How To Sell More Online Courses Using YouTube

Shownotes

In this episode of the Course Creators Podcast, we have some juicy YouTube growth tips to share.

Hell yes, we all know that YouTube is one of the biggest search engines out there and if we are not on it, we are missing an absolutely massive chance to get found. 

We want people, particularly our potential customers, to go to Google, type in a question, and boom, some of our content comes up.

It could be our blogs that come up, it could be our courses that come up, it could be our YouTube videos that come up.

If you hit search on Google, you will find that YouTube videos are one of the first things that come up in those top search results.

This is one of the most amazing ways for you to sell your online courses, get found, get those search engines working for you to grow your impact and your income.

This episode is all about how to sell more courses using YouTube.

Rob Balasabas, who is the brand evangelist from TubeBuddy, will give us all his tips and tricks to get started and use Youtube in our business.

Watch the Video:

Resources

• Watch the screen demo on Youtube: https://youtu.be/d4pKWOQHWyU
• TubeBuddy
• sarahcordiner.com/starterkit
• Tubebuddy YouTube channel
• Rob’s YouTube channel
• The Content Marketers Cafe Facebook Group

Subscribe To My Podcast

Transcript

TubeBuddy

TubeBuddy is a YouTube Certified software that overlays on top of your YouTube channel. They have direct API access to YouTube data, and so they help translate all the data that YouTube collects and shows you, and they make it easy for you to understand. So you can then make better decisions as to what types of videos, keywords, etc. you should be going after. 

And then beyond that, TubeBuddy helps you with some of the optimization. They’ve got a tool called the SEO studio, which makes it really easy to understand keywords and descriptions. They’ve also got different tools for split testing your thumbnails and canned responses for your different comments and things like that. So, really the entire workflow for a YouTube creator, that’s what TubeBuddy is.

TubeBuddy has a free version, which allows you to really get started if you’re just starting on YouTube. You just want to understand where you fit in YouTube as far as keywords and things like that. One of the things I really love about the free plan as well as is the milestones. It has these milestone options which will say to you something like, “Only 25 videos to go “until you reach x hundred of videos published” or “Only x number of subscribers to go until you reach this magic whole number.” And it’s really motivating! 

How to get started as a course creator on YouTube

YouTube and course creators, it’s a perfect match. YouTube is owned by Google, it’s a search engine, not just a place to put up videos. It’s a place where people are searching their questions and they’re looking for answers. And so you as a course creator, that’s essentially what you’re doing. You’re providing answers. You’re providing skills and knowledge. 

If you’re starting on YouTube, and you don’t have that many subscribers or any subscribers, the main thing that you really want to understand is where do you fit on YouTube? YouTube is a huge place. There’s people there that are already well established, and that shouldn’t be a deterrent. You shouldn’t be afraid of that, because YouTube is a fair place as well. The job of YouTube at the core of it is to provide the best video, the best resource and answer to whatever that person is searching for. And so if you create a video that answers a specific question that is really relevant, then you’re gonna be going up in the rankings, you’re gonna be found, you’re gonna be shared, you’re gonna be recommended by YouTube. Because at the end of the day, YouTube wants people to watch as many videos and binge-watch as long as possible so that they can serve them ads, and that’s how YouTube makes money. 

In the beginning, you do have to be strategic. You have to understand that there’s keywords that are very hard to rank for, and then there’s keywords that are a little easier to rank for. And so in the beginning, you definitely need to do your keyword research first. So understanding what people are searching for, and then understanding what are the specific keywords that people are searching for. It has to be methodical like that. 

Dealing with competition

A lot of people are afraid of the competition. They think “There’s competitors out there who have hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and I’ve only got one. I’m never gonna be good enough.” So, first of all, I know that there are some very clever ways that we can look at our competition and be inspired, and we can get really good ideas as to what is working. Use these as not only motivation, but as ways to help you grow. 

Many big YouTubers don’t see themselves as competitors, because they know that YouTube is such an ocean. It’s so big. And so, they actually work together, they collaborate. They’re not afraid of competition, they don’t see it that way. 

The way that it works on YouTube is that there’s a metric called session time. So there’s watch time: how long are people watching your videos. But there’s also a metric that YouTube tracks which is called session time. Session time is how long someone spends watching videos on YouTube. 

If Sarah created a video on how to build online courses and she brings somebody in from Facebook to watch one of those videos. After that video, it’s going to show another video about online courses that Sarah has on her channel, and then let’s just say Sarah runs out of videos about online courses for whatever reason. YouTube is then going to keep on going and looking for other videos to serve that viewer, so that they stay on YouTube longer. If I had a video on my channel on how to create courses, YouTube might share my video with that viewer to then prolong the session time. That actually does really well for Sarah, because it tells YouTube that she brings quality viewers into YouTube. Everyone wins! 

Don’t be afraid of competition. Look at competition, look at the videos of your competition and see which videos and which topics have a spike. Don’t copy the content, but just understand that that’s something that people are interested in. If it’s something that you can speak into, give your take on it, give your perspective, you can make a video about it. 

What kind of videos to create?

It can feel very confronting when you’ve got this empty channel, and what am I going to fill it with? What kind of videos am I going to create? Looking at your competition is a really great way for you to get an idea as to what’s working, what topics are succeeding. They will inspire you and give you ideas. So like I said it’s about inspiration, not necessarily copying.

Before you build your YouTube channel, build the things behind the scenes. So build a lead magnet first, and make it free. You can build a YouTube channel and you can have views and you can have all these things, but then if you have nowhere to send people to from YouTube, then it’s all kind of pointless. Look at YouTube as a traffic source. 

Now take that content of your lead magnet course, and split it up into little bite-sized videos for YouTube. Make them very short and get to the value proposition very quickly. Don’t spend too much time on the introduction. Don’t try to sell too much. 

Once you have those bite-sized videos, make a playlist. Also, make sure that you’re mentioning that the video is part of your free course. And then send them to the free lead magnet. Once they get to the lead magnet, then you’ve got to let that lead magnet do its thing. You want to use YouTube as a storefront window to get people to your free lead magnet, build your lead magnet list, build your email list, and then deliver value there, build the trust, and then you can upsell them to your paid programs from there. 

Start today

It’s really important that you just start today. One of the things that I look back on now when it comes to my YouTube channel, is I wish I’d started sooner and I wish I’d posted more regularly when I did start. People want content delivered in different ways. People connect with different people or don’t connect with others. If you start today, you’re going to still be before all of the other people that are going to start after you. If you don’t create these videos, somebody else will. If you don’t have videos on there, you have no chance of getting found. 100% chance of not getting found. And so, be brave, be confident. And just keep posting. 

So start today, the future you will thank you for this, you will get better and better, each video you publish will suck less than the one you published before, believe me.