← The Think Media Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
The economy is shifting fast. If you're an entrepreneur or creator serious about scaling with YouTube, this is your moment. October 2nd and 3rd in Las Vegas, we're hosting the Think Media Mastermind. It's exclusive, it's application only, and spots are almost gone. Apply now@thinkmediamastermind.com 7 or 800 or 900.
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B
People have already watched the video. YouTube thinks I'm fire. They start pushing me out everywhere. It's just strategy.
- [00:31]
A
Jackie Bernardi, she's a mom, artist and creator that's unlocked rapid growth on YouTube. I mean, she got monetized in 28 days. Yeah, we're going to talk about that. I think that this strategy, I think, is something that a lot more creators should be considering. No matter the niche, no matter the size of the channel. I don't think it's ever too late to try to get something like this started. Welcome back to the Think Media podcast, the number one show bringing you unfiltered tips for building a profitable YouTube channel. I'm Nathan Eswine, one of the coaches here at Think Media. And today, today I'm talking with Jackie Bernardi. She's a mom, artist and creator that's unlocked rapid growth on YouTube. I mean, she got monetized in 28 days. Yeah, we're going to talk about that. But she did this by teaching this impressive mixed media art technique, like on her channel. And so her channel's called the Painted Paper Studio, which has, since monetization, scaled to about 45,000 subscribers as of today. She's got this lively and super engaged community. Her secret weapon wasn't chasing trends. It wasn't getting caught up in something flashy. It's this powerful system for building a loyal audience off YouTube to fuel her growth on YouTube. What are you talking about? Well, that's what I'm saying. Lean in. Let's talk about this. We got so much to get into. She's here to give us the full blueprint and including this kind of video launch strategy that I'm affectionately calling the Jackie Flywheel. How's that for an intro? Jackie, welcome. How are you?
- [01:58]
B
I'm great. Thank you so much for having me.
- [02:01]
A
So stoked that you are here. So I'd love to just jump right in because we have to talk about this speed at which you were monetized. Like, my goodness, it's kind of crazy. I looked up some stats and it looks like the data that's available, average time it takes for a YouTube channel to get monetized really is about like one to two years. That's actually what I'm seeing. So the fact that you were monetized in 28 days, I mean, break it down. What's the story right there?
- [02:27]
B
It was insane, truthfully. Like, everybody, I posted my first video, and it was crickets. Like, three people saw it. Maybe. I posted a week later a second video, and a week after that, a third video. But in that third week, I wanted to explore some of YouTube's other options. And so I think I posted a couple of shorts and I did a. What I'm going to say was a live. It wasn't live. It was a premiere, but it was about as live as I was willing to go at the time. And it was hilarious, because, seriously, up to that point, maybe 14 people had seen any of my videos. I didn't know who I thought was going to show up for the premiere, but people did. And about maybe 38 people showed up during the course of it. And so I just sat there typing away, and I got really happy. And the. The point here that I'm trying to make is I think I caught the attention of the YouTube algorithm, and there's no way to know if that's actually true or not, but I put my trust in YouTube. So I said, all right, they're. They're offering all these things, these features for us to use. Why not use them now when I have no audience and see what happens, right? And so that was the third week. And then a few days after that, live, I posted my fourth weekly video. And that one went. I love saying that one went viral for me because I had nobody watching. So of course it went viral, but it actually really did go viral. And overnight, I think it was 2,600 people had watched it overnight. And I woke up the next morning to a text from my son, my adult son, and he said, oh, my God, mom, something is happening on YouTube, and you've got to look at it right now. And I did. I'm like, I thought it was a mistake. I kept looking in the analytics, like, waiting to see that YouTube was having a service disorder.
- [04:27]
A
You're like, it couldn't be my channel in my video.
- [04:29]
B
It couldn't be my channel or my video. Right? It was just crazy. And that that video pushed into that 28 day and. And very literally, Cinderella's story. I woke up the morning of my 28th day of having videos on YouTube, and there was the notification that I was eligible to be monetized. I took screenshots like it was. So nobody's going to Believe this.
- [04:57]
A
This is so exciting. I love this and I love. I love something that you said there. I want to point out really quick, you put your trust in YouTube already. That is such a counter argument. Can I just say, and just want to, like, hats off to you just as a coach here. I think a lot of creators right now don't have their trust in YouTube. It seems like it's almost easier to blame YouTube if I could just put it, like, bluntly. I think a lot of people are quick to blame the algorithm, quick to blame the features, but you had the opposite mindset as you started your journey, even when it was crickets, which is. And fair enough, someone could be listening to me like, well, it took her 28 days. Yeah, that's fair. But nonetheless, the mindset is. The thing that I'm already taking away is putting your trust in YouTube, seeing these features as something to lean into. So that video that you did, that was a premiere, was that. So you had one that you put out before the video that really pushed you through monetization. And can you clarify again, was that a live video or is that a premiere video?
- [05:52]
B
The one before the one that went viral for me at the time, yeah, that was a premiere. And this video went out two or three days. The viral video went out two or three days after the premiere. So I think there was energetically something going on with the algorithm because I tripled the amount of people that had seen any of my videos prior to that at 38. You know what I mean? So you might have 12 people watching your videos right now. Right. But if you somehow can get 24 to watch, all YouTube sees is that you've doubled your viewership, like, overnight. They don't care what the actual number is, just the percentage. Like, what is happening here? What's the momentum? What's the. What's rallying right now? I don't know that this is true, but I believe it in my heart that it's true. Because I can't explain to you logically how a channel from a retired mom, Right. Would all of a sudden, 28 days later be monetized. I know we love to focus on specific numbers. I think it's really more about percentages and energy or trending or whatever you want to call that for yourself.
- [07:12]
A
Oh, this is huge already. So this is why we wanted to hang out with you here. Like, this is such awesome. And I mean this in the best way, mom wisdom. Like, come on, we need your voice right now. Oh, my goodness. The fact that you're able to look at your YouTube channel and your YouTube journey and see like just the filter of percentages, the filter of ratios, trending lines versus blowing up and getting millions of views. And I think that is absolutely something that we try to champion here at Think Media. We have a phrase called viral for me.
- [07:44]
B
Right?
- [07:44]
A
And viral for me can be. It should be exactly what you just said. I'm usually getting 10 views and then I got 35. Like, woo, you did it. You just did your best. Right? And that, that's a ratio that I do, I do believe YouTube sees. And that if that momentum keeps going, you go from 35 to 50, from 50 to 85. If that trajectory keeps trending upward and you just keep bringing in numbers slowly but steadily that are different than your baseline, your baseline goes up. If your baseline goes up. Well, there's a lot of good reasons for YouTube to continue to show your content to people. So my goodness, thank you for just bringing the heat right here at the very beginning. I'd love to fast forward a little bit, right? So monetized in 28 days. And really a little bit is just a couple years. Now your channel's just about 45,000 subscribers. And so again, hats off to you for not just being a channel that got monetized in a quick timeframe, which is cool, but it'd be, it'd be kind of, there'd be less of a story here if that's all that it was. And then the next two years, I don't know, you went from a thousand subscribers to like 2000, right? No shame or whatever, but I'm just trying to say there's something about pushing to monetization. And through monetization on YouTube, to get to a place that's at 45,000 subscribers is no small feat. So I'd love to hear if you could give us a snapshot of your world right now. What are some revenue streams that you have? Is it just YouTube or are there other things you've built out over time?
- [09:09]
B
So I'm keeping it really clean and simple until I feel like I really have a handle on all the different parts. And so the YouTube part is a huge part. And there's so much technically and analytically and marketing wise and so much involved with that. I've chosen to keep my revenue sources streamlined. So AdSense obviously is, it's okay, you know, it's, you know, you love getting the, the check every month. I'm not like one of those YouTubers that's making 10 grand a month. On AdSense, I'm not there. That's okay. I will be there someday. Because that's literally just how YouTube works, right?
- [09:53]
A
That's right.
- [09:53]
B
Even if I walked away from YouTube right now, I will get to 10 grand a month on it because of the number of videos I have now out now and so on. So. So I'm not worried about that. I also have a little bit of affiliate revenue from Amazon and one of the big art suppliers in the US And I have my community. So I have a community that I host on the Circle platform. And I. There's two levels to it. There's the free resour source community, which everybody has access to, and then there's the paid membership. So those are my revenue streams right now. And I do, I don't do any partnerships or collaborations. I haven't found one yet that I, I'm very, very protective of my audience. Let me put it this way, right? And the only reasonable partnership right now would be like aarp, right? Something like that. It's not going to be the company that sells paint by number kits or diamond painting and all these things. And the truth is, is as we go through what we're going to be talking today about, I'm sure I've built such a level of trust with my audience that when I say something, they respond to it immediately. So if I'm out there hawking something just because I can, just because they wanted to pay me 25 doll, send me a kit or whatever, I actually risk losing what I've actually worked really hard to build up. And not just numbers. I'm losing these people that are friends, these people that are part of my life now. And that's what I want to say about that. Like, so. So I've chosen to be really reserved about how I generate income through YouTube because the decisions I make now will impact my future on YouTube or any platform. So integrity is important, I think more so now than ever. And if you want your audience to trust in what you're saying and do the things that you really hope they will do, you've got to start with a bedrock of absolute trust.
- [12:11]
A
This is huge. I'd love to ask, was it because it's one thing to say this, it's another thing to live it out. And obviously you were living this out. I'm sure it's not for lack of opportunity. There's been opportunities, I'm sure maybe you've gotten emails, you've gotten messages or DMs or something of companies wanting to reach out and try to partner in some way. Did that come naturally to you? To just know I'm really protective of my audience. Like, how did you. How did you get to that? I'd be so curious to see how you cultivated that.
- [12:39]
B
I would love to say it came naturally and maybe, maybe it did, but I remember the very first collaboration email I got and I was actually on vacation with my best friend from childhood and we were in Europe and I woke up and there was this. I couldn't believe it. I was screaming. It was like two months after I started the channel and like, oh my gosh. Some. And so it. Because it actually, the subject said collaboration opportunity. Right? So I knew what it was before I read it. I opened it up and it was nearly unreadable. The. The grammar was horrific. I. I don't know where it came from. It doesn't matter. But it was something so bizarre. It was some kind of like laminator, like industrial size laminator. And I was like, what? I'm like, oh, no, no. And what really starts happening is if there's any momentum on your channel, you will start getting collaboration opportunities a lot. And uh, and that happens almost every day. I get some kind of email for that and I just, I just, I'm not. It's not important to me right now. The money is not that important to me. Coming from those kinds of sources for me to bend.
- [13:58]
A
Let's like go back into some nerdy territory, if that's cool. I would love to talk about this video that you posted just a couple months ago. And last I checked, I'm looking at it right now. It looks like that video is at like 155,000 views. It's your most popular video on your channel. Your channel's been around for a couple years, but you just posted this two months ago. The nerdy coach in me is like, wow, that has a high view velocity. It just means wow. The rate at which you got views was so rapid that it just took over all the other videos you've ever posted. So couple questions here and I just want to let you go for it. The first thing is because this video was posted fairly recently, you know, like, I would think you're more of a veteran creator at that point. You'd seen success already. So my first question is, did you have a hunch that this video was gonna do well or was it still something that it took off and you were like, oh, I wasn't expecting that.
- [14:51]
B
No, I never have a hunch when a video is going to do well. Truthfully if. If you stacked all my videos together, even that one, I'd say, meh, it'd probably do about average, you know, and truly, the way that day started out, it was my normal, you know, it was probably at 5 or 6 in the ranking for the first hour. No way. And then all of a sudden it started spiraling and going and going and going. But I will say this. We had company here visiting the weekend that. That came out. And my friend's husband, he's a CEO of a major restaurant group, and I was sitting there saying, I can't believe what's. What's happening here. It's only been out for two hours. And it had some ridiculous number, like 7,000 views or something. It was crazy. And I said, I. I have no idea why this is happening. And he said, think about it. And so I did. I spent the rest of the day kind of noodling over. And the truth is, is that the connection between the email that I sent out that morning and we can talk about that whole thing in a bit. But the connection between the email that I sent out that morning to my audience was so humanistic because it was something that every single reader in my. In my email list, which at that time was probably, I don't know, 6,000 people, I'm not sure, but they could connect to it. And it was a natural transition into what the video was about. And the video, it was, honest to God, the easiest little collage project that you could possibly do. And I said it in the email, and I said it, I believe in the title or in the description of the video that anyone can do this and it will look fantastic. And so I took something that if somebody saw it on a wall, they might say, oh, that's really complicated. How did she make that happen? And I showed them this. Your kids could do this. Literally anybody can do this. And so that flow from the email where I took something that anybody would agree was hard, and what that was was I taught myself via YouTube, how to fix my own clothes dryer, right? So I got inside the dryer with a screw gun and, you know, and all these things, and I, I did it successfully because I watched a YouTube video. And so the point of the email was if I were able to do that, to fix my dryer, you can do hard things to watch this video. It, I guarantee it will. You will successfully create a piece of art that you will love. And again, it was that, that through line between the email, the trust that I had built up with my audience over A year and a half, almost two years at that point. And then, and then did the video also, the thumbnail on that video had something to do with it, but I don't know much about that, truthfully, so. But it was the consistency. And this is part of my process. I am very, very consistent about the messaging I send to my audience via email or in my community and the videos that follow through with it.
- [18:13]
A
Wow. Okay. So this, this email thing, I know has piqued my interest and I'm sure has piqued the interest of who's listening. And so you better believe we're going to talk about that because it'd be true or false. Right? It's a email is a pretty big part of your email of your YouTube process today, right? Yeah. Okay, so I get, you know, speaking of professional results, studio quality, I do believe that is that matters. And I do believe in a 2025, 2026 YouTube landscape, that quality isn't everything. But to your point of how you started, if you can start strong in the sense of putting something professional out there. Mike sounds good. We can just hear you. Lighting is present so we can see you. Camera quality is good, especially in a niche like yours where we want to actually see and experience what you're going through. Right. Like quality matters. And what's kind of cool is actually Jackie and I are, we're not even in the same room right now and we're across the country and we're recording this entire interview on this platform called Riverside. And the best part is how simple it is. It's right in line with what we're talking about. Like Jackie literally clicked a link, hopped in. There's no special software to download to be able to use this. And Riverside has just been a game changer for us at Think Media. So honestly, our content quality, talking about that is leveled up overnight because it functions like a studio, even though we're just on our laptops and Riverside records in up to 4K video. And this is the ninja part, is it actually separates your audio files and your video files for each person or each thing that you do. Like even if I shared my screen, that's a separate thing, which just makes editing not a nightmare. Nothing's baked in, everything is separated. So you can adjust things and. Which means you can clean things up when you're editing. And speaking of editing, here's the cool part. Riverside actually has a built in editor. It makes it ridiculously easy to start editing because you can actually trim parts of the video based on the transcript so if there's like a word or two or phrase that you wish you didn't said, or like a flub that you wanted to, you know, edit out, you could just highlight it, delete it, and it disappears from the video. You can automatically add captions, even clip vertical shorts. For social media, you can do it all inside of Riverside so you don't have to juggle a whole bunch of apps. So if you've been thinking about starting a podcast, creating content, interviewing people, leveling up, leveling up your production quality, even from your phone, we can't recommend Riverside enough. And they've set up a special deal for you. If you're watching or listening to this episode, you can use the Code Think Media at checkout and you can get one month free of their pro plan. So again, that's Code Think Media and we'll also link it in the description and show notes below. There's also this other cool thing about your content that I noticed even early on, like your early videos that you posted, the production itself was actually really good. And I'm not just saying that to say that like, for first videos that you're seeing, sure, we all grow and as communicators and all the good things, but I'm just saying like, tactically, like, the camera and lighting look good, you know. And so I know this is a question for a lot of our audience is trying to wrestle through gear. What's the stuff I should get? How did you navigate working through that before your first uploads? Because they looked really good. So had you thought about that before?
- [21:29]
B
So I am so glad you asked this question because this is part of the geeky thing that I don't get to exercise very often. But when I was, when I finally decided to post videos on YouTube, I had already had the Think Media, the VRA course for a couple of years. I didn't really do anything with it initially, but I had it. And so as I started thinking about, I started reading through it and really thinking about what would set. There's a, there's so many artists on YouTube, it's crazy. And the fact is when I started the channel, I, I wasn't even thinking of myself as an artist. I still don't. And it's not important, it's just a label. But like, all of the shows that I saw that were artist driven all looked, the content was different, but all felt the same to me. And so I started thinking about the content that I like to consume on YouTube. Not fixing dryer videos, but, but Other things. And really, prior to having a channel, I didn't really watch very many art channels. What I watched all the time were food channels, cooking channels. Right. And what I know is that some of these channels that I follow make me want to get up in the middle of the video and go cook the thing. Right. And when that happens, I'm instantly a subscriber and I want to be on their mailing list because I want their recipes and I want. And so I started paying attention to food content creators. And you know, you watch almost any cooking channel, you are getting different angles. The lighting is always fantastic. The audio is crispy and perfect because it really needs to. Because with cooking, you need to taste, you need to hear it to get your taste buds going.
- [23:25]
A
Wow.
- [23:26]
B
I knew I didn't want to do audio that way, but the, the context was I don't know what to do to make myself stand out in my particular niche. So I went to a different niche that I. It only makes sense if it was something I was naturally attracted to. I'm naturally attracted to cooking videos. I looked at it, I figured out how they did it. I mean, maybe not technically, but like different angles, good lighting. And I said, okay, I'm just going to do this and we'll see what happens. And it resonated.
- [23:59]
A
Wow. Okay. This is, this is a fire tactic. I really enjoy this. And to be clear too, at Think Media, I mean, obviously we're all about tech and all about the crispy looks and setups and helping people do that. You just have to go to our main channel and you can see, my goodness, that's what we talk about. At the same time, though, we do also have a heart for like the budget friendly person who's just trying like, you know, in our. One of our ethos, you know, our Think Media ethos that Sean champions is just punch fear in the face and press record. Like just start, like just do the thing.
- [24:30]
B
Yes.
- [24:30]
A
There's so there's a tension here because, yeah, just do the thing. But also if how you do the thing, if you can have a little bit of almost like premeditating, what you're saying is, oh, like you couldn't really find a way to stand out by looking at your own niche. So you got outside of your niche to draw inspiration from how other channels are doing things, other niches are doing things. That's just absolutely wonderful. That's a hard core tactic that if you're listening and if you're looking for fresh inspiration, you may not find it in your Niche, sure, someone else could be doing something, but you're probably going to find it outside of your niche. And I love how you said just lean into your natural interests, like what keeps your attention on YouTube in some other niche that's not related to what you're creating. So that's absolutely fire. Thank you for sharing that. I'd love it if you wouldn't mind. You said you, you know, you're, you don't mind getting nerdy. So would you go ahead and like spell out what's your current setup like? Like what camera are you using, what lighting are you using? Just what have you found to be most helpful?
- [25:27]
B
So I've reinvested pretty much every penny that I've made via YouTube and my community into what I'm doing here. And that I can say with a full heart that I paid off all my company debt last Friday. Right. So now like moving into the black here. It's great. But what I did is I had old, I old Canon cameras that, you know, I could film on. I had two of those. One was my son's from when he was in college. One was one that I had, I saw everybody talking about, about the ZV E10 and so I bought one and I had some lighting, like the, you know, basic lighting that everybody talks about having that I bought like a few years before when I had a different YouTube channel that it just was not my thing and blah, blah, but I had the lighting. So I set it up. And what I would say is yes, it is an expensive proposition if you're going to go out and buy everything. Brand new Facebook, marketplace, all the Etsy, maybe not Etsy, I'm sorry, ebay, all these different sources, you can find things. But actually ask your neighbors if they have an extra camera that you could borrow for a couple hours. They're going to want to help you, right? I, I hope they're going to want to help you if, if you can. I'm not saying what your content is, requires this kind of a thing, but I'm showing art videos so I kind of do have to have different angles and different perspective. And it's not channel vanity. It's literally my audience says in almost every video. The production quality made me want to do this. I can see it so clearly. I understand what you're doing. So I guess to finish that thought is find ways. Use your phone, use your iPad. Use your phone and your iPad. If you can just find different ways to, to work this. If you go in thinking that you have to spend A fortune to make it. That's going to be the friction, that's going to be the thing that will stop you. There's other ways to make it happen.
- [27:47]
A
It's such good, such good feedback and I can endorse that. I remember building out my own studio like you know, a few years ago and I just refused to pay full price. So I was like, man, it's kind of crazy what people will let go on a Facebook marketplace or ebay or Mercari or whatever. Like you can really find a lot of really high quality gear at an affordable price. And so I appreciate you sharing that. It's a really good, really good hack. If you're trying to get gear, you don't always just have to buy full price. Right. And even trying to like tap some friends or neighbors or community, like, does anybody have something that could help me out? It's just really strong, really strong. Okay, so I would like to transition back to this system that we were talking about that I've affectionately called the Jackie Flywheel. And I, you know, as well as prepping, I was just kind of spying on your channel, looking around, seeing what you're doing. I can't help it, I'm a coach, right? So just trying to see like, hey, what's she doing? That's like got this YouTube channel working. Not just on YouTube because clearly you've got videos that are performing, but like this other revenue generating stuff that's happening off platform. And so I wanted to share this here really quick with you, Jackie, and with everyone. I put together this graphic that's like I think representative of your ecosystem, if I could put it that way. Right. So if we start there in the top, right? It's like YouTube is your top of funnel, so to speak. So it looks like that's how you get traffic is through high quality videos. And then in your videos you have strategic calls to actions. So you're actually trying to direct viewers to a place because they watched your video, there's somewhere you would actually invite them to go that isn't necessarily on the platform still. And that leads people to an opportunity to join an email list of yours or get into and, or get into a community which you've mentioned and we can talk more about. But then after they've got into your community because they took you up on your call to action because they saw your video, there's an opportunity for them to go deeper with you and they can pay to be in your membership at a higher level and just have access to certain things. So as you look at this and you see it, you know, in this graphic, what are your thoughts there, Jack? Do you think this is accurate?
- [29:59]
B
Yes, 100% accurate. I think what I want to say about that is when I very first started the email list, which did not happen until I was monetized on YouTube. So this is sort of the dog chasing the tail, right? Everything that I'm about to say, but I, when I was monetized there, I'm like, all right, well, maybe this is something. Maybe there. Maybe I am on to something. And I'm getting all these comments and I'm responding to every single comment. Maybe I should be collecting email addresses and sending them something, you know, once a week. And so I started that. I can tell you, with the exception of a couple of thousand subscribers, I'm at about eight and a half thousand subscribers now. Except for a couple thousand of those. Every single person on my mailing list came from YouTube. Every single one. YouTube is my only source of subscribers to the mailing list almost. I was in a summit last, earlier this year, an art summit. And I did get subscribers from that, but a lot of them were watching me on YouTube anyway. They just hadn't subscribed. So, so, so here's the thing. I'm not on. I have, I have a presence on all the social medias because you need to do that, but I don't use them. So I don't use Instagram, I don't use Facebook to do this, which is crazy given the, the demographics of my audience. They're all on Facebook, but I'm not. And YouTube is it. So YouTube is. The videos are bringing them in to my world. And, and I want to say how I'm doing that because I know people are going to ask about this. How I get people to subscribe to my mailing list, typically in my videos is I just add it in as completely natural conversation, right? As part of the video. So if I'm working on a specific technique, let's say on a gel plate, now, I know a lot of you won't know what a gel plate is, and that's fine. But if I'm working on a specific technique on the gel plate, I know that inside my free resources community, I have an entire course, free course on how to use the gel plate from day one. And so as I'm doing the technique, I just say, you know, this, the skip rolling technique that I'm doing here, I, I talk a lot about inside the gel plate video course that I have over in My free resources community, if you, if you're interested in seeing that, I've got a description either down below or in the comments. And I just keep going on. It's not an advertisement. Like I don't stop everything and say, please sign up for my mailing list. Nobody wants to sign up for a mailing list, right? Nobody. They want something and if you can make it tie in directly to what you're talking about, it's a no brainer for them. Of course they want that. Right. And, and this is very literally how I've gone from 0 subscribers to 8, 500 in two years now. I'm not breaking any land speed records. There's people that have way more and have done. But I would say I, I could say this with my whole heart. Nobody has a more engaged email list than I do. And the numbers show it. So YouTube has created this natural environment for people to want to hear more from me. Wow.
- [33:34]
A
Okay, so may need to rewind and just listen to all that again because you know, you look at this system, you hear what you just said. There's actually a lot of steps that are going on in that whole process. So if someone's listening, you're like, okay, I've heard about this email thing, heard it's important but like has never really messed with it. What, like what would you say? How did you come to the conclusion that no, I want to do an email list and I want to offer viewers somewhere to go. Like how did you come up with that?
- [34:03]
B
It was really when I got monetized, I'm like, this is, I had enough of a background in the world of online marketing and so on that I knew you had to have an email list. But prior to being monetized on YouTube, I didn't really know what I would say to these people in emails and I didn't want to do all that normal stuff that everybody tells you to do that that works. But it just wasn't me and I'm absolutely me in my videos and so I couldn't not be me in my emails. Right. So it, that took a minute. And when I started the email actual writing the emails, I wrote stories about myself. They're literal stories, stories about myself that connected to the art and, and the stories that I have about myself and art are the exact same stories that literally millions of people have. Everybody's had the well intentioned parent who told them that art is not practical. Right. You know, they all. And so they could relate to these stories and that is. And it kind of took on a life of its own. And shortly after I started the email list, I want to say maybe within a month, I did make the mental connection between the storytelling and the videos. And that's, that's truly when gas went on the fire. As soon as I realized that they're connecting to the stories, but then they're done, they're done reading. There's nothing for them to do. They're already on the mailing list. I'm not selling anything yet. So I decided that my emails would be the direct route to make sure that the people that are already on my mailing list are watching my video every single week. And so I started sending out my emails. My emails only go out on Saturday mornings, right? And they go out at 8:45 in the morning the minute that my video for the week launches. And so why that matters is one, I'm giving them only one thing to do in the email. They, the only thing that they action they can take is click the button to watch my video. What that's doing on the YouTube end is because I've built up this relationship with these people. They're very literally many of them waiting for my email to arrive every Saturday morning. Not just to see what the video is, to read the story that's going to lead them into the video. They read it. A typical open rate or open number, I should say, on Saturday mornings between 8:45 and 9:45 is anywhere from 800 to a thousand people opening the emails and then they go right over to YouTube and they watch the video. So think about this for just one second. All of a sudden my videos posted at 8:45 and by 9:45 in the morning, 7 or 800 or 900 people have already watched the video. YouTube thinks I'm fire. And so they, they, they start pushing me out everywhere. It's just strategy. And here's the thing, and it's so weird for me to talk about it because I actually know it's a strategy. But in my heart it's the right thing to do because I genuinely want these people to watch the video. Not so they can create what I've created, they can't. But so they can feel empowered to create something. So this is again, this is its own micro flywheel, right?
- [37:46]
A
Yes.
- [37:47]
B
Jackie is fly.
- [37:49]
A
Jackie is fly. That's why I didn't even want to say anything, just like just keep talking. Please just coach us all because that is worth rewatch, rewatching and re listening to again. This, you have your relationship dialed when it comes to YouTube and email and how they complement each other. And that's why I think it's truly a flywheel. It's this thing that just keeps going round and round and round. You bring in new people because of a video that you made where you strategically call people to some place that could help them go deeper. They take you up on it, they're on the email list, they get an email of the next video, right. And so it's like this compounding effect that keeps going. And man, I got to tell you what, I think that this strategy, the Jackie flywheel, right, I think is something that a lot more creators should be considering. No matter the niche, no matter the size of the channel. I don't think it's ever too late to try to get something like this started. So I'm curious Jackie, have you had anyone ask you like how to start this? Like if someone's listening right now and they're like, okay, this sounds really cool, I get it, Jackie sold me on it. But like where do I start? Like tactically like tools, software, what have you found to be most helpful?
- [38:54]
B
Yes. So yes, you have to have software. I mean you, you cannot send emails to people from your Gmail account. You just can't. So I, I use a, I don't know if we can talk about.
- [39:07]
A
Absolutely.
- [39:08]
B
I use Kit. That is my platform of choice for this. I spend. So this is going to be frustrating for some people and you don't have to do it the way that I do it and you certainly shouldn't do the way I do it. But I do write my email to the audience the morning I send it out. So hear me, I'm sending it out at 8:45 in the morning. I'm up at Saturday, Saturday mornings at 6 wondering what I'm going to write about because there's something that happens for me and it's great to be very organized and to have all these systems and all that, but I know that my system, my flywheel, is very much heart based. And so the things that I want to talk about in my email rarely can be pre planned. Right. It has to be relevant to what's going on in the video and what's happening that week and so on. And so I, I wait to write it. But because I have a powerful system like Kit or any of the other systems are powerful, I can put that email in there and I can get it out within minutes. Right. I, I, I don't want to make it sound like I'm last minute Sally I'm not, I, I'm usually done writing it by 7:30. But what I know is that when that email goes out, it is exactly what I was thinking that morning. And so when the comments start coming in on YouTube, it is fresh in my brain and I am responding because they're not just responding to the video. And I'm not suggesting you all go look at the videos so you can see the comments, but if you do, what you're going to see is a lot of people are talking about things that were not mentioned in the video at all but are relevant to the video. And what they're actually asking has to do with what I wrote that morning. So here's the thing. This is, this is technique and tactics and all that. But really what this is is relationship building 101. And also, you know, Nathan, I am happy to share some of my emails with anybody who's listening so that they can see what I'm talking about. Because it sounds very vague like, oh, what she writing about? You know that she had Cheerios this morning? No, I am not writing about Cheerios. But you can see the patterning and the pacing and the so on. Not all of you are going to want to have that kind of a relationship with your audience, but you should know how to structure a relationship with your audience. It may look completely different, but you should know how to structure it.
- [41:39]
A
Wow. Do you, do you mind if I ask how, how do you use AI? Do you use AI at all? Is that a part of your process? Okay. Would you mind sharing how you. Yeah. How do you use that?
- [41:50]
B
Yes, I'm in love with and so frustrated by AI. Like I've already got AI figured out for 10 years from now. I just wish it would listen to me now. Right now I am primarily using it as cleanup. Right. I have a way of connecting with my audience. And grammatically I write like I speak. Right. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. And so I do I, I use Grammarly to, you know, just check, make sure I'm not making any horrifying mistakes because I have a remarkable amount of former teachers following me. I'm so afraid I'm gonna get my knuckles cracked. I use AI for that. Also. I use it for, I'm going to say strategy. It's not exactly strategy, but I use it for development of things within my community. Right. So I had a separate email sequence. So once somebody comes into the Free Resources membership in my community, which is essentially at this point my only optin. Right. When they come in there I had a traditional email sequence and it. Sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. I, I need to go back for one second on this. All right. I did not sell a single thing to my audience. I didn't promote a single thing to my audience for a year and two months or three months after I started on YouTube.
- [43:26]
A
Okay.
- [43:27]
B
Not a single thing. I was just relationship developing. I know a lot of you don't want to wait that long or can't wait that long. That's fine. That's fine. You can still do all the things I'm talking about and develop the relationships and it'll help. But I didn't. So my, my open rates, we all know open rates, they matter, but they don't matter that much. But my open rates during that time were 83 to 85% on just a weekly email. Right.
- [43:57]
A
Wow.
- [43:57]
B
My click through rate at that time was 47%, the average. All right, so they wanted to read, they wanted to be part of all of that. Once I started promoting the community and all that, of course those, those rates go down. They're still really strong, but they have gone down. My, my open rate now is 64. And my click through rate, my click through rate is generally about 19, which I, I think is strong enough. And I'm totally happy with it. But here's the thing. Once I had things to sell, I went all in with the selly email sequences and all of that. And my audience was getting bombarded with emails all of a sudden from me. And that had never happened before for a long time. I just said, well, you know, this is just how it has to be, and blah, blah, blah. And a few weeks ago, literally just about a month ago, I sat down and had a very, very, very long conversation with Claude. And I said, I need to fix this and I need a strategy to fix this, because it is. It's not me in these emails, and I know it's not me in these emails. Like it's a system that somebody taught me. It's not me. Help me with everything you know about me, and Claude knows everything about me. With everything you know about me and my business and how I run this community and all that. Help me think of a strategy that is so welcoming that when they come in, they feel like they're getting an actual hug from me.
- [45:38]
A
Whoa.
- [45:39]
B
And we worked together for a full day on making that happen. And we did. And I can't. I have no numbers to share with you.
- [45:50]
A
Sure.
- [45:50]
B
But the engagement from brand new members over the past month has skyrocketed. And here's the beautiful thing. My existing community that was already loving the space, opened up their arms and welcomed all these new people too. So when people are coming into my community, they feel like they are in the right place. And so later on, should they want to upgrade to the paid for membership, it's a natural for them. So that's how I used to AI to re. To help me rethink and restrategize because the words that I was using before were not connecting. Now, AI didn't make my words connect. I worked with AI all day long till I found something that when I read it, I'm like, oh, that came out of my mouth. And that only came out of my mouth because I worked all day long with the AI to sound like me, to be me. Now I, I know that sounds like I relied on, on AI. I only relied on it to keep me on track. I'm an artist. I'm everywhere all the time. Right? Yes. So that's how I've used AI most recently.
- [47:10]
A
Oh, it's so helpful. That's, that's why I wanted to ask you, I've been asking creators more and more this question. Are you using AI and how are you using it, especially as an artist and fellow artists here too. Like my YouTube channel was music, like helping people learn how to write songs and stuff. Right. So we're kindred spirits over here. So I was curious how. Yeah, you saying I write it every Saturday. I write it in the moment. Just had me think about, oh, it doesn't sound like you. You're not a creator that's trying to outsource your heart and your thinking to a device. You're starting with you and then letting it refine your thoughts. Yes.
- [47:45]
B
And I want to be really, really clear about this. The Saturday morning emails are written by me, period. Full stop. They are written by me, they're cleaned up by AI. Just. Yeah, that's. Everybody's like, I can't imagine who is not using Google auto spellcheck, like 100%. Yeah. Right. But the, the content of those emails is 100% me. And that is something I will not waiver on it. Not worth it.
- [48:14]
A
I agree. I agree. That's a, that's actually a really good reminder, I think, for all of us with this whole AI thing, which is just, it's so fast moving. Right. But at the core of it, at the key to this crazy engaged audience that you have and on your email list, it's just there's no way that the relationship would be that strong, right. If your heart isn't there and you're, you're aware of that when you're writing an email, when you're thinking about your audience, even caring so much about your audience to be like, no, not just any and every sponsor is even going to get in here. Right. So I love that you've reminded us of that. I'd love to jump into your community here for time's sake. Just thinking about if you could walk us through that side. We've talked about the videos, right, that bring people into your world. We've talked about the call to actions that you give to people. So let's pick up on your flywheel, these last couple spots over here. Like what happens, let's say people click the link, I'm assuming in your description that you have on a YouTube video, what are you most likely calling people to? Is it straight to the community or is there something else?
- [49:17]
B
Okay, so I, you know, these communities are not inexpensive. The software for the platform is really very expensive and all I was using it for initially was a place for my paid members to congregate. And it would take an awful lot of paid members, you know, to, to support that software.
- [49:43]
A
Right.
- [49:44]
B
And so I want to say in April of this year, I decided to put everything that I had had as an individual opt in before. So I had probably six different things that were my freebies, the gel plate course that I mentioned before, I had some templates, I had just a few things. I said, you know what, I think I'm going to combine all of these into what I'm going to call a free resources membership inside that same community. And the thought there was one streamline all the different opt ins and it's, it's crazy. And if something goes wrong in an email sequence and it's, and you have six different opt in operators, it's when you're solo, it's crazy, right? So I decided to put everything in the same house. Now that was smart just to put everything in the same house. So I have one single opt in now. Pretty much one single opt in now. And it takes them into the free resources community where they instantly have access to every single free resource that I have in there. I also have an area inside the community that houses my YouTube videos now they're just embedded in there. So when they watch them it actually registers in YouTube, which is awesome because people that are joining me now don't know that I did a video, you know, 16 months ago on something that they're very interested in. Right. So that's very helpful. But here's the real reason to have brought these people into the Circle platform. That is where my paid for membership lives. The more comfortable they get inside a technological platform for free for as long as they want, the easier it will be, I believe, to convert them into the open studio membership, which is the paid membership and the sharing that goes in there. So my audience is significantly older. Right. My, I think the percentage now is 82% is 55 years old and older. A lot of them are 65 plus. Right. So there are some technological issues and hiccups. I would much rather help them figure that out in the free resources membership and then have them so comfortable that they upgrade, then bring them in as an open studio membership and lose them before their quarter is over because they couldn't figure out how to get to whatever. So for me, it's an act of keeping the churn low. Right. Once they upgrade, but also it gives them a community to go to that is not judgmental, where they can post their artwork. They can't do that on my. Well, they technically could do that now on my YouTube channel, but they're not doing that. And it gives them a place to be inspired. So. Wow.
- [52:48]
A
Okay. So the difference between the paid community and the free community, would you mind listing those off one more time? Like just to give people an idea of what incentivizes someone to go from.
- [52:59]
B
Yes.
- [53:00]
A
Which is ninja, by the way, that you like. I'm just gonna put all the freebies, like, right here. What. What gets people to make that step and pay you.
- [53:07]
B
So, so the, the free resources membership has every free offering that I have available. And also every once in a while, I will do a free event, live event inside the community so they can get a taste of what the open studio, the paid membership people get. And so the paid membership people get access to me. We have live events. We have three or four live events a month. And they're collaborative and exciting and they're completely interactive. And so they feel like it's sort of like going to camp. It's exactly what it's like. It's going to camp and seeing all your cool friends and, you know, hanging out and making crafts and, you know, and doing these things. And I don't say that to minimize. What I'm saying is like, it's an exciting place to be. So when we hold those types of events in the free resource membership available to them, they get to experience that and they'll like, whoa, that's pretty cool. So this is how I'm using it. And yeah, that's how I'm using it.
- [54:16]
A
That's so good. I. And I just got to go back to. I just want to commend your insistence on simplicity through this, this whole thing, man. It's just really cool to hear you thinking about how can I condense this down, how can I make this simpler? How can I make this easier to follow and easier to track? And that's really inspiring because I do know the temptation for a lot of us as creators and making videos, for sure. But even if we try to think about, okay, more the business side of things, how to build that out, how to make money, not just on YouTube, but with YouTube, these other outlets, emails, man. I'll tell you what, YouTube itself is a great place to get distracted, but wow, you start to think about, like, email lists and frequencies, just all this stuff on the business side of things. I had to build out an online business that's so easy to get distracted and think, oh, I need to do another lead magnet. I need to do another freebie. And so what I love is this kind of call to remember simplicity, like, get one thing to work. Get one thing to work. Well, try to make that one thing better. Almost iterating as you go. But you just seem to be insistent on what I'd call like this kind of Death Star laser focus, where it's like, we're really just going to focus on this one thing and how I can make it better. And so I love the simplicity of you make a video, points people to your community, gets people on your email list. They hop in. It's a free place. That's awesome. And I love how you said it's a place that's exciting. It's a place that becomes familiar for them, that they'd like to be. You're teasing the paid, you know, option, and then no wonder people join you in there when they're ready to. So, wow. I just. I'm so stoked about this. I think this would be a big help to a lot of people. As we land the plane here, I wanted you to give you the space to share this story of how you. How you came to the decision to make a community in the first place, but even make a paid community and have that kind of be one of your main offers right now. There was this. I don't want to tease too much, but I'll just say, could you tell us the story, Jackie, of the birthday party Zoom call?
- [56:17]
B
Yes. Because we're coming up on the Second one.
- [56:22]
A
Do tell me.
- [56:23]
B
Very good timing, Nathan. So about a year ago I had the idea of a community and a paid for community floating in my head. As much as I love the revenue that I get from YouTube and Amazon and so on, it's really quite small compared to what it could be if I were offering courses or a community and so on. And because I really didn't have the time or bandwidth to create a course and do all the emails and all the automations and all these things, the most simple idea I had was the community idea. And so to see if that would fly, last year in October, I decided to do a birthday party, right? It just, I, I just called it my birthday party and I want to invite you all to it. And it was on a Wednesday morning at 10 o' clock in the morning and I sent out the email about it and 500 people, 500 people. 500 responded. And my mailing list at that time I think was 1100 or 1200 people. I mean it was much smaller than it is now and, and they showed up. I mean not all 500 showed up, of course not, but so I had this massive zoom room like and when I realized, because they had to sign up so that I could send them the L, when I saw the signups, I'm like I'm going to need a bigger boat, right. So I had to get the more expanded zoom thing. I, you know, wasn't sure how that was going to go. I also was not sure how I was going to manage a zoom with that many people on it when, you know, prior to that the max I'd ever like 12 people or something at one time. So what I got on YouTube and I looked at a whole bunch of videos about how to manage, you know, such a big YouTube university.
- [58:23]
A
Shout out.
- [58:24]
B
Exactly. So it went so well and I asked, would you be interested in a community where we had events like this? I mean we were creating, it wasn't just a birthday party for me, we were actually creating art together. I called it Open Studio and they loved it and everybody showed their art at the end. It was so beautiful. Every, like a million little windows and everybody's holding up whatever they created in that hour and nobody created a masterpiece. Everybody created something that was just fun and it was great. So the response was tremendous. And so I, I got very busy and I learned circle very quickly. And going back to what you were saying just a moment ago about the AI and automations and all these things, it takes a lot to make something look simple and it's not. And the more automations that are available to you, the more potential you are going to complicate your life. And so I just kept it simple and I. And so I just had the Open Studio membership. There's no free membership. That didn't even occur to me till much later. And I offered it and I think the eighth of it, it's a quarterly membership, so I offered. It's ongoing, I don't launch it or relaunch it every. You know, I don't do any of that. And that first go round, I actually had 52 people, I think, join as Open Studio members and it was so exciting because these were people that were saying with their wallet that they wanted to hang out with me for the next three months. Right? Yeah, Amazing. Absolutely amazing. And I will tell you, a majority of those people are still with me a year later. So we're going into our second birthday party this year, which will be for the free resources, community and all that, but not as a drive. Actually. I have a very special specific intention for that event. I mean, I do hope, of course, that it will encourage people to become Open Studio members. But I have a reading that I'm going to do that that's actually like a love letter to the community because they've been so magnificent and I have such a special place that I get to go to every day, you know.
- [60:49]
A
Oh, this is so powerful. Thank you so much for sharing and really thank you for this whole conversation. It's just been, it's been a master class, honestly, if anyone's thinking about dipping their toes into email, first off, wow, I wish that I could have heard this conversation years ago. Thank you for that. And also just a masterclass though, on really one of the big pillars and drivers of what we do on this platform as content creators, which is to impact people. And I know some of us are more driven by that than others, but at the end of the day, a view as a person, right? This is something we try to remember. So even if it is 12 views for you right now, man, could you put like 12 people in your living room? That's like a full room for most of us, you know, and thinking about a person at a time, what can you do, not just in your videos to impact and help people, but I hope that this challenges a listener to think, okay, what could I do off YouTube to maybe play somewhere else, like a circle or a community or a course, if that's for you, or whatever it might be. And then how could you create your Own, Jackie. Flywheel of connecting these. Connecting these things together. Because I think it's a. It's a really beautiful picture that I'm seeing of just really trying to help someone who. Who's really like your ideal viewer, the kind of person that you're wanting to make content for. Just like you said, I can't even imagine. I'm sure it meant so much to see everybody in that zoom room just holding up creations and just being like, wow, thank you for this moment. And like this ability, like in that moment that's like face to face realization of, oh, my goodness, what I'm doing matters, you know, And I had a hand in this. And I'll tell you what, that pumps me up as well. Final question, Jackie. As we land the plane, I just almost want to keep talking. Maybe we'll do a part two. I don't know. Listeners can let us know. I just feel like there's actually a lot more we can talk about. But I would love to end on this. Someone's listening here and we could have people at all different stages. And I know that. I think you've listened to the Think Media podcast. Even so, if. If you were sitting here with someone who's maybe just trying to figure out their next step is probably inspired by some stuff you said here, this whole email thing, community building thing. Yeah, I just. You have any. You've given us a lot of words of wisdom. But what's. Maybe the. The thing that you would say that you wish you would have known back when you first started, you're like, hey, okay, if your next step is going to be trying out this email thing and really building a thriving community, maybe here's one or two things to really focus on.
- [63:17]
B
I would say open up your capacity for trust. And I'll be specific. All right. I mentioned earlier that I trusted YouTube to take what I was putting in there and do the best thing for my audience with. May not have been the best thing for me, but I trusted they would do the right thing for the audience. And it did turn out to be the best thing for me. But the trust really comes in to trust the content that you want to make right, even if it's scary, even if you're like, who's going to want to watch this? Seriously, I paint papers. Who wants to watch somebody paint paper? Well, apparently a lot of people want to watch people paint paper. Okay. Trust that the thing that lights you up inside is enough for you to start this journey or continue on in this journey. Also trust that as people Start commenting on your things and. And so on. You're. You're going to get crabby people. They're just people out there that are crabby. Trust that they are the minority and that what you're doing matters to what you're doing matters so much that you can't stop yourself doing from doing it just because somebody was crabby one day. Right? Trust that your instinct for what's right for your audience is right. So, so this is why I'm saying the development of trust on every single level as you go through this is the thing that is going to sustain you. Because YouTube, as genius as it is, is not easy. It's not naturally easy, right? Some parts of it might be. But succeeding on YouTube is not necessarily easy. So if you can trust yourself, if you can trust the system, if you can trust your audience, you have literally foundation to create what you envision. And if you don't know what you envision yet. I didn't know when I put out that first video, I had no idea what was going to happen. My audience trusted me because I trusted them. And they told me what they wanted. Not specific content, but, like, what they wanted to feel. They literally told me in the comments. And I said, all right, well, this is. This is the pathway. So trust is foundational.
- [65:45]
A
Oh, man. I'll tell you what, I, you know, do this stuff each and every day, and even hearing you remind us of that is pumping me up. So if you're listening and you have gotten any sort of value from this whole conversation, because, my goodness, there could be a lot, would you just please let us know? Just like, rate, share, review wherever you watch or listen. This is the Think Media podcast. I'm Nathan Eswine, and I can't wait to connect with you in a future episode.