Trent:                 Hey what’s up everybody? This Trent Dyrsmid here from the Bright Ideas Podcast, welcome to Episode number 262, thank you so much for joining me today. My job here as the Podcast host is to help you discover what works in e-Commerce by shining a light on the tools and tactics and the strategies that are being used by today’s leading e-Commerce entrepreneurs.

And in this episode, I intend to do exactly that by interviewing a fellow by the name of Justin Brown. Justin, is one of the two co-founders of a company called Primal Video and over the last 4 years, Justin and his brother have successfully used YouTube as an evergreen source of organic traffic for their business and they’ve also amassed just over 230,000 YouTube subscribers in the process. Very clearly, Justin understands how to get the most out of the YouTube platform.

So, if you run an e-Commerce business and you’re looking for a long term source of traffic, this is definitely an episode that you’re going to find is jam packed with actionable gold nuggets that you can implement in your business starting today; in fact Justin went into so much detail that we can also probably call this interview an actual training course.

So with all that said, I hope you enjoy the episode please join me in welcoming Justin to the show. Hey Justin welcome to the show.

Justin:        Thank you very much for having me on.

Trent:                 Yeah no problem, I am very happy to have you here as we were talking about just before we hit record video is a very important part of my business strategy going forward, so even if nobody listens to this episode, I’m going to get a whole lot out of it. Now with that said, I’m sure a lot of people are going to get a lot of value out of this because video is a very important part of today’s marketing strategy. So before we dive into all of that, let’s introduce you first, who are you and what do you do?

Justin:                 Yes, so my name is Justin Brown, I work with my brother Mike our company is Primal Video and that’s what we help people leverage video to grow and amplify their business and brand; these as we’re all told that we need to do video but is all these things that come up whether it’s fear of being on camera, fear of tech or just the procrastination that comes with another thing you could add to your to do list, so we focus on the processes and systems to help people actually see a result with video.

Trent:                 So even though your channel Primal Video is very popular, you don’t consider yourself a YouTuber?

Justin:                 Not really no, I guess inherently by making YouTube videos you do become a YouTuber but for us, it’s traffic, it’s a great place for us to release the top of the funnel to find people to bring them into our ecosystem to show them that we can help them and obviously the ones that take action, the ones that like our YouTube content, want that next step then that’s when they’ll join out e-mail list and flow on through there into some of our products and services.

Trent:                 Okay and how many subscribers do you have and when did you start your channel?

Justin:                 I think we hit 130,000 last week; we’re currently growing by about 12,000-15,000 a month and that’s growing faster now, so yeah it’s definitely going to go faster than it does in the beginning but we started about 4 years ago and I can tell you the first 50 subscribers, the first 100 subscribers, we nearly gave up because it was taking that long. I think at the 6 month mark, I don’t think we had 100 subscribers yet and we’re like what is wrong with this? What is right with video people, my background is in production and making documentaries and those sorts of things why can’t we make this work?

So, we kind of took a step back and looked at it said, “Right YouTube is a search engine, we need to create content that is easy for people to find the lines up with what they’re searching for”. So instead of just like this is a really good tip or really good video that is going to help people, it’s not exactly what they’re searching for. So, we’re talking about the outcome not about the problem.

So, we kind of switched then and then people aren’t searching for the outcome, they’d like the outcome but what that type in is what editing software do I use? What’s the best editing software? How do I film with my phone and these sorts of things? Let’s start to create content around those and make those sort of the first point that people find us make. People going to YouTube for free stuff, it’s the DIY, I want to learn how to do it myself but obviously people are going there is their first point of call. It’s a search engine, creates such a content to do a bit of research first you can find out what people searching for, it’s really easy to see what were they typing in, Google tells you this stuff, YouTube tells you what those key words are, we started creating content around that so that we would show up in such results so that people could find us.

Trent:                 And you said you had 130,000 subscribers, you have 230,000.

Justin:        Impressions is 230,000 but yeah

Trent:        You nabbed yourself out of 100,000 subscribers.

Justin:                 It’s not about the numbers. So I’m going into a quest to kind of have some credibility to get to help people with this; behind the scenes we’ve been helping people. Obviously the production side but also on the strategy side of business and using YouTube and video as a tool for business so I get what we need to kind of if we’re going to be teaching this stuff and helping with stuff which we are already getting the results, we kind of need to have 10,000-20,000 to make it you know look, we are not just doing if other people, we can do it ourselves too.

So, that was what our first 1,000 was like. Why are we doing this? You know it’s not working for us.

Trent:                 Okay, so let’s position this for my audience which is an audience of e-Commerce entrepreneurs and they’re thinking well, I don’t want to be a YouTuber but I know that every single one of those people is interested in more traffic and you’re saying that YouTube is a great way to generate organic traffic.

That being the case, starts with a channel now let’s begin or before we get into the how you make a video, let’s talk about channel positioning in who the avatar and who the audience is and I know that you and I, my wife and I actually just had a really intense discussion about our own channel and how to properly position and so forth and we went away not completely agreeing and she said we’ll go find somebody who is more knowledgeable on YouTube than us and will we’ll see what they have to say.

So, I’m just going to use me as an example; so I am interested in building an audience of e-Commerce entrepreneurs now it could be that they want to be an e-Commerce entrepreneur, it could be that they want to be an entrepreneur, it could be they’ve just gotten started or they could be doing $2million a year wanting to go to $4million a year and the way that I intend to monetize my audience that my channel would allow me to build would be through my software application, fluster because we’re going to have all sorts of standard operating procedures for all the things that you would be running into to have to do on a regular basis to be successful in e-Commerce.

Now, currently we have a lot of traction with people who are Amazon wholesale sellers and I don’t yet have much traction with people who are e-Commerce, they’re building their own brand will say and they’re selling on their own site now yeah they’re probably selling on Amazon but they’re primarily selling on their own site. So from a channel positioning perspective, do I have to focus solely on people who are interested in Amazon wholesale or can I say, “Well, my channel is about e-Commerce and I have playlists” or some topics or whatever to address the needs of each one of the people who are in different positions on their journey to becoming a successful e-Commerce entrepreneur?

Justin:                 There’s a lot of people out there that need to niche down and you need to get really service specific on your channel and while that does come into play, I think regarding your example, I would say that look at the conversations that you want to be having with them and want to be creating content for the long game, like this isn’t this going to put up a couple of videos you know it to really grow on YouTube, you need to be creating content and uploading consistently. So, we have like one video a week and with me doing one video week for 4 years, so how many conversations or videos could you have on a really, really specific topic maybe Amazon and making money on Amazon for e-Commerce and those sorts of things, is that something that is even achievable or is there more to it than just that one thing? Is Amazon just one solution? Is Amazon just one piece of the puzzle and could you give them a much better journey? A much better end result with you as the as the leader as you as the expert in that space because you know that that might not just be the one way.

I would probably take a step back in your case and go with it was your suggestion, is it more like less specific and have those conversations around it? And yes, inherently with YouTube those videos are going to grab more traffic, the ones that are early stage, the ones that are more on the begin end people go to YouTube for free stuff to learn themselves the DIY content.

But you also get to show them the ones that offer the road on that journey how they can grow as well and that’s not going to deter the begin as if anything it’s going to encourage or inspire them to see what is possible when they’re at those latest stages as well or they might get a jump from one to the other really quickly and implement some of those strategies and things that you’re talking about much faster than even you might have thought so it really is about I would say getting specific overall and I would say e-Commerce is probably a good way to do that.

But obviously all your Amazon related content, you can put into a playlist on your channel like a subset of your channel so that people are just interested in that they can jump straight to those play lists and final of that relevant content and obviously the ones that want the more advanced stuff with the different strategies that can go straight to those but I don’t think it has to be one or the other.

Obviously, if you’re talking about say e-Commerce and then you go and talk about reviewing TV shows totally different and that’s where you know your audience.  You want to keep it on topic but I don’t think you need to be so specific that you just like one Product or one service around that especially if in business you would recommend that they maybe look at some of these different options.

Trent:                 So, one other follow up question then would it be in your channel branding so I’m speaking specifically about the artwork you put on the top of your channel, would it be worthwhile to say so let’s see more channels going to be Trent Dyrsmid e-Commerce business systems because I’m in about e-Commerce and I’m about systems; maybe in the channel art, helping you go from $0-$5m a year in your e-Commerce business so I’m kind of picking a niche and saying, “Hey, if you’re anywhere in this bracket, this Channel’s going to be super relevant to your journey”

Justin:                 Definitely, I think you’re really now saying what the challenge is and that’s the one thing that a lot of people misses specially in that channel banner art is what are you going to get from the channel and people think like that create the channel thriller, the intro that we’re going to find in this channel. People don’t necessarily watch that but they want to know that when they click on any one of your videos they can see that to having that tagline be specific about who these videos are for and having that front and center on your channel that banner cross that top is a great way to do it.

So yes, that way people know that yes, whether they’ve got a $5m business or less and that they’re in the right place.

Trent:                 Okay and even one step further and say something to the effect of systems to help you grow your e-Commerce business from $0-$5m.

Justin:                 Definitely and that’s the kind of thing you can experiment with and change over time as well like we started with a totally different channel and we pivoted to something that was a broader conversation; we started with just video editing but quickly realize that creative editing videos is painful and while it’s now coming to one piece of the puzzle right they take a lot of what to create an editing video but it’s also once you can edit then what? Then you’re still going to film and yet if it well you need to have good footage but also then once you’ve got the end video then what?

To us it was about the outcome and that’s using video for business using video to build either audience or revenue so that’s where we couldn’t just talk about the one piece of the puzzle that was editing.

Trent:                 Okay so now that people understand or hopefully understand channel positioning from our brief conversation in my example, let’s talk about the video planning and production process because it’s also going to have your channel figure no but in place you’re uploading videos on a regular basis, it’s not going to be too terribly successful. So in video, you need to think well what’s my video going to be about? You need to pick a topic, then you need to come up with an outline, then need to shoot it, you need to edit it and you need to upload it and promote it.

So, let’s just kind of unpack all of that and I’m going to let you do the vast majority of the talking and I’m just going to hop in with questions where I have to. So, let’s start of the beginning tell me about– so and again, let’s just keep using me is that as the guinea pig if that makes it easy. So I want to decide on a topic for the first let’s say because next week as an example my goal is to plan out 12 videos because I was inspired by what you said when you took an entire week and just blitzed so I’ve block my entire calendar for next week for video production. How do I figure out what my topics are going to be?

Justin:                 Okay awesome, so we yeah we block out a week for filming you know is it doesn’t take a week but things come up though the power might go out, there might be a big storm and it’s not you know whatever it is as well, that’s why we block out a week. Now a week we’re going to shoot 10 videos, 10-12videos but I must say all the planning and everything needs to be done before you get to that point.

So, we also block out a few days of the week before to make sure that we have the topics selected so I’ll run through that part of the process too and then get into the actual filming stuff so the first thing we do we use Trello to map all of this out and we have a little list you can add listen you can move the items across so we have a topic poll which is any random topic where in the shower if, we’re driving or whatever it is we have no idea it goes into that topic pool and so the first step in the process is we’ve got a big list of topics and these are things that could be your frequently asked questions, if you’re not sure on topics like the things that people ask you all the time if you could just send them to a video that’s a great place to start.

It could be your business it could be even things like you know talking about your stuff individual stuff members and what they bring to the team or the outcomes of working with you, so there’s a couple of ideas that we have a topical lists from there we’ll start to shortlist that down because we obviously want to get to 10-12 videos to shoot, we might find then that we pull maybe 15 of those topics out into the short list and these are ones that we think a good timely content, like good food right now but also we try to create ever green content so this is not just about something that’s happening right now, this is something that is going to be relevant into the future.

Obviously, we’re going to take. Kind of spices things change a lot so we want to make sure that if we are doing something that is prone to change made our care and app update that might come out we want to get those videos out fast so we want to prioritize those because there’s not that we don’t have to rework and reshoot a video. So, with could topic pool, we show this those topics down all they go through each one of them and no doubt the key points for each videos just a few doc points.

So if it’s for video editing software, it will be the ones that I’m going to recommend at the end after going doing all the tests and research and a kind of stuff. So, this is where you note down the key point to the objectives of the video, what you want to leave the viewer with after they watched the video. We then go into research and scripting phase and this is where Mike my brother goes through the process of research, will go and make sure that these are valid topics and this is where the topic can change a little bit looking at what people actually typing into Google and YouTube and a great place to start with this is the search bar in Google or YouTube as you start to type stuff out you know populate it and give you suggestions those suggestions that come through what people are actually typing in and such in full so it’s a great place to start to refine down your overall topic into what people are searching for.

The topic might change a little bit based on what comes out of those but you’re also confirming that yes, there is some such traffic or such volume here. So, the bulk of the video that we do if there isn’t much search traffic with such volume on that people aren’t searching for the topic, we may still do the video but in most cases, we’ll probably move back to the topic pool for a little bit later but the program the primary thing is about looking at is the search volume, is this video going to do well.

Trent:                 So, let’s dig in a little bit there so I use a an extension called  Twobody, so Twobody will give you some scoring on the volume of on the value of the keyword both for YouTube as a whole and then for your channel. How much weight– like are there certain search volumes that you’re looking for do you use the two body tool and do you kind of keep it like in the Yellow or the green or like how do you know that there is enough traffic to warrant a particular video and not too much competition so that like your video is never going to see the light of day?

Justin:                 Yeah, so it really is Twobody is good and that’s one of the tools that we use, I’d say the one that we use more also than that is one it’s a Chrome and Firefox extension that you can install as code key words everywhere and that is an absolute game changer so as you start to type in some of these things into the search boxes, then it tells you what the search traffic is in line, so that is huge.

But then I’ll actually go and run the search so once we start to narrow this down, we’ll actually do a search on YouTube and see what comes up like who actually is ranking for this video? Is it a big channel? How is it a small channel? Like you know how much white does that channel bring to the YouTube algorithm? That’s if it’s a big channel and the videos go a lot of years that’s a fair bit of white video is probably going to be hard to outrank if you’re a brand new channel. So, it’s not that you don’t think create those videos but you might create maybe a different spin on that video but you can also use Twobody to see what keywords and tags and what they’ve used and what other people used in their videos.

So, it’s not used to having something from scratch here is that you can see all of this information and have what made that video go to number one or number two in Google and in YouTube. So, you can use Twobody, it’s a great one he would every way to help you narrow down those key words.

Trent:                 Okay so are there any other steps involved in getting to the point where like okay this is the topic, the title we’re going to target, I’ve got my own line, I’m now ready to script is there anything else that happens before scripting?

Justin:                 I think in that reason it’s again just getting clear on what the outcome of the video is so once you look at the keywords, you really want to be sure of like there was a key which might change the title of the video which might change the content of the video, you want to be sure that you’re not just creating clicked by titles just to get people to click on to your video, you need to make sure you are actually going to talk about what those things are. It sounds obvious but a lot of people don’t do that, they just– title of video something just to get the view, that doesn’t help anymore.

Trent:                 So in scripting, walk me through the process because in the beginning, I used to just would put a few points on a whiteboard I’d stand up in front of the whiteboard and then there was kind of like my memory book and I would talk about things and then I don’t so much care for that approach anymore because I don’t think produces a good of a video, so walk me through the scripting process.

Justin:                 The scripting process comes down into five main areas they want to cover in you video; the first one is the hook especially on YouTube The hook is the most important piece of video and all it does it reaffirm to everyone who clicks your video that they are in the right place. So, a hook now example would be in this video I’m going to shoot at the top five video editing apps that you need to be using to get great results with your videos.

My title of the video will be the top five tools that you need to use whatever it is like it to line up; so all you’re doing is, you’re in the mindset of the viewer, just click to video that showed up in search they’re questioning, is this person who they are? Are they going to answer the question? Are they going to solve this problem for me? And so what you doing is addressing that and it’s really these little microchips that they’re doing you that type something in the search that look at the thumbnail image to say, “Okay, that says what it is, what it’s going to be” that looks like that’s on topic of what I want to answer or the answer I want.

The title and the description will say things like everything lines up, I’m going to click, when they click it’s like am I in the right place? So, you want to reaffirm that they are.

Trent:                 Now on the thumbnail, which from what I have learned has a huge impact on whether they’re going to click or not [yes] it looks to me when looking at your channel that your title is pretty much in the thumbnail.

Justin:                 That’s it yeah, though we always I’d be testing the thumbnails and Twobody now lets you do AB testing on your thumbnails as you can see which one is actually going to convert higher and we want to as easy as possible or to make it as easy as possible for people to see what is going on in the videos and to entice them to click.

There’s no point if you have to world best video no one clicks on it or it doesn’t show up in search and then or no one clicks on them, what was the point? So, your thumbnail’s actually are a huge part of that.

Trent:                 So, why not let’s say the title is you know it’s use one of yours premier vs Final Cut Pro best video editor of 2018, why not in the thumbnail maybe make a make a benefit like you said you need to make sure that you leave the viewer with what they want, why would you not have words on the thumbnail that would convey the benefit of watching the video as opposed to the titles render anything you’re sort of repeating it?

Justin:                 Yes, so you’ve got to think that this place when people when you’re video when your thumbnail show on the air if they’re on the far end it’s got to be really small so you only want to have a few words in big text so that catches their eye and they can quickly see and entice them to click but if you had a heap of extra text on there, then it’s going to be too much of people will scroll past if too much text on it, they’re not there to read, they want to watch a video.

So, it’s literally as we would like 3-5 words at the most on what the outcome is, I’ve had to edit faster or something like that just so they know that they’re in the right place.

Trent:                 Okay so back to scripting, five main areas, first there is a hook what’s the second area?

Justin:                 Then we go into an introduction, so after you hook them and they know that they’re in the right place, you have to buy yourself a little bit at times that’s where I’ll say something like, “Hey, it’s Justin from Primal Video, we hope to brand your business and video” so, I bought myself some time when we started a video with, “Hey, it’s Justin from Primal Video” and the views would just drop because at that point, you haven’t hooked them yet.

Who is this guy? Is he actually going to answer this problem and he’s talking too much already, they’re out. So, really the hook is the most important thing so then you buy sometimes get an intro so you can introduce yourself, your company, short and sharp, you don’t want to talk for 10 minutes.

But if it really is to give them a bit of background then even on the topics there’s anything that you need to set up before you get to the content or explain how the video is going to go, so you can reaffirm that at that point so yes in this video, we’re going to reset all of the top tools and narrative down to five and on the run you through those five.

Now, they’re in no particular order is it just five, so they can explain how the content is going to be delivered to them so you’re really hitting the different personality types and how people like to consume that content, you’re explaining how the video is going to go and obviously then you need to then follow that in the next section which is the actual content itself.

Number three is the actual content, what we want to do in there as well is add another hook so it’s kind of a subset which we will then hook them to the end with something like a bonus and makes you stick around to the end because I’m also going to share with you our process for editing videos faster.

So, you know that the editing tools or whatever it is you can add some of the hook or something to keep them there till the end of the video. Now inherently, if you’re doing a top five videos, people going to stick around for number five even if they didn’t like one, two, three or four,  number five could be the game changer for them. So, even if we don’t necessarily just make my top five or top ten videos but it is a good strategy to get people watching and keep them watching.

The other way is with this bonus, I hook them to a bonus towards the end of the video that you get to deliver or something else that you know that they’re going to need that they may not be aware of yet.

Trent:                 Like you’re going to either import some additional information or maybe make a url available for them to get a downloadable free report or whatever?

Justin:                 Yeah, you’ve got hook up the content, hook, intro content, then off we have delivered the content, is when we will deliver the bonus. So, before the end of the video, I said I would also share with you whatever it is security is, what is the link to go and get it.

Then the last thing it is your call to action what do you want them to do after watching this this video? What action do you want them to take? Is it to like? To subscribe? Is it to go on watch other videos of yours or someone else’s on the same topic? What do you want them to do next? And it doesn’t necessarily need to be the same as the bonus.

Trent:                 So if you– if I’m watching one of your videos and your call to action is for me to go and watch some other video on some other person’s channel, is your channel credited with a watch time on the watch time for that the viewing of the second video in some way because it’s all about getting the algorithm to know that my videos encourage the largest amount of watch time?

Justin:                 Yeah, so it doesn’t it doesn’t give you added watch time but it does feature your channel, it does play into your channel massively because you’ve created a session, someone has watched through your videos and then stuck around on the platform. So, the biggest thing on YouTube is time on platform, if you can help them have more time on platform from a user session, then that is huge.

So, if you don’t have a related video that is related to someone’s just finished, send them to someone else’s that is on topic, that obviously is a good video that you like whatever and that’s going to keep them on YouTube and keep them watching and that’s going to hold really strong fit you and fit your channel because you’re keeping people on platform longer which means YouTube can run more ads and make more money. So, it really is thinking about that user journey but also what YouTube wants out of this as well.

Trent:                 Makes a lot of sense all right, so now let’s talk about shooting the video and let’s not– we’re not going to go into like what camera and lighting and all that kind of thing, what I’m more interested in is, if you’re not going to be the one editing the video, how do you shoot it so that when you give it to an editor, they are able to produce what you had in mind when you were in the planning stage?

Justin:                 Awesome question because while we teach video editing and help people with that, we outsource our editing and we’ve built a team of editors not something that people have the shock to hear like your video editor you should do it yourself why should I do it myself I’d rather focus on the business and growing the business right so love this question.

Yes, we use a process when I’m filming to help make the editing easier and the biggest thing that we do is make sure that I only move on to the next sentence, the next dot point, the next topic, the next piece of the video when I’m happy with the last take. So, the taking the thinking part out of someone editing so they don’t have to chop and change my sentences in half and often take the start of this sentence and the end of another sentence and try to match them together.

That’s thinking, that’s brain power and this is a decision made in this or is it within whenever there’s a decision made, there could be a mistake which is then when you’re reviewing you’re watching everything more closely so for us we remove that; so our editors only use the last take or the last sentence of the last time I say something that’s the one that I want them to use so knowing that then they actually edit backwards I said of editing from the start of the footage that I’ve pressed record on, they edit from the end, from the last thing like where are where I stop recording they edit backwards knowing then that they’re going to hit that this take of the one that I want them to use first.

So, it makes it much more quicker for them to follow that process of always hitting that best take because they’re working from right to left instead of left to right. So, I’ve explained that well enough for that. An absolute game changer if you’re going to get someone else to edit your content, you’re centrally doing the editing while you’re presenting.

Now that doesn’t mean that you may need a couple of extra takes to when you’re filming say you’re filming might be a little bit longer than it would be if you just like you know what I said all in that you guys go and make it look good but that’s a risk that they get a misfit and then you’ll be questioning the editing, did I say that? I think that’s in there somewhere and then you get the point where it would be quick if you just had it yourself so it really is about building the out in the sense of just giving them all the pieces to make up the video easy for them to find and you know sleep Mock is or hints or like you could claps three times at a scene like an audio spike in the evolve and you can say actually this one this section is supposed to go back a little bit so you don’t have to create a full brief after you’ve recorded the video, you’re just giving them the video file and they’ve got everything in there that they need, you’re able to communicate with them in there as well.

Trent:                 So as an example of that, you might be saying you so you’ve got your take you like then you’re going to snap your fingers so they’re going to see the spike, then you’re going to say in that last section, I just I want you to put a grid an image over here of blah blah blah blah blah so that you’re literally the instructions are embedded all in the raw footage.

Justin:        Yes.

Trent:                 Now, is there anything else with respect to shooting to make editing easier for the editor any other best practices or any other tricks or techniques?

Justin:                 I think not over shooting is a big one that people get caught out with, not just leave the camera running and then they get a fine call that fine goes off, they’ve got to go on its front door or whatever it is and said that the footage is a lot more than what it needs to be.

So, I would say be mindful that it’s going to flow on if it’s more footage what your editor is to go through and less is more, you really only give them what they need in regards to the content piece the spoken piece. If it’s demagogues tip the roll over life footage or product shot, then that’s what you would want to shoot more than what you think because you can never have too much B-roll overlay footage at least that makes it easier for the editors to edit because they got more options and more options on the B-roll but less options on the actual or let less footage they go through on the actual content.

Trent:        Is there are good provider of stock footage for B.-roll?

Justin:                 There are, the one that we generally use is video blocks which I think now is called Storyblocks and it’s a one-time fee, I think it’s $197 for the year and you get access to a big library of footage that you can use. So, that’s one that we use quite a lot and there are others out there like Shutterstock, they typically charge a lot more but really is– the way while that’s out go to videoblocks a storyblocks, we comes down to the shot that you’re looking for right, so not all of them what may have the shelf that you’re looking for certain really is treat them as just a library and if one doesn’t have it and you find the one on something else then go to something else; it really is more important to be clear on what you’re looking for and find that shot and then okay, How much is that one if you’re going to be using that?

Trent:                 Okay and no round editing, so I ask this is a pain that I just went through trying to find a good editor and I found one guy but then you know his editing style after the fact I find wasn’t working for me so then I was back into the market looking for another editor and I’m working with US based editors and you know paying 60-70 bucks an hour and I think you’re taking a different approach, is that right?

Justin:                 Yes, so we have two editors, two primary editors, one of them is a local editor that I can work in with and when I say a local editor, has got to be more expensive than someone online but we also have an online editor and online editors, we help people find them they are between $4-$6-$7 US an hour and from our experience, they are absolutely amazing.

So, even for we’re in the process of shooting at Coles at the moment even the coast modules that I shot yesterday that were uploading to Google Drive after I was shooting them, I guess I was going throughout the day our editor in the Philippines was downloading them and editing them and by the end of the night, I think I have almost all of them back by now and it’s 9:00am my time. So, like that’s how fast and how awesome that is and they literally going through cutting all of that down and then my local editor in this case is going to add the Polish to control it that way but our process for hiring is, we’re not looking for a super creative person out, the most important thing when you’re hiring an editor is to find someone that can follow a process first.

In our hiring process, we are asking six questions and assist in order to be a successful applicant you to answer the six questions and they’re things like links to your favorite video that you’ve created, not the latest one, show me your latest stuff but these are editors that could have done something for someone that they didn’t like you know just following what the client wanted. So, ask them for their favorite video, ask them for the internet speed test, that’s a big one if you got to be moving large files around, you want to know that they can download and upload files quick.

So we go through six questions and just to find out a little bit about them like what the hourly rate would be, if anyone doesn’t answer those six questions, then I’m not going to look at it because I haven’t followed the process. You want to know that when you say, “I want you to do this this this and this to edit my video” that they’re going to do it at least read it and understand it and action that first. Then they can be creative and go nuts on top of that but at least taking to that process first because with editing, it’s a creative thing you give the same for this to 10 different people you got to get 10 totally different things so that’s where building a process around or even a template around your video so our guys don’t know that whenever I say links or in the description to bring up a title that says, “Links are in the description” so we really have a mapped out like that full editing checklist on how we want everything to be even in regards to the music volume at the start. Start and so it’s a little bit louder than it would be for the bulk of the content when we bring up a title and no speaking then boost the volume at that point.

So, we’re really dolled in like pull the pod one of the videos as like what do we want? Like how can we make a process around this template that someone can follow and create our YouTube ready content without any input from me? And these guys will even go and do screen captures of Amazon and products and things that we’re showing and what comes back is in most cases Iike 10 times what I thought it would be because they’ve done exactly what I wanted them to do and then got creative on top of it but that then has to follow this checklist.

Now if anyone is just starting out and think well that’s easy for you you’re a video guy you’ve got all these videos you’ve got a template, you can start by looking at someone else’s videos and give that as an example for your editors to pull apart and just like I like how they did their music, the music sounds about right with that type of music like you don’t need to be so specific you have a build this process out over time with the things that work for you or what doesn’t work for you because again it is all a process; any issues anything that comes back that you’re not happy with that you don’t like, it’s a process problem or a communication breakdown, it’s not that the editor was necessarily bad, they could just be that way but I know that it could just be communication and especially when you’re dealing with someone online and look at how people are in the Philippines so they can be a communication breakdown in there as well or something is lost in translation .

But for us, it’s been an absolute game changer, I’ll recommend anyone just you know pull yourself out of the editing as much as we feel that we need to do as much as we think that we are the ones that shot the video, we know our content, we know that wins, it’s not scalable so you know to use it as a tool for your business account but you’re doing it.

Trent:                 So, if someone had like software that was for business processes or something like that that might be a really….shameless self-plug over with. It is my show I guess so you could use Floster for that and we are going to have SOPs in -Floster for video in the midst of I think attempting to talk just into creating something that will be available but we won’t get into that now.

So uploading on to YouTube, what are some of the best practices when you have your videos done, it’s edited, I’ve now got to get it onto the platform, there’s striking wrong ways to do this can you walk us through that?

Justin:                 We always upload YouTube videos as private first and that way we can schedule them, that way we can have them there ready to go, we can then go and create out WordPress blog to embed that video, obviously we can’t embed the video without the link that the video needs to be on YouTube is the first step, once it’s on there we can then schedule things like social media posts to go out, we use a [inaudible 39:13] for that so we can schedule those posts ahead of time.

We use Twobody to help us schedule the YouTube video release as well, you can use the built in YouTube– YouTubeeach as a scheduling tool but there’s more control over using that Twobody plug in to the release of the video so everything is set up ahead of time. I think the most important thing you would probably miss which we did touch on a little bit was the thumbnail obviously you want to have that done and ready to go when you’re going to upload your videos. So for us, we use design pickle to outsource our I’m now design so the moment after I finish recording videos, I’ll shoot 304 candid, is this really where I’m playing a silly face of pointing at something and I would just screenshot the video at the end.

So, this isn’t something that most people would go through and try to find a frame out of the video where they kind of smiling or between sentences or whatever as knowing you’re as good as just making sure you know filming process at the end of every video, you stand there, you smile you point at stuff police silly faces or whatever it is.

Trent:                 So, instead of taking it to a still picture your cameras rolling for an enormous 30seconds and you’re like…

Justin:                 That you have this posing randomizes pointing whatever and that way I’ve got options and it’s quick, it’s not that I’m going to go and switch the camera into a photo mode, isn’t part of it and then you know it’s just the lighting or anything like that literally it’s the same as the video. So, we’re doing it when tensional about that. So then, straight away those go off to with editors as those screenshots of those images go off to design pickle to create out some. Now so that when we get everything back, when the video is ready with make up the thumbnail is ready to go out as well. So, you don’t want to be there of learning you’ll be, “Oh shoot, I don’t have a thumbnail yet, I’ll just quickly knock something up in Photoshop or whatever” Yes, so it really is about being intentional with the content you’re creating a process around that.

And so that’s our process for that but then once you’re ready to go live, obviously the first step is oh it’s all scheduled for us but the YouTube video goes first and that’s setting it from private to public at that point, the WordPress site it goes live as well the same time with the article and whatever else on there would at least the links and everything so searchable on our website as well as on YouTube because if you want people just to go through and find your specific content, it can be hard as you know there’s a lot of other videos on YouTube so that’s why we have our own blog site with really just our YouTube videos embedded on that but it also helps with Google ranking and Google ranking helps with YouTube ranking.

So really, is like it plays into SEO those sorts of things as well to help you grow your channel and your presence online by having a WordPress blog or some sort of website with your content on it too.

Trent:                 Question about and screens and cords you know and skins are still used, did YouTube deprecate cards or they still use….

Justin:                 They still have cards, they dropped annotations which was way you could have like a hotspot or a link midway through a video so that it’s gone, cards is a little thing up in the talked top I think it’s right hand corner which you can link off to other video content and that can come through at any time; so if you say I done a full work on this video I’ll put a link up in the causes of midway through a video, there’s a link that someone can click to be taken off your video now to go to another video.

Now ideally, that’s on the to go content and it’s no more so as supplementary content to what they’re watching, you don’t want to send them off to someone else’s video at that point because they’re watching yours. So, it really is about helping with that next step one knowing that there is a link to something else. But N-cord and N-screen the last 20seconds of your video. Now, this is where you’re talking in your video your cold action so this is where you say what I want you to do next is and if it subscribe make sure your N-card or N-screen has a subscribe button or whatever video you’re saying and a great video of you to check out next would be this one and there’s a link to it on the screen.

So, you can put in links to all of those relevant topics and you can also have links to opt in or an offsite page as well to a verified page so for us, it’s primalvideo.com and any lead gender or any magnets that we have on there or a PDF downloads or free training, we’ll go to primalvideo.com/something.

We can then link that in that N-card and so I can save Michael Jackson in the video, if you’re interested on how to edit faster, check out the link on screen now to our entire process on the most efficient way to edit videos. And there’s a link that will take them to that.

Trent:                 And do you take your video kind of shrink it down to the corner and have a graphical image of some kind that these things are overlaid on?

Justin:                 Yes, so you want to make it easy for people to find and if you’re just using your regular video positioning, then most likely you’re going to be sitting in the center of the screen and you’re going to have icons and logos and stuff over your head. So yes, actually when I filming, I don’t change anything I shoot the video in exactly the same position, I just keep rolling but in now editing, we’ll slide the video across to the side and bring up something to cover that.

Trent:        Yeah, okay.

Justin:                 So it was a close at the end of the video people know that that’s the end of the video, they get used to seeing your brand and your colors and those sorts of things as well and that there is links on screen.

Trent:                 Okay, so we have a few more questions before we wrap up, once you’ve got your video published on YouTube, it’s published on your site, you’ve shared on social media, are there any other best practices for promoting a video?

Justin:                 Yes, I’d say it’s two things that you want to be doing and first one is to drive as much traffic to your videos as you can in the first 24-48hrs. So traffic to it so tell your friends, tell your family, tell whoever to go and what you video obviously friends and family’s great way to start it but it’s really getting this out this so sharing it on social, if you’ve got an email list maybe you do it weekly newsletter or something that goes out of sharing your content that’s a great way to do it, that sends good indicators to YouTube that you’re bringing people on to the platform that you are a session starter which is the most valuable thing to YouTube, you brought people in from off YouTube on to YouTube.

Trent:                 So, when you do your email blast, you’ve got your video embedded on your site and you’ve got it on YouTube do you send the traffic to the blog post on your site or do you send it to the video on YouTube?

Justin:                 We send in the video on YouTube even though they inherently will be watching the same video that’s embedded on there, we always send traffic to YouTube so that it’s going to hold higher for the YouTube algorithm. Obviously, there it would be more benefit on the business side of things maybe in sending them to your blog or whatever because you could have other links and those sorts of things but it’s also more distracting for them; they’re probably not going to consume the content on your own website as easy as they would on YouTube because you’ve got your own links and distractions and those constant things that you’re trying to pull their attention away to going off or something.

So yes, we send everyone direct to YouTube and that’s kind of the face of our business, so we sent them there. The next thing is the interaction, you want to create as much interaction as you can so even in your videos, you can say let me know in the comments below what your thought on this video is or let me know where you’re at actually going to talk to is whatever it is so in that first 24-48 hours, we make a point of answering every comment as quickly as we can. So, it shows YouTube that this conversation is going on there and that obviously plays into that as well.

But also, the more that you do it the more people will commit and know ask you and say, “Oh can you a video on this too” whatever so then you topical significant run out of ideas because you’re building go to these deeper relationships with people that are helping you create your content because they’re telling you what they want to know about. So, interaction and answering you know almost every comment.

The biggest thing for us I think with that too, we stopped answering comments after that 24-48 hours because that channel was growing too fast and we were at the point I was talking too much of our time so we now have a team members that help us answer comments because it was we interviewed a lot of the people that were in our paid membership program and the game changing thing for them like it obviously they found us on YouTube, what made you follow? What made you sign up? and it was because we answered their comments, we answered a question, we’re real human to human stuff like answering comments of like oh that’s cool you know this is a real people at the other end if you acknowledge them, if you answer their questions, that’s going to help you grow much more faster and build better relationships with people.

So now, we go back and answer every good comment obviously some trolls, you might as well delete those ones but answer every good comment and that’s going to be huge not just for creating interaction on your channel but also the building relationships with people that will then flow on to take it causes and those sorts of things.

Trent:                 So, even after the first 48hours is done, you’re going to put your time into answering comments or you’re going to have someone on your team answering comments?

Justin:                 I guess it’s kind of a mix, I would jump in where there is something that is so super specific but I’ll normally be the one doing it the first 24-48hrs and beyond that if it’s a great video, “Thank you” then that would be a team member responding at that point to say also, “Glad you liked it” or whatever it is because if it’s a technical question, I mean we’re not giving out free technical support in the comments either.

If it’s a big question, we’ll take one piece and say, “Glad you like the video, maybe this other video might help” or something like– it’s not free support line either but it is acknowledging people and if they’ve taken the time to comment, then that’s awesome, that’s helping us and it’s all about building relationships so that’s a great way to do it.

Trent:                 Last thing is then using YouTube to build an e-mail list, what are the ways that works for you to do this?

Justin:                 This is the core of our business and this is what I love YouTube for because that will get organic traffic everything else like Facebook or whatever you could put a video up and it could be gone within a day, a week, a month. YouTube it stays there for you know, videos up that a nearly 4 years old now they’re bringing in over a 1000 views each a day and they have Prime really Gen videos for us so most of our videos on our YouTube channel, I’d say %70-75% don’t have an email in link or a call to action at the end that’s taking them off. Only where there is a 100% fit in the content that they’ve watched, that’s going to lead directly into one of our opt-in, one of our PDF guides or something or free training, we will mention it.

So, it’s not like you’re watching a camera of us like, “Oh by the way, if you want to learn how to edit then check this out” that’s kind of as it falls into while there is a fit between camera and editing the people are watching us just interested in cameras at that point. So, we’ll only mention now everything or editing checklist on an editing video where we know it’s a fit and then that takes it to next step.

Trent:                 You mean you verbally mention it in the video but in the description you could put links to whatever you would like, correct?

Justin:                 Yes, so in the description definitely you could link to other resources and those sorts of things on all of them, I think one of the biggest ones we have is linking off to our resources page which is called ‘affiliate links’ so that’s been a serious revenue boost for our business in recommending everything from the web host that we use, the thing that we use on our website, right through to what email platform we recommend.

So, our goal is to help you build a business with this stuff and all the business tools that we’re using; so it’s not just around the tech and the cameras and that kind of stuff there as well but it’s also about helping people build a business with this stuff that’s part of our goal. So yes, so e-mail list is the most valuable part of our business, that’s what we are in the messaging when you’re on the you know we when we hit send We know that people can see it is not going to be filtered out by an algorithm and then maybe shot at all maybe not, so that’s the goal about business.

Trent:                 Okay Justin, I want to thank you very much for coming to be on the show and being so detailed and transparent in the guidance and answers to the questions, is there anything else that you want to add before we sign off? Is there anything you think maybe I should have asked you but didn’t? And also mention where the people can come and get more information about you.

Justin:                 Yeah well, I guess the biggest thing and there’s nothing that you have not asked and I think the biggest thing I want people to take away is that YouTube is a long game, there’s a lot of people that are creating content that might be look, I did a video for a month and so I’ve done three full videos and I have don’t have much success yet but I would say if you’re really serious about YouTube, upload one video a week for at least 6 months and see how that goes then.

Ideally, I’d be saying 12 months and you look at that go Cole, how could I find 52 topics to talk on or at least do them in batches and record your first 10 and get those up because you’ll learn from those 10 and grow and you’ll get faster; it gets easier and the more that you can batch-produce a content, it makes a huge difference but it really is starting and it’s using the key that you already have and not being overwhelmed with this like I don’t have an email platform, I don’t have this affiliates and just start making the videos, you can build the rest of it out but we didn’t have any opt-in or lead Jenn or anything like that when we started and then our first one was a Google Doc, literally a Google Doc. It looked like a piece of trash; it was more about, this is the process that we’re giving people, we’re helping people and as a Google Doc so you don’t need to go in and out, also you know you have thumbnails No sorts of things maybe how that is kind of the end goal or somewhere in your pocket but it is easy to do this stuff, you just got to look at it from you know the overall goal like how can I do this effectively? And I’m not looking for that quick win, if you want quick traffic, go buy Facebook traffic, if you want a long term relationship and the organic traffic that’s going to pay off for years to come and that’s YouTube pen’s down.

Trent:                 All right thanks very much Justin and people can reach you at primalvideo.com right?

Justin:                 That’s it and our YouTube channel is primalvideo, so yeah thank you very much for having me on.

Trent:        All right, terrific, take care