- The idea, "I want to be a YouTuber"
is becoming more popular than ever before.
With the growth of social media,
there's no denying that self-produced videos
have become a major form of entertainment and information.
However, what you see on YouTube
is only the tip of the iceberg.
There is so much more that goes into producing videos
and running the business side
so that you can actually make money
from the videos that you're creating
and turn this into a sustainable career.
I got a chance to sit down with Andy Franco.
He's a digital marketer who works with a ton of creators,
and he helps them build out digital marketing campaigns
for the products that they're selling.
So when it comes to becoming a full-time YouTuber,
there is so much that goes into
actually making this a sustainable business.
So I sat down with Andy to have a discussion
around diversifying your income,
and in this conversation, we go through some different ideas
that I think you guys should really think about,
and also we talk about Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Because when you have products or services to sell,
this time of year is essential for you
to really focus in on creating a digital marketing plan
so that you can get the most out of this time period.
Now before we jump into the conversation,
I just wanna mention that this is
a new format for my channel.
I haven't actually done a video in this style before,
so if you guys like this, as you're watching this,
I'd really appreciate it if you went down in the comments
and let me know your thoughts around this style of content.
This interview kind of format.
All right guys, so let's jump in
to the conversation with Andy.
So tell me why it would be important
that you build a business outside of YouTube.
- So a few years ago, or maybe,
I guess probably about 10 years ago,
there was a lot of businesses
that I was working directly with
who were 100% dependent on SEO, so organic traffic,
to actually drive revenue to their businesses.
They were solely focused on creating content,
and then ranking really well for search terms
that were relevant to their businesses.
And then what happened is that
Google rolled out algorithm changes,
which they do all the time, for YouTube, for everything.
- All the time.
And especially like right now,
there's a big things happening with kids' channels,
where they're basically pulling out all the ad revenue
for anyone on kids' channels.
And this could happen.
Doesn't matter what niche you're in,
it could happen.
- Yeah, and so what happened a few years back
is I literally had multiple clients
that were just focused on SEO.
And the Google algorithm changed overnight,
and their rankings disappeared.
And I literally watched multiple businesses
go out of business, because they didn't have
secondary or tertiary plans
on how to make up for the traffic
that was coming to their business,
that they were basically dependent
on a third-party website to drive.
So they had given all of their control to Google,
and once Google changed something, all of it was gone.
So they went out of business.
So what I try and work with clients on,
or teach, or help people understand,
is that you need to have diversified traffic strategies,
and you need to have diversified revenue strategies, right?
So if one traffic strategy this month
isn't doing as well, you have backups in place.
If one of your revenue channels for some reason
this month isn't doing as well,
you have other backups in place so that we're diverse,
just like a stock trader would do, right?
You don't put all your eggs in one basket.
You broaden out how many different places
you're generating traffic and generating revenue,
so that you don't get hit by things
that you can't control necessarily.
- So what are some things that you can do,
outside of say YouTube, but that your YouTube is promoting?
Personally, I do a lot of online courses.
So I have an online course
on how to build your YouTube channel,
I have one on how to sell stock footage,
I'm working on a big one on how to be a filmmaker
and just create videos, but what are some other things
that you can do to create products outside of your channel?
- Yeah, that's a great question.
So I think a lot of it depends on
what your areas of expertise are,
what do you wanna specialize in doing,
where you wanna help.
So there's, again, I think what a lotta people don't realize
is we are only ever limited by our own creativity, right?
So one of the things I recommend doing
is following people who are in your space,
who also are selling things or doing things online.
So there's affiliate sales you could do,
you can create digital products, digital courses,
you can provide services, so training, teaching, coaching,
but one of the primary things though,
or even physical products, again, not to backtrack.
But one of the primary things though,
is that you're getting people off of your social channels
and onto things that you control.
Meaning your own website, building your email list.
These are things that we need to
actively be doing and cultivating.
As great as it is to have a lotta followers
and a lot of engagement, on YouTube,
on Facebook, on Instagram, we need to get those people
off of those third-party channels
and onto either our websites,
so domain names that we control,
or onto our email list so that, again,
then I can reach out to you whenever I want.
I'm not dependent on YouTube, again,
for me putting up a new video.
I can send out an email.
So again, even diversifying
with ways we can reach our audiences, right?
So you create regular YouTube content, right?
But are you doing an email strategy?
Are you emailing your list on the regular?
Again, so are we reaching out to people
on as many different mediums as possible,
knowing that they're potentially in different places,
and we just have to make sure we get them at the right time.
- So for my channel specifically,
I have an email list that I've been growing,
and it's been just, I have a few freebies that I give away.
And I've talked about building an email list,
I'll put a link down below in the description,
to another video where I talk about
how I've built my email list.
But that email list not only is my place
where I can sell my products,
but I've also found that when I do a new video,
it's a great way to reach out to my audience.
Like you're saying,
it's a way to access your audience on a different level,
so you're not relying on YouTube,
you're not relying on Instagram,
you're not relying on Twitter,
you have your core audience.
Those are your people.
And when it comes to selling your products,
November, December is like
the Super Bowl of product selling.
Because you have Black Friday,
and then obviously Christmas and all of that.
But you've been specifically working with
a lotta people around this whole Black Friday holiday.
So you have a new product that just came out.
It's called Black Cyber Domination.
So can you explain why it's so important
to have your products in place,
and also why this time of the year is so important?
Because you were telling me earlier, off-camera,
that 30 to 40% of your revenue
can come from this one two-week period.
- Yeah, it's crazy.
And I think a lotta people don't fully grasp
just how massive of an opportunity
the month of November is.
If you're selling online, November is a gold nugget.
Because we have Black Friday, and we have Cyber Monday.
And this, actually in 2018, so Cyber Monday in 2018
was the first year ever where Cyber Monday
was bigger than Black Friday, right?
So basically, Black Friday to Cyber Monday,
the window is the day before Thanksgiving
through the Monday after Black Friday,
or after Thanksgiving, right?
So it's basically a five-day window.
But what's happening is, because this holiday window
is getting larger and larger and larger,
and every year is getting more and more popular,
it's starting earlier and earlier.
So people are running their sales and their promotions
earlier in the month, because one,
they don't wanna compete against everybody and their mom
with an offer, but plus, people's wallets are out.
I'm buying, I bought like, I furnished half of my apartment
last year, from Black Friday, Cyber Monday deals.
Because the best deals of the entire year
are during that period.
So people are buying for themselves,
they're buying for their family,
they're buying for their dog, they're buying for their cat,
they're buying for everybody.
So it's a massive opportunity to have,
to put great offers out, knowing that people
are spending money and are in that mentality.
They're in that mindset of spending money.
But like you mentioned a minute ago,
I have clients, in the last few years,
who've generated between 30 and 40% of their yearly revenue
literally within the two-week period during November.
During Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
The opportunity is that big.
The problem is, is there's kind of two issues, right?
One is, most people and most businesses
wait until the very last minute
to then put together their offer, their deal,
whatever they're gonna do for their promotion,
and then they're scrambling, right?
So then they do basically a half-hatted job
of actually maximizing this massive opportunity.
The second thing is that they don't do it at all, right?
There's plenty of people who don't even offer anything,
thinking that they can't even,
like it isn't relevant to them, right?
Or it doesn't apply to them.
Look, if you sell business to consumer,
if you sell to other consumers online,
you should be running some sort of offer or deal.
There's no, literally, there's so much opportunity.
- So for YouTubers specifically,
if you're selling merchandise,
or if you have online products like a course,
or some other thing that you have created
that's not dependent on an affiliate sale.
Because you have to discount your products,
and you have to create some sort of promotion.
And that's what you talk about in your course.
But this is specifically why
you need to create your own products,
because you can take advantage of these opportunities.
- Yeah, I'll give you an example.
Like again, when I was saying before,
you're only limited by your creativity,
like say I'm, for example, a YouTuber,
and I have a fairly large following, right?
Like I can create a service
where I'm doing YouTube audits, right?
And I could charge, I could create something,
even if I have nothing to sell,
I can literally create an offer, a Black Friday offer,
I'm gonna do an audit for your channel,
and I'm gonna help put together a strategy for your channel.
Again, you can do anything you want, right?
Or I'm gonna create a video for you, a promo video.
I don't know.
It really depends, again, on what you're willing to do.
You just gotta do it, right?
And that's the tricky part.
- Yeah, I mean you just have to get out there and do it.
And it's like anything when it comes to YouTube,
you just have to do it.
And you're gonna fail sometimes,
but that's okay, and the good thing is,
we have Andy, who's created a step-by-step guide
on how to do this.
- Yeah, so the course, I'll just give you
a quick rundown on the course.
The course is called Black Cyber Domination.
And I created it, I've been thinking about
creating this the last few years.
I run a digital Facebook and Instagram agency.
And every year around this time, I get bombarded.
It is so busy.
One, because there's so much client work,
who come in, and who wanna run deals and promos,
then on the backend, it's so many people
who wait till the last minute,
and then me as the agency owner
is scrambling trying to put together campaigns
or strategies for all these different businesses.
And it's a huge amount of work, right?
Most vendors, or most people,
are just trying to get ready for the holiday,
as opposed to figuring out how to maximize the holiday.
So what I did is I basically created a digital course
on how to create your strategy, how to create an offer,
how to create a calendar, how to set budgets.
Then I created how to do lead gen.
A whole system on how to do lead gen.
How to actually pull people into your funnel,
into your sales funnel, to start marketing to them
before it gets really expensive.
'Cause as we get closer and closer
to Black Friday and Cyber Monday,
more and more advertisers are out there,
and it gets really expensive.
So I also created a library of both video ads and image ads
that are all Black Friday, Cyber Monday related,
as well as created pre-built, customizable email templates
for different verticals.
For e-commerce, for health and fitness, for coaches,
that are literally plug and play.
So you can add things,
and you have all of your email sequences done.
You have all your ads done,
and put it together in one program
to literally help people minimize then heavy lifting
or the excuses not to do it.
'Cause that's the biggest issue.
- Like I said earlier,
the key to finding success on this platform
is by building out an entire business
around everything you're doing.
You need to diversify your income,
so that no matter what happens,
you can make this sustainable over time.
Now if you have products or services ready to go,
I highly suggest checking out Andy's course,
it's down in the description,
and there's a discount code for you guys.
Also, Andy's put together a free checklist for you,
so you can go through the things you need to think about
when it comes to Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
Now, if you haven't created your products yet,
this is a good time to start thinking about
what products or services that you can create
from what you're already doing on your channel.
And start making a plan, so that this time next year,
you'll have those products and services ready to go,
so that you can really take advantage of
this Black Friday and Cyber Monday time period.
All right guys, if you have any questions at all,
please put them down in the comments down below.
And like I said, I'd love to know
if you guys like this format,
if you wanna see more videos in this interview style.
And guys, that's it.
I'll see you on the next one.