by: AskPat 79 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 79 of AskPat. This is where I answer your online business questions five days a week.
Before we get to today's question, and I'm not even going to mention a sponsor today, because I wanted to take this sponsor spot, take it out, and put in a very worthy and heartfelt cause, which is a campaign on Indiegogo by a listener of the show, Anthony Fasano. Actually, more so, his daughter, Brianna, who are creating something to help kids with cancer. I recommend you check it out. If you go to PurpeeTheDragon.com, you can listen to the whole story there. It's just very awesome, and I'm contributing to the campaign myself. I wanted to do this to share that with you. Again, PurpeeTheDragon.com. PurpeeTheDragon.com. Thank you, again, Anthony and Brianna, for just the amazing thing that you guys are doing. Thank you.
Now, let's get to today's question from CJ, which is about leveraging your YouTube subscribers. Take it away, CJ.
CJ: Hey, Pat. Love the show. Love the blog. I'm listening and reading every week. My name is CJ. I run a website called DIYGoPro.com, where we teach people how to make cool contraptions and devices to get awesome footage on their GoPro cameras. My question is around YouTube and YouTube subscribers. I've built up a pretty good following, with over 6,000 subscribers. I'm wondering, is there a way to leverage those subscribers more than just creating more videos and getting more views, and likes, and comments? Am I able to take advantage of that list in some way, kind of like an email subscriber list, or something like that? Let me know your thoughts. Thanks. Take care.
Pat Flynn: CJ, thank you so much for you question. YouTube is something that I am definitely going to be doing a lot more of in the near future, because I, myself, have collected a large subscriber base, actually around 30,000. That's over the course of the last four years. I haven't done much in the last year to serve them at all because I've been really focused on the podcast; I've been focused on AskPat. I'm going to incorporate some video later this year and also into next year that are hopefully going to reengage those subscribers. But let me tell you about some ways that I've …
Actually, before I get into strategies or what you could do with those subscribers, I think the most important thing to understand is, well, what's your goal? CJ, you have this amazing business and this subscriber base at DIYGoPro.com. My question to you is, well, what do you want to happen? What is your ultimate goal? What's your ultimate vision for the site? What do you want your users to be able to do more of? It's great that you have these subscribers, but like you said, it's just kind of going to waste if you're just building more subscribers, and getting views, and not doing anything with it. I think we can all agree that we want to do something good with those subscribers that we're building, not just to make more money, but to do more. To be able to add to your business, and to expand the business, and do more of whatever it is that your goal is in life and with your business.
CJ, that's the first question I would ask yourself. For anybody out there, if you have a blog, or a podcast, or a YouTube channel, or whatever, and you're starting to build an audience, well, what is it that you really want to do? A lot of us just go into business and try to build as big of an audience as we can, but why? For me, it's because I want to have the biggest impact on this world to help people to understand that there are opportunities out there to make money when they might not see it, so that they can live a better life and have a flexible schedule to do whatever it is that they want to do with that time. For me, it's to spend more time with my kids. For other people, it's different. That's my why. That's why I want to grow as big as possible, and why I want to leverage my YouTube subscribers when I haven't quite done that yet, because I know there's some people who are on there who aren't on my other forms of communication or providing content.
Now, in terms of strategies, and things you could do, or what you could do at this point, let me just give you some recommendations. You had mentioned your email list. I think it's incredibly important that you want to get people who are from YouTube to an email list. I think no matter what platform you are on, you want to get people onto your email list, whether it's podcasting, or your YouTube channel, or even your blog. You want to get people onto an email list because, even on social media, you can take those people who are on your email list wherever you go. If YouTube got sold or crashed or whatever, and yes, that might not seem possible now, but we also had that with MySpace, if Facebook goes down, if Twitter goes down, if your blog gets hacked or whatever, at least you have your email list. I remember when I got hacked, not hacked, but my site was attacked in March of 2013, I had lost access to it for over a week and over $12,000, but I was still able to communicate with my audience through my email list. I think if you're building a brand here, you absolutely want to start getting people from your YouTube channel to your email list.
After you provide content on your shows, or even in the middle of your show, or at the end of your show, you want to give people incentive to come to your website because that's where people can come to then subscribe to your list. Giveaways are great; incentives. Maybe, perhaps, there's the top three contraptions that people have built or that you have built that you haven't shared yet on DIYGoPro that you can give away for free in a quick little PDF that's maybe five pages. Doesn't have to be that big. It doesn't have to be something you spend too much time on. Just something that people want, people can subscribe to your email list and get on that list to get access to that product, whatever it might be, or that ebook or PDF file. Of course, from there, from your email list, you could then sell products or become an affiliate for products and sell that through your email list. You could do that. Or you can even sell your own products or recommend products on your YouTube page as well. Because one thing that's worked really well for me with my YouTube channel, is showing how I've used other products. I have been able to create tutorials and things for Bluehost, which is a hosting and domain company, or a company like Leadpages, which helps you create really quick and fancy-looking pages to collect email leads. By showing people how I use those products, I'm able to recommend those products and sell them as an affiliate off of those videos. That helps me sell more product and make more money through the videos that I'm creating as well. You can also have them subscribe or register for a webinar from those videos as well, which might be pretty cool to get people to come on live with you at some point to then ask questions. Maybe they come online with you to see how something is built so people can build those things alongside. Leading up to the event, you get people to buy certain pieces of equipment or things off of Amazon, whatever. You could be the affiliate for those things that people have to buy in order to piece something together live with you. They can ask questions and interact with you along the way. I think that would help for brand loyalty as well, opening up your doors and answering questions that people have. Just getting really connected with people as well. Maybe for some businesses out there, maybe not yours, CJ, but there's opportunities to sell consultations, or mentorship, or one-on-one type stuff where it would be access to you for a certain amount of dollars. You're just showing on a webinar or on the video what kind of advice you could give or consultation you could provide. Those are a couple of things that come to my mind.
Another thing you could do that would be pretty cool is to cross-promote with another YouTube channel. Is there another YouTube channel that's doing something really cool? I think even Lifehacker would be kind of cool. Sites like that that aren't specifically made just for GoPros, but maybe they're tech sites where you can even provide a video just for them, which then promotes your YouTube channel, or gets people on your email list as well, in exchange for … Maybe not even in exchange for anything. You're giving them the video. It's like a guest post, but it's a guest video on somebody else's YouTube channel. I know a lot of people who do that. Especially, musicians and up-and-coming musicians. They'll get together with other musicians and they'll swap videos, or they'll appear in each other's video, which is cool. You can use that same strategy to help build both of your email lists and subscriber bases at the same time.
You could use your videos to ask questions. Are you asking questions and trying to engage with your audience? Yes, you're getting comments, but are you actually asking them for what they want to see more of? That's one thing that I know a lot of YouTube channels are very good at, is asking their audience for what the next video should be. For example, Epic Rap Battle of History, or Bad Lip Reading. Those are extremely popular video channels that tap into their audience to help them determine what is next and what they want to see. That only helps grow the subscriber base even more and also the brand loyalty, because people feel like they're involved as well. Going back to what I said about cross-promoting. There are big sites out there, techy sites, sites like Lifehacker that have large YouTube channels that would be more than happy to promote something cool to their audience. Instead of sharing it with your own audience, you're sharing it with another audience. The fact that you have 6,000 active subscribers would help you in your argument for saying, “Hey, this is cool. A lot of people enjoy it. I think your people would enjoy it, too.” That could be helpful as well.
CJ, the last thing I want to mention is there's a lot of people who … I don't know anyone who has done this on YouTube, but I know plenty of people who have done it with podcasts. It's just another platform for delivering content. Of course, blogs even with a not-so-large subscriber base have created live events. Live events. Flying people out for a few hundred books, maybe even more, sometimes a couple thousand, to come hang out and just do stuff. Or sometimes it's a conference, or sometimes it's just to hang. If you have a rabid fan base and there are people in your audience who just want to learn more from you or just be around you, that's an opportunity for you to tap into your subscriber base to see if there's anybody interested in that. That could be a really cool way to just take your brand to the next level. That could be something that could grow even bigger over time. People who go the first time would talk about it. You'd be able to get testimonials or take pictures or videos of all the things you did so that the next time around, you did it and shared that with all of your subscribers. It would be even cooler and potentially even bigger. That's where my 1-Day Business Breakthrough event with Chris Ducker from ChrisDucker.com came out of. We both tapped into our subscriber base, which just happened to be on our blogs and our podcasts, and also our YouTube channel. Actually, we have a video on YouTube talking about that event. We were able to sign up 25 people at a time for a one-day event here in San Diego every few months when Chris comes from the Philippines and hangs out with me in the U.S. It sells out in a couple days every time. Just something to think about. Some higher-level, big-thinking stuff. Maybe there's a convention you could put on, C.J. That would be pretty awesome, actually.
Anyway, hope that's helpful to you. Thank you so much for your question, CJ. If any of you out there have a question you'd like potentially answered here on the show, head on over to AskPat.com. You can just ask right there on that page using your microphone that's internal on your computer, or maybe you have a headset or something, or maybe you have a cool mic. Maybe you're a podcaster. If you have a question, ask me. I'd love to hear it.
Lastly, as a reminder, head on over to PurpeeTheDragon.com to see what that cause is all about. I'll be supporting it, and potentially you might, too, if it resonates with you. That's Purpee.com.
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of AskPat. Of course, I want to end with a quote here. That quote is from Francis Chan. That quote is, “When it's hard and you are doubtful, give more.” I love that, because just in terms of my business model, the more I give, the more I've given, or the more that I do give, the more it just seems to come back to me in return. I love that. I think that's how all businesses should run, and everybody in life, actually. The more you give, the more you get. I really do believe that. Take care. Thanks so much. I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat.