July 23, 2024 • 24 mins
Ever wondered how some YouTubers skyrocket to success while others struggle to gain traction? Join us as we unpack the secrets to YouTube success with Aaron, a content creator who has amassed over 100,000 subscribers and 13 million video views. Aaron reveals his transformative journey from initial struggles to achieving a thriving channel. Learn how he prioritized quality over quantity, mastered video editing, and refined his scriptwriting to captivate his audience. Discover the game-changing impact of compelling thumbnails and titles, and how Aaron's dedication to continuous improvement set him apart in the competitive world of YouTube.
Dive deep into the nuances of YouTube analytics and discover strategic insights for channel growth. We'll explore the powerful tools YouTube offers, the potential of evergreen content, and the platform's creator-friendly revenue model. Aaron shares how to leverage YouTube's retention graphs to enhance video performance, build a sustainable content strategy, and target a narrow, well-defined audience for higher engagement. Don't miss out on Aaron's invaluable tips on crafting simple yet effective thumbnails and titles that resonate with viewers, ensuring your content stands out in a crowded digital landscape.
Visit Aaron's web site - https://www.aumgrowthmarketing.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Eric Eden (00:00):
Welcome to today's episode.
Today, we are talking about howto be remarkable on YouTube,
how to get traction, how to winin terms of getting subscribers,
getting people to see all thesegreat videos you produce, and
we have a great guest to inspireus.
Aaron is a very successfulYouTuber.
He has over 100,000 subscribersand has gotten many millions of
(00:24):
views on YouTube.
Welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me, eric.
I'm excited to be here.
Before we jump into yourYouTube magic, give us a minute
or two about who you are, whatyou've done and what you're
doing.
Aaron Watson (00:39):
Yeah, so I'm a self-taught marketer.
I started on YouTube over eightyears ago now.
I started my first agency, avideo agency called Piper
Creative, over six years ago andjust launched our second agency
, aum Growth Marketing, which isfocused at comprehensive
digital marketing for wealthadvisors.
And really, what YouTube is sofantastic at is a feedback loop
(01:02):
of creative and data right, soit has the most comprehensive
data suite of any platform thatyou can publish video to.
I would say I haven't looked atthe back end of Netflix, but I
have to imagine it's nearly onpar with that but you get that
free data dashboard and yourability to focus on a metric
optimize it, move on to the nextconstraint in your content
strategy has sharpened my skillsas a marketer and I hope to
(01:26):
share some of those lessons withyour audience today.
Eric Eden (01:29):
That's awesome.
So let's start with inspiringus.
How were you able to get100,000 subscribers and millions
of views for your videos onYouTube?
It's disheartening when I see alot of channels that barely get
any traction, and I think it'sbecause YouTube is pretty hard,
(01:50):
is my opinion, but pleaseinspire us.
Tell us how you did it.
Aaron Watson (01:54):
It absolutely is hard.
And the inspiring piece startswith I was there, just as every
other creator started there.
That literally, is basically anon-existent case where someone
just has never made videosbefore, never published to
YouTube before, and then justimmediately goes super viral and
gets a ton of views, unlessthey're already some mega
celebrity, which I am not.
So I was there, not gettingmany views, feeling like you're
(02:16):
hitting your head against thewall, and we made two kind of
changes through some advice fromsome experts and just studying
what works.
That really just changed thetrajectory of the channel.
So for a long time we weredoing podcast episodes or quick
take news commentary, and it wasvery fast turnaround, right
Like the news today, the videosup tomorrow.
(02:38):
Minimal editing.
You're not tightly scriptinganything because you're having
to write it on the fly.
And the issue there was numberone I wasn't that skilled as a
quick news commentator or apodcaster, but also there was a
lot of fat.
And what I love about your show, eric, is it's short, it's 15
minutes, it's right to the pointwe get right to value and then
(03:00):
we're out.
You get to return back to yourday.
And what we found was theseepisodes were long.
Very few people stuck even fiveminutes in, let alone 15, let
alone 30.
And therefore YouTube looked atthat video, was like this isn't
good, we're not going torecommend it to more people, so
we focus more on quality.
That meant more time editing,better B roll, better animations
(03:21):
, better graphics, betterwriting, better script writing
for the videos that we areproducing.
That saw a huge step up.
We went from about 1000subscribers to in the 10,000
subscriber range and then thenext thing that we did was we
put packaging the video as thefirst step of the process.
What's very common is a lot ofpeople will come with an idea
(03:43):
they'll go make that video likeyou say spend.
They'll go make that video Likeyou say spend all that time to
produce a video.
And then after the fact they'relike what's the thumbnail going
to be?
Like let's throw somethingtogether in Canva or Adobe real
quick and I guess this titlewill work, and then they send it
out there and then they'resurprised that doesn't do well.
But that title and thatthumbnail are the two first
(04:05):
impressions that you're going tomake with a potential viewer.
People don't watch a YouTubevideo unless they've seen the
title and thumbnail first.
Exceptions to that apply ifsomeone's linked it in like an
email newsletter, but that's nothow big YouTube channels grow.
Big channels grow by havingpeople on YouTube see their
video, select it, watch it, feelsatisfied by it.
You notice, the first step ofthe process there is actually
(04:28):
garnering a click, actuallygetting someone to choose your
video versus all the other onesthat they're being shown and
recommended, and so we startedmaking it a regular practice of
designing the thumbnailconfirming the title, coming up
with better ideas before we evenwent and produced the video.
By the time we're producing avideo now, we basically have
(04:48):
that packaging finalized or nearfinalized and we have high
conviction that it has a goodchance of performing, based off
of having made so many of them,studying, researching other
videos in the same area and bothof and that was the next
trajectory changer we talk aboutgoing 1,000 to 10,000
subscribers.
That has been what's got usfrom 10,000 to 100,000
(05:09):
subscribers and, candidly, Idon't know if necessarily that
is gonna be the recipe thattakes me from 100,000 to a
million.
Maybe I can come back on when Ifigure out that nut and crack
it, but that has been the twotrajectory changes for our
channel and you notice, none ofthat is beyond the scope of what
(05:30):
someone's capable of.
It's really just a matter ofprioritization and work right.
If you're going to work harderat a script, if you're going to
work harder at an edit, that'sjust time investing.
It makes sense that people thatspend more time on something
are going to get better results.
Same thing with working on thepackaging.
At the beginning, we spent a lotof time studying how to do it,
analyzing more effectivechannels, seeing what works,
seeing what didn't, but it'salso making a lot of thumbnails,
(05:52):
writing a lot of titles, seeingthe ones that don't work and
then committing to neverreplicating that mistake again
and, when something does work,having the humility to say we
don't need to reinvent the wheelhere.
This works.
Let's replicate it in a waythat is still fresh.
It's still a new video, butit's continuing to satisfy the
(06:13):
viewers that we're trying toreach.
In our case, these are peoplethat are really interested in
geopolitics and economics.
It's the Aaron Watson channel onYouTube, not to be confused
with the country music singer bythe same name.
I'm not a singer you don't wantto.
Don't ask me to sing, eric, butthe.
We understand who that audienceis.
We've now seen what they like,what they engage with.
Let's give them more of whatthey like, while still abiding
(06:34):
by our values, our beliefs.
We're not going to lie, we'renot going to create clickbait
just for the sake of that clickand try to short circuit that
decision for someone to selectour content, but continue to
deliver to them what they'veshown us through the data that
they appreciate and they enjoy.
Eric Eden (06:51):
I think those are two great tips for people to get to
100,000 subscribers and you'vegotten something like 13 million
video views, right?
Aaron Watson (07:00):
And that's been a split of long form and short
form.
We continue to experiment withshort form, although that
doesn't really move the needlein the same way that our long
form videos do.
You'll see these short videosthat have we don't have any of
these, but millions of views andthe data suggests to us that,
yes, that does add somesubscribers, but it's not giving
you much revenue and it'sharder to get those people to
come back for an additional view, whereas if someone sits down
(07:22):
with you and watches one of our12, 15, 20 minute mini
documentaries, they're got ahigh likelihood of returning to
check out another video whenwe're on another relevant topic,
so have you experimented somewith YouTube shorts?
Eric Eden (07:39):
Do you recommend that to people or not?
Really, we do.
Aaron Watson (07:43):
YouTube shorts.
We make a lot of short formvertical videos in general and
we try to spread them acrossYouTube, tiktok, instagram,
linkedin.
We're not perfect in thedistribution of those videos,
but it's absolutely worthexperimenting with and it's
worth taking that as a place toreally just hone your skills
right, because in a short formvideo you're only doing, you're
(08:04):
doing the hardcore editing.
Still.
You still should write a greatintro, but we're talking about a
60, 45 second video, not a 16minute video.
So there's just less of aninvestment and you're going to
have a tighter feedback loop oflearning what people are
interested in.
And if you produce 15 and oneperforms particularly well, you
can replicate that within shortsand find ways to remix that.
(08:26):
Or you can say hey, this iswhat people are actually
interested in.
Let's make a long form video ofthe short that we're interested
in.
So it's a worthy place toexperiment.
But what I've seen, both myselfand with peers, is that it is
just a tougher road, a tougherhill to climb for real brand
equity, real audience loyalty,because the short form video
(08:49):
feed just doesn't lend itself tothat type of relationship
between the audience and theviewer.
Eric Eden (08:55):
Yeah, you can link from a YouTube short to a longer
video, but I think the questionis what's the click through
rate?
How many people can you get tojump from the short video to the
longer videos?
Aaron Watson (09:07):
It's super low the click-through rate.
Yeah, we don't even really seea particularly tangible bump in
that click-through rate becausethat's just not a behavior that
the short viewer is particularlyinterested in.
Like they selected a short feedbecause they wanted to watch
shorts.
They didn't want to get sent tosome 20-minute video majority
of folks but it is.
It's an opportunity for them tostill either hear your voice,
(09:27):
your brand's voice, see yourface, your brand's face.
There's still an opportunitythere, but it's the long form
video.
That, you're right, is insanelycompetitive.
It's one of the mostcompetitive places to go be a
marketer, but if you can succeedthere, that's where we see the
really special businesses beingbuilt across the creator economy
, from MKBHD and his techreviews to every other niche
(09:51):
under the sun.
The most special creator-ledcompanies are winning on YouTube
and most of the folks that winon some other platform end up on
YouTube because it just has thegreatest incentives.
It has the longest tail.
We have content that's over ayear old, that's still getting
hundreds of views a day, and soin some cases it can be even be
a thousand views a day, andwe're not some multimillion
(10:14):
dollar subscriber channel.
So you think about that likewhere?
When have you ever heardsomeone say that, like a tweet
that I tweeted two years agoblew up Unless you were doing
something really bad, andthey're like catching you in
some sort of nefarious act.
That doesn't happen.
So YouTube just has so manyfundamental advantages over
these other platforms.
It's why it's so competitive,because everyone sees those
(10:36):
advantages and wants them.
But it's still worth honingyour craft there because, even
if you don't turn into the nextYouTube star, you're gonna get
so much qualitative feedback onthe videos that you're producing
for YouTube because of its datasuite.
We'll check our retention curve, we'll see what the click
through rate is on our create,on our thumbnails, and that
informs all the future work thatwe do.
We get better every single timewe put out a YouTube video
(10:58):
because of the data that we getaccess for free from YouTube
because we're partners in theirAdSense program.
We're partners in the fact thatYouTube wants more people on
their platform.
They want them satisfied.
They want them hooked on thebest channels.
They want to help you be thatgreat channel.
Eric Eden (11:14):
The reach of YouTube is the reason that you invest
the time and the effort into it.
Is what you're saying.
Is that right?
Aaron Watson (11:22):
The reach, but also the fact that, like your
library of older videos mattersand is still relevant.
Like I said, a year old videostill having relevance and being
elevated by the algorithm.
And then also the fact that theway payouts work for creators
on YouTube.
You're splitting theadvertising revenue with YouTube
(11:43):
and so they want to see morepeople watch it so they can show
more ads, charge more money.
They make more money as youmake more money.
Very few people talk about liketheir relationship with
Facebook that way.
Like Facebook really caresabout the quality of my content?
It's no, it's lowest commondenominator.
We all know the people that arespouting off extreme political
takes on both ends of thespectrum over on Facebook.
(12:04):
You never hear anyone talkabout that with other platforms,
but at YouTube, there really isa high degree of alignment
relative to the alternatives.
Eric Eden (12:16):
So that's pretty awesome.
It's evergreen content for along period of time, and you
just don't see that on otherplatforms at all.
If you post something on X oron LinkedIn or Instagram like,
you don't get engagement monthsor a year from now, but that
does happen quite a bit onYouTube, I agree.
(12:37):
So when you mentioned theanalytics capability is so
awesome within YouTube to beable to refine things, and
that's one of the key ways thatyou've been able to grow to more
than 100,000 subscribers.
Talk to us about that, thatanalytics capability, and how
you've leveraged it.
Aaron Watson (12:58):
The most obvious one that everyone, if you've
released any videos with anyviews, you can go do today.
If you can go check out yourretention graph, this is in the
engagement tab of the data suite.
You can go video by video andsee it's a descending curve.
You imagine it starts at 100and then as time transpires it
goes down.
You can see where people dropoff from your videos and for the
(13:22):
vast majority of folks it's inthe first 30 seconds.
You could be losing on ourvideos.
We're really happy to retain75% of people after 30 seconds.
That's gonna be different genreby genre, industry by industry,
but imagine that 25% of thepeople gone within the first 30
seconds.
That tells you that your introsreally are high leverage, are
really important.
But if, let's say, you'restarting off and you're
(13:44):
struggling to retain 25% ofpeople 30 seconds in, who cares
about the fifth question thatyou ask your guests?
Who cares about the outro?
Who cares about how the secondhalf of the video is edited?
You need to fix your intro andmake sure that there is
alignment between the title thatyou wrote, the thumbnail that
you designed, the intro that youdeliver and it's engaging so
(14:06):
that someone gets that, getsthrough that initial section and
says let's see what this videois about.
I'm interested.
I'm here to give this video achance, because if you're not
accomplishing that loop, thenforget all the fancy oh link to
this, click through to that, gosubscribe to my Patreon.
Whatever thing you want to do,that's irrelevant because people
aren't sticking around andactually watching your videos
(14:27):
and you do that authoritativelybecause of that retention graph.
There's a lot of other smallnuances.
You can go sentence by sentence, music choice by music choice
and really get granular there,particularly as you get more
views.
But at a basic level, if yourewatch your intro and you find
yourself zoning out, imaginewhat someone who doesn't care
about this content is feeling.
(14:47):
They're very quickly be likeinteresting, next tab, next
video, look at my phone, go backto my email, whatever it is
that they need to do.
That's the battle that you'refighting for attention.
Eric Eden (15:04):
Everyone today could go do that.
You have to have a great hook.
That a hundred percent makessense at the very beginning of
the video to keep people thereand to tease them to stay there.
A hundred percent.
Aaron Watson (15:12):
And it's worth spending the time to write and
rewrite that hook before youeven have to deliver it, or
testing it and seeing what'smore effective perhaps in your
shorts, and then actuallypicking your best hooks for the
long form video.
Eric Eden (15:31):
And what else about the analytics?
Youtube measures how manyminutes people have viewed your
videos right.
What else would you suggest ishelpful for people to study in
the analytics?
Aaron Watson (15:37):
The other piece is going to be the relationship
between impressions and clickthrough rates.
This gets back to the packagingpoint.
Is your video actually beingshown to many people?
If it's not, that suggests nota very good title, not a very
compelling topic that you'veselected.
And then, once we actually seehigh impressions, is the click
through rate relatively high,relatively solid?
(15:58):
And that's really going to begenre by genre, niche by niche.
There's not some sort of justbaseline number I can give you,
but you're going to be able tosee is the packaging that I'm
doing effective at garnering theclick that I'm after?
And I go on and on.
Every single piece deliverssome type of insight.
Every single segment of thedata set.
(16:19):
But those are the big two thateveryone needs to start with,
does my video retain a viewer?
Does my packaging garner aclick?
Eric Eden (16:27):
Love it, and the great news is it's free.
Right there inside of YouTube,the best analytics is free.
How good does that get?
Doesn't get too much betterthan that.
So one last question is whatadvice would you give people who
are starting out beyond whatyou've already shared if they
want to be successful on YouTubeas a creator?
Aaron Watson (16:52):
You need to have a really clearly defined ideal
audience member and don't say,because this crazy multi-million
dollar channel, multi-millionsubscriber channel just speaks
to everyone, that I can alsospeak to everyone.
You have to have an idea of whoyou're speaking to.
If you can say I'm trying tohelp people with painting
businesses in the Midwest makemore money, that's really
(17:14):
clearly defined.
That will inform your title andthumbnail strategy.
That will inform the types ofvideos that you make and it will
inform how your intro isstructured.
And you have a huge advantagebecause not a lot of people are
speaking to that really clearlydefined audience member.
But when it's really broad,really sweeping.
Going back, I talked about mypodcast not doing particularly
well.
I just said that it was peoplewho are ambitious, and so you
(17:36):
know what that is really broadand a lot of those people are
better served by niche specific.
There's really intense peoplethat are into US politics and
get into the minutiae of policydecisions that impact people who
live in DC.
And then there's reallyambitious farmers that want to
understand the latest andgreatest farm equipment and farm
machinery.
(17:56):
I am losing to both of thosecreators when I say I'm speaking
to people that are broadlyambitious right.
So by narrowing that to peoplewho are looking at geopolitics
and economics through a lensthat's more Western, but trying
to make sense of who's on therise, who's on the decline, and
allow that to see the greatergeopolitical chessboard, that's
(18:17):
a very specific type of person.
Now we even go more granular.
The same way that people areinto, say, fantasy sports, or
are into covering startups andbusinesses as if they're sports
teams, we think a similar thingis happening with geopolitics
and people trying to understandforeign policy in a more
detailed and enticing way.
So that is the kind of thesis.
(18:37):
Now, for all the, if we proposean idea for a video and it
doesn't fit as something thatwould resonate with that
audience, there's no chance thatwe're going to make it.
If you don't have that idealaudience member clearly defined,
you're in trouble.
And if it's soft, if it's vague, you also have an issue where
you know, unless you're justsome pure raw laugh so hard I'm
crying comedian it's going to bereally hard to reach such a
(19:00):
broad audience when you, likeyou said, are in those early
stages.
Start narrow, start specific,dominate a niche, dominate a
single voice, and then you'llhave the opportunity to expand
outwards.
Eric Eden (19:13):
One more bonus question what have you learned
about thumbnails in all yourexperimentation and getting to
more than a hundred thousandsubscribers?
Aaron Watson (19:21):
That's there's a lot there.
The simplest takeaway lesson isthat you have to make them
simple and easy to consume.
And I was just listening.
If you've ever heard of thesocial media account and brand
overtime, it's more than asocial media account.
It's a huge Instagram account.
They have a basketball league.
They're an enormous entity.
(19:42):
But listening to an interviewwith the founder, the co-founder
of Overtime and they got theirstart by covering these high
school prospects that hadn't yetgone to the pros, hadn't even
yet gone to college or somesemi-pro league, and they would
would just be like this highschooler from Nebraska is six
(20:03):
foot eleven and going to Kansasand he's crazy good, and it's
like it was all these likequalifiers and details and it's
if you don't care about, ifyou're like out on Nebraska or
you don't like Kansas basketballor whatever detail you would be
, be like, okay, I don't care.
But what they found is, as theysimplified that explainer and
(20:27):
just said John Smith is aproblem, john Smith is nasty.
Really simple explainers.
All of the engagement just wentthrough the roof.
That applies to everything.
I'll get feedback.
Sometimes I'll be like I'mgoing for a really intellectual
audience.
I want to make sure that I'mreally detailed.
I let them know that I know alot and that's actually just
(20:48):
your insecurity.
Speaking All of the bestchannels, biggest channels, they
make it really.
The idea is really simple, evenif they are complex, and they
end up reaching all those peoplethat you want anyways, because
of the digestibility of theconcept.
So if you're throwing eightelements into a thumbnail, if
you're adding 10 or more wordsto a thumbnail, I promise you
(21:09):
that's a mistake.
I promise you that is not theoptimal design for these
thumbnails.
They need to be simple, andsimple is hard.
Doing simple well is reallyhard.
So it's worth trying to removeand simplify while still getting
the message across.
Eric Eden (21:28):
And that's probably how thumbnails relate to the
titles is also same concept,right.
Aaron Watson (21:36):
Yeah, and they compliment one another.
It's.
The other thing is like peoplewill write a title and then
they'll just put the title astext on the thumbnail.
It's just redundant.
It's like when have you what it?
Just?
That just doesn't make anysense.
I'm not going to lampoon peopletoo much, but it's.
I can read the title, I don'tneed to read it again on the
thumbnail.
Have it complimented, have themcompliment each other.
Eric Eden (21:57):
All right, thank you very much.
I'm going to link to yourYouTube channel so people can
check it out and learn from whatyou're doing there, as well as
your website, and reallyappreciate you being on the show
today.
Thank you very much.
Awesome Thanks for having me,eric.
Welcome to today's episode.
Today, we are talking about howto be remarkable on YouTube,
how to get traction, how to winin terms of getting subscribers,
getting people to see all thesegreat videos you produce, and
we have a great guest to inspireus.
Aaron is a very successfulYouTuber.
He has over 100,000 subscribersand has gotten many millions of
(00:24):
views on YouTube.
Welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me, eric.
I'm excited to be here.
Before we jump into yourYouTube magic, give us a minute
or two about who you are, whatyou've done and what you're
doing.
Aaron Watson (00:39):
Yeah, so I'm a self-taught marketer.
I started on YouTube over eightyears ago now.
I started my first agency, avideo agency called Piper
Creative, over six years ago andjust launched our second agency
, aum Growth Marketing, which isfocused at comprehensive
digital marketing for wealthadvisors.
And really, what YouTube is sofantastic at is a feedback loop
(01:02):
of creative and data right, soit has the most comprehensive
data suite of any platform thatyou can publish video to.
I would say I haven't looked atthe back end of Netflix, but I
have to imagine it's nearly onpar with that but you get that
free data dashboard and yourability to focus on a metric
optimize it, move on to the nextconstraint in your content
strategy has sharpened my skillsas a marketer and I hope to
(01:26):
share some of those lessons withyour audience today.
Eric Eden (01:29):
That's awesome.
So let's start with inspiringus.
How were you able to get100,000 subscribers and millions
of views for your videos onYouTube?
It's disheartening when I see alot of channels that barely get
any traction, and I think it'sbecause YouTube is pretty hard,
(01:50):
is my opinion, but pleaseinspire us.
Tell us how you did it.
Aaron Watson (01:54):
It absolutely is hard.
And the inspiring piece startswith I was there, just as every
other creator started there.
That literally, is basically anon-existent case where someone
just has never made videosbefore, never published to
YouTube before, and then justimmediately goes super viral and
gets a ton of views, unlessthey're already some mega
celebrity, which I am not.
So I was there, not gettingmany views, feeling like you're
(02:16):
hitting your head against thewall, and we made two kind of
changes through some advice fromsome experts and just studying
what works.
That really just changed thetrajectory of the channel.
So for a long time we weredoing podcast episodes or quick
take news commentary, and it wasvery fast turnaround, right
Like the news today, the videosup tomorrow.
(02:38):
Minimal editing.
You're not tightly scriptinganything because you're having
to write it on the fly.
And the issue there was numberone I wasn't that skilled as a
quick news commentator or apodcaster, but also there was a
lot of fat.
And what I love about your show, eric, is it's short, it's 15
minutes, it's right to the pointwe get right to value and then
(03:00):
we're out.
You get to return back to yourday.
And what we found was theseepisodes were long.
Very few people stuck even fiveminutes in, let alone 15, let
alone 30.
And therefore YouTube looked atthat video, was like this isn't
good, we're not going torecommend it to more people, so
we focus more on quality.
That meant more time editing,better B roll, better animations
(03:21):
, better graphics, betterwriting, better script writing
for the videos that we areproducing.
That saw a huge step up.
We went from about 1000subscribers to in the 10,000
subscriber range and then thenext thing that we did was we
put packaging the video as thefirst step of the process.
What's very common is a lot ofpeople will come with an idea
(03:43):
they'll go make that video likeyou say spend.
They'll go make that video Likeyou say spend all that time to
produce a video.
And then after the fact they'relike what's the thumbnail going
to be?
Like let's throw somethingtogether in Canva or Adobe real
quick and I guess this titlewill work, and then they send it
out there and then they'resurprised that doesn't do well.
But that title and thatthumbnail are the two first
(04:05):
impressions that you're going tomake with a potential viewer.
People don't watch a YouTubevideo unless they've seen the
title and thumbnail first.
Exceptions to that apply ifsomeone's linked it in like an
email newsletter, but that's nothow big YouTube channels grow.
Big channels grow by havingpeople on YouTube see their
video, select it, watch it, feelsatisfied by it.
You notice, the first step ofthe process there is actually
(04:28):
garnering a click, actuallygetting someone to choose your
video versus all the other onesthat they're being shown and
recommended, and so we startedmaking it a regular practice of
designing the thumbnailconfirming the title, coming up
with better ideas before we evenwent and produced the video.
By the time we're producing avideo now, we basically have
(04:48):
that packaging finalized or nearfinalized and we have high
conviction that it has a goodchance of performing, based off
of having made so many of them,studying, researching other
videos in the same area and bothof and that was the next
trajectory changer we talk aboutgoing 1,000 to 10,000
subscribers.
That has been what's got usfrom 10,000 to 100,000
(05:09):
subscribers and, candidly, Idon't know if necessarily that
is gonna be the recipe thattakes me from 100,000 to a
million.
Maybe I can come back on when Ifigure out that nut and crack
it, but that has been the twotrajectory changes for our
channel and you notice, none ofthat is beyond the scope of what
(05:30):
someone's capable of.
It's really just a matter ofprioritization and work right.
If you're going to work harderat a script, if you're going to
work harder at an edit, that'sjust time investing.
It makes sense that people thatspend more time on something
are going to get better results.
Same thing with working on thepackaging.
At the beginning, we spent a lotof time studying how to do it,
analyzing more effectivechannels, seeing what works,
seeing what didn't, but it'salso making a lot of thumbnails,
(05:52):
writing a lot of titles, seeingthe ones that don't work and
then committing to neverreplicating that mistake again
and, when something does work,having the humility to say we
don't need to reinvent the wheelhere.
This works.
Let's replicate it in a waythat is still fresh.
It's still a new video, butit's continuing to satisfy the
(06:13):
viewers that we're trying toreach.
In our case, these are peoplethat are really interested in
geopolitics and economics.
It's the Aaron Watson channel onYouTube, not to be confused
with the country music singer bythe same name.
I'm not a singer you don't wantto.
Don't ask me to sing, eric, butthe.
We understand who that audienceis.
We've now seen what they like,what they engage with.
Let's give them more of whatthey like, while still abiding
(06:34):
by our values, our beliefs.
We're not going to lie, we'renot going to create clickbait
just for the sake of that clickand try to short circuit that
decision for someone to selectour content, but continue to
deliver to them what they'veshown us through the data that
they appreciate and they enjoy.
Eric Eden (06:51):
I think those are two great tips for people to get to
100,000 subscribers and you'vegotten something like 13 million
video views, right?
Aaron Watson (07:00):
And that's been a split of long form and short
form.
We continue to experiment withshort form, although that
doesn't really move the needlein the same way that our long
form videos do.
You'll see these short videosthat have we don't have any of
these, but millions of views andthe data suggests to us that,
yes, that does add somesubscribers, but it's not giving
you much revenue and it'sharder to get those people to
come back for an additional view, whereas if someone sits down
(07:22):
with you and watches one of our12, 15, 20 minute mini
documentaries, they're got ahigh likelihood of returning to
check out another video whenwe're on another relevant topic,
so have you experimented somewith YouTube shorts?
Eric Eden (07:39):
Do you recommend that to people or not?
Really, we do.
Aaron Watson (07:43):
YouTube shorts.
We make a lot of short formvertical videos in general and
we try to spread them acrossYouTube, tiktok, instagram,
linkedin.
We're not perfect in thedistribution of those videos,
but it's absolutely worthexperimenting with and it's
worth taking that as a place toreally just hone your skills
right, because in a short formvideo you're only doing, you're
(08:04):
doing the hardcore editing.
Still.
You still should write a greatintro, but we're talking about a
60, 45 second video, not a 16minute video.
So there's just less of aninvestment and you're going to
have a tighter feedback loop oflearning what people are
interested in.
And if you produce 15 and oneperforms particularly well, you
can replicate that within shortsand find ways to remix that.
(08:26):
Or you can say hey, this iswhat people are actually
interested in.
Let's make a long form video ofthe short that we're interested
in.
So it's a worthy place toexperiment.
But what I've seen, both myselfand with peers, is that it is
just a tougher road, a tougherhill to climb for real brand
equity, real audience loyalty,because the short form video
(08:49):
feed just doesn't lend itself tothat type of relationship
between the audience and theviewer.
Eric Eden (08:55):
Yeah, you can link from a YouTube short to a longer
video, but I think the questionis what's the click through
rate?
How many people can you get tojump from the short video to the
longer videos?
Aaron Watson (09:07):
It's super low the click-through rate.
Yeah, we don't even really seea particularly tangible bump in
that click-through rate becausethat's just not a behavior that
the short viewer is particularlyinterested in.
Like they selected a short feedbecause they wanted to watch
shorts.
They didn't want to get sent tosome 20-minute video majority
of folks but it is.
It's an opportunity for them tostill either hear your voice,
(09:27):
your brand's voice, see yourface, your brand's face.
There's still an opportunitythere, but it's the long form
video.
That, you're right, is insanelycompetitive.
It's one of the mostcompetitive places to go be a
marketer, but if you can succeedthere, that's where we see the
really special businesses beingbuilt across the creator economy
, from MKBHD and his techreviews to every other niche
(09:51):
under the sun.
The most special creator-ledcompanies are winning on YouTube
and most of the folks that winon some other platform end up on
YouTube because it just has thegreatest incentives.
It has the longest tail.
We have content that's over ayear old, that's still getting
hundreds of views a day, and soin some cases it can be even be
a thousand views a day, andwe're not some multimillion
(10:14):
dollar subscriber channel.
So you think about that likewhere?
When have you ever heardsomeone say that, like a tweet
that I tweeted two years agoblew up Unless you were doing
something really bad, andthey're like catching you in
some sort of nefarious act.
That doesn't happen.
So YouTube just has so manyfundamental advantages over
these other platforms.
It's why it's so competitive,because everyone sees those
(10:36):
advantages and wants them.
But it's still worth honingyour craft there because, even
if you don't turn into the nextYouTube star, you're gonna get
so much qualitative feedback onthe videos that you're producing
for YouTube because of its datasuite.
We'll check our retention curve, we'll see what the click
through rate is on our create,on our thumbnails, and that
informs all the future work thatwe do.
We get better every single timewe put out a YouTube video
(10:58):
because of the data that we getaccess for free from YouTube
because we're partners in theirAdSense program.
We're partners in the fact thatYouTube wants more people on
their platform.
They want them satisfied.
They want them hooked on thebest channels.
They want to help you be thatgreat channel.
Eric Eden (11:14):
The reach of YouTube is the reason that you invest
the time and the effort into it.
Is what you're saying.
Is that right?
Aaron Watson (11:22):
The reach, but also the fact that, like your
library of older videos mattersand is still relevant.
Like I said, a year old videostill having relevance and being
elevated by the algorithm.
And then also the fact that theway payouts work for creators
on YouTube.
You're splitting theadvertising revenue with YouTube
(11:43):
and so they want to see morepeople watch it so they can show
more ads, charge more money.
They make more money as youmake more money.
Very few people talk about liketheir relationship with
Facebook that way.
Like Facebook really caresabout the quality of my content?
It's no, it's lowest commondenominator.
We all know the people that arespouting off extreme political
takes on both ends of thespectrum over on Facebook.
(12:04):
You never hear anyone talkabout that with other platforms,
but at YouTube, there really isa high degree of alignment
relative to the alternatives.
Eric Eden (12:16):
So that's pretty awesome.
It's evergreen content for along period of time, and you
just don't see that on otherplatforms at all.
If you post something on X oron LinkedIn or Instagram like,
you don't get engagement monthsor a year from now, but that
does happen quite a bit onYouTube, I agree.
(12:37):
So when you mentioned theanalytics capability is so
awesome within YouTube to beable to refine things, and
that's one of the key ways thatyou've been able to grow to more
than 100,000 subscribers.
Talk to us about that, thatanalytics capability, and how
you've leveraged it.
Aaron Watson (12:58):
The most obvious one that everyone, if you've
released any videos with anyviews, you can go do today.
If you can go check out yourretention graph, this is in the
engagement tab of the data suite.
You can go video by video andsee it's a descending curve.
You imagine it starts at 100and then as time transpires it
goes down.
You can see where people dropoff from your videos and for the
(13:22):
vast majority of folks it's inthe first 30 seconds.
You could be losing on ourvideos.
We're really happy to retain75% of people after 30 seconds.
That's gonna be different genreby genre, industry by industry,
but imagine that 25% of thepeople gone within the first 30
seconds.
That tells you that your introsreally are high leverage, are
really important.
But if, let's say, you'restarting off and you're
(13:44):
struggling to retain 25% ofpeople 30 seconds in, who cares
about the fifth question thatyou ask your guests?
Who cares about the outro?
Who cares about how the secondhalf of the video is edited?
You need to fix your intro andmake sure that there is
alignment between the title thatyou wrote, the thumbnail that
you designed, the intro that youdeliver and it's engaging so
(14:06):
that someone gets that, getsthrough that initial section and
says let's see what this videois about.
I'm interested.
I'm here to give this video achance, because if you're not
accomplishing that loop, thenforget all the fancy oh link to
this, click through to that, gosubscribe to my Patreon.
Whatever thing you want to do,that's irrelevant because people
aren't sticking around andactually watching your videos
(14:27):
and you do that authoritativelybecause of that retention graph.
There's a lot of other smallnuances.
You can go sentence by sentence, music choice by music choice
and really get granular there,particularly as you get more
views.
But at a basic level, if yourewatch your intro and you find
yourself zoning out, imaginewhat someone who doesn't care
about this content is feeling.
(14:47):
They're very quickly be likeinteresting, next tab, next
video, look at my phone, go backto my email, whatever it is
that they need to do.
That's the battle that you'refighting for attention.
Eric Eden (15:04):
Everyone today could go do that.
You have to have a great hook.
That a hundred percent makessense at the very beginning of
the video to keep people thereand to tease them to stay there.
A hundred percent.
Aaron Watson (15:12):
And it's worth spending the time to write and
rewrite that hook before youeven have to deliver it, or
testing it and seeing what'smore effective perhaps in your
shorts, and then actuallypicking your best hooks for the
long form video.
Eric Eden (15:31):
And what else about the analytics?
Youtube measures how manyminutes people have viewed your
videos right.
What else would you suggest ishelpful for people to study in
the analytics?
Aaron Watson (15:37):
The other piece is going to be the relationship
between impressions and clickthrough rates.
This gets back to the packagingpoint.
Is your video actually beingshown to many people?
If it's not, that suggests nota very good title, not a very
compelling topic that you'veselected.
And then, once we actually seehigh impressions, is the click
through rate relatively high,relatively solid?
(15:58):
And that's really going to begenre by genre, niche by niche.
There's not some sort of justbaseline number I can give you,
but you're going to be able tosee is the packaging that I'm
doing effective at garnering theclick that I'm after?
And I go on and on.
Every single piece deliverssome type of insight.
Every single segment of thedata set.
(16:19):
But those are the big two thateveryone needs to start with,
does my video retain a viewer?
Does my packaging garner aclick?
Eric Eden (16:27):
Love it, and the great news is it's free.
Right there inside of YouTube,the best analytics is free.
How good does that get?
Doesn't get too much betterthan that.
So one last question is whatadvice would you give people who
are starting out beyond whatyou've already shared if they
want to be successful on YouTubeas a creator?
Aaron Watson (16:52):
You need to have a really clearly defined ideal
audience member and don't say,because this crazy multi-million
dollar channel, multi-millionsubscriber channel just speaks
to everyone, that I can alsospeak to everyone.
You have to have an idea of whoyou're speaking to.
If you can say I'm trying tohelp people with painting
businesses in the Midwest makemore money, that's really
(17:14):
clearly defined.
That will inform your title andthumbnail strategy.
That will inform the types ofvideos that you make and it will
inform how your intro isstructured.
And you have a huge advantagebecause not a lot of people are
speaking to that really clearlydefined audience member.
But when it's really broad,really sweeping.
Going back, I talked about mypodcast not doing particularly
well.
I just said that it was peoplewho are ambitious, and so you
(17:36):
know what that is really broadand a lot of those people are
better served by niche specific.
There's really intense peoplethat are into US politics and
get into the minutiae of policydecisions that impact people who
live in DC.
And then there's reallyambitious farmers that want to
understand the latest andgreatest farm equipment and farm
machinery.
(17:56):
I am losing to both of thosecreators when I say I'm speaking
to people that are broadlyambitious right.
So by narrowing that to peoplewho are looking at geopolitics
and economics through a lensthat's more Western, but trying
to make sense of who's on therise, who's on the decline, and
allow that to see the greatergeopolitical chessboard, that's
(18:17):
a very specific type of person.
Now we even go more granular.
The same way that people areinto, say, fantasy sports, or
are into covering startups andbusinesses as if they're sports
teams, we think a similar thingis happening with geopolitics
and people trying to understandforeign policy in a more
detailed and enticing way.
So that is the kind of thesis.
(18:37):
Now, for all the, if we proposean idea for a video and it
doesn't fit as something thatwould resonate with that
audience, there's no chance thatwe're going to make it.
If you don't have that idealaudience member clearly defined,
you're in trouble.
And if it's soft, if it's vague, you also have an issue where
you know, unless you're justsome pure raw laugh so hard I'm
crying comedian it's going to bereally hard to reach such a
(19:00):
broad audience when you, likeyou said, are in those early
stages.
Start narrow, start specific,dominate a niche, dominate a
single voice, and then you'llhave the opportunity to expand
outwards.
Eric Eden (19:13):
One more bonus question what have you learned
about thumbnails in all yourexperimentation and getting to
more than a hundred thousandsubscribers?
Aaron Watson (19:21):
That's there's a lot there.
The simplest takeaway lesson isthat you have to make them
simple and easy to consume.
And I was just listening.
If you've ever heard of thesocial media account and brand
overtime, it's more than asocial media account.
It's a huge Instagram account.
They have a basketball league.
They're an enormous entity.
(19:42):
But listening to an interviewwith the founder, the co-founder
of Overtime and they got theirstart by covering these high
school prospects that hadn't yetgone to the pros, hadn't even
yet gone to college or somesemi-pro league, and they would
would just be like this highschooler from Nebraska is six
(20:03):
foot eleven and going to Kansasand he's crazy good, and it's
like it was all these likequalifiers and details and it's
if you don't care about, ifyou're like out on Nebraska or
you don't like Kansas basketballor whatever detail you would be
, be like, okay, I don't care.
But what they found is, as theysimplified that explainer and
(20:27):
just said John Smith is aproblem, john Smith is nasty.
Really simple explainers.
All of the engagement just wentthrough the roof.
That applies to everything.
I'll get feedback.
Sometimes I'll be like I'mgoing for a really intellectual
audience.
I want to make sure that I'mreally detailed.
I let them know that I know alot and that's actually just
(20:48):
your insecurity.
Speaking All of the bestchannels, biggest channels, they
make it really.
The idea is really simple, evenif they are complex, and they
end up reaching all those peoplethat you want anyways, because
of the digestibility of theconcept.
So if you're throwing eightelements into a thumbnail, if
you're adding 10 or more wordsto a thumbnail, I promise you
(21:09):
that's a mistake.
I promise you that is not theoptimal design for these
thumbnails.
They need to be simple, andsimple is hard.
Doing simple well is reallyhard.
So it's worth trying to removeand simplify while still getting
the message across.
Eric Eden (21:28):
And that's probably how thumbnails relate to the
titles is also same concept,right.
Aaron Watson (21:36):
Yeah, and they compliment one another.
It's.
The other thing is like peoplewill write a title and then
they'll just put the title astext on the thumbnail.
It's just redundant.
It's like when have you what it?
Just?
That just doesn't make anysense.
I'm not going to lampoon peopletoo much, but it's.
I can read the title, I don'tneed to read it again on the
thumbnail.
Have it complimented, have themcompliment each other.
Eric Eden (21:57):
All right, thank you very much.
I'm going to link to yourYouTube channel so people can
check it out and learn from whatyou're doing there, as well as
your website, and reallyappreciate you being on the show
today.
Thank you very much.
Awesome Thanks for having me,eric.
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