The BEST Way To More Online Course Sales Using YouTube

Most entrepreneurs who are selling online courses or digital products are doing YouTube all wrong and it's not their fault. It's because most of the advice you get here on YouTube, like the YouTube educators that are teaching you how to grow on YouTube, are teaching you how to grow on YouTube in a way as a content creator or someone who wants to be YouTube famous or make a lot of Adsense on YouTube and not necessarily make the money with a business model. So someone who has a course or a digital product or a one on one service or coaching, most people are not teaching on YouTube how to do YouTube for that particular model. In fact, YouTube, the platform is set up specifically for content creators. In the metrics that YouTube makes you believe or pushes you to strive to do better are metrics that content creators need to be focusing on and not entrepreneurs who have something to sell, like an online course, coaching or one on one services, for example. This metric, when you log into your YouTube dashboard, is going to tell you how well your most recent video did out of your last 10. And we are led to believe that if we don't hit number one every single time, our YouTube channel is failing. But again, this was built for content creators. People who need more subscribers, need more views, need more followers, subscribers to make that money on YouTube. But as an entrepreneur, you don't have to knock it out of the park in this ranking every time you publish a video, nor do you need hundreds of thousands of views on every single video either. And I can tell you this for a fact, last year at the end of the year, I posted a particular video for my specific audience. People who I wanted to work with inside of my mastermind 10k on replay. Now, when I published this video, I think it came out as number 8 out of 10. In fact, it eventually performed average to the point where it performed below average. But that's the metrics YouTube would lead me me to believe when I look at my business and the leads and the sales I made specifically from this video, I made over $24,000 from this below average video in less than 48 hours. So if you want to see more sales of your online course coming from your YouTube channel, or if you want to start using YouTube knowing that it is going to help you generate more sales of your online course, listen up. So here's a big secret about using YouTube to generate more sales to your online course. Or actually if you have a one on one service or you have a coaching program you can use as well. But here's the secret. You don't need loads of subscribers or buttloads of views to make some good money in your business, to make more sales and to book more clients. When I work with my clients inside of my mastermind 10k on replay, I teach them the strategy, the content strategy for using YouTube and marry it with the sales strategy, the funnel strategy for their business so that what they're doing on YouTube is generating traffic to their course or their coaching program. And the funnel that we set up together then allows them to get this consistent sales so they're getting consistent traffic from the right content on their YouTube channel that is driving consistent traffic to their sales funnel. And based on all the metrics that we track and the formula that we have for our sales funnels, they then get consistent sales to their online course. And the thing is, they don't have hundreds of thousands of subscribers to make some good money in their business. For example, Allison, she has a channel around 58,000 subscribers, but in three months, she was able to make over $27,000 in core sales just from the audience that she built from YouTube. She has generated so much traffic from YouTube into her business through her sales funnels, through her email list, that those are the sales that she is. In fact, her most recent launch, completely sold out before she even opened it to the public. She sold it strictly from just the audience she built on YouTube. And even Mallory, who is a teen therapist here on YouTube with less than 5,000 subscribers, she continues to remain booked out in her practice because of the strategic videos she's created here on YouTube are constantly driving her traffic. And in fact, for a few months in 2022, she didn't even create any new content, YouTube. But again, the strategy that I help them build on YouTube with the idea in mind that we aren't building a YouTuber channel, we're building a YouTube channel that feeds our business. She still got consistent leads while she wasn't even creating content on her channel. Here's the one thing, though, that they are not focusing on and it's going viral. That is the last thing that you want to do here on YouTube. If you want to ensure you're getting the algorithm on YouTube to put you in front of the right people who are going to buy from you, who are going to buy your online course courses, want to work with you one on one, hire you as a coach, whatever your business model is. So let's dive in a little bit deeper on how you should start using YouTube to drive more leads and sales to your business. All right, the very first thing that you need to understand is, like I said, we are not going viral. We are trying to target the best viewers. And when you're thinking about your content, you really want to focus on the quality of your content, not the quantity. So we're going to tie these two concepts together because I want you to understand we aren't trying to find that best perfect idea that's going to get millions of views and we aren't trying to publish content out every other day or multiple times a week. Because you want to be focusing on the quality content that YouTube is going to put in front of that quality viewer that is going to be primed and ready to want to buy your course or work with you. Because one of the best benefits of using YouTube is YouTube can do all the legwork and find the best viewers for you, I. E. The people who are going to want to buy from you if you can give YouTube the right information and if you are creating the right type of content. So how do you know what the right type of content is? Well, the very first thing that I make all my clients inside my mastermind go through is understanding, truly understanding their target audience. This can be your target client, your target customer, or your target viewer. Because this is where most people all go Wrong. Over on YouTube. They think they just need to get videos out there and just throw a bunch out there and maybe one will hit, maybe one will stick, maybe one will go viral. And then what people tend to do is focus on how to videos. Look, I know people are searching how to videos. If I just do a how to video, people will find it, people will watch it, I will make money. But the problem with how to videos is people watch them get their answer to their problem and they piece out. They don't care who you are as a content creator, as a course creator, as a one on one service provider, they're just coming for the answer and they have no reason. They really don't want to stick around and learn more about you. You solve their problem and they're gone. So what you need to be able to do on YouTube is not just pump out how to videos because you think that's the best way that you're going to get in front of your audience. But you need to take the time to truly figure out what are the specific pain points your target customer, your ideal viewer is really struggling with and dive into those specific pain points in relation to how your online course will solve that pain point. That's when the right people will start to find you on YouTube. The good news is when you start creating these right videos that your audience knows specifically for them, they're going to see it whether it's on the homepage or search and go, that's exactly what I needed right now. How did she know I needed this video right now? That's the type of person who's going to be leaning in more to your video. They aren't just coming for an answer to their problem and moving on, they feel a little bit of a connection with you because they are like, that person truly understands me. I need to hear more of what she has to say. And when those people, when you can get those specific people, your target audience, watching your video, that's when views start to flood in. But the right views start to flood in. Because again, if creating the right content, getting the right viewers watching, that's going to lead to more sales to your online course, more inquiries about your coaching program, more inquiries about, about your one on one services. Now, to be fair, this process does take a little bit of time. And just because you think you have the best video ready to go and you put it out there, you may not see the views flooding in. Because you need to train the YouTube algorithm that this is what your channel is all about. If you can consistently put videos out weekly that are getting these types of people to watch, the algorithm is then able to better basically put you in a classification bubble on YouTube. And what that does is YouTube says, okay, here's this new video from this channel, from Trina's channel. We'll say, and we're gonna put it in front of these people that have watched her content before. Okay, are they clicking on it? Are they watching it? Okay, it must be good content. Let's find more people, like those viewers that just watched Trina's new video and see if they resonate with it. Are they gonna click on it and watch it? And that's how YouTube really starts to figure out who to put your content in front of. And we want to make sure the people that YouTube is putting our videos in front of are the right people. Like we're talking about, right? The people that are going to say, huh, this was me. For me, how is she inside my head? They watch it to the end and then they're curious about your online course, about your services. Sounds like just what you want, right? But maybe you're thinking, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's rewind that a minute. How do I truly understand what my audience is looking for? And this is a process that we've done recently, inside of my business called Customer Customer Journey Interviews. And my friend Meredith noble of learn grantwriting.com actually taught me this in a Mastermind last fall. And it's something that we quickly implemented inside my business and it gave me so much insight into my people, into my target audience and the type of problems and the type of solutions that they needed that I didn't even realize they needed. And so inside 10k on replay in the next couple of months, not only are we having Meredith speak and teach us this process, but we've created SOPs, we've created questionnaires, everything that you need. So you can do this with the audience that you currently have. Even if you don't have a lot. You only really need to do about five interviews. And you're going to get so much information out of these interviews. But these interviews are so essential for you to ensure you're spending your time on creating the right content that's going to get the right people that is going to generate sales. Because the last thing I want you to do is put videos up here on YouTube that don't generate cash into your business. So if you want to learn more about this Client Journey process and learn how you can do it in your business, make sure you apply to my mastermind 10k replay. You can go to trina little.com 10k Like I said, we're doing this in the next couple of weeks inside and you get complete access to the process, the sop, the questions, everything that you need. So again you aren't wasting your time on creating content that's not going to drive the right people to your channel. Now we do ask that you apply to this program because we only take a limited amount of clients at a time. Because, because of the hands on work that I do with my clients, I understand their business front and back. I'm communicating with them daily and really ensuring the steps they are taking in their business is getting them consistent traffic to generate them consistent revenue in their business. So just make sure you go ahead, fill out that application and we'll be in touch soon. So that first step that we just covered in how you can start using your YouTube channel to get more sales through your online course or book more clients, is to truly understand your audience and, and the audience you want YouTube to put you in front of and creating the right content. The second secret is making sure you're focusing on the right traffic sources. Now YouTube has three main traffic sources. There is search, you know when you type in search and those videos come up There is suggested when you're watching my video and you see the videos to the right or left, they always get mixed up. And the browse feature, basically when you log into YouTube now as a content creator, somebody who is going for the most most views and the most subscribers to become YouTube famous, you want to be showing up on the browse page. You want to be getting as many eyeballs as possible to watch your content. As an entrepreneur, you want to be focusing on search because remember the first thing we talked about is truly understanding what your audience's pain point is and what they will be searching on YouTube so that now you're making sure your videos are popping up for those topics. So you want to make sure you're getting that initial traffic to your videos from search. Once you can get the right people who are typing their problem in YouTube search in your videos popping up and you get them clicking on it, then the algorithm will start to pick up who are the best type of people to watch your videos. Who's the right target audience? Because we're not creating YouTube videos for the masses. We're creating YouTube videos for that specific person that we know is going to buy our online course or say, yes, I want to work with them. Now once you can Start validating to YouTube based on your search traffic and the people clicking on your video in search, YouTube gets a better idea of the type of people that are going to watch your content. And that's when your content starts to be put on the home or suggested in the beginning, the people that are watching your videos will also be served your videos in browse and suggested. And if you're making that connection with them and you're providing lots of value and making them think, how does she always know what's in my head? They're going to become this loyalty community of video clickers, right? As soon as they see one of your videos on their homepage or one of your videos on their suggested, they're going to click on it. You're building this loyal base of supporters on YouTube. Once you get consistent viewers clicking on and watching your video to the end, which are key metrics are going to talk about here in just a moment, the YouTube algorithm will again be able to better understand who your videos should be in front of. YouTube cannot read your mind. So you need to be giving all of these signals to to YouTube to ensure it promotes your videos to the best people. Remember, not everybody, but the best people listen. YouTube does the work for you, right? You don't have to dance on TikTok every day to get the algorithm to put your content out there. You just need to make sure you're creating the right content and you're creating content that your audience clicks on them watches. But if you aren't doing this right and the algorithm can't figure out who to put your content in front of and you're creating generic how to videos or trying to go viral on YouTube, YouTube won't be able to put your videos in front of the right people and you won't get those quality people to your channel that will result in more sales to your online course. And I can tell you from experience, when I got started here on YouTube, obviously the algorithm worked differently eight, 10 years ago. But I have been classified now in the algorithm as a YouTube educator. And so my content generally goes out to somebody who wants to start a YouTube channel, a, as a hobby or B, as a way to become a YouTuber. My programs in my courses are not built for that audience because my audience does not want to be a YouTuber. They just need to build their email list. They just need to get more sales to their online course. They just need to book more one on one clients and their services. So now what has happened is when I pivoted my channel at the beginning of this year, I actually did an entire video that I said I was leaving talking about YouTube and I was only going to talk about marketing and building a business business because I thought that was going to be the answer to get the algorithm to readjust to the right people. I figured that if I just stopped talking about YouTube, eventually the wrong audience would weed itself out, the algorithm would start to readjust where I fit and I'd start getting more of the right people in the meantime, like I said, we were doing that customer journey interview process. We probably interviewed about 20 people on my email list that had been on my email list list, just got on my email list. Clients that had gone through my mastermind, clients who have gone through my course to truly understand what is the problem that they're having and why they're coming to me for that problem. And I had a major realization that so many of you here watching me or on my email list do come to me for YouTube help. But more than what I thought are coming to me to figure out how to use YouTube in their business, where I thought it was more skewed on the hobbyists and the youtubers. So where this has now put me is that you see, I'm still talking about YouTube, but I've adjusted the way I'm basically marketing these videos and the way I'm delivering my content and I'm talking about specifically how to use YouTube in a business side. So like this one where I talked about how to use it in your online course and I have another video coming out mistakes that course creators do here on YouTube. So it's just been adjusting how I market my content in the, the words that my customers are saying that I learned through that client journey process. And this is going to allow the right people that I want to watch my videos. I want the course creators, the one on one service providers, the coaches, the consultants watching and knowing this video is going to be specifically for them. And it's not about like growing a YouTube channel to be YouTube famous. Because the people that are wanting to learn how to use YouTube for their business are going to be the best fit for my mastermind, 10 count replay, which has become my number one program and where I focus all my attention on the other added bonus this allows to kind of happen is you can really minimize the amount of content that you need to create then. And so really just focusing on one YouTube video a week is all you really need to do to ensure you're feeding the algorithm, you're getting content out there and you're constantly driving the right people to your videos, to your channel, to your business business. One video a week, that's it. Instead of posting freaking massive loads of content over on Instagram. And don't get me wrong, I'm over on Instagram. I do love Instagram, but what I use Instagram for is nurturing my audience. I'm really not getting new people following me over on Instagram from Instagram. How I'm building my Instagram and my email list is creating content here on YouTube and getting YouTube to serve me to the right people. And then they find my videos, they watch my videos, they get on my email list, they start following me on Instagram and then I nurture, nurture that relationship over on Instagram. So let's look a big picture and how this all breaks down. Let me know if you're currently using Instagram in your business and I would love to hear your thoughts. Are you frustrated with Instagram? Are you loving Instagram? Are you getting clients from Instagram? I would just love to hear from different business owners what they're experiencing on Instagram. Like I said, I've been using it really as a nurture platform, but I don't really see it as a platform where I'm getting new people, people to my platform. Just let me know. Let's talk Instagram down in the comments. First, understand who your ideal viewer is. Then you need to create that relevant content that makes them say, huh, how is she inside my brain? That's exactly what I was wondering. Don't worry about going viral. That is not what we're doing. We are not creating content for the masses. This will allow the algorithm to better understand who your best person is and get your content in front of those people. If you're creating the right content with the right title and thumbnail, they're going to start clicking on it. Once you get more people clicking on it, then YouTube is going to be able to find more of those people. Which leads me to clicking and watching, which are major metrics you need to be looking at when it comes to using YouTube. Better to sell more of your online course. So this is kind of like secret number three, step number three, metrics you should be tracking. Now, there are a boatload of metrics that YouTube provides you and that you could spend hours in. But you're probably a solo entrepreneur, you're probably a team of one. Maybe you have a virtual assistant. And so I don't want you to get into the big weeds of YouTube in the beginning until you have time to. So there are two main metrics that I really want you to focus on that are going to allow you to move the needle faster using YouTube. First up is your click through rates and this is how well your title in your thumbnail cause your potential viewer to click. This is why anytime I come up with content for my YouTube channel, I always start with what's the title going to be? And what's the thumbnail concept? Because if you can't get your audience to click on your video, it doesn't matter how great it is, how professionally edited it is, nobody's going to watch it. And again, you need the right people clicking on that title and thumbnail, the right people watching, so that YouTube can find more of those people and the algorithm can understand who to put those videos in front of, which is then the second metric you need to be watching, which is critical, is audience retention. So every single single video, after about 48 hours, you get a graph to see how well you kept your viewer watching. If you have a massive drop off in the first 30 seconds, your audience isn't watching your content, so it's either not relevant to them as in the title and the thumbnail really did not have anything to do with the beginning of the video, or two, you just don't have good content. Ideally you want to shoot for about a 40% audience retention over a for your video and that's a really hard metric to hit. But if you again are understanding your audience and you're creating the relevant content for them, they should be watching. If you're delivering value in that video, there's one more thing that you can watch on your YouTube channel to again figure out or decide if you're getting the right people watching and it's the type of comments you're getting. So for a While in like 2020 after the pandemic hit and everybody like was was kind of like starting a YouTube channel and I was getting basically the wrong audience, I had kind of surface level comments on my videos and I could tell which this was not the right audience. But over this past year I've been getting some really good comments and people asking more deeper questions about sales funnels and lead magnets and what I know my audience is curious about. So again, if you're not sure if you're creating the right content, your comments will tell the story. Knowing that audience retention is critical for success here on YouTube and ultimately getting more people to buy your online course, I could created program called Going Video that is just $37. And inside you get my exact script template. I show you exactly how I plan every single one of my videos, including how I open the videos, what I say in the videos, and specifically the calls to action at end at the end of every single video. Because again, if you're using this content to get people to buy, you've got to have a solid call to action. I also include inside a Going Video video exactly my entire process for creating a YouTube video from ideation to publishing and promoting in the entire workflow I use in Asana. Now if you want to get this entire process including my script template and different ways that I use YouTube to generate more traffic to my online courses, go to trina little.com forward/going video because for right now it's just $37. And again you're going to learn the entire process of how I created create videos for YouTube and then if you want to see a detailed walkthrough of how I plan my YouTube content calendar and how I plan my specific videos, watch the video that is on your screen right now because it is a complete deep dive into my process.