Many people think the only way to make money on YouTube is by getting millions of views.
But the truth is that small businesses can use YouTube to find leads and turn them into paying clients without having to go viral.
At January’s Level Up event, special guest Raylen Davis shared the strategies he used to grow from $3K to $35K in monthly revenue using YouTube and Keap’s small business CRM and automation platform.
In this article, we’ll summarize Raylen’s top YouTube marketing tips and his answers to important questions, including:
- What is a common misconception of YouTube marketing that should go away?
- How have YouTube marketing and business automation impacted the success of your business?
- What are five things people can start doing today to adopt YouTube marketing?
- What tools or tech do you recommend for making YouTube marketing and business automation easier?
If you’ve been thinking about building your brand on YouTube — or already tried without much success — you don’t want to miss the insider strategies revealed here!
Keep reading for Raylen’s expert insight and watch the replay video above for even more strategies to help you improve your YouTube strategy and grow your channel.
The big misconception
For Raylen, there’s a common myth surrounding YouTube marketing that needs to be squashed before any strategizing can take place: the idea that ads are the only way to generate revenue from the platform.
Monetizing videos through ads is a fairly common way larger accounts are able to make money. However, that doesn’t mean it’s the only path to profit.
If you’re struggling to break free from this mindset, you’re not alone. Raylen fell into this YouTube misconception earlier in his content creation journey, too. “I thought, ‘No one’s watching my content… How am I going to make money?” Raylen explains.
This question nagged at him until he heard some valuable advice from Evan Carmichael, a YouTube expert with 3.7 million subscribers, that gave him a new perspective and a solid gameplan. Evan’s advice was simple: “There are so many more ways to make money on YouTube.”
The number one alternative to ads? “As you're building your brand, making content and finding your way, simply have possible clients and referral partners [in your videos], and post it on YouTube.” Raylen says.
This may seem like an out-of-the-box approach, but it pays off. Raylen quickly noticed benefits from trying this, and you can look forward to seeing the rewards if you implement this strategy too.
Benefits of YouTube marketing and business automation
One of Raylen’s main tips boils down to just going for it. Don’t worry about going viral. Don’t second-guess yourself. Don’t let discouragement rob you of your motivation to create and post on YouTube. Instead, just start creating and let small business automation help you as you do.
When you combine these two powerful marketing tools to help grow your business, you’ll start to notice tangible results, including:
- Saving money on paid advertising
Raylen previously collected leads on LinkedIn, but when the platform changed its messaging limit, he needed another avenue for growth. To avoid paying for advertising, Raylen took the organic route on YouTube, and he implemented the tip we covered above — featuring prospects and referral partners on his YouTube show.
The results? “I never had to do a sales call again,“ Raylen explains, “because my YouTube show basically was the sales call.” By chatting with guests who are in his target audience, Raylen was able to turn those prospects into loyal clients and friends. It even led to him tripling his revenue in just six months.
Plus, this process is mutually beneficial, making selling fun for Raylen and providing value and exposure for guests. - Increased access to your target audience
When you include other people in your videos and pick relevant guests, their audiences will most likely overlap with your target audience, and you can gain valuable, lead-generating exposure for your brand. This is something Raylen experienced firsthand, so he was doing double duty by simultaneously converting guests and viewers of his YouTube show into paying clients. - Higher (and easier) conversion rates
Raylen tripled his revenue with YouTube marketing, but it didn’t come at the expense of his time. He didn’t have to invest hours into manually converting the guests and viewers of his show, and you don’t have to either.
Small business automation makes the conversion process simple, allowing you to automatically follow up with new leads at the right time with the right message. For example, Raylen set up an automation sequence to reach out to every guest after their episode was published. In these messages, he thanked them for their time and followed up about how his services could help address the problems and topics they discussed on the YouTube show.
This is just one way small business automation can take care of the conversion process. Automation can also be set for leads generated from forms, landing pages, lead magnets and more.
5 tips you can implement TODAY
Starting a YouTube show doesn’t have to take months and months of planning. In fact, you can get started today with these five steps:
- Identify three types of guests
So far, we’ve hinted at a few types of guests you can feature on your YouTube channel, but what are Raylen’s top recommendations? For his own channel, he chooses between prospects, referral partners and brand-building guests.
Of these options, prospects and referral partners are most likely to lead to conversions and revenue — prospects may buy your product or service after having a valuable, authentic conversation with you on your show, and referral partners can result in revenue by recommending your business to their network.
On the other hand, brand-building guests won’t necessarily convert into paying customers the way other guests might, but they’re still worth featuring in your content. Brand-builders are guests who have a larger audience than you. By featuring them, you and your viewers will learn from their expertise, and their larger audience will also be exposed to your business, which can result in additional subscribers to your channel and new leads. - Figure out the “why”
Before inviting your first guest on your show, you have to iron-out what your channel is all about. What is the “why?” behind your account and the content it produces?
The most important question to ask yourself during the research process is “What value will this provide to my viewers?” Answering this is the key to creating quality videos that intrigue your target audience and entice them to take the next step with your brand.
You may have content ideas swirling around in your head, but before you start creating, run those ideas through the filter of what your audience cares about. After all, they’re the ones you’re trying to impress and convert. - Create a landing page
Securing a guest can be tricky. There are a lot of moving parts and logistics to work out. Raylen noticed this early on. “It gets really annoying to find a time that works,” Raylen explains, “and then you have to go back and forth.”
This back-and-forth process got complicated for both Raylen and his guests. To make it a painless experience, he decided to put his small business automation and CRM to work. His tactic was to use a custom landing page from Keap and get potential guests to fill it out with their contact information, availability and other details. This form kickstarted an automatic campaign to get guests on the show, saving Raylen time and keeping his show organized.
A great first step to your YouTube marketing can be to follow Raylen’s advice and make a landing page. Do this and send the form to potential guests with a nice message. Eventually, as your channel gains popularity, you won’t have to track down guests. Instead, you can keep this form on your website and in the description of your videos so anyone who would like to be a guest can easily apply.
Pro tip
Not just any landing page will do. Opt for a landing page through your small business CRM and automation software. It will capture the guest’s information and automatically store it in your database so you can follow up with them later.
- Build a campaign
Creating a landing page is just the first step in what should be your larger automation gameplan. Raylen recommends creating an automatic campaign that will get your guests excited to be on your show.
First, they’ll fill out the interest form on your landing page. Then, your business automation software can text them an invitation to a screening call, send an email about how the video process will work, provide a list of benefits they can look forward to, and any other automations you want to add. The possibilities for your automation sequence are endless, and it will be custom-made for your YouTube marketing strategy.
Raylen also recommends building a separate campaign to announce your new YouTube show to your current list of contacts. It’s a perfect way to garner support and stir up excitement before your content even launches. Consider including a link to your new landing page so anyone interested in being a guest can fill it out. - Build a follow-up campaign
The final, and arguably most important, step is building a follow-up campaign to thank your guests. This automation campaign can simply consist of one email, including:
- A thank you message
- Details of when the YouTube video will go live
- A preview of the video and its link
- An offer
This email provides everything your guest needs, from logistical details to an offer to take the next step with your brand. Raylen includes an offer in his follow-up emails with a “P.S.” section, describing how Raylen’s services could benefit his guests and how they can get started.
Time for tech
Now that you’ve heard Raylen’s tips on developing a YouTube marketing strategy, it’s time to get into the technical part of building your brand on YouTube.
To accomplish this, you’re going to need recording technology, a streaming platform and solid small business automation software. Raylen has shared his favorite tools to create, promote, track and organize his YouTube content. Browse his top recommendations below:
StreamYard is the software that brings you these Level Up video interviews. This software works from your browser to record or live stream to YouTube and other social platforms. Although this software can record, Raylen uses it solely for live streaming videos. For pre-recorded videos, he opts to use a software with local recording abilities.
Riverside.fm is what you need to record quality YouTube shows. StreamYard is similar, but Riverside.fm offers superior video and audio quality for pre-recorded content because it records locally, as opposed to StreamYard’s cloud-based recording. Riverside.fm also records individually so you can have more freedom and creativity in the editing process to feature different guests at different times.
Pro tip
Once you have your video recorded, start repurposing other content from it, such as quotes, shorter clips for social media and more. Riverside can make this process easier by allowing you to timestamp specific parts of your video that you want to come back to. The software will then pull the selected clip for you to edit and download as its own smaller piece of content.
Keap comes in handy before and after you record your YouTube videos. Keap’s CRM and small business automation features make it possible to:
- Pre-qualify and prepare guests of your show with automated appointment scheduling, emails, texts and more.
- Capture lead information with landing pages and forms. (For example, include a link to a Keap landing page in your YouTube descriptions to capture interested viewers’ info).
- Nurture leads you receive from YouTube and automatically move them through your sales funnel
- Track your conversions and overall campaign effectiveness with advanced reporting
- And more
Using these tools can take pieces of YouTube marketing off your plate so you can focus on making content you’re proud of and pour your energy into other parts of your business.
Explore more ways Keap can help your business with a free trial (no credit card required), and don’t forget to watch Raylen’s full video for more details and answers to your YouTube questions.
