Evan Carmichael explains why YouTube works for marketing: it builds personal connection, converts better than text, and ranks in Google search. He shares his own path from low-budget videos to daily publishing, and recommends starting with a simple welcome video, batching content weekly, and prioritizing clear audio over fancy production.
Chapters
Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. Today's episode is brought to you by Telos Talks Business, which is a great resource for entrepreneurs looking for ideas and motivation to grow their business. It has a great blog attached to it, which I am one of the writers for, so go check it out. And today's question is brought to you by one of our readers, Don, who wrote in asking, Evan Carmichael, can you respond to YouTube as a marketing tool? Thank you, Don. So thanks for the question, Don. I think a common question a lot of entrepreneurs are thinking about, should I get into video or not? Will it help me grow my business? And I can share my story. I first started using YouTube because I found that I was a visual learner. So I found I would absorb more if I saw video of something than if I read some text or listened to just an audio-only version. So I wanted to be able to share that with my readers as well. And my first YouTube videos were of the famous entrepreneur profiles. And I found that that was a really great way to get the message across. So whatever, you know, product or service you're promoting, creating a quick video of it is an awesome way to be able to communicate that more effectively to people and reach more people as well. YouTube makes it really easy to be able to go out there and reach a big audience. My first videos, I'm not on the video that much. I say a couple things and then there's pictures that come up and and it is my voice. So if I'm talking about a famous entrepreneur, say Oprah Winfrey, I would come on and say, "Hey, I'm Evan Carmichael, I'm gonna do this video on Oprah Winfrey," and tell a little bit about her story, and then would cut the pictures of Oprah and it would be my voice behind it. So it's an easy way to kind of first get into video if you're not too comfortable in front of the camera. My first videos were pretty bad too in terms of the quality with the camera. You can go back on my YouTube channel and look at the history. I haven't deleted them, but the content is still great, but the quality of the video The audio was pretty bad, but that's something that you learn as you go and do more videos. Since then, I found that now I do a lot of videos answering questions just like yours. And at first, when people would email me questions or write them in the forums or blogs, I would always write a response. And I found that that was really great and it really helped that one person, but I wanted to be able to help more people. And I found that through the videos, people have the same question. So that one person has a question, there's thousands of other people who also have that same question. So by creating a video, I'm able to help a lot more people, and hopefully that person I'm helping too, I can help more intensely because they're getting a video version of it instead of just a written, a written quote by me. So I try to release a video every day now on my YouTube channel, and I usually film them once a week on a Wednesday morning, and then they get scheduled out to go out during the week. But that's been a great way to also build a connection with my readers so they can see me instead of just, you know, reading my content. So if you're trying to build a connection with your audience and be established as an expert, people like to work with people they feel they have a connection with. People like to buy from people instead of, you know, corporations or, you know, people who they're not sure who they are. So having a video is a great way to be able to get your message across. So I'm not sure what product or service you're trying to sell. But it would definitely be a great idea to create a welcome video explaining, you know, who you are, why you started your business, tell your story a little bit, get people hooked and involved. And the longer they spend watching your videos, the longer they spend on your site, the more likely they are to take whatever next step you want them to take. If it's, you know, sign up for your newsletter, buy your product, hire you for a consulting project, or whatever it is. So it is a great way to help you do that. If you look at landing pages, those with the video have a much higher conversion rate typically than those without. So again, people like watching the videos, it helps keep them on the site longer, it helps convince them and answer their questions. Especially if you, you know, are friendly and have a nice smile and you look trustworthy, then they're much more likely to convert people to take whatever next step you want them to take. The last thing about YouTube that I really like is it's its own search engine and We get a lot of people who view the videos because I send them to the videos and I promote it on my blog and through social media. But a lot of people find it through YouTube. So we try to optimize the videos for different keywords and new people are finding me who would never have found me before. So they search either directly in YouTube or the YouTube videos are showing up in the Google results when you type in whatever keyword. So it's a lot easier to rank, at least right now, for a YouTube video than it is in the regular Google search engine. So that's another great way to be able to get your message across, is to create the videos. So I love YouTube, I think you should definitely check it out and try it out. I wouldn't spend too much money on it, and you don't necessarily have to have a really high-end production value. I think it's more important that you're authentic and genuine and you get your message across. As long as people can see you and hear you— one of the big mistakes I made earlier on was not having a microphone, so people said, "We love it, but we can't really hear what you're saying." So that's a great boost, is if you can have a microphone. But yeah, just simple production, get your message across, be authentic, and people will wanna watch it and hopefully take that next step and buy your product, hire you in consulting gigs, sign up for your newsletter, whatever it is that you want them to do. So hopefully that helps, Don. And again, thank you to Telesocks Business for sponsoring this video. If you have a question, feel free to leave it below. I always try to answer those, or if you leave a comment on one of my blog posts on Telesocks Business, I always try to respond to those ones as well. And of course, if you like the video, please give it a thumbs up. It makes me wanna do more of these videos for you guys. So thank you, and we'll see you on the next episode.
