Video Brand Infusion

Alex Built Grew Her Membership & YouTube Channel Using Simple Weekly Videos | Ep. 56

Meredith Marsh Season 1 Episode 56

In episode 56 of Video Brand Infusion, I sat down with Video Brand Academy member Alexandra Jeffert, who has grown her YouTube channel from zero to 1,100 subscribers in just one year (yep—one year!).

Alexandra started with super simple gear—just her phone—and carved out a niche in the manifestation space, helping people manifest love. We talked about the viral video that really took off for her, the SEO and thumbnail strategies that helped her ride that wave, and how YouTube has become the #1 driver of sales for her courses and membership.

We also got into the nitty-gritty of her recording setup, how she juggles creating content across multiple platforms (because yes, that can get overwhelming), and what she’s planning next for her channel and her business. 

▶︎  Alexandra's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@alexandrabellerose/ 

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in a year you went from zero to 1100 subscribers. Six months ago I didn't have a course, I didn't have a membership, I didn't have anything. Is YouTube the primary way that people find you to join your membership and buy your course? Yes. The only one actually, YouTube is just so easy that you can get a lot of results from doing one video a week. One of the videos just went absolutely viral a week after I posted it, and it all kind of exploded from there. Well, this is a little awkward because I went all day today thinking I didn't need to record this week's podcast because it's an interview I did with my client and Video Brand Academy member Alexandra Jeffert, who has a fascinating niche that I'll let her tell you about. But I realized as I sat down to edit that I didn't actually record an intro so this is actually my AI generated voice, and you're listening to episode 56 of Video Brand Infusion, this is my conversation with Alex Hey Alex, how are you? Hi. I am good, thank you. Thanks for coming on to my podcast Video Brand Infusion. I wanted to have you on because the last time we talked, you had just crossed over a thousand subscribers on your channel and you had grown your membership on YouTube. Your membership off YouTube, and I wanna dive into your kind of journey into getting there because we worked together a little bit and you're a member of Video Brand Academy. So did you have a goal set a goal to reach a thousand? or did you just kind of start videos and hope for the best? It was more just kind of see what happens. I always felt, I mean, I don't wanna say always, but I did feel very pulled to do YouTube videos. I didn't really know what topic it was going to be about 'cause I was doing a lot of like business coaching at the time and I didn't feel like I wanted to do YouTube for that. Um, I wanted to explore like a different niche for my business. And so I thought, you know what? I'm just gonna start creating content and see what inspires me. And some of the first few videos are just very different topics. And then I started creating more consistently about this one topic that I really enjoyed talking about, and then one of the videos just went absolutely viral a week after I posted it, and it all kind of exploded from there. Oh my gosh. Okay. We're gonna get into the topics of your videos in So to me. how long did it take you to reach a thousand subscribers? Like when did you start posting regularly. I would say so I, I gave myself like a little challenge of posting three times a week. I think this was in, maybe in May of last year. a year ago, yes. But the videos were getting maybe. I dunno, between 20 and 70 views. And then I took most of the summer off. So then July, August, I didn't post anything and I started again in September and that video went viral. When I say viral is like thousands. Okay. Viral for me. Yeah. So around the end of September, October time is when that video exploded for me, and I woke up and I had 200 subscribers overnight. Wow. So you went from basically zero subscribers to 200, just with that one video. Yeah, I had about 30, 40 just before that. Most of them were friends, people that had seen me on TikTok, did you know that that video was gonna go viral and do well? How did you figure out what to post to, like, you know, what strategy did you use to kind of figure out how to grow your channel? So, I had been inside of your program and the membership for a while, so I had looked at all the videos about finding a good title and the thumbnails and stuff like that. I had a friend that used to be a thumbnail designer for someone else, so she helped me find a template that I could just very easily web out an update for every video. So I just did that, but genuinely, I didn't think it was going to suddenly have, you know, so many thousand views. let's talk about what topic was of that video, and of your channel. What, like what is your niche? you doing on YouTube? So what I started doing on YouTube when I was becoming a bit more consistent was around manifesting and understanding the law of assumption. And something that I do very regularly with myself is, uh, subconscious work. So discovering what fears you have and limiting beliefs you have that are stopping you from taking the right actions or from, you know, manifesting the things that you want. So I started talking about that, but it was manifestation in general. And it was when I honed in onto Manifesting Love and specifically manifesting someone that is specific. So like a friend that you know, or maybe you know, someone that serves you coffee every morning or someone at work, things like that. Also like an ex, things like that. Manifesting them into your life in a romantic way. And from there it just went wild and it's been a year, just a bit under a year that, yeah, my business just has grown so much because of it. it sounds like you had, your niche for your channel was manifestation, yeah. then. Did you intend to go, okay, I'm gonna niche down a little bit more and go manifest a person. Like or manifest a specific person, as you would say in your videos? Or did you just decide to do that topic one day and that took off so you kind of went from So when I took that break in the summer, I was talking to some clients, um, and it was very much about manifesting love and I really loved the topic. I have always loved love in general, and it just came out really easily and really naturally. So my friends and my clients were like, oh, you are so good at this one topic. I thought, well, I could try just creating this type of content online on YouTube. And I saw that there were quite a few that are also about manifesting love. And I thought, well, if I do that with what I know about the subconscious work that I've done in the past and all the tapping that I do on myself and that I do with clients, that's something that hasn't been done in the past. So that first video was about how to manifest your specific person with tapping, and I think that that's also why, um, it worked so well because it was very new. Like no one really thought that you could put the two together. There's a lot of videos about tapping for money or tapping for anxiety and things like that, but no one said it specifically to manifest someone specific or just love in general. Yeah. Yeah, so yeah. Okay. So Anyone who to this podcast or is in Video Brand Academy knows I love a niche within a niche, and so So it's one, it's like one the reasons why of, love your niche so much because it is a niche within a niche, it's kind of a niche within a niche within a niche, because you're talking yeah. manifesting love. Then manifesting, which is a whole niche in and of itself. it's a way bigger niche. for people who don't know what tapping is, you just describe a little bit about what you mean when you say tapping? Yeah, so tapping is what we call EFT tapping. So it's emotional freedom technique, and it's based on the theory that your emotions are kind of running through your body and. With acupressure. Tapping comes from acupressure. You have different meridian points that when you tap on those, you can change the flow of that energy, of that emotion and by extension, change the belief that it is tied to that emotion. So if we say for example, that every time that you get on stage you get very anxious because you are scared of speaking in public. We change that emotion to not feeling anxious, but feeling excited, feeling good, feeling calm, then that fear also is removed, and the belief that something bad is going to happen when you're on stage is also gonna be gone. So if you apply that with your manifestations, at the end of the day, what you manifest is what you believe that you can have. But if you've always had a belief that well, men are terrible or women are conniving or whatever. That's what you're gonna keep repeating. So by removing those beliefs, then you can attract and manifest the things that you want in the way that you kind of want in a simplified way. Yes. Yes. So so what is your action? business? So you have your YouTube channel, but what, How fit in and what do you actually do for business? so in business I, I have a course and I have the membership. In the membership we tap once a month in a group under a certain theme, and we kind of eliminate those beliefs that way. The course goes from like kind of everything in a way. And then, uh, I also do one-on-one sessions. So for me, YouTube has helped me literally get leads and people signing up for my freebie, signing up for the memberships, signing up for my course, uh, booking one-on-ones with me regularly. And it has been a game changer because I've never been big on social media. I just get so burned out on social media. I. Um, and YouTube is just so easy that you can get a lot of results from doing one video a week. Are people searching for things on YouTube, finding you and then your lead magnet? Or are they going right into your membership or buying your course or like what, how does it work usually for you? It's very different for a lot of people. But I would say that something that I definitely learned from you was that SEO aspect, because they do search for the things that I. Put in my titles that I put in my description that I put on the, um, on the thumbnail. So that has been key for me, understanding that audience and what it is that they're looking for. And I did so much research. I watched so many videos and looked at so many other people like you. And I spent so much time researching other people in the similar niche and that really, really helped. So I was able to really understand my audience and the words that make them click and the things that they really want to hear about. When you decide to create your, you know, like your next batch of videos, you. going straight to keyword research to figure out, okay, what are people searching for that I haven't created yet? Or are there other places where you kind of pick up on ideas that you think might work well? Even if it has nothing to do with search? Like how do you decide. It is a bit of both. I have to say that I don't have like a very specific way to find the. like the right topic. I imagine not every video gets like thousands of views, um, but every video gets interest in subscribers and people downloading something or asking something. I get a lot of emails and a lot of comments and a lot of engagement, but yeah, sometimes it, it's just. Research something that I have seen that someone else is talking about and they did well, and I have maybe a different take on that. And a lot of it is just saying the same things, but in a different way as well. You have a course, you have a membership, to also have a YouTube membership, right? Like Yes. membership on YouTube where people can go to your channel, hit join. And so talk more about that in a second. But how do you decide content goes in the memberships and course versus what topics to go on your channel? that is something that I'm still learning, I'm not gonna lie. 'cause uh, like I said, this all happened like maybe eight months ago. Six months ago I didn't have a course, I didn't have a membership, I didn't have anything. Everything's just been very new. We're kind of going with the flow and see what feels good. Um, so there has been some ups and downs in that process as well. But inside of the membership, because we do spend 90 minutes every month doing like a really big topic, it normally is things that people have, um. Voted on or that they have asked the questions about a specific topic so it makes sense to kind of touch on that subject. But in there as well, they get a vault of mini tappings. So any questions that they've had, if I think it's a good topic for tapping and that is going to be good for the group, then I will create those as well. So it is a bit more. like hands-on in the sense that you can get a bit more access to me without necessarily having to, you know, pay the hundreds to be on a one-on-one call with me. The course has a specific process that I have used with clients to work on, you know, getting that specific person. Um, so it doesn't really change. It's a very specific process, like a blueprint to manifest love, manifest. Your specific person is the same if it's someone new or someone specific. But um, so that way like this feels very specific in itself. The cause and the membership is a bit more kind of changing and I try to YouTube kind of give them a taste of. Both without really giving everything. And I think that that's probably the thing that I struggle with the most right now because everything is so new and my YouTube is so new and my audience is so new as well that I want to give them everything for free and to show how great this is that you really have to be careful that you're not giving everything for free, that then they don't buy. So it is something that I'm still balancing and learning, and. Going with the flow, I guess. Learning from the mistakes. Tell me about your YouTube membership. Like how do you, because this is, this is often a question that actually comes up in our Video Brand Academy meetups is like, I kind of wanna start a membership. Should it be, should I start a membership on YouTube? Should I use that feature? Should I do something else? And you have both. So. Let's talk about how you use the YouTube memberships feature on YouTube. Like how does work for you? How do you get people into it? What do you give to people who are in your membership there? So inside of the membership on YouTube, I have to say that I probably prefer my membership more than the YouTube one. I don't see a lot of. For me, in my niche, I don't see a lot of, um, pros in it because it's a lot of content. Right. And it is also very, very cheap. YouTube takes a big part of it, and what I have noticed is that people, and this might just be my own belief and experience, but I, what I have noticed is that people that pay very little, they expect a lot more. And so they're paying eight, eight pounds, I think it was, I think it's $10, eight pounds, something like that. And they would get angry If I'm not answering your question, I'm like, yes, but that is not what this is here for. So it is, it is definitely one of those that I'm just testing out and see how it feels. But inside of the membership, and I've had lots of people also say. Oh, I love that you have this. I love your content and I love to support you. So great. I'm not gonna say no, but the, because also my channel is very much about tapping. They expect inside of the membership to have tapping, but I don't, they get the, sometimes the visualization that I do inside of my actual membership and they, they get some affirmations every week. Sometimes they can ask, they can ask some questions and I might cover that. But again, like I just have so much going on that is as horrible as that sounds, but probably the lowest priority. So it sounds like the two memberships, is, is it's sort of like your light version of your actual membership. yeah. Do you get people who join the YouTube membership and then decide, oh, I actually want to join? Yeah. Yeah. And that was kind of the original idea, but also without really having any tapping inside of the YouTube membership, they, they still just wonder what's in there. So they might just join for a month and know and see what it's like. But they send emails and they're like, oh, I'm wondering about like, what's the difference between your YouTube membership and your actual membership, I do get a lot of those questions, which then makes me question, wouldn't it be just easier to send them to my own membership? Right. Yeah. What's the typical way that you get people into your actual membership? Do you do launches or do people just kind of find you on YouTube and come in on their own? Is it always open? Yeah, it's always open 'cause every month is a different topic and they get access to all the different previous topics and themes that we've had. So they can join whenever they want and yeah, they join on just from the videos really, which is great because, you know, I don't wanna do launches. you've only been doing this for so I'm really curious. your first year. Are there any, things, any mistakes you made or things that you wish if you could go back a year at, at your starting point? So for anyone who's listening, who's just thinking about starting on YouTube or just thinking about kind of giving it your attention and focus, what sort of mistakes would you tell somebody to avoid? not doing it would be the first one. 'cause I think I sat on the idea of doing YouTube for four, five years before I actually did it. But also I would say. Finding your niche is so important because just kinda floundering about and to post a different topic every week is not the best idea, unless what you're doing is just finding your voice and finding what excites you and like, that's fine. Definitely just do it. I would say the biggest thing. So if you thought about doing it for five years before you actually started making videos, what held you back for so long? I think it was probably the fear of it. The fear of starting something new again when you so burnt out with social media, with like Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and like during the pandemic, it was so TikTok driven and I was, I was doing business coaching before. So those are the things that I was saying to my clients who also go and do, and everybody was so burnt out, especially again, during the pandemic. We all spent so much time indoors. That it was just, it was just exhausting being constantly on calls and what, on my free time I'm on top going to be recording and thinking about videos and it just didn't feel right as much as I wanted to do it. And eventually last year I just felt like, okay, now I have a little bit more time. My business coaching side of the business is going well, I don't need to do a lot of marketing. It's very much driven by referrals. So I have a bit more time. I haven't been on social media for so long. Now I can maybe focus on YouTube, and that's when I found you and I thought, okay, I'm gonna do this. And here we are, I guess eight months later. tell me about your setup and your, like, how you actually record 'cause I'm very curious about, um, what. As somebody who hadn't been doing YouTube videos before, did you just like use your webcam? Did you like, how do you record now? Like, tell me about the journey of the actual creation of your videos. Well. It was very much what you teach in your course says don't overthink it. Start with your phone and the first, I dunno, maybe five to 10 videos was on my phone. And then. You also spoke about Descript. I sound like a crazy fan, but genuinely it was just easy. So I signed up to Descript and I was recording on my phone and I just upgraded my phone. So it had really good quality and everybody was like, my God, the quality of your videos is so good. I said, yeah, it's just my phone. There's nothing else to it. I don't know how to edit video. I don't know what I'm doing. Um, and in fact, my editing is so simple. I just remove, um, retakes and remove the big gaps where I'm not saying anything, and that's about it. Wow. so how long does it take you to edit your videos then? About half an hour. Okay. Wow. That's good. I know, again, like for me, if I was going to do this, it had to be as simple as possible because otherwise I knew I wasn't going to do it. I knew it was just gonna be too complicated. I tried doing a podcast and I found the editing so annoying that I just couldn't do it, so I just stopped that and I found YouTube a lot easier for some reason. Yeah, that's interesting. So you found editing a podcast without video to be like, no, I'm not doing this. But basically it's the same thing with video. What's the difference? I think with Descript, I really like the transcript that you can just edit that. It makes it so much easier for me. I'm very much like a reading person rather than a listening person, so I prefer reading a book rather than listening to an audio book, for example. So I just couldn't like visualize it in my head what the end result was going to be. Whereas with Descript I have, yes, my face, but also a very editable transcript that I can just edit and that was so much simpler for me. So are most of your videos now, like you said, you keep it really simple. Are they just talking head, you're just talking directly to your phone. Do you add any slides or B roll or text on your screen or anything like that? no. So I was using the phone and now I'm using the ZV1. You know the one with the little poppy thing that comes out. the Sony Yes. I upgraded simply because on my phone I couldn't, like if I'm recording with this, I can't see myself. So I had to have like a mirror behind to try and see if I am on the shot. And it just like. Again, if it was gonna be hard, if it was gonna be complicated, I wasn't gonna do it. So I thought I'll get a camera that I can see where I'm sitting. So I got that and that's all I use. I don't use any fancy microphones, I don't use anything. I tried to, I tried to be in as much quiet room as possible. There's been works outside, so that has been a bit challenging. Um, but. It just had to be very simple. And the same with the editing process. Everything, just again, simplicity. So for my editing, the first a few videos I did try adding some B roll and adding some things as they say, you know, if there's movement and changing in background and stuff like that, it keeps people more engaged. But if I'm not, if I'm not gonna do it, they're engaged on something that doesn't exist, so I might as well just do it and keep it simple. Yes, I have the same philosophy too, and sometimes it's videos from things that I have, um, I have done on like a call with a client the day before or earlier in the day or last week. So. I don't have time to think about the background, but that was also part of my research. I was seeing people that were in the same sort of niche, are they also moving around? Are they out and about or are they very much just sat in one space and talking, and that's what they were doing? So it kind of just worked in my favor. Mm-hmm. So how many subscribers do you off the top of your head, do you know? have? About 1150. Something I wanna say. Okay, so like 1100. So in a year you went from zero to 1100 subscribers. Is YouTube the primary way that people find you to join your membership and buy your course? Yes. The only one actually, 'cause I don't really talk about it anywhere else. the only way. Okay, cool. So what, uh, like what's next for you? do you have any big goals for the rest of the year or anything new you're gonna try on YouTube? Probably not. If do you wanna keep it? Yeah, next. I think if I have more time, less one-on-one clients, I could try something new on YouTube. Um. But I don't know what that would look like. So for now, just keep doing what I'm doing, keep growing the business, growing the YouTube channel, um, and see what that takes me really. So where can people, find you and your channel? So my channel is Alexandra Bellerose, and you can find me. I mean, you can find me anywhere under Alexandra Bellerose. It's, I am everywhere on Instagram and TikTok and all that, but yeah, the one where I'm the most active and the one that I'm genuinely enjoying the most in the engagement and the comments, the emails I'm getting, all of that is all on YouTube. Awesome. I will link to your channel in the show notes for this, and I appreciate you coming on to chat with me today. You are so welcome. It's nice to reminisce and think about how far I've come.

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