Video? As in one video? Well, there you have it.
I get this question from time to time from disgruntled internet marketers that aren’t having much luck with YouTube. A lot of them are making the same mistakes that I made when I first started out.
Treat Video Production Like an Assembly Line
That’s the only analogy I can think of that demonstrates the mindset you need to have when scraping/creating (whichever route you prefer) videos. First of all, each video is just another piece of the empire you’re trying to build on YouTube. The only way to actually make decent money with YouTube marketing is with VOLUME. The guys that have hundreds if not thousands of dating-themed videos up with proper keywords are making a nice chunk of change. That is, the ones that have managed to get them to stick without them getting flagged.
I used to get way too caught up in making “perfect” videos. In the long run, however, nobody cares about the audio quality or the font you used in the watermark (okay, the font matters a teeny bit, but not enough to waste 30 minutes searching font sites. Oh wait, there is a fonts.com advertisement over there…um…I take it back).
My bread and butter is dating. Not in real life, because my girlfriend is so closed-minded, but in the affiliate marketing sense. That’s the only thing I really consistently promote on YouTube, mixed in with a little ringtone action and then random things here and there. So, the production value to actual $$$ value ratio might be debatable for some people who are promoting different niches, but in the case of dating, there are only two key factors: 1)How hot the girl in the video is, and 2)visibility/memorability of your link. That’s it and that’s all.
Now let’s critique a random video of this nature that I found on YouTube earlier. Hopefully it hasn’t been removed by the time you come upon this post. Now, this is all in the name of constructive criticism. I have no idea who uploaded this video and I hope they wouldn’t mind a little free promotion in this context.
On the plus side, the content is great. Very suggestive, and has a great thumbnail (thumbnail is used from the 1:03 mark, where it looks like she’s about to remove her top). Best of all, it has managed to accumulate over 30,000 views without being flagged as “may not be suitable for minors”, despite the suggestiveness of the video.
My only real gripe with this video is the watermark. Terrible choice of color, as it blends in with a lot of the video and makes it difficult to read. However, it could very well be that this video was watermarked as part of an automated process, so all videos had to be watermarked the same in the name of efficiency. I suppose we’ll never know…but if you can, ALWAYS try to ensure that the watermark will be clear! It’s also a little longer than I would have made it, but that’s not really a big deal. I just prefer uploading smaller files, really. It gives you time to create MORE videos!
Of course, you don’t have to go by my book. You don’t have to go buy my book either, because it’s free! Just like you’re free to use your noggin to come up with your own marketing ideas. That’s the beauty of advertising on YouTube. There is a lot of creative freedom and room to try out different ideas. Right now there are hundreds of ideas that you or I or anyone else have yet to come up with that would potentially make huge money on YouTube.
On that note, I think I’m going to go meditate on that…
