CO-HOST | Make Money by Growing Your Podcast with the 4 Ps of Content

Summary

Podcast Summary: “CO-HOST | Make Money by Growing Your Podcast with the 4 Ps of Content”

Podcast: Travis Makes Money
Host: Travis Chappell
Co-Hosts: Eric (Producer), Brandon Berkmeyer (Podcast growth strategist)
Air Date: July 28, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on actionable strategies for growing a podcast, especially by leveraging YouTube as a content platform. Brandon Berkmeyer unpacks his “Four Ps of Content Growth” framework—Packaging, Positioning, Promotion, and Partnerships—sharing key insights and hard-learned lessons. The trio also deconstructs current thinking on organic vs. paid promotion, the myth of niche content, and why creativity trumps tactics. There are candid moments, humor, and relatable stories for any content creator seeking to amplify their reach and impact.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Four Ps of Podcast Content Growth

Brandon Berkmeyer’s Framework

• Packaging (03:03)

  • First impressions matter: “What’s the first three seconds? Five, thirty, whatever that leads into the show.” — Brandon (03:24)
  • Avoid long, off-topic banter at the top; get right to the promised content.
  • Good packaging includes sharp editing, compelling thumbnails/titles, and grabbing the listener quickly.

• Positioning (05:04)

  • Old advice: “Niche down as much as possible.”
  • New trend: Broaden the appeal while maintaining expertise.
  • “They make it so niche that no one cares. ...How do you go from just being concentrated to being mass appeal?” — Brandon (05:15)
  • Mass appeal matters, as many viral videos intrigue even those initially uninterested in the topic.
  • “Now, the advice...is have your show, but your episode can be niche...you don’t have to be so handcuffed to this specific, tiny little bullseye niche.” — Eric (06:48)

• Promotion (13:21)

  • Creators are too romantic about organic growth.
  • “I think creators...are very romantic about...organically developing an audience.” — Brandon (13:21)
  • Paid promotion (ads) can be creative and strategic—not inauthentic.
  • “You can dump money at a shitty video. It doesn’t matter.” — Eric (18:22)
  • Test different platforms: YouTube, Facebook, Spotify, TikTok, email, etc.
  • Put budget behind content that’s already performing well for better ROI.
  • Beware: Weak content promoted with ads can actually harm channel metrics (CTR/watch time).

• Partnerships (27:46)

  • Collaborate with guests and creators to cross-pollinate audiences.
  • “It helps when you have good people that either you’re featuring in the show, but not only that, that maybe can feature you.” — Brandon (27:51)
  • Media mentions and association with bigger names can provide huge boosts to new shows.
  • The fourth “P” was learned in part from Travis’s own networking approach.

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Additional Insights and Trends

The Shift From Niche to Broader Content (06:46–08:30)

• Content that is crafted for broader interest is more likely to be picked up by recommendation algorithms.
• "I was watching a video that I had no business watching. It was about irrigation...They made something that's really not that interesting, very interesting because they thought about, how do we make this mass appeal?" — Brandon (07:14)
• Even niche professionals (e.g., landscapers) can achieve viral reach by packaging their work as visually interesting stories for everyone.

Paid Promotions & The Myth of “Channel Suicide” (13:21–21:55)

• Brandon recounts friction between “creative purists” and the need for promotion:
  • “I get heat when I say things like, run ads, typically that, dude, that’s suicide for your channel.” (21:55)
• Algorithms are not punishing channels because they run ads, but low-quality content gets poor results regardless of spend.
• “If you run an ad right, it’ll get to the core first...the more people you're showing it to and the creative still isn't good...click through rates are going down and down..." — Brandon (21:15)

When (and How) to Boost Content (26:10)

• Only promote content that's already organically successful:
  • “What I have noticed to be more effective is basically when a video is already doing well, then I put some, a little bit of boosting behind it...” — Travis (26:10)
  • Spend dollars where you’re getting the best cost-per-view or cost-per-sub, as shown by channel analytics.

The Importance of Quality Creative

• Platforms reward ads that people want to watch; poor creative can reduce long-term discoverability.
  • “Creative is driving everything. ...If you have a better piece of creative, you can make that go a lot further.” — Eric quoting Gary Vee (20:22)
• There is no shortcut—good packaging, substance, and storytelling remain the currency of audience attention.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “People waste a lot of time and don’t make it interesting.”
  — Brandon, on packaging (05:04)
• “Focus on having your show...but you have the freedom to talk about fitness here and there, your faith here and there...You don’t have to be so handcuffed to this specific, tiny little bullseye niche.”
  — Eric (06:48)
• “You can dump money at a shitty video. It doesn't matter.”
  — Eric (18:22)
• “It’s not YouTube is purposefully deranking...it’s just, the more eyeballs you get on a shitty piece of creative, the lower your click through rate, the lower your watch time is.”
  — Travis (25:22)
• “I think that there are lots of different ways that [Partnerships] shows up, but when I stumbled across your show years ago, it was like, oh, there are these big name people that I really admire, and you’re talking about a topic that I’m really interested in.”
  — Brandon (27:51)

Comic Relief & Banter

• Joke about survey monkeys: “...Seems strange to survey monkeys about this.” — Eric (15:17)
• “There’s only one industry where it’s great to have a high churn rate. The butter industry.” — Eric (16:00)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Packaging: 03:00–05:05
• Positioning: 05:04–11:14
• Promotion: 13:13–27:34
• Partnerships: 27:43–29:05
• Paid Promotion Risks & Best Practices: 18:14–27:34

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Takeaways for Aspiring Podcasters & Content Creators

• Get to the point: Don’t let banter overshadow content.
• Be broad, not bland: Creators can reach wide audiences without losing expertise.
• Test and iterate: Don’t rely solely on hopes for organic growth; be strategic with paid promotions, but never at the expense of creative quality.
• Don’t neglect partnerships: Cross-promotion, guest features, and media mentions can exponentially expand your audience.
• Data over ego: Let audience analytics and engagement drive your distribution and promotional efforts.

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Final Thought
“You just got to be careful what types of creative you’re putting spend behind because...it’s not going to make up for shitty creative.” — Travis (27:21)

This episode is a candid masterclass for growing a podcast or content platform in 2026—focused, practical, and laced with signature wit from Travis and team.

Transcript

[Travis]

I was recently on whatnot the other day, just shopping around, looking frankly, because I was just blown away that this is something that people are doing with their time. And so I was like, I got to go see if this thing is real before I talk about it on the show. And so I'm browsing whatnot, looking around, finding things, and it's crazy to see the volume of people that are just having fun in the chat. They're watching people do live shopping. It's like, it's like, you know, QVC directly on your phone. It's something you need to try, I'm telling you. Not just buying, but the selling piece too, where these people are just starting up pop up shops and businesses, selling whatever product, finding their people, building community, getting repeat customers that come back to see your face as the seller. Not just a logo or a brand, anyone can sell. Whether your business is big, small, or yet to exist, people selling on whatnot sell 10 times more than on any other major marketplaces. And that's because you're not just listing products, you're building real connections with buyers across whatnot. The number of sellers making over $1 million a year has now doubled. The consistency pays off for those sellers. It's not just side hustle. It's a real path to building something that lasts. Because whatnot buyers spend more than an hour a day in the app, they're not just browsing around, they're engaged, they're buying, they're coming back. You go live, show off your products in real time and turn what you love into real income. So search whatnot whnot in the app store, download it today and get started selling right away.

[Travis (Host)]

You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Travis Makes Money podcast where it's our mission to help you make more money. On this episode of the show. I have two co hosts in studio. One of them is my producer Eric, who you guys hear from all the time. Life partner is not going to talk at all. You already talked.

[Eric (Producer)]

Okay. Yeah.

[Travis (Host)]

And. And also our friend Brandon Berkmeyer, who's down. Yeah. He's the show's side piece.

[Eric (Producer)]

It's a real sandwich here today.

[Travis (Host)]

The third to our throuple.

[Eric (Producer)]

You're just sandwiched in between us.

[Travis (Host)]

I am?

[Eric (Producer)]

Yeah. Well, you're the host. You're in the center. I see we're on the Mount Rushmore

[Travis (Host)]

of that's only three, but banter anyway.

[Eric (Producer)]

Let's quit monkeying around. That's a visual gag for an Audio show. You're welcome. I wanted to talk about something you talked about.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

When? Yesterday.

[Eric (Producer)]

You posted this like two weeks ago and you talked about a three legged stool for podcast growth on YouTube. Do you remember that?

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Yeah.

[Eric (Producer)]

Take it away.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

No, no.

[Eric (Producer)]

Do you remember it? Yeah, yeah. You were talking about the need to grow your subscriber count on YouTube because you're speaking and you said the differentiator would be growing a big audience on YouTube and he gave three pieces that contributed to your YouTube growth that worked together. And the first one was, it was

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

three Ps, there's four. So I wonder if I hid the fourth because I didn't want to tell people.

[Eric (Producer)]

Maybe there's a secret fourth. Hey, you can hear the fourth.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

But now hot take.

[Eric (Producer)]

Well, first you talk about packaging.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Yeah.

[Eric (Producer)]

So let's just work through these, talk a little bit about packaging. What do you mean by that?

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

So, yeah, packaging. I think a lot of especially professionals as like if I work with CEOs on their show, they're paying people lots of money to just record and, or go into a hot studio or whatever. Like this one. Hot studio.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Well the airs.

[Eric (Producer)]

The airs on.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

There you go.

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah, sorry you're uncomfortable.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Hot ears.

[Travis (Host)]

We'll get somebody on that.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

So they're paying a lot to have things made, but they're not looking at the editing of it and that the packaging and everything you've heard about like thumbnails and titles. But also what's the first three seconds? Five, 30, whatever that leads into the show. And my pet peeve on any kind of show is when someone, they're having the, like the chat with your friends for, for five minutes. Bless you.

[Travis (Host)]

Thank you. Appreciate that.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

They're having their banter but they're not getting into the content which was the promise in the show. So it's boring and you've lost coming in swinging.

[Eric (Producer)]

You've been listening to our show.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Unless it's a friendly show.

[Eric (Producer)]

Okay, okay, okay, fair.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

But for a lot of people it's a topic show.

[Eric (Producer)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

And they don't get to the topic for 15 minutes.

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah, well, and also it's you're creating for YouTube. Like what is what you're talking about? And on YouTube specifically that doesn't really cut it, you know, which is sort of one of the reasons we stopped publishing these episodes on YouTube quite some time ago. That and the volume, it was just like we're creating so much content.

[Eric (Producer)]

Well, we were talking about this, we were cutting up dinner party which will be coming out soon. Soon. And you know, there was a lot of stuff we were cutting where it was like, this is great as a short. Where this is great as a side piece. But then when it comes to the actual flow of the episode, it's like, this is taking away time that moves us into the next section. And so, like the, you know, the writing term. But killing your darlings has become something that, like, I've thought about a lot lately in terms of structured, especially with the type of stuff you do, where it's very educational, where it's like, they might not want to hear about your experience at the store for 20 minutes before you get into. Here's the three things or the four things that I'm going to share with you, you know? Yeah.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

So, yeah, my packaging thing is I think people waste a lot of time and don't make it interesting. Basically, the. The one that I think has skipped is positioning. That's the.

[Eric (Producer)]

That's number two. Yeah.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Okay. Number two position. And I talk about it differently. It's cool when you know, like, what your show's about and what you talk about every week. And even if you go off base, what I think most people do is they. They make it so niche that no one cares. Like, they have their. There's only, you know, so many people that care about personal finance. Right. And that's fine. You're gonna have. Your audience will only be so much so interested what you guys do, which is nice. You'll talk about things that are, like, everyday things that everyone cares about. So how do you go from just being kind of concentrated to being mass appeal?

[Eric (Producer)]

This is the thing that's shifted. I've been listening to a lot of content from creators that are, like, have grown their channel super quickly, like in the last year or so. And the advice feels like it's shifted almost to 180 from the advice. Six, seven years ago was niche down. Find the very good, very youthful.

[Travis (Host)]

I was going to say, somebody's got kids.

[Eric (Producer)]

It took me a second. I was like, what is that?

[Travis (Host)]

It's because you're so old.

[Eric (Producer)]

But no, I was going to say the advice when I started my show was like, niche down. As niche as possible. Find that thing. And I think that was the right advice for the time because it was like, grow your audience. They're going to listen to every episode. And now the advice I'm hearing seems to echo what you're saying, which is like, focus on having your show, but then you've got your episode where it's like, that episode is niche on this topic. But like, you, you have the freedom to talk about fitness here and there. You have the freedom to talk about your faith here and there. Like, you don't have to be so handcuffed to this specific, tiny little bullseye

[Travis (Host)]

niche because it's no longer subscriber driven.

[Eric (Producer)]

Yeah. It seems like now it's individual per video. You're, you know, and we watched one the other day where a guy said, I basically have done the same video over and over again, and I think my audience is going to get tired of it. But he's like, the truth is, most people that watch my videos are people that have never seen me before.

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah.

[Eric (Producer)]

And I was like, the proof is I just watched this guy's video. I'd never seen him before. And I was like, oh, yeah, he's. He's doing what he's doing. Yeah.

[Travis (Host)]

This all sounds brand new to me.

[Eric (Producer)]

Yeah.

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

There's like an irrigation. What got me thinking about this because I was trying to figure out what the. What things I could try was. I was watching a video that I had no business watching. It was about irrigation.

[Eric (Producer)]

Right.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

And I'm like, I don't ever care about this topic. No one should. But it was like, irrigating the deserts in Africa and turning sand dunes into, like, farms. And the. And it just showed this very interesting process about how they, you know, transformed it. And like. Yeah. They made something that's really not that interesting. Very interesting because they thought about, how do we make this mass appeal? How do we talk about this? Well, could have just been a kind of a news story. You tell it in an interesting way. How do you turn a desert into a garden?

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah. Sorry, go ahead.

[Eric (Producer)]

Wait. We finish each other's sandwiches. There you go. He's old. He doesn't get those little jokes. Yeah. It's from Frozen.

[Travis]

Frozen.

[Travis (Host)]

I understand.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Oh, my God, we're so in sync right now. Let's write a book.

[Eric (Producer)]

Right now. It's gonna be me. I was gonna say, it's like the video that, like, everybody in the world clicked on of the why is this dam filled with, like, a million black rubber balls? You know, like, it's like stuff like that. That everyone. Yeah. Or that these Indian guys just built a house in the middle of nowhere out of mud, you know, and it's

[Travis (Host)]

like, how I was going to bring up was like, some of these landscapers that sort of got that hint where instead of it being, like, advertising about, you know, we can do this for you and call us, we need a pool. It was like, here's this crazy backyard transformation that we did and we're doing a time lapse video showing the entire transformation process and what exactly happened during the build and you know, what's the final result and all that stuff. So they got the hint, I think, and it was something that was niche based on what they do, but also made it extremely broad where even people who live in an apartment are going to watch that video just because it's interesting and fun.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Yeah, it's a tick tock mentality. But there's so those. You said landscapers. So have you seen the video? There's these landscapers, you're just talking about landscaping. There's these landscapers that they're. They've seen these videos. So there's these, you know, four guys that would do the landscaping and they're like, they're just. Yeah, yeah, they're just snapping to make it happen because they're the ones that do the work. They're like, it doesn't work for us.

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah. Or some of these construction crews that just do like silly like dance videos or something. But it's in a unique place. Like they're on, you know, building a skyscraper and it's like, oh my God. You feel like immediately tied into what they're doing, but it's ultimately still making people aware that this brand exists that they wouldn't have been aware of.

[Eric (Producer)]

That's what I was gonna say is like, how, how far do you think people can drift from that position like that? Okay, this is my thing. I talk about like, you talk about brands like, how far can people drift to be like, oh, I'm just going to make a piece of content I think will get a lot of views, but it's not directly tied to like, how much tethered do you have to be, do you think?

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

I think it depends on what you're selling, what's the product? I work with a lot of thought leaders and for them it's just, how do you make something that you talk about interesting to more people than just the people you would usually. That would usually care.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

So that's a very different thing than did that landscape video help the local landscape or. Probably not. Like, I don't see how that drives immediate business for them.

[Travis (Host)]

But immediate is the key word there though, is that it could probably lead to a lot of business down the road.

[Eric (Producer)]

I saw a video the other day of Kareem from Subway Takes and he was talking about. Because he said the number one critique that we get is that we don't interview like regular New Yorkers. But he was like a plumber, you know, doesn't need the exposure that I. And I was like, I don't think this is right at all. Like, I think a plumber crushing on Subway takes would probably help that plumber a lot.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Eric (Producer)]

And so I don't know, I, I just thought of that but.

[Travis (Host)]

Well, especially now that the show is big enough where they can be the kingmaker type show, you know, because it

[Eric (Producer)]

was like a comedian needs this but a plumber doesn't. I was like, I don't know. I think there's always benefit to attention in any industry.

[Travis (Host)]

Totally. Yeah. I think at the beginning you have to go more celebrity route because that's sort of the unique hook is that people tend to see somebody that they care about giving a hot take on something so they keep watching. But now that the show's grown as successful as it has, you know, they can interview anybody and people are going to watch that.

[Travis]

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[Travis (Host)]

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[Travis]

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[Eric (Producer)]

So you have packaging, positioning, and then you put in promotion. Yeah, I have a lot of questions about this, but go into promotion mode here.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

I think hot take again, people. Hot take. I think creators, people who make content in general, are very romantic about creating content and organically developing an audience. And being someone who worked in marketing for a lot of years and mostly in paid, where we have to drive attention. Maybe it's for product, maybe it's for movies. Movies is a good example. If you have a small movie that you want to grow, you might start with, like, one theater, Right. And then it does. Okay. And you expand to 10 theaters, and that's organic content. Fine. But the blockbusters, they're like, we're gonna get all the money out with the commercials early so that we can expand to a lot of theaters all at once and drive that first weekend and make most of our money in that first weekend. And I think content creators are very romantic that that's inappropriate, that it's not authentic that your followers are fake, and I don't believe in that. I think there's lots of ways to find attention for your story, your message. That's not. Just let the algorithm decide, because guess what? I maybe don't make videos as well as Eric does, and I think that I should still get attention for my business.

[Travis (Host)]

You never said anything that Eric agreed with more.

[Eric (Producer)]

Yeah, I am better. I. I don't know.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

That's why we brought you this trophy today, this banana trophy.

[Eric (Producer)]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Travis (Host)]

You're welcome.

[Eric (Producer)]

You know, that was.

[Travis (Host)]

Are you trying to remember the joke?

[Eric (Producer)]

No, I know the joke. No, we were doing a. We're doing an episode one time. I'll tell it again because it's good. We're doing a. I can't even say it. I started laughing. No, we were doing something. It was like what people do with their tax returns. And it was a survey done by survey Monkey. And I said, 10% of respondents said this. 10% said this. And I said. The remaining just said, ooh, ooh. Surveyed monkeys. Seems strange to survey monkeys about this. You know the other one I have.

[Travis (Host)]

Just trying out jokes now.

[Eric (Producer)]

Wait, you're a speaker.

[Travis (Host)]

We've reached that part of the segment.

[Eric (Producer)]

Here's a speaker joke. And then we'll get in. We'll get back into the thing. I go to a. I go to a SAS convention. Okay. Right, right.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Yeah, speaking. Did you.

[Eric (Producer)]

I don't know, I haven't done it yet. I'm going to. If you say it's a good idea, I go up there and I go, wait, what was the joke? No, I go up there.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Did you tell this. Just help. Go with me on this. Did you tell this joke in an elevator? The first time you told it, it's already wrong.

[Eric (Producer)]

Cause that has a lot of levels.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

It's already wrong on so many levels.

[Eric (Producer)]

Oh, I knew you were going to do something anyway. No, I was thinking it would be funny to say, you know, there's only one industry where it's great to have a high churn rate. The butter industry.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Oh my God.

[Eric (Producer)]

And then everyone goes, ha. Connect with me on LinkedIn goods. Ah. That was someone that has a LinkedIn.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Is that accent often or is this.

[Eric (Producer)]

That was just for you. I've never done that one.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

What?

[Eric (Producer)]

I've never done the huzah accent in here ever.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Kind of like a Mr. Peanut accent or something?

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah, it's like a 1920s baseball announcer.

[Eric (Producer)]

No. Yeah. Anywho, what are we talking about? Position yourself. A promotion. Yeah. So people are very romantic about organic and I would say I feel that way where it's like, if it's good, it's good.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

I think the most creative professionals do, and I can see why most producers do because that's, that's how they're arrays. They have an eye for this, for making good stuff and that's okay. But it doesn't mean that the other side of the fence isn't also effective.

[Travis (Host)]

Right.

[Eric (Producer)]

So for you, this was YouTube promotions. This was. You started putting money behind videos. Right.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

I would call it promoting videos. I've run ads, all kinds of ads. So I've talked about YouTube promotions, but I've ran Facebook promotions, I've ran Spotify ads, I've run LinkedIn ads, TikTok. I've run all kinds of stuff just seeing what works and different ways to. Not just to the video, but to the short for the video or to the email list that then talks about the video or to a lead magnet it or to. Of course. But obviously that's not really in support of the show. But my point is I'm not romantic about it. I'm like, let me test a bunch of things.

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

So in every give, any given week, I'm no matter what, spending fifty to a hundred dollars. These aren't like massive budgets, but I'm testing all kinds of stuff to see what happens. And if Something really works, then I'm going to spend a little bit more and see how it goes.

[Eric (Producer)]

What's been the most effective versus least effective? Because I know, I know we've tried it like way early on and was like, let's promote to the audio podcast. And was like, yeah, we might get some clicks, but like we're not seeing more listens or like, are they going to be a quality viewer like YouTube promotions? Is it something where it's like, yeah, the video's been seen more, but I'm not seeing a direct correlation to like, oh, a really die hard YouTube fan. Like, what have you seen be effective versus maybe like the least effective where it's like I was flushing money doing this.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Yeah. I have. Well, a caveat, which is how good are you at making the creative or the message that you're promoting creating the ad?

[Eric (Producer)]

You can dump money at a shitty video. It doesn't matter.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

I would say the ad I ran for Spotify was terrible because it was an audio ad that I just had to write a script for, put some music to it and say it and hope it. But I didn't know what I was doing. I've never done that before and I'm not hiring someone to do it. But I was curious what even a bad ad could do.

[Eric (Producer)]

Yeah.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

And it was like zero. It did zero, you know? And was it even measurable? I don't know. But point is, bad creative doesn't help your ads.

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

So figuring out different things to do. And then I also would say if the product is bad that you're driving leads to.

[Eric (Producer)]

It's.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

It's not going to help.

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah. It's not going to fix the problem.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Right. So that's why I, when I talked about the legs of the stool, I always am worried about talking about promotion because it, for the promotion. You can run a promotion, but let's say you spend a dollar. Does it drive zero people? Does it drive one person? Does it drive two people? That's all dependent on how good the ad is. But then when they get there, how effective was it at like keeping them, hooking them?

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

So I'm like, if you don't have a great first 3 seconds and thumbnail and 60 seconds and then show, it's going to start to cost you more and more.

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah. Yeah. And especially on YouTube, it's. YouTube's going to take that as a signal that it's not good.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Right.

[Travis (Host)]

That's the, the danger of the YouTube promotions tab is like, even though it's a product from YouTube. It's not really super helpful for your channel overall because if the video is not good, the click through rate's just going to, you know, hit the bottom of the floor. Essentially. The more like, the more traffic, the more eyeballs you get on it. If it's not a good thumbnail and a good title, they're leading, people still aren't going to click it right. And so like some, like a percentage of people are. But that click through rate is going to start going from 8% down to 5% down to 2%, in which case YouTube is not going to promote that video organically because it's looking at the click through rate going like, nobody's clicking this, so we're not going to show it in the tab in the suggested videos part of this. So there's, there is a little bit of a danger there, I think.

[Eric (Producer)]

Yeah, yeah, it's a danger. And it's also good thing. I was listening to Gary Vee talk about this the other day and he was like, this is the first time where creative drives everything. And he was saying like a company, like you were just saying, even if you're using their tools and you're spending money on their platform, at the end of the day, their number one goal is that they want people to stay on the platform. So he's like, for the first time, if you have a better piece of creative, you can make that go a lot further. And I'd never heard it put that way where it's like, creative is driving everything. Where it's like, Facebook wants to show your ad to more people. It's not like the, the olden days back when you were a kid, where it's like, I'm gonna pay to do a TV ad. And like, they don't give a shit. Like, ESPN doesn't care who watches the ad. They got your check versus now. It's like we're going to hold people's eyelids and make them watch this if it's good, because we know more people are gonna like it and watch it.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Here's the. If you want to go down the rabbit hole just a step further, if you run an ad right, it'll get to the core first that just like organic would. And then it expands. So the more people you're showing it to and the creative still isn't good, or if the show isn't good, it's going to get more and more. Like the click through rates are going down and down and down. They start higher and they go down

[Travis (Host)]

the watch time Same.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Yeah. Eventually it all evens out and you're like, well that's weird. Like this ad and this ad had the same click through rate, but this one did terrible. At some point they had to stop showing it to people. They were just like, this isn't worth it for us.

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah, they'll.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

They'll take your money.

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah, right. Exactly.

[Eric (Producer)]

Yeah. Don't hear me wrong. They'll still take it. Right.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

But anyway, I was so I was at dinner and you know, with a, with a creative director, producer background type and the heat I get when I say things like that, like run ads is typically that dude, that's suicide for your channel. Right. Like you're. They have no incentive now to drive organic growth for you. When you post an organic this episode

[Travis (Host)]

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[Travis]

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[Brandon Berkmeyer]

video and I can't factually argue every piece of that argument, but I can say like YouTube has said in their creator channel that they give like here's what's going on in YouTube. They've said the algorithms are separate. Yeah, right. It doesn't mean that your ads can't hurt your channel, but they are separate.

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say is I think it's a lot less intentional than what people make it sound to be. It's not like YouTube is purposefully deranking anybody who spends money on ads. It's just like what I said, the more eyeballs you get on a shitty piece of creative, the lower your click through rate, lower your watch time is. And YouTube algorithm picks that up and it's a signal to them that this is not a good video and we will not give you more organic traffic here.

[Eric (Producer)]

It's not the sinister like YouTube's going, oh, now we know we got them. I think it's the oh, their watch time is horrible from all the new traffic they have.

[Travis (Host)]

You know, a lot of people clicked on it and watched for 30 seconds and then bounced. So now the average watch time is no longer 12 minutes. It's 45 seconds. And so they're like, okay, well this is a bad video.

[Eric (Producer)]

Yeah.

[Travis (Host)]

So we're not going to suggest this anymore.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Or you were never incentivized to make a good video to begin with.

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Because you're leaning on ads. So the other things are so important.

[Travis (Host)]

What I've done is, is with the YouTube promotions tab recently is like we used it for a while and then stopped using it. And I haven't used it in quite some time now. But what, what we, what I have noticed to be more effective is basically when a video is already doing well, then I put some, a little bit of boosting behind it. Like if I, if the click through rate solid and the watch time is really high and it's like, okay, this is probably one of our better videos. And my gut is that YouTube already has audience sort of look alike that they will serve those ads to based on like the people who've already viewed the video and things. So now we just sort of use it as like, okay, this video is doing well on its own. Maybe it got, you know, whatever, 10,000 views or something. So it's like, okay, we put a little bit of spend behind this and boost a little bit more and then you can see the difference. Like if you, if you go in your, if you go in your analytics, you can see it and go, okay, we put a little bit of boost behind this video that was not getting any organic traction and we put a little bit of boost behind this video that was getting a lot of organic traction. And the total like cost per view or cost per sub is significantly lower on the video that was doing really well organically because it is easier for them to get extra distribution out of the money that you're spending on that video.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Yeah.

[Travis (Host)]

So, but yeah, it's, it's, it's a unique world. I, I don't think it's death of your channel like some people preach that it is, but you just got to be careful what types of creative you're putting spend behind because it's like you said, it's not going to make up for shitty creative.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Yeah. I think doing things right and doing things wrong will always be good or bad for you. Like it's, if you do something the right way, you're probably gonna be fine.

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah. So we have packaging, positioning, promotion. You said there was a fourth one.

[Eric (Producer)]

There's a fourth one. You're hiding. Tell us.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Well, I learned this from Travis, you know, some props to you. It's partnerships.

[Travis (Host)]

Okay.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

So I think it helps when you have good people that either you're featuring in the show, but not only that, that maybe can feature you. A lot of beginning show creators that suddenly, like, they worked with a network or they were on some kind of, like, I have a buddy who. His show got picked up in an article that was like, by the New York Times, top thought leader posts for Mindset. And he was a new show and it was, like, listed with other shows that were very popular. Suddenly he had a lot of traffic and he never lost it. So I think that there are lots of different ways that this shows up, but when I stumbled across your show years ago, it was like, oh, there are these big name people that I really admire, and you're talking about a topic that I'm really interested in. Those things Married Together made me interested and I think being actively concerned about what people you partner with, who you partner with, what does that do for your show? What does that do not just for their audience, but for the association. Because I'll take someone who just has a great story. That could be it. But it's who you're partnering with for lots of different reasons. But that's the other.

[Eric (Producer)]

The fourth p. Well, I love alliteration, so I'm very happy that you did that.

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Yeah, when I describe it, I'm like, it's the beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. And it goes really over well with professional crowds.

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah.

[Eric (Producer)]

The old butter convention.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Eric (Producer)]

I think the butter joke is good.

[Travis (Host)]

Yeah. Well, try it out, you know. Yeah, go to. What's that subscription conference I got?

[Eric (Producer)]

Can I open for you next time you speak?

[Brandon Berkmeyer]

Yeah, let's. When you hear someone else tell you that joke's good. Let's go.

[Eric (Producer)]

Okay, good, good.

[Travis (Host)]

All right, well, that's it for this episode of the show. Remember, money only solves your money problems, but it's easier to solve the rest of problems. Money in the bank. So let's start there here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you next time. Peace.