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The Think Media Podcast
436: This YouTube Strategy Makes $10K+ Monthly (Complete Beginner's Guide)
00:58:05
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- [00:00]
Sean Cannell
Hey, before we jump into the show, I just wanted to take a second and say thank you for listening. I know that life is busy and you have a lot of options when it comes to the content you consume. So whether you're new here or you've been listening to the Think Media podcast for years, I just want to say thank you and I appreciate you. Okay, let's jump into the show.
- [00:20]
Kathleen Coble
What if I told you there's a.
- [00:21]
Sean Cannell
Way to start making money on YouTube even if you have under 1,000 subscribers? This episode is going to break down that strategy step by step. When I was starting YouTube, I was struggling to break through. But then everything changed when I discovered.
- [00:34]
Kathleen Coble
Something that very few people online are talking about.
- [00:36]
Sean Cannell
I went from $0 to earning over $10,000 a month using this strategy. And here's the thing. It has nothing to do with going viral or having millions of subscribers.
- [00:46]
Kathleen Coble
And so, on today's Think Media podcast, I'm going to be sharing with you.
- [00:48]
Sean Cannell
A conversation that I had with my friend Kathleen.
- [00:51]
Kathleen Coble
We're going to be talking about the.
- [00:52]
Sean Cannell
Smartphone strategy that lets you start earning. Within seven days, we're going to be covering the backwards approach that 99% of creators use that actually repels money and. And the simple flip that changes everything.
- [01:06]
Unknown
Sean, what would you say are some of the biggest, like, myths or misconceptions that people have about growing a YouTube channel today?
- [01:15]
Kathleen Coble
Yeah, I think one of the biggest myths about growing a YouTube channel is that you have to have fancy tech. That is a myth. You don't need any kind of fancy camera. Maybe YouTube feels like you have to have a higher level of gear, but it's not true. Just your smartphone and creating simple videos can make a big impact on YouTube. I think another myth is that you have to have, like, yourself really put together and maybe be super charismatic and have some level of production value or confidence on camera. I think if you're just a friend, helpful, you show up and talk about, again, different products that answer people's problems and solve problems for them, then people can get value. And then I think the other myth could be that, well, YouTube is too crowded and there's just too many people there. But the answer is it's not too crowded. Especially with this community. We teach a couple different frameworks we can cover later, but we talk about answering specific questions, teaching specific skills, and reviewing specific products. And this idea of the same thing we're doing on Amazon, there's a particular way to do it on YouTube when it comes to reviewing specific products is a Massive opportunity because people are going to YouTube as a search engine and looking for information about products. So if you just turn on your smartphone and you're helpful and you're just kind of thoughtful about the same thing you would do on Amazon, maybe with a little bit longer of a time frame to answer questions, talk about the pros and cons, talk about how a product can help help an individual. People are searching for information about products on YouTube and there's actually a lot of gaps of products that haven't been covered or comparisons that haven't been created. So the good news is you don't need. You could start from zero. You don't need a big following. You could start from zero, start creating the right videos optimized in the right way, and actually start getting discussed, discovered and getting income through Amazon affiliates. So I think, you know, one of the biggest myths is it's too crowded. You need a fancy camera, you need some high level of charisma. And none of that's true. You just gotta start messy. Start with a simple system that we'll talk about in this video and you can start getting traction, YouTube growth and views and making money.
- [03:35]
Unknown
Oh, that's such a relief to hear because I think, you know, I know for me one of the biggest misconceptions, you need all this fancy equipment and you need superior editing skills. And with the Amazon influencer videos, we kind of do the opposite, right? We use our smartphones and we, you know, don't do a ton of fancy editing. So I think that's a relief. I know for me and for some other people as well, that we don't need to go out and buy a bunch of equipment and you know, go take classes on how to edit for YouTube 100%. So we have a really great question here about niching down. Let me just throw this up on the screen here because Doug and Nikki are one of our regulars. And I know Doug and Nikki have been following you, Sean, for 10 years. They told me that the last live stream that I did, they want to know, so how do we effectively niche down for YouTube's algorithm when your subject matter is so wide? You know, for example, he's reviewing a pool, robot, coffee maker, RC car, men's fashion, 360 camera. This is such a great question because I know, you know, kind of one of the things I teach is like just put all of your Amazon videos on, on the YouTube channel. And while that helps to repurpose it, I don't think that's very helpful with growing Subscribers and really niching down. What do you think, Sean?
- [05:00]
Kathleen Coble
Hmm. So, I mean, there's a couple. There's a couple thoughts here. I think, number one, YouTube judges individual pieces of content in 2025. And a lot of social platforms are doing that, really, in a way, all of them. And so there's kind of two parts to this conversation. There's actually this big truth that has emerged and how algorithms work in that followers don't matter and subscribers don't matter. Let me explain. There's a lot of old channels, mine included. If you've been around for a while, you've grown a subscriber base, but as many subscribers as you have, that's certainly not how many videos views you're getting. And same thing on Instagram. You might have however many followers you have. It doesn't mean your content is reaching that many people, because what's happening now is it's no longer really social media. It's interest media. And so when someone is interested in something, that is the kind of content that's being recommended to them. So if you're. If you start researching coffee makers, then what inevitably happens on YouTube after you maybe search for coffee makers or type in a search or something, then your homepage probably will be filled with other information about coffee makers and then potentially adjacent topics, maybe other coffee accessories. Or they start, okay, kitchen appliances. Because what YouTube is doing is one of the ways it judges what videos get recommended to you, is your previous watch history, what you've consumed and what you've searched for. So if any individual video gets pulled into the YouTube algorithm, you might. And I'm sure y' all have seen Doug and Nikki, that like a couple of your videos, maybe 20% of your library has gotten a disproportionate amount of more views than your other videos. Some videos break through, and once YouTube maybe really understands that, like, your coffee maker video is something people love, and a lot of people were searching for that coffee maker video, well, then the individual video can take off. And so there is an opportunity to. If you will just post diverse content, some of it breaks out, some of it can get discovered. You know, for years, I have a personal channel that I did a lot of experiment, experiments on, and had a lot of success and made really good money with affiliate marketing. And I did green juice videos. I actually did a video about cbtl, Coffee pods, Coffee bean, Tea leaf. I did vlogs at a certain point. And some of the videos, though, that I put out there ranked, meaning they kept getting views for years. And as a result. But the channel was really diverse and covered just a lot of different random things. So big idea number one is it can work, but big idea number two is it may not be the best approach depending on what your goals are. So are your goals to rank as many as possible, but random individual videos that get some views, you know, have affiliate links in the description, so you make some money doing product reviews, talking about products. And if that's what the goal is, then then great, you know, then having maybe a channel with a lot of different things on it could work. If your goal though is to build a brand or a personal brand, you want to be known for something. And the thing is, if you have a channel that's just a bunch of different random products. Unless. Unless somebody subscribe. Yeah, here's, here's the one question everyone should answer. It's like, why should people subscribe to your channel and what would make them want to come back and return to your channel? And a lot of times the product review experience is problem based. And someone's not looking for a channel to follow. They're looking for information about an individual product. That's not bad. That's like a search based mentality. So somebody is looking for a new Insta360 camera, they go to YouTube, they start searching for that product name. Maybe they're comparing a few other camera options. They're not sure which they want to purchase. They somehow find your video, they find it very valuable. They may or may even if they click subscribe. Their pain point that day was I'm looking for a camera. They found your video. It was very helpful, answered some of their questions. They click your affiliate link, they purchase the product, you get that commission. They even had a great experience. But from that point on, maybe they're not planning on making any other purchases. And the logical connection is not like, well, I don't, I already have a coffee maker and I actually just don't want to see a lot of different products in general. Even if they click subscribe, they might not continue to engage. It's probably very common. Right. Because there's not like a consistent reason for them to come back to your channel. Another way to put it is if, if you had like a QVC channel, like on this channel we do live streams or videos every week to talk about the hottest products. If that's the value proposition and you build an audience, that's like, that's what I want, like I want to come to your channel to just learn about products, then that would Be the brand you build. But, you know, it's kind of hard to do. And so the alternative point is, if the powerful thing is if you niche down and make a channel promise that gives somebody a reason to subscribe and to keep coming back and watching, that is relevant to how humans actually act. That's the power of, if you will, having a niche. And so, for what it's worth, eventually I narrowed my niche after doing a lot of random stuff on my personal channel to say, okay, when I really went all in on Think Media, my brand today, it was like, okay, we're going to be the best tips and, and tools for people that want to create content and online video. Thus, we're going to talk about cameras, lighting. And so we sort of like drew a circle and said there's actually quite a few things still in that circle. Lighting, cameras, tripods, microphones. Not even consumer tech. Tech is broad. Narrowed it down to, like, creator tech, people that want to create content. And that's been helpful because even that being true, we found one of the difficult things I, I learned this when I had some friends over, Jace and Chelsea, and we were having dinner and they said, I used to watch your channel for, for quite a while. I go, you used to? And it's like a friend too. I'm like, well, thanks, bro. You don't watch anymore. He's like, yeah, I used to watch your channel. He said, the problem is I was watching your channel, studying cameras and accessories for quite a few months. But then eventually I made a purchase and I purchased a Sony, a 6400 camera, and I love it. And he goes, but what I did is I stopped watching your channel. I go, why? He goes, because all it was doing was giving me like, fomo, fear of missing out and desire. He goes, you just kept exposing me to the newest camera and the latest thing. I already bought a camera. I didn't actually kind of want to hear about more cameras. I'm like, well, we talk about other stuff. He's like, yeah, well, I kind of tuned out. Like, it just wasn't helpful. It was like a distraction. I had already purchased the, the gear I needed to create content. But it was an epiphany for me because I was like, oh, that makes sense. Even on Think Media, sometimes my audience might be a little bit transient because they eventually scratch that itch and they don't. How often do they buy? Are they going to buy products every week and is there something consistent? So I know I've said a lot here, but, like, thinking through perhaps the customer journey and the customer experience and the viewer experience. This is why if you were to niche into something like motherhood and parenting, and every week you're doing shopping hauls and grocery hauls and there's stuff to buy for the kids and it's the winter season and they're a little sniffly and sick. So you're talking about echinacea. But there's a theme to it, and they're actually. Yes. If I follow you on this journey and theme, there is stuff I would buy all the time. Like, my kids are growing and so there's maybe something could come along with you on the journey. But even that being true, I think it's just being aware of just being like, random. Trying to rank videos. Great strategy, random videos, whichever ones pop off, they can make some money. People find them, but they leave. And I might not. Some people stick around, but it's not as much audience building. It's more like individual videos. Or can I bring a cohesive thing theme? I wouldn't even say there's necessarily a right or wrong answer. The point of all of these thoughts would just be you being more intentional to be strategic about what do you want to build over the next six months, 12 months, and even multiple years.
- [13:50]
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. That was so much amazing information. And I think, you know, one thing, One thing that resonated with me was, what's the goal? What is the goal of your channel? Are you just okay with taking your Amazon videos, putting them up on YouTube, putting that link in there and, you know, kind of hoping people find it? Or are you really trying to grow a personal brand, you know, that you can niche down with and people will come find you and want to come back to your channel. Right. Because with Amazon, it's so much different, right? We're, you know, we're collecting followers to our storefronts, but there's. There's. It's not like YouTube, right, where we can actively create content that draws, you know, people in and learn about our audience and what do they want and do that keyword research and. And all that good stuff. So really think about what are your goals with the channel and then kind of take that as your. As your next step. Super valuable. Thank you. I think one other thing I know I get this question a lot, too, is, you know, kind of piggybacking on. So we're, as Amazon influencers, we're creating these short videos, kind of no frills. You know, we just want to showcase the product and hope we convert that sale. What do you think are a few, like, easy ways that Amazon influencers can level up their content to YouTube that doesn't feel, you know, overwhelming. That's, you know, still doable.
- [15:16]
Sean Cannell
Are you ready to start your YouTube channel but you don't know where to begin? Or have you been posting videos but you're frustrated because you're just not getting the views and nobody is seeing them? For a limited time, you can get the number one bestselling YouTube strategy book, YouTube Secrets for free at ytsecrets.com this book is the proven blueprint that has helped thousands of people go from zero subscribers to a thriving channel.
- [15:41]
Kathleen Coble
All I ask is that you pay.
- [15:43]
Sean Cannell
Shipping and then I will mail you the brand new updated second edition of YouTube secrets. And when you place your order today, there's a couple other super cool things.
- [15:50]
Kathleen Coble
That I'll hook you up with.
- [15:51]
Sean Cannell
First, you're going to get instant access to a free Deep Dive masterclass where I will break down the exact strategy I'm currently using to generate over 120,000 views per day every single day on YouTube and generate over $100,000 per month on the platform, as well as the three biggest mistakes that most creators make when starting and trying to grow their channel. That class is free to watch instantly when you pick up this special offer. Now you're also gonna get my video series called the Perfect Video Recipe. One of the updated chapters in the second edition is titled the Perfect Video Recipe. It's actually a formula for how to structure YouTube videos to get maximum views and how to break through in the YouTube video algorithm. This is the exact formula that readers of the book and our students are using to generate millions of views. And again, that'll just be included when you jump on this limited offer. Third, you're going to get access to our 1000 Subs Club email newsletter which delivers actionable weekly tips to your email inbox that will help you get to 1,000 subscribers fast. And we also do really cool weekly giveaways that includes lighting and microphones and YouTube equipment plan plus software that will help you on your creator journey. But here's the thing. Supplies are limited on this free book promotion. So if you want to grab this offer, go to ytsecrets.com right now and just place your order covering shipping and I'll get this book in the mail to you right away.
- [17:20]
Kathleen Coble
Yeah, I think the the easiest way to level up your content on YouTube and effectively be like an Amazon affiliate is here's a couple number tips I'M making them up in my head, but I'll do my best to kind of number through them linear. I think step number one is thinking about viewer intent. The powerful thing is to, to create videos that the viewer intent is actually to make a purchase. So a lot of people in our world will be like, you know, I'm a vlogger. And they're, and they're maybe covering their life or they vlog a certain. They vlog their fishing trips or something like that. But if someone's there, what is their intent for being there? Well, it's maybe entertainment curiosity versus if somebody think about what they're typing in search and if their intent is something like Nordic Track exercise bike, which I believe you could buy on Amazon versus and then actually maybe Peloton, which you probably can't buy on Amazon. You'd buy it directly from Peloton or I'm not sure. And well, what's the intent of that video search? Well, they're at a point where they're trying to make a decision between two different products. And by the way, this is worth like writing down, remembering and this actually, this insinuates you would make new content probably because your review videos you're posting on Amazon wouldn't work for this because they're going to be individual for the product. But here, here's what I think probably is one of the Most effective users YouTube videos for making money with Amazon affiliates. A versus video, aka a comparison video. Because think about the viewer intent. If you're trying to say do I get the Nespresso product name, new version or do I get a Keurig what's interesting. And actually if you throw up on on screen. I know I'm sharing my screen here. Let's actually go Nespresso. Okay, I'll zoom in. Here we have the Nespresso machine versus Keurig versus the Ninja coffee maker versus the Breville. A couple things. We just have an aha moment here. The YouTube search bar autocomplete is a gold mine for video ideas. So you could type in a product name. You have an Espresso and let's say maybe you know exactly what you have. You have the Nespresso Barista versus the Aerocino 4. That is such a specific. Now let's search it. Okay, so then here's a simple video. This looks like. Look at how it starts. It starts with not the person's, not even on camera, shaky phone, kind of finger pointing at. Now they have these three products but depending on what you have from Amazon, let's talk about it. You know, you've got your different product this whole time. There's no editing in this video. Talk it through. The different ones, pros and cons, whatever. Okay, we're learning. And this video has got. Here's their Amazon link right here. Little hashtags, commission earned, some description stuff. We go over to their link tree. I don't. This is not the way I would do it, but this, I guess is their way of setting up every Amazon we have. Uk, Germany, Canada, Europe, France and Amazon us So they've actually used a link tree to link to the different Amazon stores globally. But this video has 394,000 views. Why? Well, globally, how many people they're searching for the Arikano 3 versus the Arikano 4 versus the Barista. And why is this happening and still actually getting three views per hour? This hour long live stream we're doing together, three people are going to watch this video that's five years old. And the amount of affiliate income, this individual, I mean, it's probably off the chart. This is insane, right? Can you imagine 394,000 views? And then we could go down and we see similar videos, another one from the same channel, a different video. This person's got a, you know, a little bit more of a fancier setup. 100 139,000 views. But this is the versus strategy. So you could bring the screen down. I think that would be the starting point to really be effective on YouTube is to say, okay, I'm going to do my research ahead of time. I'm going to think about the video idea, but I want to get in front of the viewer intent. And the powerful thing about a specific product review. But even better, a product comparison is in marketing, you would call this like, where are you on the sales funnel? And you're deeper in like someone's sales journey. Like, and what that would mean is like, someone's like, you know what? I need a coffee maker. And that's very high up. They don't know the brands, they don't know the names. But then eventually they're doing their research and they learn, oh, there are different coffee makers. But there's so much further down in the journey where they are now saying, like, you know what, I've narrowed it down. I'm going to get the era are seen now from Nespresso. But should I get the 3 or 4? Like, I've read the 3. I could save some money on the 3. But the 4 has some new features like that's what they're, you know, they're talking to their spouse, they're like, yeah, you know, which one do we get? Well, let me go to YouTube. And they type that in. That's a moment where the individual basically has credit card in hand ready to make a purchase. Your video brings clarity to just the pros and cons of each of them. You educate the viewer by saying, hey, if you want to check these out, I put links in the description. And thus you actually get conversions like sales on Amazon because of where the intent is, the intent of the video you're being found because you're tapping into YouTube being a search engine. And you know, if all goes well, this individual shot a simple video on their smartphone the whole time, no editing, and got 394,000 views for five years. The video is still getting views, which is the main thing we teach ranking videos. What's a ranked video? A video that you posted five years ago that's still getting views today. A video you posted five years ago that's still getting three views per hour today. That just was a simple video shot on the person's phone that then effectively links to Amazon links and is making you passive income. It's an interesting case study that came up. I didn't even know that that was going to be what showed up when we talked about coffee makers. Inspired by the last question. But that's like our whole thesis. The power of YouTube is, it's the second largest search engine in the world. People are looking for answers to specific questions and they're looking for reviews of specific products. But the versus strategy is even more powerful than an individual product review because someone now is at that moment of decision. I've done this for years now. Two different cameras. People are, you know, they're at a point, do I get this Sony camera, a Canon camera, these two Sony cameras. And it's one reason why we, we make over $10,000 a month in Amazon affiliates. We're, we're, we're not doing what you're doing as far as the on platform content that's off platform using YouTube and Amazon affiliates.
- [24:34]
Unknown
Yeah, no, that's incredible. And I think that, you know, I think some people are out there making comparison videos and other people aren't there. There was a, an incentive a couple years back from Amazon, which I think I can talk about now because it's probably two years old, but they, they prompted everyone to do videos with the hashtag this or that. And that's exactly what they were asking for, was two Comparison videos. The items had to be either, you know, the same product or in the same category. And so Amazon was really pushing that kind of content for creators to be making on their platform. So I think just revalidates everything that you just said. And so, you know, if people are looking to level up their Amazon videos for YouTube, you guys consider doing these comparison videos, especially if you have two very similar items, or maybe you bought, you know, this one last year and now you've upgraded to this one this year. Compare those two and let people know, because you're way more likely to make a sale if you have. You're talking about these two products, right? As opposed to one, here's the product, here's why I love it. And then they decide, do I want this or not? Whereas now I'm showcasing two products and they're like, oh, which one should I get? They're probably going to buy one, right? It could potentially increase that conversion rate. We had a really good question from one of our regulars, Olena Sean. How important is the YouTube description box for ranking videos and getting more views, and what are the most effective things that we should be including in it?
- [26:06]
Kathleen Coble
Great question. So if we were to tier in 2025, how much weight and influence YouTube optimization aspects have, the title versus the description versus tags versus time codes and chapters, and thinking about, you know, what matters most. If we go in reverse, YouTube themselves has said that tags are not something that they maybe have 1% influence. They're not very influential, but I would argue they're still worth doing. You can look at a website. We can put my screen up again here. If we go to Rapid Tags IO, it's a free tags generator. And if I type in Espresso Barista, let's say, and you just go enter, it'll in one second give you all the tags. You could just copy them. Nespresso Barista. Nespresso Barista Review. Nespresso Barista recipes. So there's no excuse not to do your tags and do them well. You just use that website, it's called Rapid Tags IO. You could bring my screen down. So that's kind of cool. Like, boom, tags are done. But it doesn't carry a ton of weight. But you should do it. And it gives it some reinforced metadata to Google, who owns YouTube, that can help search and ranking. Especially when you're starting a new channel, you want to be really effectively optimizing your videos so they could be found. Especially because what we're doing here on this conversation, it's a little Bit different. Right? We actually really want to be specific in the senses. Is it the version 3 or the 4? And have we given it adequate data? I would then say next the description maybe has as far as ranking goes, I don't know, 5%, 10% influence on whether a video will rank or not. And also when we're living in a Watch this. So I bring my screen back, you could go to chat GPT and say something like hey can you write a quick SEO description for my YouTube video and include all of these keywords And I copied these from the rapid tags and so here's a keyword rich optimized description. Ready to upgrade your coffee cream. In this Nespresso barista review we dive deep in a Nespresso barista machine. See they're bold with the actual exact keyword phrases. So this is not. This is going to be some reinforced metadata for your description. You learning this is not again going to make the worst video of all time start to to rank. But this is the ability to do best practices and then say okay, I'm going to reinforce my description. Now let's also say this. The first line of your description should be optimized pretty effectively. For example, if I guess we could bring the screen back up, maybe we'll just leave it up. During this little tutorial part I'm going to keep showing you more stuff. Okay, so this video that ranks here, it says we review the Nespresso Aeroccino 4. See how this, this is on the homepage where it's searched. You do get the first line of the description when someone's searching on YouTube and when I type in these exact search phrases, YouTube is bolding those words being in that first line. So you could still come over here and say what would be a ten word or less YouTube. The first line for my YouTube description that I could put into with keywords. Now these what we started with here was so I mean there you go. Nespresso breeze to review recipes, machine test and creations guide. So see how fast this could happen with AI so now we're going in descending tags. Not super important but might as well do them. Description absolutely should do them. Title a ton of influence. The title is so important and you want to make sure you have really what the video is about. This is a good 1. The Aeroccino 3 verse 4 colon what's the better Nespresso milk frother question mark? It's a great title, very practical but you want to make sure your title is includes the terms andor keywords that you want to be found for, but also is, if possible, written in a way that is clear speaks to humans. I would, I would say clean. Like, like sometimes people, you don't need to do this in 2025. You don't need to like repeat the keywords like nespresso milk frother, 3 parentheses, best. Nespresso milk froth. And like, people like. It's kind of like an old keyword stuff type title. You don't need that. But you want to be very thoughtful about how you're crafting your title. We could come over here. What would be 10 title ideas for a product review video about the Nespresso Barista that also are written with curiosity in them and that would make humans want to click. So basically you're saying you want SEO, search engine and human aspects. So this is kind of interesting. So Nespresso Barista review. What they don't tell you is putting some drama in it. I tried the Nespresso Barista recipe maker. Is it worth it? Is it overhyped? So, okay, now we're having a strong title. And then finally, how important is the description? Well, here's what I would say is the. The mistake 99% of creators make is you want a clickable link above the fold. Because if you want to effectively earn money with affiliate marketing, you don't want to bear. You want to make sure you actually do your link. You actually have the link there. Include a description, hashtag, commissions earned. I suppose that works. Our description we do that's in basically every video on our channel is we'll say whether the video is sponsored or not. That's just something we do. We have a call to action in this case to one of our own things. But the video is not sponsored. Some links are affiliate links, which means if you buy something, we'll receive a small commission and then we've got our links all organized. In this case, we're doing genius links and notice these are below the fold, but we actually have a call to action or one of our own things above the fold. So assuming the video is going to lead straight to an affiliate product, you would want to make sure that you've got a link above of the fold. That's not, that's not. And that's not optimization. It's not going to help the video rank. It's going to help you get sales because you've effectively kind of organized your video together. So in summary, title carries the most weight and a significant amount of weight. Then the description is important and you might as well do best practices and With Rapid Tags, IO and ChatGPT, you could do that really fast. Tags might as well do it. I mean, there's some things to learn here. Thinking about. We don't have a ton of time to go into it, but thinking about your keyword universe around a product would be sort of. The idea is like when you think about keywords or tags, it is being thoughtful that okay, cool, Coffee maker is a word. Espresso maker is a word like what are, what are? Like the, the keyword universe around. Around what it is I'm talking about. And then as you learn some of these things, you could do it quickly with the help of AI. The mistake that people make is that some of these softwares and tools are helpful but yet kind of ineffective if you don't learn the mindset and the strategy. So then lastly would be time codes and chapters can also be a really great thing to optimize your videos with because they themselves can actually be search engine optimization reinforcement. And so what that means is in your YouTube description, you start with 0 colon 00 the beginning of the video and you might say, you know, Nespresso Aeroccino 3 versus 4. And then the second thing is like Aeroccino 3 pros and cons. Then the next section of the video, Aeroccino 4. And what these are is they're clickable time codes and chapters. So people could skip through the video conclusion test. Like, and has anyone seen this before? If you're here live, you could say, have you been on a video that is organized with the YouTube time codes and chapters? It means people can find sections. But here's what's so powerful about that. This can help your video rank on the first page of Google. Because when Google owns YouTube and when you go to Google, we may have seen this. There's this thing called key moments where you search for something and there's not only there's a video there, but it takes you to like minute three in the video because there's basically a search term like can you put really hot water in the Nespresso? Because everybody wants to know that, let's say. And then like that moment is ranking on Google. Well, that's the reinforcement of time codes and chapters. So let's take a breath. It's kind of a lot. I mean it's like a fire hose of information. But this is learnable and figureoutable and think about the benefit. You know, we looked at this video, it's got 394,000 views and it still gets three views an hour. And it's got the affiliate links of just these Nespresso milk for authors compared. We're talking about passive income for years to come as you build a library of ranked videos. That's our thesis. What if one ranked video at a time. But imagine if you just had three ranked videos, 10 ranked videos. Videos you create today, you create them in the next month, you create them over the next quarter. And they keep getting views for years to come. And not only are people discovering them, but they're clicking your affiliate links. And then imagine if you started to get real serious about this right now, doing a little bit of this on your extra time, learning these skills, mastering this process. How positioned are you going to be 1 in 10 days on Amazon Prime Day? But, but on Cyber Monday and Black Friday this year. And here's not what I mean. I don't mean you actually like going live on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. I mean imagine if you create a library of ranked videos. You just start to devote some time to this now, a few extra moments a week and you rank videos. And so when people sit down, they grab their coffee, they're sitting in their bathrobe, they have their slippers on, it's the morning of Black Friday, they're shopping on Amazon. But they're on Amazon. But, but they're then on YouTube also doing some product research. I know I wanted to get my husband that a new milk frother, but I'm not sure if I should get the Aeroccino 3 or 4. All right, so they go to YouTube, they type it in, they see your video. Oh, wow. I think I'm going to go with the four. They click your link. Well, then on Black Friday. But then on Black Friday they end up spending. This family's pretty affluent. They spent $5,000 that, you know, and they bought all kinds of stuff. They bought the milk frother, but they're like, they're going to do it all that day. They bought like a Nintendo Switch. They bought some other stuff. Remember, you get a portion of credit for that. And Amazon actually, I think just updated the terms. It used to be like a smaller percentage, but they just increased that in terms of you getting credit and income from not just the thing you recommended, but everything else somebody purchases on Amazon within that 24 hour cookie window. That is the compound effect of making simple videos on YouTube, ranking them, optimizing them effectively and then building up a flywheel of affiliate income that can go from a few extra hundred dollars a Month to literally thousands or ten tens of thousands a month over years as you compound ranking videos.
- [38:04]
Unknown
Yeah, that's oh my gosh, an amazing amount of information. And Olina clicks that create smiles said, thank you so much for your knowledge. Great info. I think, I think that's the dream, right is to have as many of those evergreen ranked videos that will appear every hour, every day, but especially will be able to help us during these sales events like Prime Day and Black Friday. And so get strategic with your videos and I hope everyone's writing down what Sean, what Sean just revealed because you can always go back and, and rewatch it, but that was some amazing information.
- [38:40]
Kathleen Coble
How do you get your first a thousand subscribers? Well, by putting out content that people are searching, answering specific questions, reviewing specific products. And then as people discover your videos, that becomes like the fifth benefit. We'll recap them again. Eventually get monetized. YouTube's paying you for views. People are clicking your affiliate links. Number two, you're making money. Number three, you eventually start getting sent free product, dollar saved. You're funding your hobby, you got cool stuff. Number four, brands start paying you. Number five, you're getting subscribers. What does that mean? It's future impact. You could call it future income in the sense that now people are subscribed and it's less about finding a specific video but future videos you post, which is future ad revenue from YouTube if it's topics they're interested in, future things they, they could learn about and the extended opportunity of, you know, if you had a golf channel and you talked about golf accessories and golf hats and golf polos and tees and balls and clubs and at this point, you know, Amazon's not the only affiliate opportunity in town. Right. There's, I don't know what the golf store is called. Isn't there's top. Not topgolf is a fun place but you know, there's that big old box golf store like you can set up for affiliate programs for a lot of different places. But then here's the point. Maybe eventually you create a mini course that helps people with their golf game or you, you create some, you, you find other types of offers where maybe there's a golf coaching program that you didn't even create, but you promote that as well. Well, if you've built up an audience and subscribers in a particular niche like golf, really the ways to monetize extend far beyond the first four we talked about. There's like 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 as you start building your brand. So that was A few rabbit trails around the idea of building subscribers at the end of the day. The cool thing about subscribers is I think they're a byproduct of, of the strategic videos you're creating. The intent, you're creating, the strategy. You said it so well early on. What's your goal? What's kind of the bigger goal you're going for? Ranking one video around one product or one comparison is a cool target. It's a great way to get started. But as we dream together, it's like thinking about, okay, what kind of brand could you build? And like giving yourself again, there's so much information here, but like pacing yourself, you know, you're busy, you got kids, you got, you're working, you got a full time job, you got different stuff, you know, just a few strategic hours a week spent intentionally and strategically compounded. Yes, over the next three to six months. But where could you be three years from now? That's the powerful thing about YouTube is it's really the compound effect, the effective consistency of getting kind of 1% better every time you upload a video of dialing in these details is what is a few hundred dollars a month side hustle could eventually become a multiple thousand dollar earning main thing that allows you to retire your husband, that allows you to do the travels that you want to do, that lets you go part time at work because you're chipping away at it just a few hours a week and leveraging the fact that especially when you're ranking videos, you're, you're investing in something today where you create a video today that's still working for you a couple of years from now.
- [42:14]
Unknown
Yeah, definitely. Gosh, there so many takeaways from that. Work smarter, not harder, right? Build your audience and like how many different ways can you monetize your channel, your content? There's so many ways past just posting our affiliate links in the description, you know, of all of our YouTube channels. One quick follow up question I have for you, Sean. What are some of your favorite or some of the best ways to like find those questions that people are asking that we can, you know, target our videos? Like how, how do we know what kind of, you know, espresso machine people are looking for? Or what are the biggest questions around, you know, products that people are looking for on Prime Day? Maybe.
- [43:02]
Kathleen Coble
Let'S, if you bring up my screen, sure. So the, the big concept here is the power of topic validation. Sorry, I need to actually share it first with you.
- [43:13]
Unknown
I don't see it yet.
- [43:14]
Kathleen Coble
And so, and the best way to do that is going to be the YouTube search bar. So I've got actually your channel pulled up. We, we go to the YouTube search bar and I'll kind of freestyle off maybe some of the ideas on here. So you've got, okay, a biometric deadbolt. Is it worth it? This is a good title. Lockly Secure Pro, Smart lock, Biometric deadbolt. Is it worth it? So let's look up biometric. And so here's what we do. We're going to use YouTube autocomplete and we're going to look at it. It starts finishing your sentence for you and it'll start giving us in in order of the of what people are searching for. So when you type in biometric, they're looking for the attendant system, the gun safe, the trigger lock. So here's the first step. We teach seven steps in our our program called Video Reiki Academy. The first step is reverse engineer. The second step is research. So we're talking about research here and what we want to do on research is we want to validate our ideas. So let's say you have a bunch of stuff in your garage as we all do. You, you actually, instead of just saying, you know what, I think I'm going to make a video about my grill. The first step might be to think, okay, what should I do? Do I want to make a video about the NEO chair? NEO chair. Well, we've validated that on YouTube. People are searching for it. Great. So then we say, okay, people want an assembly video. Well, this becomes really important. We haven't recorded yet. We actually, and at that point they already have it. They're looking for a tutorial. Okay. The office chair, the ergonomic office chair. People are looking for the review. Great. So we could go over here and say comparison of The Neo chair versus the high back mesh chair. 154 views. My impression of the NEO chair. And actually this reviews a couple things to it. We could get a little traffic with this but it also reviews that there's actually not a ton. The best way to validate how many views a video can get is searching it then and seeing how many views other people get. And I and, and this makes sense this niche share. There isn't a ton of necessarily traffic around it. Totally fine. That then brings us to the idea of this best office chair. 2025, 2024. Under 200, under 300, under 500. Well, how much is the NEO chair? So now this is all positioning of the video and if we come over to Amazon and we see. Okay, currently unavailable. Also. It's also, that's actually kind of funny like this, this will happen a lot. It's like why am I not getting sales? Well that's probably why is. It's not even in stock. You should change the link. Update the link. Update your videos. Clean up your videos. So okay, great. But this is, this is actually best office chair under 100. It seems like the Neo chair is under $100. So then you're gonna look at what, what is your competition out there? You've got a couple other videos around here, chair reviews. But I wouldn't be intimidated by the competition. You actually should be encouraged that there is interest in this topic. And if this individual got 129,000 views, well with a new channel, instead of you getting 12 views, there's a good chance if you dial in your, your strategy well that you could get 120. 1200, even 12,000. Rank your video. Find your angle. One of the best angles would be best. What's the best chair under $100? 2025 update. And this guy who made a video two years ago. You're jumping in the fact that you're the most recent video. You can carve out your views even with a small channel by just having the right strategy, the right. A little bit of, a little bit of grit, a little bit of intentionality in there. And so that's the point. So like you could. You're going to do your research using the autocomplete and maybe look about. Okay, should I position this as the NEO chair? And then by the way, best desk chair or Office chair under 100. Question mark. Neo chair review. Notice what also just happened there. This is a positioning from the. The beginnings of planning out your video. We haven't even. And we haven't even filmed the video yet.
- [47:52]
Unknown
Right.
- [47:52]
Kathleen Coble
The reason like we, we have this like process, this framework that looks like this and that's. It's a, it's a continuous process. Reverse engineer research record is step three. So the intentionality that you do in reverse engineering, researching, planning out your title and the angle of the video. I saw a question somebody asked earlier. They said, well, what if I. Why would I have multiple versions of the same product? Fair enough. Especially when you're starting someday you're going to start getting scent products. So eventually you'll have multiple versions. Someday if you're getting. You've got income coming in and I'm not suggesting you are overspending at the start, but reinvesting later. Like, we work with brands and they send us stuff, but we'll also purchase a lot. We'll purchase stuff in preparation for Prime Day. We will ask ourselves the question, what's the best budget lighting kit? We'll do a lot of research. We'll purchase three lighting kits that are 80 bucks. $110, 130. Again, I'm not like, lucky for you, Sean. No, I'm just saying, like, eventually this is a business and it's a cool, fun way of testing things, trying things out, experimenting. And so we're reinvesting in a cool way of like being the guinea pigs, being the, Being qvc, being able to test stuff. But you don't have to do that at the start. So at the start, you just are looking for the opportunities in your garage. And in your garage is a portable battery pack charger that you purchased. And then on, you know, your last Father's Day, it was like, oh, I didn't know you already had one and your wife bought you another one and now you do have two. So compare those two things like leverage the things that you have. And in some cases it could be as simple as maybe you've been, you know, taking turmeric with curcumin and you tried one for a month and then you tried another. So it's not always like a hundred dollar. There's just so many different ways to see the opportunities in your own pantry and, you know, start getting some views, start just, just the comp. It's like the cool thing about this is it's really not about your resources. It is about your resourcefulness, about your creativity. It's about just using your smartphone, using what you have today. It's the way I built up my career. I would oftentimes ask my. I ask myself too, talking about cameras. How can I take one thing I have and use it in five to 10 different ways? And here's what I mean. It's like I don't, I don't have money to just buy cameras, especially cameras, you know, I don't just have $800 or $1200, but to buy every new camera. But I would take one camera and this is in particularly helpful, related to tutorials. And I would be like, okay, best settings for the Canon M50. And then I'd make another video best lenses for the Canon M50. And then I would make another video video test. And, and this was based on research. People were looking for the 4K video test of a Canon M50. So I would make that I take the One camera I have. And then eventually I did have an older camera, the Canon 60D. So then I did that Canon M50 versus the Canon 60D. I couldn't do every versus video, but I could do the one of the previous camera and the newer camera I had. Or you could go iPhone versus Canon M50, which is another thing people are searching for. So the epiphanies that will start to come when you kind of master that reverse engineer stage and that research stage are many. And even just on this conversation, you're probably saying, okay, there's a lot more opportunities in my pantry, in my garage than I realize. It's how creative can you get? Validate your ideas before you post them. And then, you know, be willing to realize that everybody starts with zero subscribers. Everybody starts with no videos. And even the big channels, they had to start somewhere. And so we are growing our YouTube channel one view at a time, one subscriber at a time. But what's waiting for you on the other side of some courage and commitment and consistency is a lot of opportunity.
- [52:18]
Unknown
So encouraging. I love it. And I think, you know, one thing to reiterate the encouragement to everyone is that, right, even if you're just starting today or your channel has under a thousand subscribers, use what you have, right? It's okay to just repurpose your Amazon videos, throw them up on YouTube, but then get better. Like Sean says, get 1% better with every single one. And I will say to, you know, kind of again, be. Be encouraging to people that are like, well, no, I can't go out and just buy whatever I feel like on Amazon to do these comparison videos. One of the reasons that I consist, well, there are many reasons I consist post on my YouTube channel under the Smart Business mom name. But I ever since I've been doing that, I get so many brands that reach out to me now that see that channel, right? And it's not a huge channel. But I will say that lots of brands reach out to me because they've already seen a video that I've done on a product that they have or a very similar product. I joked in one of the other previous live streams that I now have three outdoor patio sets at my house. I actually just gave one away because I keep getting brands like we love your patio set video. And those things are expensive, you know, 5, 6, $700. And so I've gotten quite a few of those for free now because I keep making these videos about patio sets. And so don't be discouraged if you're like I don't have, you know, two espresso machines or two patio sets. Right. Just keep creating great content, posting it up on Amazon and on YouTube and be open to opportunity because you never know what could come of all of that. All right, so we are almost at the top of the hour. That hour went by so incredibly fast. I appreciate everyone's questions and comments. And Sean, as we wrap up, is there any pro tips, any words of advice that you want to give to everyone who needs help with YouTube? You know, how can we, how can we continue to grow our channels? How can we continue to monetize them and, and create the best content, you know, that we can?
- [54:25]
Kathleen Coble
Yeah, I think. And thanks so much for having me on. It's been fun and thank everybody for being here. Denise and Scott and Roberts. By the way, Robert said I bought a light kit with your link. I appreciate it. Robert Roberts with a Z. Grateful for you. So, you know, I think my, my biggest thought is like, don't overthink this. Punch fear in the face, press record, like, show up. Make simple videos with your smartphone that you would want to watch and that you would want to share with your friends. Just simply sharing your advice.
- [55:03]
Sean Cannell
Listen, if you've been enjoying this conversation that I've been having with Kathleen, I've got some really cool resources that will help you take things to the next level.
- [55:10]
Kathleen Coble
First, if you haven't watched my free.
- [55:13]
Sean Cannell
One hour online class on exactly how to do this strategy step by step.
- [55:18]
Kathleen Coble
It'S all about ranking videos, affiliate marketing, really getting to watch over my shoulder, exactly how I think about this process.
- [55:27]
Sean Cannell
So you can start implementing what you've been learning today. Right now, you can access that for free on demand@thinkmasterclass.com I'll link that up.
- [55:36]
Kathleen Coble
In the show notes. But if you go to think thinkmasterclass.com.
- [55:40]
Sean Cannell
Just give me your email. I will send you the link to.
- [55:43]
Kathleen Coble
The on demand class that really talks about this one strategy that we use.
- [55:48]
Sean Cannell
At Think Media that we've been just using year after year to rank videos and connect them to passive income streams.
- [55:55]
Kathleen Coble
Right. The big idea of this episode. So that's a free class. You could check that out on your own time and I'll link that up in the show notes. Secondly, one of the reasons why I.
- [56:03]
Sean Cannell
Love hanging out with Kathleen Coble, the.
- [56:05]
Kathleen Coble
Person who was interviewing me in this video, is because she has an entirely.
- [56:10]
Sean Cannell
Different way to make money with your smartphone. Creating simple online videos and actually uploading.
- [56:16]
Kathleen Coble
Those to Amazon.com itself. This is a real thing. You can actually upload on site videos through the Amazon Influencer program. She has a whole process of how.
- [56:26]
Sean Cannell
You can get approved quickly for it.
- [56:28]
Kathleen Coble
And you know, on the Think Media podcast, I don't want you to be.
- [56:30]
Sean Cannell
Distracted chasing too many strategies, but I.
- [56:33]
Kathleen Coble
See these things as complimentary. If you're already using your smartphone, filming from home, grabbing random stuff in your garage and in your kitchen, making simple videos to earn extra income, both like.
- [56:44]
Sean Cannell
Kathleen's approach and my approach actually kind.
- [56:47]
Kathleen Coble
Of go hand in hand. And we have a step by step video with a fresh tutorial for how.
- [56:52]
Sean Cannell
To do the Amazon Influencer program get.
- [56:54]
Kathleen Coble
Approved Fast and earn $100 plus per day. So that is a Think Media Podcast episode that I will link up in the show notes so you can watch that one as well. So two really cool resources. Check out thinkmasterclass.com check out that deep dive updated Amazon Influencer tutorial with Kathleen Kobel. And if you're still listening and you get value out of the Fake Media podcast, let me just say thank you so much. You know, this podcast is able to operate because of your support and so thanks for being a part of the community. And every time you like a video.
- [57:29]
Sean Cannell
Or leave a comment or leave a.
- [57:31]
Kathleen Coble
Rating on Spotify or leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to, it actually really does mean the world. You know, this podcast started with just kind of a dream and some hustle. There's now a small team that helps us produce these episodes and get them to you. And so if you get value from the Think Media Podcast, if you could just take one minute of your day and leave a review or comment or give us some feedback or share it, that would mean the world.
- [57:57]
Sean Cannell
My name is Sean Cannell, your guide to building a profitable YouTube channel.
- [58:02]
Kathleen Coble
And I cannot wait to connect with you in a future episode.