YouTube for Businesses: A Step-by-Step System for Success
43:19 Share

Are you thinking of attending social media marketing world, but you're concerned that you're not going to learn anything new? Listen to what fellow marketers have to say. Regina Cowitt says, I've been wanting to attend this conference for years and finally got to go. It was phenomenal and packs a punch with incredibly valuable and actionable information. Katie Brinkley says, just four years ago, I made a decision that would pivot my entire entrepreneurial journey.

I attended Social Media Marketing World. The rewards promised to be nothing short of extraordinary. Rebecca Good says, I absolutely loved every single presentation and wish I could turn back the clock like Hermione from Harry Potter and get to experience every single session. I learned so much and would absolutely love the opportunity to go back again. Come see what you're missing.

Visit socialmediamarketingworld.info and grab your tickets today. Welcome to the Social Media Marketing Podcast, helping you navigate the social media jungle. And now, here is your host, Michael Stelzner.

Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the Social Media Marketing Podcast brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner, and this is the podcast for marketers and business owners who want to know how to navigate the ever-changing marketing jungle.

Today, we're going to be joined by Sonny Leonarduzzi, and we're going to explore a step-by-step system for creating YouTube videos that really help your business. If you know that you need to do more with longer form content on YouTube, and you just haven't quite figured out a good system so that you can not just create content, but create content that helps your business, today's the episode for you.

By the way, if you're new to the show, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast apps. You don't miss any of our future content. Let's now transition over to this week's interview with Sunny Lenarduzzi. Helping you to simplify your social safari. Here is this week's expert guide.

Today, I'm very excited to be joined by Sunny Lenarduzzi. If you don't know who Sunny is, she's an online marketing strategist who helps experts and entrepreneurs elevate their income, impact, and authority online. Her YouTube channel has 559,000 subscribers.

and her program is called The Authority Accelerator. Sunny, welcome back to the show. How are you doing today? Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. It's been a while. I know. Today, Sunny and I are going to explore a step-by-step system for creating YouTube content that leads to more leads and sales. The last time you were on the show,

was like four years ago, October of 2020. So I'd love to hear a little bit about like what's been going on with you in the last four years because it's been a little while. I know you've had some things happen. Yeah, I mean, well, I had a baby. So that's kind of a big thing.

Thank you very much. Yeah, baby girl about a year ago. She's actually she's just about to be 15 months, which is really exciting. Yeah, had a baby got married in 2020. Yeah, it's been a big personal evolution. And then business wise, it's been a pretty big evolution as well. And we're still focused on the same one core program. But that program has now grown to over 4000 members around the world in over 600 niches and 47 different

countries and we have all these incredible case studies of folks who have gone from, you know, concept to being able to build these really successful thriving businesses around their expertise. So yeah, lots happened and it's been amazing and I'm really grateful. That's so cool. Well, I'm very excited to kind of explore some of these things with you today. So we're really going to be spending some time talking about YouTube in today's interview.

And what I would love to start with is there are plenty of marketers and entrepreneurs that listen to this podcast today.

that maybe are not paying as much attention to YouTube as they are the other social platforms. So why is that so important, in your opinion, that they pay attention to YouTube? Well, I think at the end of the day, you have to recognize the inherent nature of YouTube. And the inherent nature of YouTube is that it's a search engine. And in today's landscape, it's very much so also for creators and entertainment and all these things. But

YouTube is the king and queen of video content. And as much as there have been short form platforms that have come about and yes, short form has a place.

It has been the bread and butter for us for so long. And the reason I love it so much is that it's kind of a passive way to market in the sense that you are meeting people when they're actually seeking out help. So inherently on YouTube, your leads are going to be warmer. They're going to be more engaged. They're going to be more interested. And what I've found through so much time and work on this platform is that I don't want to say longer because then people are going to say, well, it's the best amount of time for a video. And there is no sweet spot time, but it's

The more in-depth your content is, the better quality leads you get. So I have found that shorter form content where it has a place of getting eyeballs and brand awareness

It's what we kind of call toilet viewing. It's like people are doing a billion other things when they're looking at that short form content. They're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. It's coming up on their feed. They're not actively seeking it out. They're sort of mindlessly in the scroll hole. Whereas on YouTube, 3 billion searches are happening on YouTube every single day. Everything from how to do your own bookkeeping to how to dance to how to train my dog to everything in between. And so if you can position yourself to be found by the person who's seeking the solution that you provide,

On YouTube, it is free advertising all day, every day with people who actually have intent. So it's really intent-based marketing versus this sort of bombardment on other platforms where they may see your messaging, but it just happens to show up in their feed as opposed to them actively seeking it out. So the intent is a lot higher.

I'll add my thoughts. We've had our channel isn't as big as yours, but it's not small either. You know, and we've had, I don't know, 17 million views on our channel. And what I like about what YouTube does is it's a discovery mechanism for your content where it's search and beyond. Right. So once they know that your video is for a certain audience, they will make sure that audience sees that video, whether they're searching for it or not.

which is another value add, right? It'll show up on the homepage. It'll show up after another video is done. It'll show up on the side. And that is something you do not get on longer form content on any other platform. Every other platform, the shelf life of a traditional piece of content that is longer than maybe 60 seconds is like 24 to 48 hours, right, Sunny? Yeah, absolutely. But on YouTube, it can go for years. That is a huge value add. Would you agree?

100%. And I think also when you're a business owner or a marketer, you want to get the best ROI from the content that you're creating. And what YouTube does for you is it really is we call it that evergreen lead machine or evergreen sales machine because you make one video and that video will work for you for years to come. So you're not having to constantly create content and content.

constantly be working on that little hamster wheel to make sure that you're staying relevant and you've got a new video going out today, et cetera. We make three videos a month and that's really all we ever need. I've played with making more and less and that's really the sweet spot. So it's 36 videos a year generally. That's not a lot of content to be generating a big, massive return. Sweet. All right.

Now what I want to do is talk strategy because whether you are an entrepreneur or a marketer, we're all looking for the same thing here, which is try to grow a business, right? In some sort of capacity, whether we work for it or whether we own it.

And what is your strategy for let's start exploring this because there's a lot we're going to unpack here. But what's the beginning part of your strategy? Where do we start when we're wanting to make videos that ultimately are going to lead to revenue for the business? Well, I think it's the difference between how most people approach YouTube is, OK, I'm going to make a video, put it up there and hope that it gets seen.

There is so much work to be done before you even film the video. And it's the difference between random content and relevant content. That is the key differentiating factor when you're creating content on YouTube. You need to create it with a high intent of who you want to see that video for the reason that you actually just mentioned. So our approach is we always want to start with search based content because

Because once you start with that and you start to be known for the topic that you're an expert on or the topic of what a business that you're marketing, then the algorithm starts to work in your favor. Because any social media platform, doesn't matter what platform you're on, they need two pieces of information.

Who are you trying to reach? What do you want to be known for? When you can answer those two pieces of information in every piece of content you create, you are doing yourself a massive favor for years to come because you're actually feeding the algorithm with the right information for it to work for you as opposed to you working for it. And that's often what I'll see is people go on YouTube and they're like, I've posted 30 videos and I've gotten no sales and no leads. It's because they have no idea how to actually create content that works for them without them working. So

The very first place we start is let's just think on a very base level. Okay. Who's the person that we want to watch our content? That's your ideal viewer. And really it's not just an ideal viewer. It's somebody who's yes, going to consume your content, but actually has the intent to eventually become a paying customer or paying clients. So they are there with that high intent. So when we think about who we want to watch the content, we have to think about why would they be on YouTube in the first place? Why would they be using it to seek out a solution or an answer?

and what would the questions be that they'd be asking? So a very easy strategy in the very beginning is just to simply go onto YouTube and type in a question. It can be a very simple question that your ideal client would be looking up. And from there, it's going to open up a rabbit hole of potential content topics that are highly relevant. And if you take one thing from what I'm saying today, relevant content wins on YouTube and on every other platform. So it's going to open up

suggested search terms. As soon as you type that into the search bar, it's going to drop down a bunch of other terms that are related to it that are the most searched terms in relation to that topic. So that's hand delivering you incredible topics. In addition to that, as soon as you type it in and press enter, you're also going to get a flood of video results. What's showing up in those results? What's showing up in the search results and what's showing up on the suggested results when you click on one of those videos that would be relevant to your ideal viewer. Again, this allows you to collect

collect data and information on what would be highly relevant for your ideal viewer so that you start creating content that is actually going to categorize you in the algorithm from day one so that it can start working for you. When we were prepping for this, you talked about that the person was part of it. And then there was this thing called the tipping point and ideal outcome. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We call it like the sales cycle. So you have to think about the sales cycle of your ideal viewer and client. And

The broader the topic is, the more beginner-based the topic is, the longer the sales cycle, right? So if we know who the ideal viewer is, then we actually get even more granular. And once we have that preliminary list of topics that we've decided on and we can vet it and shift it and adjust it however we need to, we then also want to think through, okay, well, where would the person be on their journey of actually...

investing into our program, product, service, et cetera, if they're looking at this topic. So I'm going to use relationship example because it's an easy sort of metaphor for all of this. So let's say that you help men who are on the brink of divorce, right?

A top of the funnel piece of content would be healthy relationship habits in your marriage. Why would that be top of the funnel? Well, because there's no pain, there's no urgency. This would be for the person who's maybe newly married and they just want to make sure that they have a healthy marriage.

The middle of the funnel content would be something like how to argue in a healthy way in your marriage. Well, one thing we know about this person is they're already having arguments in their marriage. So they're in that sort of middle of the funnel spot where they're a little closer to being in a place where they know that maybe there's a problem and they need some help and you're the person to help.

The bottom of the funnel content would be how to save your marriage when your wife stops speaking to you or when your wife moves out. There is pain, there is urgency. So how you want to think about it is it really is a sales cycle. How long is the sales cycle going to be from that piece of content you're creating? And they all have a place. That top of the funnel content is going to bring in eyeballs and it's going to bring in awareness.

but it's not necessarily going to bring in leads and sales. That middle of the funnel content is going to get somebody who's maybe a little bit closer, but they're not ready to make that decision. Your bottom of the funnel content is going to bring in your hottest leads. But the irony of it is, and the reason that people don't do this is because it doesn't bring in a ton of views. It's a very small niche audience.

But this is how, in this example, actually, we have a client who helps men save their marriages. And he took old videos he created. He was actually somebody who had created a ton of videos on YouTube, never got a leader or sale from them. He edited them using our system, which we'll talk about a little bit later.

And he ended up generating over $100,000 from 96 subscribers on his YouTube channel, which sounds fake, but it's the truth. So, and why did that happen? Because his content was so hyper-targeted to the right people. It wasn't trying to reach this mass broad audience. He wasn't trying to be the next guru on relationships. He was trying to reach that person who was in that pain, who knew that he was in a serious position and his marriage might be on the brink. So,

If you can take that sort of theory and apply it to your own situation in your own business, it allows you to see, well, OK, maybe I've been making too much content up here, which means that journey for that client to go from here to actually wanting to work with me or invest into what I'm selling.

It's really long, which is why I'm not really getting leads or sales from these videos. So what I'm really hearing you say is you might want to make some of this bottom of the funnel content. And actually, even though it might not get as many views, it might get exactly what you're looking for, which is clients. Is that what I'm hearing you say? That's exactly correct. And also the long-term benefit of doing this is we kind of recommend those first eight videos that you create, even if you have an existing channel, but it's not really working for you or you're starting brand new, the process is the same.

use eight test videos, we call them, as your bottom of the funnel content. Because the long-term benefit of that also is that you are telling the algorithm with extreme detail exactly who you're trying to reach. You're not trying to reach everybody. You want this person who is in this situation. So then the algorithm is taking that information, taking that relevant content that you're creating, categorizing your channel in the algorithm, and then using its internal traffic sources, browse, suggest, and search to push you to more of those people. And that's when the algorithm and YouTube start really working in your favor.

This is awesome. Okay. So I want to make sure that we're on the right track here. So, so far what I'm hearing you say is it's really important for you to know who it is that you want to make content for. And perhaps it's also important for you to understand what it is you hope to achieve from these videos, right? Exactly. And then you started hinting at

relevant content. And maybe we're already on that right now with this sales cycle kind of stuff. But let's say we've come up with a bunch of ideas. Maybe we don't have old videos to edit like your client did. You know what I mean? But let's say we've come up with some ideas. What do we do next? Do we just create the bottom of the funnel content or do we figure out a way to make it all work together?

You want to focus more so. So I would say it's like an 80-20 rule. Let's do 80% bottom of the funnel to be hyper-targeted and to start bringing in really relevant leads. And then 20% can be more so let's get eyeballs in the door and get those people that are maybe more top of the funnel, but we're going to nurture them into a place where they might be more bottom of the funnel. But outside of that, obviously, as I mentioned, there's a lot to do before you actually even hit record to record a video. And these are the things that most people miss.

So from there, once you have that list of ideas and topics, you're then going to narrow it down to that 80-20 rule. So you're going to have a select group of topics that are your bottom of the funnel and then a smaller group that's going to be your top of the funnel. And we recommend starting with about eight videos as that baseline. So from there, your next step is not to record, but it's actually packaging.

And what I mean by packaging is your title and your thumbnail. Because at the end of the day, CTR is the most important metric on YouTube. And I'm not saying that to say you have to have a high CTR in everything you do because that's, it's a bit of false advertising. Because a high CTR tends to be for a piece of content that has a broader reach. What you're looking for is CTR that is reflective of the type of content that you have.

Click-through rate for those that don't understand what CTR is. Yes, sorry. Click-through rate, yes. So it means when somebody sees your video, are they going to click on it? When they see in the search results, suggested results, the browse results, are they going to click on your video? So you actually want to get that granular to see based on those traffic sources, what is the click-through rate for each one of them? And if it's a niche topic, it may not be super high, but that's where retention tells you a lot in terms of if those people clicking are actually watching, which is really, really important. So CTR and retention are best friends and they're my main metrics that I focus on on YouTube. But

Why title and thumbnail are so important is because that is the packaging. That is what makes somebody click. That is what makes your ideal viewer go, oh my goodness, this video is for me. I need to click on this video. I need to watch this video.

So formulating your title and your thumbnail, you might be thinking, but we've already picked the topics. Topic and title are different. They're very different. So topic, is this relevant to the viewer? Will they care about what I'm talking about here? Title is formulating your title in a way that actually makes them want to click. So formulating your title in a way that makes them want to click is,

First and foremost, we want to try and stay somewhat under that 60 character range with your title just so that when it comes up in the results, they can kind of see the majority of it. In addition to that, we want to think about is my title addressing who we're trying to reach? So will they see this and go, that's for me?

And then is it also addressing the situation that I'm in? So the example that I gave earlier is men on the brink of divorce. Okay, so the video title needs to not say how to save your relationship in general. It needs to say how men can save their relationship when their wife has stopped speaking to them or when their wife has left.

That is specific person, specific situation. The more that your titles can reflect that, the more of a high retention rate you're going to get and the more ideal viewers are going to watch that content, which leads to higher quality leads and more qualified people in your sales cycle. Okay. I want to ask a couple questions. I want to back it up just a little bit and I want to come back to titles, but I want to go back to topics because we just kind of skimmed past that a little bit. And I feel like there's some people that maybe don't

need a little more guidance on that. So you suggested that you go into YouTube and I've heard people say even create a brand new, fresh YouTube account. So it's not like influenced by your prior search behaviors. I don't know if you need to do that or not, but you suggested to go into YouTube, search for the kinds of things that your prospects or customers would search for to get inspiration and

When they're getting that inspiration, what exactly should they be looking at? Because people could very quickly be overwhelmed by super high production videos and think, I can't do that and exit stage left. Do you understand? Completely understand. This is the cold, hard truth. The value of your production, your production value matters so much less than the value of what you're saying on YouTube. When I was filming with a window and a webcam, that's when things really started to escalate for me and my business.

So it's important to understand that you're not looking for a highly produced video. Really what you're looking for when you're looking for these topics is,

are these topics answering a question that would be pertinent to my relevant ideal viewer? And are they solving a problem that my ideal viewer would also be facing? So really want to get in the brain and go, what are the challenges, pain points, fears, et cetera. And a really kind of easy way to do this is AI is a wonderful thing in the sense, like start using it, start leveraging that to figure out, okay, I'm trying to reach this person.

What would be the top five fears, top five pain points, top five challenges this person would be facing? So then you can kind of like cross-reference between the research you're doing on YouTube and then also the research that you're doing on your own with using AI. And also what you're not looking for is you're not looking for videos that have a ton of views.

Yes, that comes into play, but we are more so looking for is you're looking for videos that have on channels that have maybe a smaller subscriber base than they have views. So let's say they have 100 subscribers, but they've got 3000 views on a video. That's telling that there's demand and it's being picked up through those traffic sources. So that's a good indicator that there are people seeking out this solution, this answer, etc. When we're looking at these videos.

Are we simply looking at the titles and the thumbnails and the view count or are we watching the videos? You're watching the video. So that's a big thing. This is this sounds really simple, but it is such a key to success. Watch the top two videos that show up for each search results or search topic that you're typing in and see what they're missing. See how your own experience works.

could inform making this even better. And again, sounds incredibly simple, but it works really, really well, especially if some of the videos that are ranking up top are a little bit older. There's opportunity for fresh content and YouTube loves fresh content. If you can make a video that's maybe a little more up to date, a little more robust, a little more detailed without fluff or filler, it's probably going to be weighted better inside of the algorithm.

If you're feeling lost in a changing world, come to a place where everyone knows your pain. Navigating disruption is easier when you're surrounded by peers facing similar challenges.

That's why we designed Social Media Marketing World to help you make meaningful connections with themed networking spaces, interactive workshops, and tons of attendee-led meetups. Maddie Young says, this was my very first time at Social Media Marketing World. It exceeded every expectation I had. The value of the sessions and networking experiences cannot be overstated.

Don't go it alone. Join marketers just like you navigating a rapidly changing world. Grab your tickets today at socialmediamarketingworld.info.

Okay, so let's say we've done what you're suggesting. We've used ChatGPT to come up with some insights. Maybe we've added some of our own insights because we know our customer relatively well. We've looked at what's showing up in YouTube search. We've watched a couple of the videos. We're noting what we like and what we don't like or what we can uniquely provide value in a different perspective from our experiences or whatever. Once we have all that, you mentioned multiple times, I think starting with eight videos and you recommended that like,

I don't know, six of them should be bottom of funnel and two of them should be top of funnel. Like, like how do we decide what those eight videos ought to be about once we've done this research? Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense. Another thing is fun to add when you're looking at the videos and watching them go into the comment section. That is an absolute gold mine, especially if it is an older video, take a look and see what people are saying is missing from the video or they wish that the person had talked about. Ah, I love that. That's a really good indicator as well.

This is the reality of those eight videos. And again, this could be if you have a existing channel or if you're starting from scratch, you're still trying to feed the algorithm with the right information and kind of like redirect the channel on the right path. So to decide which ones you put first, et cetera, it's not so much about that. It's looking at it as, okay, this is my test phase of my YouTube channel because you can do all this work and you can do all this research and it is vitally important, right?

But you don't know how things are going to perform until you actually publish them. So do the research, do the work to create relevant content for that ideal viewer, but then get it up and out there on YouTube. Post one video a week or bi-weekly, whatever works best for you. But it's

quality over quantity. So a big mistake people make is they're often like, let me just publish everything at once. No, because then you're diversifying attention and diversifying views. And how YouTube works is that they want to see the most amount of positive signals on that video within the first 24 to 40 hours. And when I say signals, I mean, likes, comments, subscribes, shares, et cetera. And so you want to put all your efforts into that video when you publish it. So

You then go ahead and publish those eight videos. And every week you're looking at the data. What's the CTR? What's the retention? What's the qualitative feedback? What are the comments looking like? Who's the audience that's watching these videos? You can actually see in the back end on the demographics. What's the age range?

Where are they living? Gender, et cetera. There's so many things that you could dial into to go, yeah, I'm hitting the mark. And a really big clue on the back end when you start looking at the data is you can actually see it tells you these are similar channels to yours. And if you're seeing similar channels to yours that they're categorizing you with that are way off base, we've got a problem. You're not

creating relevant content for that ideal viewer. And YouTube is confused on how to categorize the channel. So that's a really big clue as to whether or not you're on the right path. But if you follow this methodology, you're going to start to see the suggested channels and the channels that are similar to you are going to be very much aligned with the audience you're trying to

Thank you for that little side path, because I feel like that was really important. We talked a little bit about when we were prepping for this about really zooming in on the problems and challenges and pains and questions that people have at the bottom of the funnel. Can you talk just for a little bit about that, just in case people don't understand what kind of content is ideal for the bottom of the funnel? Yeah. I mean, the easiest way to think about it is like, what's keeping your ideal client up at night? What

What are their pain points? What are the challenges that they're facing day to day? What are they hearing out there that could be contradictory to what you're trying to share? What are some of the FAQs that you're asked? That's a really good clue and indicator is if you're good at what you do or you have a specific service or product, you're probably getting asked about it on a daily basis or you may even have an FAQ part of your website, etc.,

Those are all potential video topics. So FAQs, what you find people come to you the most for in terms of guidance, advice, mentorship, et cetera. Those are also really great clues. But the big thing is we really want to zone in on what are they challenged with on a day-to-day basis? What's keeping them up at night? What are their fears? What are their pain points? The more that we can focus on creating content to solve those problems, the hotter leads we're going to ultimately attract.

Perfect. Okay, good. Love that. And all the marketers listening understand that intimately. So thank you for explaining that. All right, back to titles. So you said they should be 60 characters. You said they should have...

A title that somehow signals to that ideal audience that it's for them. Do you have any other titling suggestions or tip ideas? I think the biggest thing is, especially with that bottom of the funnel content, remember that if you can't read the title and know exactly who it's for and what situation that person is in, we need to do work on it. So those are the two pieces that that title should really address. And do you have any recommendations on like, what do you use to come up with good titles?

Because not everybody knows how to write titles, you know? Yeah. Oh, totally. I think, well, so we have sort of a methodology that we share with like examples of what works best for sort of each content level. And that's a whole thing. But I would say simplicity wins. I think oftentimes people will try and get sort of creative and artsy. Clarity is key and simplicity wins. So you almost want to make it as simple as how to help

ideal viewer go from X to X or how to help ideal viewer solve X problem and like fill in the blanks. That's how simple you want to make them. I love that. And I have another podcast called AI explored, and I've had a lot of different people on that are copywriters. And you could go into chat GPT and explain, here's who your ideal audience is.

and you could say, give me 10 variations of this headline. Let's say you write one and you can tell us it's not quite where you want it. You can ask ChatGPT to give you 10 variations and then you can maybe pick a little bit from variation two and a little bit from variation four and combine it together. And all of a sudden you've got a slightly better title. What's your view about changing titles once you publish the video? Not a huge fan of it. Thumbnails.

On YouTube, it's incredible. They have a feature where you can test three thumbnails at a time. So like do that all day long because that is so helpful and make the thumbnail options as different as you can. So I was going to just talk about thumbnails quickly. I'll just reference that. Yeah, go for it. That's the most important feature I would say on YouTube is like...

variations, the three different variations of your thumbnails, make them pretty different so that it's very easy to see which one is standing out. And then you want to run a thumbnail test so you can upload three thumbnails when you upload the video and it'll run all three at once. And you'll be able to see this one has a 40% click-through rate. This one has

20%. And they'll be very clear to you which ones you want to kind of remove and which one you want to go with. So that's great. And I assume at some point, I don't want to make assumptions, but I assume at some point they'll do the same thing with titles. Real quick, just to add clarification, the YouTube split test tool doesn't tell you click-through rate. It tells you retention rate. Yes. Sorry. That's important because YouTube only tracks that with their split test tool because it's the metric that they're telling us matters the most.

Yeah. And frankly, it's probably the metric we as marketers should care about the most because above all else, if people are retaining 60 percent through on one video and 40 percent on another just from the thumbnail. Well, you want the 60 percent. That means they're listening to more of your video, right? A hundred percent. Yeah. Retention for me is the ultimate KPI, because ultimately, even if somebody is clicking on the video, but they're not watching it, well, what's the point? Yeah.

So, yeah, it's it's very, very important. Any tips on creating thumbnails? Because that's a big challenge for a lot of people. Yes. So my biggest tip on creating thumbnails is you want to think about it from the perspective of if somebody doesn't know the title of the video and they don't know you or your channel, if they just saw that thumbnail, would they know the benefit of watching your video?

So it should be visually representative of what they're going to get from watching the video. What's the outcome that you're going to provide to them? I also like to say like text is really a crucial aspect of thumbnails and sometimes you don't even need it, but if you're going to use it, it cannot be small.

And you maybe want to max out at four words on your thumbnails because if you think about mobile viewing and the amount of people that are watching on their mobile device. Yeah, they're going to see the thumbnail before they see the title, right? Exactly. And they're not going to be able to make it out if your text is super, super small. You don't want a bunch of different images. Clean and simple. It's very similar to the titles. Clean and simple is really important. Okay. So...

We've talked a lot about thumbnails and titles. We've talked about how to come up with ideas and topics. Let's talk about scripting the actual video itself, because I know there's a lot to that, right? Yeah, absolutely. So we created something called the Hot Script Formula years and years and years ago, and it's really stood the test of time. And I think a big opportunity with the way that we formulate scripts is that it's built for conversion. So yes, it's built for retention, but it's also built for conversion. And

Like I said, a lot of times people just create their YouTube content and they're like, well, nothing's happening from it. And oftentimes I'll watch their video and they have no call to action. So this is really simple, but it really depends on that first minute being dialed for you to get high retention on the video. So oftentimes people will use that first minute to kind of just talk and talk and talk before they get into the meat of what's actually going to help that viewer. And they treat YouTube as if their friends are watching.

The goal of YouTube is that people who don't know you are watching your videos. They are discovering you and they're consuming your content. But imagine if somebody doesn't know you, they're in desperate need of help. They click on your video because they think they're going to get help. And then they watch you ramble on for four minutes before you get to anything good. They're clicking off. They're finding somebody else. So make the video for somebody who doesn't know you and actually needs your help. So that first minute, you want to make sure that you do hook outcome testimonial. That's what HOT stands for. So

hook them by giving them a benefit of the video and kind of teasing what they're going to get out of it. The outcome is assuring them because people have trust issues with content creators, assuring them that they're going to get what they need out of your video, that they're in the right place. If they're there to learn about how to train their aggressive dog, you need to say in the first minute, I'm going to show you exactly how to train your aggressive dog.

And then testimonial is why should they listen to you? So if you have a physical product or a service or whatever, you can say I'm the founder of X company or I've helped X amount of people do this, whatever it may be. And then from there, your first call to action. So before you even get into the meat of the video, you want to say, by the way, this is what I do and I'd love to help you or I have a product or a service or whatever that could help you. Click the link below to book a discovery call, buy the product, sign up for the email list, whatever it may be. But that call to action needs to be front and center up top.

Oh, okay. So let's talk about this a little bit. We want to dive in on this a lot, actually. So a lot of people understand the hook and the outcome, right? A lot of people understand that you've got to say right out of the gate,

This is what this video is all about and maybe even who it's for. Right. And after you're done watching this, you will learn, for example, a strategy to generate more leads with YouTube. I tried to do that at the beginning, but the testimonial is kind of an interesting thing that I don't think a lot of people do right in the first minute. And.

I want to like just dial that in a little bit, right? Because that's so counterintuitive. Are you quite literally going to say, I help people do this or are you going to let some text on the screen do that? How in the world did they get that into the first minute without sounding like totally selfish, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So,

I think the biggest thing is that it needs to come from a place of service and value as opposed to a place of like, look at how great I am at what I do. So oftentimes using an actual testimonial of somebody you've worked with is a great way to do it. So you can say if it's, for example, helping somebody train their aggressive dog, you could pull that person up on screen, show the picture of them and their dog. This is Josie and Macy and Macy used to attack their kids. And now Macy is a great dog. I love it. It's a story now. It's a story.

Yeah. So ideally it's a story and it could be your story. If you're the person that's like the test guinea pig, or it could be a client that you've actually worked with. I love that because you could say, Hey, I know what it's like because I used to have an aggressive dog and her name was whatever. And I've been able to turn it around. You know what I mean? And that that's like just establishing some reputation. But the other part that you mentioned that totally made me like, brrp.

stop is like the call to action is in the beginning. Like, what? Talk to me about that, because that is so counterintuitive for so many of us, right? It's so counterintuitive, but you have to think about retention. So we've actually done a lot of tests on this. And with my content, we've tested doing just a call to action in the end, just a call to action in the middle, just a call to action at the beginning.

And it makes absolutely no difference. And we found that actually doing three calls to action in a video makes no difference to retention, but it makes all the difference in terms of lead generation. So that sounds like a lot, but it makes sense when you understand how you're incorporating them. So in the beginning, you kind of, let's, for example, say that you gave a testimonial. So you said, Hey, Macy helped like assure her dog wasn't attacking her kids anymore. If you have an aggressive dog at home, I'd love to be able to help you. And actually you can speak to me directly. There's a link below to book a call.

or I have this amazing dog leash that solves this in a minute. So make sure you go check it out at the link below. Okay, let's get into the video. - Okay, wait, let's talk about what you're doing psychologically there. Like what's the reason why we're doing that so early? Well, actually, let me just share with you what I think is going on and you tell me if I'm right or wrong. - Okay. - What I think is going on here is you are establishing some reputation actually by sharing your call to action. The fact that you have a book or a course or you offer a service

actually establishes a little bit that you're just not some random person who's made a video, right? And the second thing is you're planting a little seed that might grow throughout their watching the video. That's my take. Is that, tell me more. I mean, am I close? You're very close. In addition to, I think something that needs to be talked about is when I started on YouTube, you know, 10 years ago, there was like,

two people, I think, talking about how social media could benefit your business. That's shocking. Today, it's like every Tom, Dick, and Harry is talking about the latest Instagram update. There's like 5,000 videos on the topic the minute the update comes out. So supply and demand is in a really strange spot right now.

and people are exhausted and they don't know who to trust and that we're just overwhelmed with information so your job is to position yourself as an authority and somebody people can actually trust right off the bat because people don't want to have to click around to a bajillion different videos and here's the reality too i've been doing this a long time you can provide incredible information and help and guidance on youtube in your youtube videos

Real transformation and results comes through an actual blueprint, a program, your services, your product, et cetera. And if people are on YouTube, as I mentioned, with the intent to solve that problem, to answer that question, they just want to cut to the chase. So if you actually have something that's going to help them, why wouldn't you mention it right off the bat?

So yes, it's credibility immediately that you're not just some random person making a YouTube video about this topic, but you actually know what you're talking about so they can stop searching endlessly for the answer. And oh my gosh, you actually have something you can offer them that's going to help them. Amazing. Okay. I want to talk about how we evolved the call to action in the three different locations. In the first location, it's a very simple story. It sounds like we're telling either about ourself or a client or something and letting people know that there's something more. Wow.

What about in the middle? And what about the end? Is it just repeating it or are we evolving that call to action? You're somewhat evolving it. So the middle call to action, I would say, is the most important. And when I say middle, that is an arbitrary term for it, because what you really want to do, especially after you do those first aid test videos, is you do want to see what's the average retention rate. And let's say it's like, because technically a 40% retention rate on YouTube is amazing. So it's

If you can have a retention rate around that number, then you kind of know, okay, on average, people are watching my videos for X amount of time. I need to actually make sure that my second call to action is a little further up than the halfway mark. So you actually want to incorporate it maybe after your first step or your second step in your video. Let's say you're doing a tutorial, but that middle call to action is so important because

It needs to be woven in in a way that doesn't affect retention. So I'm trying to think of an example I can share with you here. So for example, it could be something like, let's talk about the marriage situation. So maybe step one is learning how to have a healthy argument. And

At the end of that, you can say, and the next step is incredibly crucial, which is knowing the right terms and verbiage to use when you're in an argument to not escalate things. I'm going to get into that in just a second. But if you're really serious about actually getting help with this, I'd love to speak with you. Or I've created an entire...

ebook on this topic that's going to help you use the right verbiage and terminology. So let's dig into that next step. But before I do, make sure you go and download that. So it's woven in a way where it's complimentary and it's not abrupt and it doesn't shift the viewer's attention. It actually enhances the viewer's experience. What I love about what you did there is you essentially teased about what you're going to talk about next before you quote unquote did the commercial.

Yeah, exactly. And you made sure that which opens it like a lever in their brain so that they'll stick around, but also is relevant to you contextualized a faster route. If you don't want to go to learn your own route, there's this other route, right? And then you go on to it. And what about the last call to action?

Is that typically at the end of the video or is that somewhere else? That's always at the end. So always at the end of the video, you kind of wrap up what you wanted to say. So there's usually two calls to action at the end. We call them the engagement and then conversion call to action. So conversion call to action comes first. So once you finish up sort of

the teaching or whatever you're sharing of value, solving this person's problem, then you're going to say, and like I said, this is the work that I do. I'd love to speak to you directly so I can support you on your path on the call. We'll be able to do X, Y, and Z, get benefits of actually getting on a call. If it's a call, that's the call to action. Or if it's

an ebook, give the benefits of downloading the ebook so that people can actually take it a step further. And you can actually say this out loud and be like, I know watching a YouTube video is helpful, but let's be real. You actually have to take action and do the work to get the result that you're looking for. So if you're serious about saving your marriage, I've created an ebook for you and you can download it below. And then you go into, and if you found this really helpful, I've actually created another video

on a similar topic and you want to name what the video is, have it pop up in an end screen and keep them watching your content. So that's kind of your engagement call to action at the end. What's cool about this is this doesn't just apply to people that do services. This also would apply to e-commerce. If you're teaching people how to plant and you have planter kits or whatever for plants or something, you know, I would imagine you could say, here's how you could do it on your own or whatever. And by the way, if you want, we've got this cool kit. I mean, is there any area where this doesn't work?

I mean, it works B2B, B2C service products, the whole shebang, right? Yeah, it does. I mean, that's why it's also stood the test of time. Like we've been teaching this for almost 10 years now. So it's just very simple and simplicity wins, like I said. And I think the biggest thing to remember is that it's very easy on YouTube to just focus on teach, teach, teach, value, value, value, but

it's important to reframe it in your head that you're not providing a call to action because you're greedy or you want all the sales. It's because you actually can help people at a much deeper level by giving them somewhere to go. Because the reality is if somebody finds your video on YouTube, they're so overwhelmed with information that if you don't tell them, hey, you can go here and let's say become part of your email list, they're going to forget about you.

And then that person who needs your help is going to be back on the same cycle of being in that same issue or problem or facing that same challenge. So you're actually doing them a service by providing them with a next step and a clear path so they don't have to stay in that cycle of trying to find the solution that they're looking for. Okay, let's say we've done these eight videos.

what are we looking for after the eight videos to maybe help us do our next eight videos, if you will? You're really going to look at the analytics. So you're going to look at the analytics of those first eight videos. You're going to look at what had the highest CTR in terms of those different traffic sources and then also what had the highest retention. But more importantly than that, you're also going to pay close, close attention to the qualitative analytics. So what are people saying about the videos? What are some of the comments? Are there further questions on some of the videos? And probably one of the biggest questions

in terms of creating content is looking at your actual retention graph.

in the back end of the analytics, because you can actually see little peaks and valleys where people have rewound and watched again, because maybe they didn't understand the concept or it was something that really hit home. Those are big clues to create similar content that you know your audience is interested in and make more videos on those topics. So really your analytics are your best friend when it comes to content creation. And once you have those first videos out, you're going to know what's resonating most. And so you're going to know the path forward for the next videos you need to make.

Well, and something else about those bumps, you want to look at the source of your traffic too, because sometimes Google will show those videos in search and they'll go right to the middle of your video. They'll bypass everything and just show that little clip. You know what I mean? And you'll see this crazy bump right there, which doesn't make any sense, but that usually explains that Google has decided they're going to use it. Oh, totally. In a way that's not necessarily bad for you because they're showing you off right there at the top of the Google search, right? Have you ever had that happen before? I have.

for sure. And it is a little confusing when you first start to look at it, but even if the bump is not like a huge spike, paying just close attention to where that's kind of happening in the video is important because there are extra content topics to be created around those areas. And also in your retention graph as well, look at your intros, like how much are people dropping it off in the first minute and how could you maybe tighten them up as well?

Sonny, this has been a really fascinating discussion that hopefully opened a lot of people's eyes and simplified

a very achievable strategy that they can employ to get started with YouTube videos. If people want to connect with you on the socials, what's your preferred platform? And if they want to learn more about the services you have to offer, where do you want to send them? So first and foremost, go to my YouTube channel. It's just a wealth of information and support. So you can go to Sunny Leonard, easy on YouTube, and then you can go to workwithsunny.com. And that's where you can find our free masterclass and how we kind of bring this all together.

And Sunny is spelled S-U-N-N-Y, just in case anybody's listening to this, because there's a whole different bunch of different ways people spell Sunny. It's spelled the way you would think it'd be spelled. Sunny Lenarduzzi, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your insights with us today. Thank you. Thanks for having me. It was a blast.

Hey, if you missed anything, we took all the notes for you over at socialmediaexaminer.com slash 637. If you're new to the show, be sure to follow us. If you've been listening for a little while and you like the show, would you let your friends know about it? If you want, you can tag me at Stelzner on Facebook, at Stelzner on LinkedIn, at Mike underscore Stelzner on X. And do check out our other shows, the AI Explored podcast, which has been a fun journey for me, and the Social Media Marketing Talk Show.

This brings us to the end of the Social Media Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may your marketing keep evolving. The Social Media Marketing Podcast is a production of Social Media Examiner. Make 2025 your best year ever. Grab your discount tickets to Social Media Marketing World right now by visiting socialmediamarketingworld.info.