Sean Cannell (0:00)

Hey, before we jump into the show, I wanted to give you a heads up that my free YouTube strategy class is available right now on demand@thinkmasterclass.com on the class, I reveal the one YouTube strategy we use at Think Media to generate over 330,000 views every single day. So if you're new to YouTube, this will help you start right and avoid mistakes. And if you're a YouTube pro, this training will help you multiply your your growth. This class is 100% free and you can watch it now on demand@thinkmasterclass.com now let's jump into today's show. Most people think that the only way to win on YouTube is to chase millions of views. But here's the uncomfortable truth. Some of the highest paid individuals on YouTube aren't chasing views at all. They're using a completely different strategy. One that is invisible to most, but incredibly effective if you know how to use it. I've built a multimillion dollar business on YouTube not by going viral, but by understanding buyer psychology, how to create strategic content and tapping into a little known framework that gets results consistently. And so today's episode of the Think Media podcast, you're actually about to get access to an exclusive session from our in person YouTube mastermind that happens a few times a year in Las Vegas. This is some advanced level stuff and we're going to be covering why you don't need more views, you just need the right views. The hidden YouTube SEO strategy that most creators ignore, and the five step framework that I discovered in an out of print marketing book that could actually unlock the next piece that you've been missing. Now today's video is brought to you by viral video coach.com if you're ready to turn your YouTube channel into a lead generating machine for your business, then go to viralvideocoach.com or click the link in the show notes to connect with one of our team members here at Think Media. All right, buckle up and let's get into today's session. The biggest opportunity in YouTube SEO and that is high purchase intent keywords that rank and convert. In my opinion, the biggest opportunity in YouTube SEO is high purchase intent keywords that rank and convert. And generally we're going to have kind of a broader conversation and share. I think one of the most powerful marketing frameworks that will help all of us in this room make better content but ultimately scale our businesses at a high level that most people have never heard. That comes from like an out of print book from one of the legendary copywriters so we're talking about this views, leads, sales framework. And one of the big opportunities when it comes to the videos we create is high purchase intent topics. And so I have a couple Mastermind members here, shout out to living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Good to see you guys. And I think when you think about what do I mean by these keywords. Well, this would be a high purchase intent video on their channel. You know, one, this video is a 27x outlier on their channel, came out a couple years ago, but it says, what does $600,000 get you in Lakeville, Minnesota? So think about the intent of the person that would click on this video. Now, it might be entertainment. They might be like, well, I've got 60 bucks in the bank, but I'm just curious, anybody ever done that? You're on Zillow looking at houses like way Beyond. You're like 27 million in Newport beach isn't too bad. You know, I'll be there soon. And so what does 600,000. But the person, the majority of someone shopping for that, that's their budget, right? Maybe their loan officer told them that that's how much money they have. So better than maybe generic advice is this idea of like, that's high purchase intent. It's a high purchase intent topic. But they probably have the financial readiness to get that. You know, Mike, I was thinking about your channel in a strategic video topic. And so what happens in Vegas? Mike taking action last night. And I was thinking about, okay, for your channel, what would be a high purchase intent? Meaning somebody wants to spend money. Like the reason they're watching the video is they have a credit card in hand and they want to spend money would be best hotel deals in Las Vegas. And some of these videos here got almost a million views. But you start thinking about, okay, if I'm looking for best hotel deals, I actually want you to sell me something. I want to buy a hotel and I'm looking for the best deals on it. And so if you can lead me to that. And you know, I type this in just to the YouTube search bar. You know, we get the predictions. I understand that these might not be our niches, but I typed in best online course for and the top recommendation is real estate license, software engineering, cybersecurity, digital marketing, Python. Like this is not a question of whether or not like, you know, watch a video and I actually have an online course and then maybe sometime later, will you buy it? They're like, they want to buy a course. Like, they're already at the place in the conversation of wanting to make a purchase. And so when I think about YouTube SEO 2025, you know, so many different things you could do. But I love this idea of high intent search. And because you're going to get higher conversions, thinking about what that means for you, not all the videos you create. And I know for some of us in the room this might be kind of a stretch because we do less, you know, search based or education. But if the intent is super high can lead to higher conversions. There's less competition, so faster rankings. SEO is a hidden growth engine. The thing with SEO though is a lot of creators lack patience because these types of videos will probably be 10 out of 10. Like you're worst performing oftentimes because they're very specific. They don't give you a dopamine hit, but they can sit there and remember, views lead sales. It's not about getting the most views, it's about getting the right views. So if I just get a few of the right views, then that's no, like actually I don't even want to give you, I don't want your freemium. I want to just buy the thing like I'm ready for the hotel, like I'm ready for the house, like I'm looking to do business. And intent beats views for sales and this and then six Know your audience awareness level for higher conversions so this brings us to one of my favorite frameworks for content for marketing. And it's, it's based off number six. Here you want to know your audience's awareness level for higher conversions. And here it is, it's called the five stages of awareness. So you have the opportunity and I have the opportunity to create content, create marketing, create social media content. Email follow ups Speaking to the five stages of awareness. Most entrepreneurs and creators actually are unaware of these levels of awareness and struggle as a result. So let's actually, let's go through them. So unaware. At the unaware stage, the individual is not aware of their desire or their need to solve the problem or they won't honestly admit it. At the unaware stage, they're definitely unaware. So crazy far back, it's sort of like maybe you've got relationship problems but you kind of don't even know why and you're in denial. And so you can't even face the fact that you've got the problems. But what you know is you're unhappy at the unaware. You know, you're frustrated, you know the pain is increasing, but you're not really aware of what the desire Is. Or the need to solve the problem. Because I found like one of the most effective strategies in relationships, at least personally, is blame. I think that when blaming others has been one of the most helpful things in my life personally and taking no personal responsibility. And so if I'm unhappy, if I can just project blame on others, so of course it's everybody else's fault. But maybe if you could reach me in a YouTube video, maybe you start to shine a light and I start to have an epiphany that, oh, relationships are a two way street. And it's not just, yeah, maybe it is, I have something to do with this. But unaware is kind of a precarious stage. This is a stage of opportunity. It's like, okay, how broad appeal could we create content that could reach people here if they're at that stage? Okay, problem aware. They know they have a problem to solve, but they aren't aware of any specific solutions. That's the light bulb moment when you're like, oh, as a spouse, I have a problem to solve. My spouse, no, I have a problem to solve. My trauma from my childhood. Oh, childhood trauma is a thing. So you're aware of the problem, but you're also at that point. That's a great epiphany to have. Now you know you have a problem, but you're maybe not sure of solutions. If we stick with therapy and relationships, you start thinking about, oh, there could be counseling. Do I see a therapist or psychologist? Do I do eft? What else could I do? Could I do a retreat? Maybe I should start going to church. You know, you start thinking about, what are the different solutions for this now? Solution aware. They know that there is a solution to their problem, but they don't know any of the specific products to solve it. So now you start realizing, like, man, church is actually a really good thing to be a part of. Like, it'd be a part of a community. What churches are there in my area? What's the difference between them? Or you might think, like, there's a solution to your problem. There are, oh, people are like packaging what they know in transformational programs. There's events, there's books. Well, what book should I buy you? Following. And then product aware is they know that a product exists, but they aren't completely aware of all it does. They aren't convinced of how or how well it does it. So it's like, I think I've heard of that. Again, one of the mistakes we make is we think if we talk about our thing one time if we talk about our membership or our course one time on our podcast that people like they were even listening, we think that they were paying attention. We didn't realize that their kid ran into the room, like kicked you in the shin, like knocked your coffee over. They didn't hear that part, like they didn't hear your ad. And even if they heard you talking about it, they're not sure everything that it does, not sure how it works, right? And so maybe they're kind of aware and then most aware they know your product and what it does, but they haven't gotten around to purchasing it yet. And if you think about this, this might be that you have a product. But also we do some affiliate marketing stuff too, or other people's products. Sometimes we're educating about a joint offer. We're promoting, we're educating about a software where an affiliate for. So there's lay, there's layers of awareness, right, that we can be explaining things. So here's our three ways to monetize high purchase intent YouTube videos and drilling down, kind of using this framework and using this as an opportunity for maybe some inspiration for you. And here's what I want you to be thinking about. Are you a business owner or serious content creator that is struggling to crack the YouTube code? Are you feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or just plain frustrated with slow growth? If so, then our new one on one coaching program@viralvideocoach.com is your premier ticket to YouTube success, becoming the authority in your niche, attracting engaged leads and loyal customers. We offer one to one coaching with our YouTube experts that'll help you get results fast and a supportive community that's cheering you on. So if you're ready to stop wasting time with trial and error and to stop leaving money on the table, then head to viralvideocoach.com to apply to see if you qualify for our coaching program. But heads up, this offer is not for everybody. It's only for serious content creators and entrepreneurs that are ready to take action. So if that's you, head to viralvideocoach.com to apply or click the link in the show notes. All right, let's jump back into the episode. What are some YouTube video ideas for you personally that could fit into these buckets? So the first one would be if we do some affiliate marketing on our YouTube channels and in this case, remember, views, leads and sales. You actually don't need to get leads here. You can make YouTube videos that educate, that meet people where they are and when they're looking for a Particular product, educate about the product, they click your link, you make a commission depending on what you want to build for Think Media. Affiliate marketing single handedly as part of our business ecosystem is a million dollar business for our business. So it's like it could grow pretty big and it can skip just from you get some views, you go straight to sales. So for example, as you know we talk about tech and, and this video on the DJI Action Pro versus the Pocket 3. Two different cameras, which is better for creators. The video is actually doing very well for a very specific topic. Two popular cameras though, 2.3x outlier, 10 views per hour. And think about this though, because oftentimes we see this probably one of the biggest this training right here is I mean the levels of awareness I think is why most creators, a lot of those in bra that are like why is affiliate marketing not working for me is like they're not making videos that have high purchase intent. Like you just make videos about like your day and then you're like I put all my affiliate links in the description. Yeah, but, but the people watching that video had no intent to purchase anything. But if you're going to watch this video about the DJI Action 5 Pro versus the Pocket 3, you're so deep down the awareness funnel, you're product aware. You're trying to be most aware. So you're product aware. You know these products exist and these aren't our products. So see how you do this for an affiliate. You know these products exist, you're not completely aware of all they do and you're not convinced how well they do it. And so really this individual viewer is like, okay, my credit card is out and I am torn between two cameras. Now you think about this from a sales situation. You don't need to sell them. Like they're already sold themselves. Like I've just come down to this final decision point. Now of course they may end up like neither is right for me and they look at something else. But like this video is so strategically optimized. So it's like, hey, why do you guys do so good at affiliate marketing? It's not by accident. It's not just just because we can get views or it's not just because of great content that we can create and that our team creates. But it's also because of psychology and understanding the five levels of awareness and intent. So they're not even most aware. They know what your product is, what it does, but they haven't gotten around to purchasing it yet. The truth is of course, in some cases somebody might spend hours or days or weeks with us. All the content we create to finally get to a place, click a link, make a purchase, we make some money. And that was a lot of work on our part. The other truth is that they might have watched a whole lot of other people, but once they finally got to this moment, we were the last click. And so the big idea here is that if you can create videos that you think about for a pain point, for what people are looking for, you are putting high intent strategic topics on the Internet to get awareness, to get people watching your content to buy your products and services. Further down the five levels of awareness. Okay, number two though. Number two. So the problem solution, aware. Problem solution aware viewers, if we were gonna do affiliate marketing or even lead capture, so a couple videos, both that crushed years ago. But to give an example here is now we're not talking about a product name. They are not aware that it's a DJI pocket camera. They're aware though that there is a health supplement that could replace green juice, fresh green juice. And I want to get a green juice powder. So think about how niche this is. Like what kind of a weird person I'm one of them would be on the Internet being like, so what's the best greens powder? You know what I mean? Like that's a. How many people searched that last night? You were, oh, you did? Oh, okay. I was like, like, yes. Like this is not something you were searching. But 190,000 people were like, hey, like what's the best greens powder? And I understand it wouldn't all be just literal search. And, and there is also a product name in the, in the title. But this would be that category idea. And this is where we might say best camera for YouTube. But what's cool about this is you can make a what's the best CRM for, you know, marketing in 2025. What's the best? And you think about that in your industry. So best greens powder or best self improvement books. People are aware, but you might sound, this sounds obvious but. And these might, I might be oversimplifying. You're like, these are just listicles. This psychology can really help you make some strategic videos that could lead to results in your business. So they know there's a solution, but they're just not sure what specific products there are. So I make a list of the best self improvement books and again connected to affiliate marketing. But you also things you could do is, you know, depending on what you're comfortable with in fact, if you want a modern hack, because search on AI is a big deal. AI is surfacing YouTube videos, by the way, like ChatGPT will put your YouTube videos in. And so one of the things that if you have a blog that is a tactic working right now for getting in the AIs is you make like you could talk about like 10 best biblical marriage courses on a blog and rank other people's and you're just number one. And so you just make it's your own list and shout out to everybody else that got mentioned there. You're just, you know, you're number one on the list. That's a real thing actually like because. And so it's kind of this idea that, you know, and I've made such videos as like best YouTube strategy books, Pat Flynn Superfans, you know, a couple other ones I meant, you know, books every YouTuber should read. Pat Flynn and Superfans, I don't know, Millionaire messenger by Brendon Burchard, YouTube Secrets by Benji Travis and Sean Cannon, you know, like put myself in the list. But again you're thinking about at what level of awareness. Okay, and so number three though, your own products, your own services, you could go to high intent, leads and sales, your own products and services. So I was working with, you know, this one on one client and that we are, we're kind of testing out this program I mentioned a little bit yesterday. And he's got a roofing company. So we went and we looked at competitors and so the search term is how to get leads for construction business. Like I fall in love with a title like that. It's weird. I'm weird when it comes to SEO. I'm like, wow, that's cool. Because the intent is so high. Like think about how specific that is. I want leads. I have a construction business. How could this apply to your channel, to what it is you're doing? What content could you put in front of this? So they know they have a problem, they're not getting leads, but they are unaware of any specific solutions. And then sure enough, a couple different channels here have these massive videos that have been able to grow over time through SEO because it's a very specific level of awareness there. And so that's kind of meta leads to get leads to get leads. We do that kind of stuff. Obviously we're going to help you get leads with YouTube, but you could have a video that then you capture the lead and that's where he's pivoting. He's built a 1012 million a year roofing company. So he wants to help other roofers that are about 2 million scale up. And so he has a very specific. He knows exactly who his avatar is, knows who he wants to reach, knows what his bridge is, knows that he's going to start with one on one coaching and then scale up into masterminds and things like that. And so let's get the right views and so that we can capture the right leads too. That's an interesting thing. If you get the wrong views, you'll get the wrong leads. Oh, that's cool. Your email list is big with the wrong people. So if we get the right views, we get the right leads, we're going to get better sales. Y' all know Kayla, his word, my walk, I was thinking about with the value proposition of her channel and using this now as a case study to take this a little bit deeper. Are you getting some insights out of this? Does that have you think it a little bit? Y' all enjoy this. So let's think about her channel. She's helping people with Bible study, wants to get people to get excited about the Bible and now be thinking about what this could just mean. Not that you would make all of these videos, but it would be that what is the unaware level? So we're going to go through this again. So unaware, feeling lost, the truth about life's biggest questions. That's the broadest appeal level, right? Or is there more to life? What you might be missing now? You, Kayla, might say, I know that my business is starting much more focused than that. I know that my ministry is starting much more focus than that. I am meeting people at a place where like they already know they want to read the Bible. They're just frustrated. But it's interesting to begin to think about. We talked about dreaming bigger yesterday. A lot of the conversations I had, it's like thinking bigger. It's interesting to think about. In your business, if you feel like you're hitting a plateau, you can, you will use the word funnel. You could say, well, I could expand out with some topics. I just know who I'm talking to with this level of content. And then what journey would I take them through on YouTube and even through my business, you could call that a customer journey. Is there more to life? What might you be missing now? Problem, aware, struggling spiritually. Here's why you feel stuck, why faith feels distant and how to fix it. At this point now you feel lost. And maybe it's like, well, like, man, I got the money and I got the family. I got the stuff. I mean, maybe it's a spiritual thing. I don't even know if I believed that there was spirituality. But now. So that would be a level deeper. It's faith and spirituality a level deeper. And then solution Aware, a path to stronger faith. Three steps to grow or how to deepen your relationship with God without feeling overwhelmed. Product aware is like how deep we are at the Bible study made simple, the best way to grow your faith. What's the best Bible study method? And here's what works. That's how deep we are down in the five levels of awareness where we're now seeing. Okay, I know that like, so there's the Bible. It's gonna be very helpful. But man, kind of how do I unpack this? How do I understand this? How do I understand these different forms of wisdom, literature and narrative and the different things that are in there. And then she has a membership and at some level it's like most aware ready to go deeper. Join this life changing Bible study membership. And that could be pivoting to product. But even if we set products aside, there's still like I sometimes think of the deepest level is a super Bible study geek already. And yet they're ready to go even deeper. So as you're thinking about engaging with your audience, thinking about levels of depth, how broadly would I reach them? Maybe at the unaware stage it could be I just need to make extra money. Like I just know that I'm broke. And then problem where it's like I'm broke because of maybe financial mismanagement or because I'm not earning enough. Maybe there's solution Aware. Side hustle. Oh, YouTube's one way to make money. Problem Aware. Oh, how do I. And so there's levels where we can and should maybe not all at once, but make content at every different level. And so I've got a cool resource for you here as well. You could just grab that. This is digital for you and this is going to walk you through some prompts for coming up with videos at every stage for you. And then I also used the example of my own journey with repetitive stress injury. Rsi. You got a bunch of cool prompts in here. Later you could talk to AI all about this. But if halfway through the document it talks about rsi because I went through this journey of having chronic pain in my wrist, thought I had carpal tunnel. I started going to doctors. They're like, yeah, you probably do. They were wrong. Here, take some Advil. Not a good idea, really. I mean Fine, but not solving the problem. And then I went from doctor to doctor and then physiotherapist and all around and I search all this stuff and unaware. All I knew, like I was thinking of an RSI business. Is this hand pain actually carpal tunnel. The hidden cause you're overlooking. Then all the way down to like, oh, I know that I actually had nerve entrapment, just my neck. And from being hunched, the symptoms showed up downstream. And so anyways, you could see that to think about it might really have us. You know, you're like, this is a lot. Day two, my coffee hasn't kicked in yet. But thinking about like these levels of awareness can give us insights in creating strategic videos. And then perhaps these could be YouTube journeys. That. And this is worth writing down. Write down the 7 11, 4. This is the 7114 rule. So Google has a rule that helps them influence what websites should be ranked in SEO. The 7114 rule. It stands for. No, this isn't for SEO. This is for conversion. The 7114 rule is something that Google has referenced and what it actually takes to get a sales conversion. When you think about your course, your membership, your book, this is pretty wild because here's what it means. 7 hours, 11 touch points, 4 platforms. Wow. So before you're gonna make a sale, someone first needs to spend seven hours with you. Seven hours, 11 touch points. What's a touch point? They watch a video. Number one, another video. Number two, another video. Number three, they download something for you. Number four, they open an email. Number five, they open the second email number. You got their phone. Number two, you text them. Number seven, you text them again. Number eight, you make an offer. Number nine, they go to the checkout page. They don't buy. Number 10, they get an email for cart abandonment. Oh, yeah, it is right. I did want to buy that. They still don't buy number 11, they get another email for card abandonment. They purchase 11 touch points now in those touchpoint numbers, because four platforms means this. They go to YouTube, watch a couple videos, they go to an email. So they open up an email, you mention you're doing an Instagram giveaway. They go to your Instagram, they comment, and they engage there. When they're on your Instagram, they look at your stories or the things in your bio and they see some of those could be the reasons they really connect with you. They look through and they're like, oh, wow. Family faith. Oh, like they like to hike. And they go just different touch points. And so it could be instagram it could be YouTube, it could be email, it could be text. Now, again, when we're talking about views, leads, sales, you might be like, do I have to do all that stuff? I'm not saying you have to do all that stuff. And the 7114 rule isn't exactly applying to like a $7 tripwire product or something like that, or like a low ticket offer. But if someone's gonna make a significant investment with you, there's something about like we found. I was talking to Alex Cotone, who is a legendary business owner and copywriter, and she was talking about. Recently, they've observed tracking that their customer purchase cycle is getting longer. Their sales are about the same, but it's longer. 45 days. 45 days from product awareness until purchase. So if you start thinking about the power that we have as content creators and how important it is that we're consistently creating content and just adding value. You know, I think media mentality, I think there's two big mentalities in sales. And there's the mentality of there's like hunters and farmers. I understand there's a time and place to maybe be aggressive and be a hunter when it comes to sales. It's not our vibe for us. We talk about and articulate. We want to be farmers. So to us, it just means we want to cultivate things. We want to plant seed, water, be patient, let things grow with the unshakable faith and conviction that we reap what we sow and that if we reap good and we keep adding value and we're patient over time, so we get pretty geeky in this stuff. We use something called Wicked Reports. In fact, one of our legendary team members, Jeffrey, is here helping with the event. He's our ads buyer. He's going to be actually at the roundtables with Melissa. So if you want to talk, all kinds of geeky stuff. So not only though, is he super skilled because he's ads buyer, builds out some ads, but also he does some tracking and reporting. So we use Wicked Reports, which is one way to track, like, when did somebody join? So we'll sometimes have somebody join a challenge. And you have to think. You have to imagine this kind of stuff happens. They'll join a challenge, like two years ago, they don't attend. How many things do you do that right? You're like, that webinar sounds great. I was busy, though. So you just opt into it, like, whatever. Oh, you're like, I'm gonna read. You think your lead magnet's working. You don't open up the lead magnets. You're downloading. You're like, that looks awesome. Sean's thing looks cool. Name and email and then you just let it go to your email. You're like, I'll save that for later. How many did you look at your lead magnets from other people. You were pumped to get them and your intent was super high. But that's just life, right? So we'll see. Like they joined a challenge. Like didn't go, like later joined a webinar, like did something else. And so we'll see a lot of people, they'll join video ranking Academy month eight month, year, year and a half later, two years later. That's an interesting mentality to be farming and be thinking about. I just want to cultivate this. I just want to keep planting seeds of good content, nurturing my community. So anyways, when thinking about the 7114 rule, you start thinking about you can create seven hours and should be thinking, what's my seven hour journey on YouTube? Like, if somebody had a crazy Saturday and they went all the way from being unaware, like they just knew they had pain, they had a problem, they had a challenge, and then by the end of the day they could be in your program, Chances are it's not that linear, but they just kind of just follow you all day and they're like, wow, this was good too. Oh, and they led me to this next spot and they kind of binged your content. 7 hours, 11 touch points, 4 platforms, the 7114 rule. And so questions about this, questions about this. And microphone. We can have it go around too. Can we run this, Brian, real quick? Yeah. Cool. And if somebody wants to run this other one. Keith, thank you.