your COGS, marketing strategy etc.). This way you bring value that a buyer is willing to pay for and can approach pricing at the core of this simple value equation:

Value = Perceived Benefits Received / Perceived Price Paid​

For sustainability and other obvious reasons, the above ratio should be >1. Maximise the benefit (alleviate pains, maximise gains) and you'll have more room for price. And then you can look for your own benefit (simplified to Price - Cost = Profit). Wouldn't it be great to ask for a high price which is still just a fraction of what the benefit is worth to your client?

As a side note, price is a dynamic element. It will be different at various stages of your product life cycle. In your example, which is a typical dropshipping scenario, you have to start relatively low... and drive it lower pretty fast to escape competition... until you retire your product. But it doesn't have to be that way. Forget about finding the right product and start looking for opportunities where you can maximise someone's benefit. And then you'll discover there's a range of pricing tactics appropriate for your marketing mix strategy.

Good luck!

 

[Gepi]

I agree with this 100%. With this, every individual customer could accept a different pricing for the same product. All because everyone has their own individual perception of the value they receive from the purchase.
When pricing your products you're trying to find one price that suits everyone.. You set this price and all your customers purchase for that price (until you change it, or unless you display your pricing differently on different landing pages or stores). really, everyone has their own price that they're willing to pay for the product because everyone has their own perception of value. One person might be willing to pay $1000 for the same product that someone is only willing to pay $500 for. The trick is to test to find the right pricing that nets you the greatest profit after total volume of orders and the average profit per conversion come into play.

There's a relationship between these two variables:
1. Price of the product (and therefore, the profit per product sold)
2. The volume of products sold.

You might sell 5 products and make $100 in profit per product which nets you $500 in profit. That's potentially a lot better than selling 100 products with $4 in profit per product... Plus with less customers there are less overheads to do with customer service and logistics. If you increase your price too much you'll see a big amount of profit per order but the total volume of orders would decrease as less people are willing (or able) to pay the higher price. The goal is to balance the pricing so you maximize profits on both the volume of orders and the profit per order.

You could start out with a cost-plus pricing model (if you have no idea what your customers would pay) but I recommend doing more customer research first and then testing out different price points and watching the conversion rate change. Many of my clients will slowly raise their prices week over week by 5% or so and watch for when conversion rates start to tip. Probably better to test this out with a proper A/B test but it is still useful.

Status update:
Subs: 438
Day: 71
Videos: 71

Latest videos:

Still going strong, scripted 10 new videos over the weekend and filming them this week.

I filmed 3 really long Google Shopping videos showing the 3 best methods for setting up the product feed and google shopping campaigns. Each video was about 50 minutes long. The type of videos that I. hope will rank well and bring in tens of thousands of views for the channel. (similar to my 2nd video that I released that now has 2200 views). I didn't check my audio before I sent the footage to the editor and I got back the final videos and the audio is all distorted arghhh. I didn't check the levels!! So I have to go re film those 3 videos again. A bit frustrating but lesson learned. All part of the game.

Hi Phikey,
Damn this really is no fun. I know exactly how bad this feels, as I have also started a channel recently.
But one thing that came to mind was: didn't the editor check that BEFORE doing the work?
Did he really edit the stuff without giving you a hint of the mistake?

Another question I have - sorry if you answered it before, but how do you communicate what you want to the editor? I don't really know if I wouldn't have to re-edit my videos all over again because the editor didn't do it like I would have preferred...and are there some iterations?

Best wishes, hope the re-take didn't drag on too long...and big thumbs up for your commitment!
Greetings

 

[Phikey]

Hi Phikey,
Damn this really is no fun. I know exactly how bad this feels, as I have also started a channel recently.
But one thing that came to mind was: didn't the editor check that BEFORE doing the work?
Did he really edit the stuff without giving you a hint of the mistake?

Another question I have - sorry if you answered it before, but how do you communicate what you want to the editor? I don't really know if I wouldn't have to re-edit my videos all over again because the editor didn't do it like I would have preferred...and are there some iterations?

Best wishes, hope the re-take didn't drag on too long...and big thumbs up for your commitment!
Greetings

@Gepi
Yep, my content manager and editor are now checking the footage first so we don't have this happen again. A learning experience I guess.

I made a video in the previous post talking through my whole system of giving the videos to the editors. Check it out! I hope it helps

Not to go off topic but what do you think of Myka Stauffer? That woman actually lived her life based on what would get her clicks. She became religious, homeschooled, and even adopted a special needs child from China that she recently rehomed. It's the same principle just taken one step farther.

@Here I just looked her up and that whole channel is messed up. I really dont want to become some sort of internet personality and put my whole life on the internet. I really do value a lot of my privacy and having to share your whole life and make it look perfect would be exhausting and stressful. I think I'm going to make a video talking about my own journey but I'm avoiding getting too caught up in the personal brand and keeping it all business-related (as much as possible).

Now, is this a viable business you could make FU money with? Sure. But what if you don't? Is it really worth ruining your life and family over? I mean, take this Myka Stauffer girl... it's not like she's pulling in ACE Family numbers...

100% agree @CountMonteCristo . I'd rather make my money quietly and live a peaceful life with less stress.

Hey Sam! Well done. 565 subs!!

Thanks @Andy Black !! New subs every day and it's picking up. Now at 635!

I have to agree that I got inspired by looking at your passion for YouTube channel. I'm a happy subscriber and I like your videos a lot. I just want to quote that "Success is not final, failure is not fatal, It is the courage to continue that counts"
Keep up the good work!

Thanks for the encouragement @Nikhil09 !

 

[Simon Angel]

Awesome job Phikey, keep it up!

At this point I'm pretty sure you're a very human-looking machine!

 

[Andy Black]

Oooo. 968 subscribers. Approaching 1k !

 

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[Raja]

3.5 months in and I finally hit this huge milestone!
View attachment 34959

Thanks for all the support guys!

first of all, congrats for hitting 1k subs.
your thread is a huge motivation for me so from today itself I am starting my own youtube channel so I can build and start my app dev buisness.
from next week I will start uploading because I need 1 week to figure out how to produce the best quality videos.

 

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[Blackman]

@Phikey

Hey Sam,

Hope you don't mind me bumping your YouTube progress thread to ask a few questions about Google Ads, specifically Google Shopping campaigns, as I've watched so many of your e-commerce/Google Ads videos that you've basically become my "go-to" person for any GSA questions...

I recently launched my first e-commerce store back in May and tested a few products by promoting them via Google Shopping campaigns, which was my first experience with the Shopping ads, but not Google Ads itself, as I run numerous search campaigns in the past.

Now putting aside the niche/product itself and a myriad of on-site factors that can influence the conversion rate, what I noticed with GSA campaigns is that Google triggers your ads for a very wide range of search terms.

I've done my best to write a very specific and detailed product title + description and also I go through the search term reports daily with my campaign, but adding irrelevant terms to the Negatives list seems like a never-ending process at the moment.

Unfortunately, with GSA campaigns we can't pick and choose the keywords that we'd like to bid on, so we rely on Google to "read" our product pages and trigger the ads for what it considers as relevant search terms.

This is especially an issue with products, which are designed to work with other things, like for example car parts, phone accessories, computer components, etc.

If I'm selling parts for a Ford Mustang, I don't want my ads to be triggered for other Ford models, let alone other car manufacturers. In reality, the negatives list gets even bigger, because I could be selling a very specific part, which is designed to fit only a 2005 special edition Ford Mustang, so you can imagine how much stuff would need to be neg'ed to prevent my ads from being triggered when people search for parts for older or newer Mustangs, or even other parts for a Ford Mustang.

My product is correctly categorised in Google's product listings and you would expect better targeting from them, but obviously the more clicks they can get from you, the better for them...

Almost 4 months later, I still find myself adding negative keywords for the same product I began selling in May 2021, because there's naturally a HUGE number of variations of irrelevant terms that Google thinks are relevant, but despite my efforts of carefully using exact and phrase match negatives to rule out as much rubbish as possible, Google manages to come up with more stuff every day.

What's interesting is that this is my experience with a very small store with just 2 products that I actively promoted, getting less than 50 clicks/day, so I can't imagine what it's like promoting large stores and getting hundreds/thousands of clicks daily...

Is this the norm with GSA campaigns or I'm over-complicating things?

Appreciate your help