If your video podcast isn't growing, try this | Ep. 44

Are you wondering why your video podcast isn't growing? If your video podcast isn't gaining traction, it might be time to reassess your strategy! In this video, I share three essential tips to help you boost your audience engagement and visibility. Discover how to create content that resonates with your ideal viewers, optimize your titles and thumbnails for better click-through rates, and leverage SEO techniques to enhance discoverability.

✨ Cringe or Binge: How does your channel rank? Download the VBA app to analyze your channel in 1 simple step. It’s free! https://videobrand.link/app

📹 Be Binge-worthy on YouTube: https://videobrand.link/become-bingeable

🟣 Video Brand Academy: https://videobrand.link/vba

🎥 CRUSH IT ON CAMERA GUIDE: https://vidpromom.com/crush

🎧 Video Brand Infusion Podcast: http://meredithmarsh.co/podcast

📲 Download my FREE Video Brand Academy app! 👉 https://videobrand.link/app

👉 Consistent Sales of Your Course with YouTube: https://youtu.be/GBhulsp0s-4

📹 Follow on YouTube for Video Podcast: https://youtu.be/zkscCExxg9Y?si=B2EAIPxJV0-jEP-7

Transcript

[00:00:00] Well, you're not gonna like hearing this, especially if you are a podcaster who is somewhat begrudgingly embracing video podcasting and YouTube.

But if you have a video podcast or even a YouTube channel where you post videos kind of like this, where it's just mainly a talking head video, if you have a video podcast and it's not growing, like your audience isn't growing, you're not gaining subscribers, you're not getting engagement, comments, likes, or very many views on your channel, I have three things for you to try.

This is the Video Brand Infusion Podcast. My name is Meredith and I'm here to help you infuse the best video marketing strategies into your business so that you can grow your audience with ease and generate consistent revenue.

And to be totally honest, there are really only a couple of reasons why your video podcast would not be getting views on [00:01:00] YouTube. And it's usually either one of these two things. Either your audience can't find. The videos that you're creating.

So you need to make your videos more findable using SEO and the YouTube or two, and this to be completely honest might sting a little bit, but it's possible that you're not creating content that your audience already wants to watch.

So I want to share three things, three areas for you to look at in your videos and in your strategy so that you can get your video podcast to actually gain views, gain subscribers and grow your audience on YouTube.

A couple of months ago, I was chatting with a one on one client who, he had Around a hundred videos on his channel, but I don't think any of them had more than a hundred views. There might have [00:02:00] been one that I think maybe had like 146 or so. 80 something subscribers, over 100 videos, and almost all of those videos had less than 100 views. That's a lot of time and effort to put into Creating content, planning it, recording it, editing it, and publishing it to really not be seeing hardly any results. And there's a lot of advice out there around, you know, just post things that you're passionate about and your audience will grow.

I mean, that is a very common piece of advice that I see in the podcasting space. Like Why would you want your audience to grow? Just talk about things that you're passionate about. That should be enough for you. But we're here to build a business, right? I mean, if you're watching my videos, if you're listening to my podcast, you're here because you want to YouTubify your business, not just do it out of [00:03:00] the passion that you have for the topic, right?

So anyway, I was on this call with this client and I opened up his channel. I went to the videos tab and almost immediately I could tell exactly what the problem was. Before I, like, analyzed his thumbnails or tried to figure out what he was doing with his titles or even the, the keywords that he was going after and whether they were optimized for SEO at all, I could instantly tell exactly what the problem was.

It was so obvious to me, but it just wasn't clear to him.

It turns out what he was doing with his videos was he was creating content on topics that He would have already had to have an audience in order for those topics to get views in other [00:04:00] words They weren't necessarily topics that people were searching for seeking out on YouTube.

They were topics that only people who would know him and know his content and know his messaging and like his personality and want to hear his opinion on things. Only people that already are in his audience would care about the content he was creating, Nobody could find the content that he was creating.

And I see this happen a lot and it makes sense, it especially makes sense if you follow the typical podcasting advice of like just great content that you're passionate about because you already know what you want your audience to care about. You already know the message they need to hear. You already know what they need to learn and you know what you want to share with the world.

but it's not enough to make content that you're passionate about [00:05:00] or make content that you know your ideal audience needs to know.

It's a matter of creating content that your audience, your ideal audience. already wants and are searching for and seeking out on YouTube so that they're attracted to your channel through SEO and through the algorithm.

And now they're caught in your web, so to speak, right? They're in your world, they're in your algorithm,

and they're going to get value out of the content that you've already created on your channel once you get them in there.

so these are the three things I want you to think about. Number one, are you creating videos that your ideal audience already wants to watch? Or are you creating videos that you want people to want to watch?

You know, there's a lot of ways to tell whether I would call them sort of hidden metrics because not very many people talk [00:06:00] about them. We're always talking about views and click through rate and impressions and things like that.

And all of those things are important.

But there's a hidden metric in there that you might actually find your videos are doing better than you think they are.

And it might actually surprise you. So once you've examined the content that you have, if you have determined that the content you have. Is in fact, on topics that your audience already wants to know, already wants to learn about, already wants to hear about, content that they're seeking and searching for on YouTube.

If you answer yes to all of that,

the second thing you want to look at is how you package the content. So, for this we're talking about thumbnails and titles.

thumbnails and titles are a little bit of a, um, they are their own science within the, the YouTube sphere, right? But if you think [00:07:00] about your, your title and thumbnail as a package and like the way that you are presenting this package as something enticing that your viewer has to click on to get.

the message that's in the video

and think about the packaging of anything in any store that you walk into

The packaging has to get people's attention. It has to go, Hey, look at me. I'm over here. And the title has to generate some interest together. They create intrigue and generate some curiosity and if you really think about this, if your ideal audience has in front of them a topic that they already want to watch and the thumbnail is there to get their attention and they see it and then the title is there to generate some intrigue and go, Oh yeah, I'm interested in that topic.

I want to hear more about it.

then it's a no brainer that you're going to get views, when that happens with every single video that you publish, [00:08:00] it's almost like YouTube has no choice but to keep promoting your videos.

Keep getting your videos out to more and more people in the algorithm because it's really clear that. This is something people want to hear about, and it's packaged in a way that the people who see it can identify, this is something I want to learn more about.

And this is where I get a little bit of pushback from most of my clients and students, but in order to do this effectively, you have to think about your title and thumbnail before you hit record.

And if your podcast is one where you are interviewing somebody, this makes things a little Trickier because you don't necessarily know what topics are going to be discussed in a podcast or maybe you think you know But then you go off on this wonderful conversation And now the topic of the podcast is different than what you had planned on and it's like so much better plus you probably talk about so many different topics in this one [00:09:00] video

But if you know what your guest is known for and you know the questions that you're going to ask them or you know the topics that you are likely to bring up or that they are likely to bring up, then you could probably take a really good guess at the packaging and frame your title and your thumbnail package in a way that's going to fit that podcast episode before you even do the interview.

and quick side note here, this might be an unpopular opinion, it might sting a little bit, uh, for you as well, because I know a lot, a lot of people who do this on their podcast,

but my opinion is if you are doing a video podcast to grow your audience, to grow your business, the only interviews you should ever be doing on your podcast

are your clients, Your customers and your students who you can, [00:10:00] first of all, share with the world and promote what they're doing with the world. And second of all, use as case studies for your business.

but what I see so many podcasters doing is interviewing other experts. On their podcast

and those experts are already thought leaders in their niche or their industry. I

mean, think about yourself. Why would you go and be a guest on somebody else's podcast? It's to attract an audience to you. But then I see so many people go out and start a podcast and what do they do? They go invite other experts to be guests on their podcast and it's like, What are we doing here?

Are we establishing you as a thought leader in your niche or industry or are we establishing other people as the thought leader in their niche or industry?

I can think of a lot of good reasons to interview experts on your podcast, but If you really want your ideal audience, your ideal customers to [00:11:00] find you, for you to actually be findable in search and in the algorithm,

It's so much easier to do some research about what your ideal clients and customers are actively searching for. What problems are they looking to solve? What answers are they looking for right now where you can show Up in the search results, show up with the solution to the problem, show up with the answers to their questions and establish yourself as a thought leader in your niche.

So if you do an interview type podcast, you may not know the SEO, uh, keywords and stuff like that ahead of time. But if you have a solo show, pick your podcast topics based on keyword research. based on what the keyword research tools that are out there are telling you people are searching for. And then all you have to do is optimize your title and your [00:12:00] description for those keywords.

It's basic SEO. I know it sounds complicated if it's not something that you are totally familiar with, but it is actually relatively simple.

some of the keyword research and SEO tools that are out there, uh, sort of make it more complicated than it really has to be. That's why I created some, uh, keyword research and SEO tools for members of Video Brand Academy that you can use just as a member.

You don't even have to pay for some of those other keyword research tools that are out there.

Because the tools inside of EBA are created by me and trained by me.

if you remember back to point one, asking yourself, are you making videos on topics that your ideal audience already wants to watch and are already seeking those topics out? If the answer is yes, then make sure that you're optimizing your title and description for those topics, like for [00:13:00] those specific, very specific terms that people are actually typing into the search bar. and if you do all those three things, if you make sure your topics are topics that your ideal audience already wants to watch, if you create really intriguing packaging for those topics, and if you SEO optimize your content.

For those topics, then all you have to do is start building this spiderweb on your niche. I talked about this in episode 36. I shared the simple no strategy strategy for growing your channel on YouTube. If you're starting from zero and I just recently ran the 90 days to 1K YouTube subscribers boot camp inside a video brand Academy.

The basis of everything that I teach is building a spider web with your niche, which is essentially building a library of binge-worthy videos on YouTube [00:14:00] videos that your ideal audience can find that, that they want to watch, that are bingeable, so that they come back to your channel again and again.

They subscribe. Obviously, they're in your community, they're leaving comments. And they're seeing you as the thought leader in your niche.

you know, there's a lot of talk about consistency on social media, showing up consistently, publishing consistently, but if you just think about the fact that the whole library of videos that you create on YouTube are showing up consistently with solutions to the problems people are searching for, with answers to the questions that people are asking.

Your videos show up consistently with or without you. You know what I mean? They're there, they're in the algorithm, they're SEO optimized, they're showing up in search.

You're publishing consistently, but your content Your whole backlog library of [00:15:00] content is also showing up consistently when people are searching for it. mean if you think about how many people in your niche or industry right now, today, are searching up something that you have an answer to right now, today.

Just today. Like, you missed the people from yesterday, right? But what about just today? What about tomorrow? What about a week, a month, a year, five years from now? People who have no idea your niche or industry exists, when they do enter that world and they go to YouTube and they search for solutions to problems and answers to questions and they're looking for a thought leader to guide them, there you are. There you are with a whole backlog of content showing up consistently into the future.

There is no question that the easiest way to make people care about your content is to create content [00:16:00] that people care about. and earlier I mentioned there's a little bit of a hidden metric that not, I feel like not enough people are talking about when we're talking about YouTube, and you don't really see this when you open up your YouTube analytics, it's not really shown to you as like a big deal or anything to really celebrate.

but as the creator of the content and the one who reads all of the comments and the one who's growing their email list and putting together offers and fielding, you know, questions that come in through email or DM,

There's really no numeric metric that you can look at other than sort of gut checking with yourself that you're on the right track that the comments you're getting are positive. They look like they're coming from people who are your ideal clients or customers or your ideal community members, Your email list or people who hit reply to your emails or people who send you questions seem to [00:17:00] be from people who are your ideal clients, customers, viewers, community members. Do you feel aligned with the people who are engaging with you in all of those ways? and not just looking at the number of views or looking at the number of subscribers.

Do you feel aligned? With the people that you are attracting with your content because a handful of really aligned human beings is so much more valuable to you as a creator and to your business than a hundred or a thousand or a hundred thousand people who don't give a crap about anything you talk about, but they happen to watch your video.

Now, as of like the day this is going to be published, I am 11 months into starting a video podcast. And I had a little bit of a headstart because I put my video podcast on my existing channel. And I will be the first to tell you I was extremely [00:18:00] skeptical. of video podcasting on YouTube, because for a couple of years, it seemed like something that people tried to do, but it didn't seem like it fit.

It didn't seem like it really made that much sense.

But 11 months ago, I took a gamble with putting three episodes on my main channel versus starting a separate channel. But I'm very pleased with the results, um, that I've gotten from putting my video podcast on YouTube. Even though looking at my analytics.

for my video podcast episodes. They've brought in only 185 subscribers out of something like 88, 000 total that I have on my channel. It's a teeny tiny amount. 9 percent of my subscribers have come from just like my regular YouTube videos and it's not because of the number of views. I've had 800, 000, I'm [00:19:00] looking at my stats right now, 800, 000 views on my regular YouTube videos versus 25, 000 views on my podcast videos. So again, super small percentage.

But what I do see is my email list is growing from the lead magnets I've created that I've specifically promoted only on the podcast. I get super long comments from you all. I get emails from you all from people who don't want to comment but do want to tell me something.

And then when I see you come into Video Brand Academy and you come to the meetups and I get to chit chat with you, I know from the human connection that takes place through email, through comments and through our conversations, even with one on one clients or in the VBA meetups, I know that everything I'm doing is aligned, 

it's a gut check. It's not some metric that I can just log into YouTube and [00:20:00] see.

All that to say, think about your own goal posts for creating a video podcast. It's not just subscribers. It's not just views. It's not just comments and engagement. And it's definitely not just getting monetized. You're here to grow your business, not just your YouTube channel, right?

Create content that your ideal audience already wants to watch, package it for them so they're enticed to click it and then optimize it so that they can find it so that you can make those human connections and grow your business with YouTube with a video podcast on YouTube.

And the deeper connection that you create with your audience in that way is so worth it because I love chatting with you inside of Video Brand Academy inside of our meetups. I love answering your questions and diving into your analytics.

And this video podcast has had a lot to do with that. So thank you for being here. Thank you for being inside of VBA. If you are, and if you're not, what are you [00:21:00] waiting for?