Each second of this video costs Slidebean around $2.5.
That's $10 just now. Around $150 per minute and around $1,200 for our average video length
of 8 minutes.
We are cautious with our marketing budget.
Every campaign we do is tracked and monitored to find out if the money we spent is recovered:
ROI.
We started this Youtube channel years ago, but it was only about 12 months ago when we found
positive unit economics.
In this special edition video, we are going to break down how we make these videos, how
much they cost, and why these numbers work for us.
This is the ROI of content marketing on YouTube.
So, each video begins with a script.
I write most of the scripts, which takes me about a couple of hours.
While the script itself only takes about 2 hours to write, I couldn't write four scripts
in one day.
My brain doesn't work like that.
I normally spend a week cooking up ideas and then just sit down and write them.
So once the script is ready, we shoot it.
This is our studio, which we built ourselves when we remodeled our office.
We've been upgrading our gear: our teleprompter and our lights as the channel has progressed.
I handle the shooting.
Each shoot takes about 1 hour for setup, lights, and around 30 minutes with Caya.
This video then goes to the editing room- which is not a room at all, just me and my
laptop and Final Cut Pro.
I cut out bloopers and radio silence, and then define the timing of the videos, as well
as the camera positioning to keep you entertained.
These cuts are a bit of a formula that we know works to keep audiences through 8 minutes
of Caya speaking.
So once the video is cut and ready, it goes to Elena. Elena is our digital animator and the only
team member who dedicates 100% of their time to the Youtube channel.
I originally studied digital animation, so this is what I was planning on doing for a
living before becoming an entrepreneur.
It was a really cool experience for me to hire one of my peers for the first time.
Anyway, Elena gets rid of the green screen, color corrects and grades the video, and comes
up with all the animations.
All this process is done in Adobe After Effects, and it's not a template or an automated platform.
She actually comes up with the designs and animates them in sync with the script.
Paula regularly delivers the cut video on Fridays and Ele delivers a fully animated
video by Wednesday afternoon.
We believe this is the third part of the secret sauce.
First, transparent content: we are open to sharing genuine insights and numbers from
our company.
Second, production value: we shoot in 4K in a proper studio, and hopefully, you can tell
the difference.
Third, animation.
Slidebean is, after all, a design company.
We pride ourselves in helping you present your ideas, and we wouldn't be sending the
right message if we didn't have great visuals to go with our content.
With an edited video, the rest of the team takes over to do the subtitles and Youtube
optimization: tags, description, thumbnails, subscribe button...
This process happens Wednesday night or Thursday morning typically, and the video goes live
as soon as we are done.
90% of these costs are people: a total of $4,915/mo between everyone's hours.
I'm also including our overhead: office, desk, and admin costs for hosting the team.
Now- why do we do it?
Do we actually get $5,000+ back from Youtube?
We do.
As of today, the channel gets ~4,000 views per day, which makes up to around $300 worth of
Youtube advertising.
Which is, of course, not how we make money.
We make money because people watch our videos and try our platform- or they hire our new
pitch deck writing service.
More importantly, this is a growing audience: each new video adds more views, more subscribers
and more exposure, but the old videos still get views and probably will continue bringing
in viewers in the years to come.
There's also an intangible value of brand awareness.
We hope that by watching this content, you get to know our brand, who we are, and even
share this content with your peers.
I'm no celebrity, but people are starting to recognize me as the face of the brand,
to consider us a relevant source of startup content: which goes a long way!
It opens doors to meetings, partnerships, not to mention a positive impact on the community
as a whole.
On a related and very commercial note- I started a personal Youtube channel, where I go into
other 'entrepreneur life' stuff beyond the startup topics we discuss here- go ahead and
take a look if you think it's interesting.
Finally, the next evolution of this channel is going to bring in a few guests.
Vini, one of my co-founders, will be hosting a new series on graphic design and product management, and we are
working with a few relevant personalities for some guest videos.
I've been meaning t to write this script and break our own rules.
We wanted to give you a 'behind the scenes' look into our process and the reason why we
do this.
Once again, if you want to try Slidebean out, you can get 3 free months on any of our plans.
If you want me to help out with the writing of your pitch deck, go to slidebean.com/pitch-deck
for more info.
Thanks a lot for watching and we'll see you next week.