In the podcast:

02:00 – How Scott Started
03:32 – Beginning of Scott’s Bass Lessons
05:46 – Researching on How to Build his Busines Online
08:55 – Struggles and Success During Building his Business Online
12:27 – Setting His Business Apart from other Lessons
14:27 – What Worked When He Started on a Strategic Standpoint
16:56 – Types of Contents Works Best, Staying Consistent and Video Thumbnail Experimentation
25:44 – Building His Database
34:47 – Correlation of Shift in Traffic and Clickthrough Rate in YouTube
36:38 – Inviting other Famous Bass Players to his Channel Attract Customers
39:44 – Making Money from Youtube & Getting Subscribers from Related Videos
41:48 – Best Practice When it Comes to Custom Thumbnails in Videos
44:33 – Keyword Research on His Content
46:04 – Advice for Someone Starting Out On Youtube
49:14 – What You Could Do More to Build Your Database

Check out this video and learn how Scott built his YouTube channel to over 350,000 subscribers!

Ilana: So welcome to today’s show.

Scott: Hi! thanks.

Ilana: No I’m Super stoke to have you here so thank you for taking time out of your day. We’re all very busy people so I really appreciate you coming on today’s show. So as I said like you’ve got the most amazing YouTube channel I’ve certainly checked it out before we even like you know arrange this interview as I told you off line a friend of mine is a huge fan of your YouTube channels. I checked it out I that they get this guy on today’s show so your YouTube channel with over 450,000 subscribers which is an amazing achievement which you told me you’ve built completely organic.

Ilana: Not a cent unpaid traffic so congratulations. That is an amazing achievement. So I mean can you give us a little bit of background about yourself and how you got started.

How Scott Started

Scott: Yeah absolutely. I really got into it by accident. I’m just like I’m a musician through and through it’s all I’ve ever been able to do. I was like bad student at school didn’t get any exam grades or anything like that and just fell into being a musician. A few great guys that helped me you know kind of make it happen in terms of like I was from a really small small town in the UK. There was no pro musicians Okay so it was a it was a career path that was on the cards. But I’m a guy that really kind of opened my eyes to what was possible and I decided to go down that route and became a professional musician practise my arse off to make that happen obviously and then and everything was fine and to kind of like mid to late mid 20s when I start I got something called focal dystonia which is a neurological movement disease which attacked basically my hands and obviously I don’t base it you know you don’t want anything attacking your hands right. So I had six months off now in that six month period. I mean my entire live in was being professional musician so I had as many of your listeners listeners will have you know rent or mortgage in that time and you know I had kids on the way and that whole thing. So I didn’t have kids in the way that I was. That was way before that I just sort of like um so I think now it’s like they can’t I don’t know what life is for them. Absolutely yeah. But yes I needed to make some money.

Beginning of Scott’s Bass Lessons

Scott: You know my wife. Well my wife she was my wife then she was my partner. She had a job but obviously I didn’t want to just sit on my arse in six months while I took time off and tried to work on getting my hands together and working again. So I just thought you know I can I can manage to play bass 10 minutes a day I can maybe teach. So I looked in to teach in and straight away. I knew that like teaching just within the city I was living in was probably going to be limited so why not do it on the Internet. I didn’t have a computer at the time and I’d never been on YouTube in my life at this point didn’t even know it existed. I used to go my what my partner at the time my wife now took me to an Internet cafe you know and showed me.

The truth. So I was like oh. And that’s when I decided oh well I can teach I could maybe do something online or something like I could get reach a wider demographic somehow and fill up a sort of like my diary just teaching once a warm hello. So I kind of go into it a little bit just research etc. etc. So this thing called YouTube and there’s a few guys posting online on YouTube doing free lessons and I thought well maybe that’s a really great way to get traffic to a website. Obviously a website that didn’t exist at the time would get traffic to a Web site and then our home I want to warm Skype lessons on that I’ve build a website which I think at the time took me like two months to figure out who to work. I didn’t know what like I didn’t know. I remember it took me about three days to figure out how to embed a YouTube video in a WordPress page. There was just like lurking around YouTube trying to make it happen. So I built this kinda really junky Web site where I offered one to one Skype lessons and then I posted a few YouTube videos on YouTube just lessons free lessons and said at the end of the lesson say if you want to do with me want to want to Skype lessons go to the website and contact me via there and that was kind of the start of it and that was seven years ago. I bought my first computer seven years ago to do this.

Researching on How to Build his Busines Online

Scott: Strangely I did call the website Scott’s space Iceman’s dot com because there wasn’t any I didn’t think of anything. There was no higher kind of like. I wasn’t trying to achieve any kind of like grandiose goal. I like no change in base education worldwide at that point. So yes so that’s how it got started. And then just as you get into the online thing and you start reaching research then how to you know just how to build a business. You obviously start realizing and seeing people talking about selling your hours. The money is a limiting thing. So I was like okay maybe I could do correspondence lessons where people send me tapes of themselves or recordings of themselves somehow and then I will send them a recording back. That was a terrible idea but I didn’t really actually did. For a ridiculously cheap price as well but it would just get into our kind of finding my feet and then so doing that did that for a few months and then I fell upon a video by a guy called Brendan Bouchard. Now Brendan Bouchard now is more of a kind of like lifestyle not a lifestyle but kind of like a healer heal yourself kind it to dry is like you know he’s kind of positive. But Tony Robbins style a character right. That’s what he’s going for. But back then he was like an outsider now kind of like internet marketing guy looks cool you know like like a kind of Jack Walker type character who obviously does like Product Launch Formula and stuff and your listeners are definitely check though if they haven’t already. So I flip on this like this video.

I was on somebody’s channel like a bass player who I was checking out his base play and he had like it on people’s channels you can see what videos of like he’d like this video and he said how to build an Internet business or something along those lines.

So I clicked Play on that video and it changed my life. It was like one hour of Brendan Bouchard telling you how to how you can make money on line music products and programs to do so. I was thinking the light bulb went off I was like oh okay. That’s why I will email it’s about to sign for MailChimp sign mailchimp, came up with a lead magnet and then started building a mailing list and at this point I was posting probably a YouTube video once every month. I know that sounds ridiculous but nobody was doing it this point. I know like nowadays you get people doing it every day or at least once a week right here. But back then there were just nobody doing it. There was me and one of the guys. So yes I was get sort of like a decent amount like I was built to tell you how many in terms of like you know visitors to the site I was going because I wasn’t even hooked up to go. I’ve never even heard of Google Analytics right. So I was like 50 subscribers a day e-mail subscribers and build in that list. And at this point I really didn’t know what to do with them I was like oh maybe I should start a you know a do some soul product right. So I create some sort of a product to create five products all at once because that’s how hard I like to make it for myself.

Struggles and Success During Building his Business Online

Scott: So you create five products at once. They were all kind of related to each of that. And I sell them for like 20 dollars. I think it was like 17 dollars or something like a piece. And then that’s really when I started realizing oh wow this is you know this actually works you know actually doing this. And to that point you know that last few months of running the site and trying to get all together my wife is definitely going a little bit to this point she was like you’re on your computer 12 hours a day researching this you’re making like zero money. I don’t mean you do that but I do mind is that you just like killing yourself and nothing. How long are you going to give it. And I was like this can happen it can be cool I’ve got a master plan and just kind of at that point that’s when I did create that product and all those those five products. And we saw. So we went from I think I can remember what year it was but I made something like low hundreds of dollars over the entire year from the website. And then when I launched that program I made and it wasn’t it wasn’t sustainable and it wasn’t sustain this amount I made over a thousand dollars and the first day after when I launched that program and that to me was the validation of all of the hard work was actually going to pay off and it was fine.

And the master plan was going to work and obviously dropped down after the first week I wasn’t making the thousand dollars a day off of the bat like that. It was more of a kind of sort of like a seven day launch type thing and then you know the price went well. But I did probably some sort of discount or something like that and yeah and that was that was it I was convinced of that point.

And then from then. So that was maybe like that was only probably like five and a half six years ago I probably did it for like 12 to 18 months kind of battling with which direction to go. Skype lessons correspondence lessons all that stuff until after he gets home. You know obviously figuring out how to build a wordpress site and you know with the 10 months it took me to work out how to embed a video in it and you know I think I can do and if your listeners are not techie at all. It’s okay we can you know come out and be proud and proud about it.

Yeah I’m proud I’m terrible at Tech. I was doing a mastermind last night talking about you know like an I’m into it right. So I understand sort of like conversion tactics and retention and you know churn and all of this. I understand it but I find it it’s not natural for me so I probably have to put of like 10 times the amount of working on that side of the business. Then other people do. So right now I’m looking actually for it to hire a like a head of marketing for the company because that’s something I really need to get right and I’m probably not doing it perfectly. In fact I know I’m not doing it perfect say something we’re going to grow into and over the next few hopefully hire somebody over the next month or so and I’ll be able to concentrate more on the creative and the educational side of what we’re doing which is really my sweet spot. If any of you guys follow Dan Sullivan he talks about something called unique ability and it is something cool to check out. I think I can always podcast call that Dan Sullivan and Joe Walsh. We checked it out.

Ilana: I have it at the 10x one.

Scott: Yeah that’s it 10x yeah. It’s kind of a reminder of you know the weeds and get somebody else to do the stuff that you’re really crap at and try it on.

Setting His Business Apart from other Lessons

Ilana: Yeah I think there’s merit in that. And you know in terms of you know sticking to and meeting and no greater testament is the fact that you know like you’ve got base lessons it’s not Scott’s guitar lessons like you’ve nailed down within the guitar into just bad breath which is know tedious to a layman like me guitar and bass kind of one of the same.

Scott: But yeah I think it’s but you know was by accident you know and I definitely think that there’s like scope for sure going in two different issues like guitar and drums and piano and you know I think that’s wide open actually to do that.

I think there’s definitely an opportunity for somebody to come along and figure that out and do it on a bigger level and I’m definitely looking into that because I think it would be foolish not to the it just over the last year or so we’ve been build you know developers build a platform that’s going to be replicable so we can use if we do you know want to look into guitar or drums or whatever the instrument we can we can. We’ve got a platform that we can kind of duplicate and like. Obviously we’ve got a membership website but I wanted to have a platform so we could use a membership platform because the membership platform and just kind of like slots everything into it is sort of like pre-built. I’ve also talked with some great bands actually that got you lot of very niche like instrumental bands and some kind of of like rock metal type bands as well. You know they do doing that sort of like traveling around the world doing music workshops.

They’ve got like you know two or three hundred thousand followers on Facebook and I think there’s a really great opportunity for those guys also to have their own digital platform or educational platform. So apps that can yeah that fans can learn from them et cetera et cetera. So and that’s why you know that platform is going to be as well. So some sort of like white label platform that can roll out into different nations.

What Worked When He Started on a Strategic Standpoint

Ilana: Going back to YouTube you mentioned you started seven years ago. How would you say it compares to now do you find it quite a different platform. You know what worked seven years ago. I mean obviously it’s significantly more competitive. That’s an obvious thing.

Scott: That’s yeah it’s kinda like these guys that come along now. Just when I started off I was doing on a crappy camera that was like 50 dollars or something. And no audio you know well audio obviously but you were just off the camera and it was like super grainy but there was two of us on YouTube doing it. So it didn’t matter where it is now guys have got like their first video looks like it’s been professionally shot and it probably has been professionally shot they’ve maybe you know invested a lot of money in cameras and equipment and studio engineers to capture the audio. And I find that it’s unfortunate that they’re really finding it hard to get traction like I have like a specific guy I’m going to mention his name but he emailed me a few or he actually came me on Instagram and he was like Have you got any tips. You know I’m really trying hard. I was like let’s just keep doing what you’re doing it’s amazing.

Like what like guys is amazing is getting fantastic name musicians in these you know and on a regular schedule he’s doing you know he’s doing everything he should do but again he’s finding it hard to grow because of the good of the platform and and how it’s work in these days. I do find that the algorithms change somewhat as well as the audience as well. Audience the audience are kind of looking for something different. Now I feel like I don’t think they knew what they were looking for before that’s a new thing. Whereas with the concept of like the log in thing and like all bloggers they’re the guys that have got the most subscribers you know millions and millions of subscribers. And I kind of think that as of like dribble down to what works for the YouTube audience and how the YouTube algorithm plays it as well. I think that off the cuff keeping it real not like super we were in the studio we did a Solarz and sexy lights and all that thing like that is possibly not what the YouTube audience are looking for on that platform. I’m not saying that you could build a business off blogging and that style of content on YouTube. I think you’ve got to think about the style of content that you’re creating and not just Is it fancy or not. And I’ve got direct results I can talk about if you want.

Types of Contents Works Best, Staying Consistent and Video Thumbnail Experimentation

Ilana: Yeah well that’s kind of I’m glad you brought that up because that’s what I was going to sort of touch on next which is sort of what do you find are the kinds of videos that work better than others.

Scott: Okay so for us 2016 was a real melting pot of ideas and we tested I for the most part they were all super pro shot DSL like I’ve got a full studio I’ve got like you know loads of cameras are really nice and expensive and you know the full thing right audio and so all of our videos in 2016 were pretty much like super pro and looking clock is undefined right. And we’re also a real mix so we were doing like podcast clips on. We had snippets from some of our courses within the membership and then we had all the lessons and then we had some gear stuff. It was a real melting pot.

And what I found is that the audience kind of stagnated with it and I didn’t really know why at the time but I think that just all of just using going down that you know like you’ve heard a million times before. Repurpose repurpose repurpose. You know you don’t have to make all these custom content repurposed and put on different platforms. We see what was done. Right. So and every recommends that it just didn’t work for us it really turned the audience off. And when 2017 hit it I just started doing consistent content of the same variety and that really helped our traffic and people tune in and just kind of like getting people back into the channel that were already subscribers. So really just consistent. If you look like Casey Neistat or Pewdiepie or call you say she’s got like a nine million subscribers. Just like make up and say well you know all of them guys are doing like consistent content. They’re not doing like they’re not repurposing.

Ilana: When you say consistent how consistent?

Scott: Consistent in time look like. Obviously like be consistent with time like I think everybody knows now if you’re going to do the youtube thing you need to be like the algorithm really favors people that post consistently. So whether that’s sort of like what’s a day or once a week or twice a week or whatever it is it needs to be consistent you can’t post one month and then come back the next month and post something else like it’s really really helpful to be consistent because the algorithm likes it. It’s not our rules it’s their rules. So they’re going to favor people that think you know take the algorithm into account. So that’s what I mean with consistency of posting. But what I was actually talking about was consistency of content and the style of content.

Ilana: So you know what like what style do you think like best.

Scott: Well start well style I think. Like I think that kind of like off the cuff keeping it super real like so they can see you as who you are is the best way of you know the best content that works on YouTube because I think the YouTube content. I think we kind of live in a world where reality TV is so so heavily into our culture that people really respond well to it. So if you look at like Guy TV right it’s reality TV. It’s like it’s the Kardashians repackaged for entrepreneurs. It’s that thing. And I think that he’s really soaked into the culture and therefore people really resonate with that style of content. So I do think that style of content works well it’s hard to make I should say that it’s late 2016. Our video content was a little making it and producing that video content was a lot easier than what we did in 2017.

Everything is crazy like you know 2017 I sit in front of a camera stick the lights on hit record delivery less than press stop and to an editor job done right. So 2017 I have to wander around and do this this blog style content and the whole thing is a lot of it’s not I’m quite I’m really into efficiency and batch record and all of those things. It really doesn’t lend itself to that change. It’s like you know you have basically I’ve done stuff like that. I’ve experimented with stuff like that before I have sort of like change t shirts and that kind of thing but it still it’s still like a lot of work. Is it worth it for us it was work it in revenues gone up and you know just to give you listeners a bit of an idea of the upturn and we saw through just you know changing the content style. We went from when we uploaded the video on average in 2017 within the first week of uploading the video we get around 20000 views on average and in 2017 within a month I’d raise that to around 60 to 80000 per video within the first week credible. And it was instant. It wasn’t like it didn’t take me six months to sort of do it. It was like instant. Anyone who believed him then yeah I’d lost momentum and for me it was different because I was kind of like reigniting all subscribers being turned off so I knew.

I don’t know anything about business you know really like I know as much as I’ve learned in the last six seven years it probably isn’t that much. So I’m kind of learning as I go and as the business grew I automatically assumed oh we should get fancier because we’ve got more revenue to help us do fancier videos and so they look more polished and that and people will like a lot more. And that is actually wrong. That’s why you know I was doing everything that you know a lot of people would do you know invest more in the production of the videos that you put on YouTube and make them look fancy and actually just didn’t didn’t it didn’t have the effect the desired effect that we were looking for and what it did was called in through a 400 dollar Canon D7 X camera we know or like you know just or just straight at the camera and you go in for that realist style of content. People love that. So that’s what’s worked in 2017 with those and we’ve added 850,000 subscribers over this year in that strategy and I’ve also experimented with different things like how many videos you upload per week and we were doing two. I went to two in January February March April which is fantastic and then I moved to Wallner week and so little to no drop in engagement across the channel which is fantastic because it meant that you got a day back in my life which I thought is I. Yeah I thought so. And all the little experiments have been done. Another thing I did which was interesting is I got rid of all the thumbnails off of the channel so early yeah.

So it’s an I’m not saying every should do this but I am saying is that people need to think about what their specific niches. And then based on that figure out what should be in this film now. So what we had before dinner in 2017 I mean 2016 was ours every prescribes like you know like reading nice text and nice sort of like fancy thumbnail and you know a big fat tax so people can see what it is that makes it stand out. I looked at it and it just thought this kind of this felt like January of 2017 this experiment experimental phase that we were going through.

I just thought I play bass and I’m looking at the domain video page and YouTube channel and I couldn’t see that many bases like that were in the shop and there were obvious but they were covered with text so I just thought what actually would work better like and again kind of look into them guys like Casey Neistat does case you know if they have text and no he didn’t he has a really interesting shot generally in the film now. So I kind of started experimenting with that and I found that it just seemed like there’s no way to test that. You know I can’t test like a couple uploaded to two videos as they haven’t either them you know I definitely look at the just the feel of that YouTube channel and it was really obvious when I took those thumbnails off that oh this guy is bass related. You know they didn’t have to kind of look past the text to see the base of it was like oh yeah this guy’s bass related because all they could see is loads of bass guitars in in the thumbnails and I made sure of that like it’s not just a shock from the video. I don’t do that. I actually take a specific shot but it’s just a photo and used up of a film now and then but I don’t put text out of it at all.

How did you know you want text on there because like what are you going to show its face. You play an instrument or anything like that. Oh no not that I know of. Or you will honor what you’re going like. But my point is that if you talk about Facebook it’s going to help out something about Facebook in the imagery or something like that. On the phone now. So it just I think just like what I’ve learned over the last few years is that even though people do give you best practices sometimes you know you can move them back. Best practices and get and get good results or better results than initially think.

Building His Database

Ilana: Well I guess it helps that you know that you are a member of your own market you know that you haven’t fallen into this as the teacher but you could stand back and have a think. Actually this doesn’t scream you Tarzan that’s my marker that you know you had a different perspective. So you also mentioned how you really managed to build your database as we know yes you’ve got over 450,000 subscribers but you can’t go to the bank and exchange them for money. So it’s about what do you do with those subscribers and so you mentioned how you’ve been building a database that way.

How would you manage to really get people off YouTube and into your to your own web site and I guess ultimately membership.

Scott: Yeah it’s a really interesting one. Like essentially I mentioned it in the video if you want to go further with as you know go check out the website. I’ve also said you know if you go if you want sort of like some sort of like free goodies whatever that sort of like thing is go to the website you can download it for free and then put a link in the description. And that’s happened throughout the video or just at the end I’ve experimented with this and like normally I’ve always done it the end on the older videos when I start it I used to mention I used to give some preamble at the beginning of each one hey Scott Scotchman’s Scott subspaces if you haven’t been to the website yet go check it out. You can get that in your blog about right at the front of the video but I feel that for this channel looking at the bigger channels and how they’re playing it it’s too much. The audience want you know they want you to be real. And I feel like if I’m put in something at the start of the same thing at the start of everything or video months then it might have got divine Balaguer been off the website yet. Do you go going at this free stuff and they just see time and time again every single week on every single video. It’s just like I leave you out you know.

So I think there is a fine line that you’ve got to walk between like direct response marketer and actual being real and you know growing that YouTube audience does if you want to throw in the mix as well. We’ve done the content of grades as well on YouTube. Obviously we deliver a lesson and in that lesson we’re like hey you know you can grab the pedia and it’s going to go obviously right and shoot them through to a landing page by the description on YouTube it will no brainer right now on them videos do very well don’t we. Because when you when you say that the people stop the YouTube video and then in view to. Absolutely. So what do you do you want them to do right. They do not want them to stop the video because it is going to harm the viewer time and then they absolutely do not want to leave YouTube. But that’s what you’re actually telling them to do. So it’s almost like that play off. I’ve got no real sort of like the best answer but just to be mindful of when you’re doing that. Like I’ve definitely in the past taken it on the chin a not put a content grade on this on on a lot of videos because I knew that I was just going to focus on growing the subscriber base on YouTube and get YouTube to really like and push our channel over getting people onto an e-mail list and hoping that they were just going to find us just through roll kind of like old school markets and you know not so much like you know on the email list and stuff like that.

Now don’t get me wrong I want people on the email list and it looks much like a softer sell for those on YouTube it’s like at the end of the video then I’m going to tell them to go check out the website and etc. etc. and not only the website I’m going to mention our product you know go check out the membership website. I’m not going to call it a membership web site but I think it’s the worst thing to call. Well yeah. Like commands if like Netflix were like hey go check our membership website. I’ve got you know I tell them exactly what it is. Go check out Scott space Athens dot com. It’s a completely new opportunity for bass players just like you because beforehand you had two choices you could either study with a bass teacher in your area or try and find a bass teacher in your area and 50 percent of the time you’re going to get lumbered with a guitar player who’s trying to get some extra cash on the side or the other. The other thing you could do is go to music school and drop 60 grand a year on getting a degree. Now we’ve built a completely new online platform a school that has the you know the world’s best faculty in terms of like bass education you can interact with them every single week in real time. You can also study that courses in your own time. That’s the kind of picture I give. I’m not like Go check out the membership Web site. So. Yeah. Because I think that membership Web site doesn’t have any value in the customers mind but what you have to kind of like create that value proposition. What is it you’re selling.

I really can’t sort of stay away from that membership web thing I have done in the past. You know I have done it then I kind of like watch back video. I was like oh God this is like it’s almost like somebody saying hey what do you do for a living you like run a website. I’m not really sure you know that kind of thing. It’s like that elevate this thing does make it does make a difference but make sure you have the elevator pitch for your actual audience as well as I don’t care about telling somebody in an elevator what I do or what I do care about is being able to tell my audience exactly what my value proposition is within like 30 seconds. So they really understand and they understand what is in it for them.

So I make sure that I give that at the end of the YouTube video and then and I do sometimes like mention within a YouTube video Hey guys you know if you like this in Asia check out this course with the membership because it’s basically more cool stuff like this. So I do you know make sure that I am mentioned in the membership in the video. If it feels right I’m not kind of trying to engineer it. I could probably do more of it but I think if I did more ads again have to be mindful of that YouTube audience and make sure that I’m not coming across like you know like the guy who’s trying to get you on an e-mail list for his own sort of like good. You know I’m trying to be like the big YouTube are because I think that’s what works on that platform. What else about trying to think about getting people to the you like another weird thing that we do that is really counter intuitive. Every everybody out in the market just it seems like batshit crazy for them but it makes sense if you’re trying to build a YouTube audience is that we don’t know like weekly emails where we send people like they’re free you know they’re free lesson as it were. I was sort of like content marketing for obviously I released a YouTube lesson every single week and then I e-mail people about it. We’ve got 200,000 people on the e-mail list. I e-mail 200,000 people.

I don’t send them to the Web site. I send them straight. Okay so now obviously left. Yeah. Yeah. The direct response Mark to me is like well well well you know send them to the Web site that’s where they’re going to convert etc. etc. right but at the same time I’m playing the YouTube game where I’m trying to get YouTube to really really respond and push to push our channel out there. And even though YouTube do take into account the views that happen through an embedded video they’re not ranked as high or they don’t you know YouTube don’t rank them as high as views that take place on YouTube. They want your audience on YouTube and that’s why they’re going to really respond to those views. The algorithms are going to respond to those views a lot better if they happen on YouTube and not your website. So the place here is like what is going to be best. You know like pushing you to YouTube and YouTube really pushing your channel because you’re giving it consistent comp consistent visitors and you know the whole thing every single week or you can get more. You’re obviously going to get short term more short term revenue if you push them to suit your website. But the long term goal you’ve got to keep in mind of us why do I keep in mind. That’s why I push people through to the directly through to YouTube and that is hard. I’m apps like that again.

Correlation of Shift in Traffic and Clickthrough Rate in YouTube

Scott: It’s not I can’t test this out but I do know a few people in the market sphere kind of like got direct response drops down and and some of the bigger YouTube is do that if they figure out what I’m saying. I’m a mix of my mix and I’m trying to say there’s a few people I do follow. I’ve got a really strong YouTube channel and they’ve got a website and they’ve got direct response chopped down and they are pushing their traffic through to YouTube and they’re not doing it because they’re stupid they’re doing it because they really push their YouTube channel and then trying to sort of build the all organic growth on you on YouTube which will obviously just feed back into the Web site. So yeah it’s kind of sort of you know short term goal. What is it short term losses long term goals and what does that count. Yeah it definitely worked for us because we’ve had huge subscriber growth this year. And like revenues look I’d like I think 35 to 40 percent on last year. So it’s everything is on the go. And we’ve only the only real things to do to tweak a few things on YouTube to make that happen.

Ilana: You’ve seen a direct correlation from that shift in traffic.

Scott: Yeah and I’ve seen other people do the opposite switch. Another guy that I know in the music music production field and he is actually getting great growth on his channel and he was sending people directly to YouTube. And I was talking to him this was like in 2016 I was like what you do and you bat shit crazy just send them directly to your website and embed it. That’s why you can get the conversions. He started to do that and I’m not sure where there’s any correlation or not. But he’s definitely like his view numbers dropped.

So I don’t know if there’s a certain amount of camouflage just sort of like Ninja innocent that we don’t really understand but he sending them back to YouTube thing.

Ilana: So the data nerd inside of me kind of wants to ask you this question about it’s okay to say no in terms of YouTube some level of analytics behind like I guess click through rate like from the video how many people leaving YouTube do they give you stats about kind of the performance. I mean obviously that view accounts and that kind of stuff but beyond that.

Scott: Yeah they give you all this ninja stuff that I’d just you know commemorate the beginning of this call I was like you need to hire somebody is a bit bored in the whole analytics and outside of it. Well yeah yeah basically yeah. They give you all the data that you want but I’ve got I’m. I’m also sort of like creating all the content and I’m doing all the launches we launch a brand new course every single month and you know oh yeah sometimes a little bit of like spread then but yeah it’s really important to check out the analytics and do it but not on a huge.I dont super granular with it. And I’m sure there’s a ton of data there that’s going to be great.

Inviting other Famous Bass Players to his Channel Attract Customers

Ilana: I also saw on your channel that you have interviewed some very famous bass guitarists. Yeah I guess that’s another way to capture their audience really as well isn’t it.

Scott: Yeah I think that I think it does come through the audience but I think the size now where most people know about is within that niche. It’s a tough one. I think that sometimes the guys in these big guys can be a lot more hassle than it’s worth but you think you’re going to get a lot from it and you actually get a lot from it. I remember reading and release it say things like I’m on his list.

He emailed out a few months ago he is like his friend was selling a book and he was on like something like Good Morning America or something like that and he texted me like a few days after I have sold like 10 copies of that. So like millions of views sell 10 copies. I kinda think he’s the same like I think it helps I think is good for the brand. I think it’s nice for people to see see me with those characters I’ve got these huge huge audiences because I don’t think that because I think it’s a little different. They’ve got huge respect within the within the need but they haven’t got huge audiences that they can reach out to. They don’t have an email list. They barely go on Facebook you know one of the and if they do have a Facebook page you know they don’t manage somebody else that like most of the big bad guys in our nation like man their life mid 50s plus the Marcus Miller Victa we don’t know if any of your audience would have heard of those guys but I’m guessing the late mid 50s. They don’t want to be on Facebook. They don’t even know about email lists. They don’t know about me you know cultivating an audience and stuff. And there’s a big conversation to have there because I think that’s going to have a big I think the record industry isn’t dead.

I know you know there’s a whole that’s a that’s a big conversation I think it’s actually in the transition stage where you’re going to get these big artists that to get it in the future and are doing a lot of cost promotions and are growing their own email lists and there’s bands out there that been no Radiohead and stuff like that the guys like that have always been kind of all that you don’t have that but I think it’s going to grow exponentially over the next few years and I think that the music industry in itself is going to have some weird and wonderful changes because of that because at the minute it’s not really working you know people do make revenue from Toren and stuff but making money from album sales is a tough one of them and for a lot of people yeah. So you get yeah you get in these sort of like legends legends legends like we’ve got this guy whose record and of course this month. And like when I was growing up he was like all over the magazines he was like literally a legend. And I was talking to on Skype last week and he was like I’m not gigging. Over. Oh I know. What have you got any albums in the works she’s like there’s no point nobody’s going by. He’s not pissed about it. He’s just like Dustin the world we live in right now. So I think it’s going to be interesting to see sort of like mortals appear in the future that do make that relevant again making albums and then you know kind of just yeah it’s a different guy I don’t want to derail the conversation but it is a really interesting interesting time we live in right now. I should also say as well that I make no money from YouTube.

Making Money from Youtube & Getting Subscribers from Related Videos

Ilana: That is one of my questions.

Scott: I’m sure if you’ve got like 10 million subscribers you can make like a decent whack of YouTube other times but me personally. I have I do have ads on some of the older videos you have Emmett and with you and you just to see what it know just see if it works or not it doesn’t. And sometimes if somebody checks out a new video it might have like an ad on the form. And that’s because I’ve played some music in the actual video that has copyright on it and that gives you the right to stick it out on the front of it. So these ads all look for the most part and nobody should really go into the YouTube game and think Yeah I’m going to make money from ads. It’s the worst and worst model ever. You know if you’re going to go to the YouTube game it should be to promote your own products. You know that’s the only way to do it.

Ilana: Yeah. Interesting. So how important would you say is that sort of you know call it like your channel a channel page like that unique channel video I saw on your channel that I was played a video because I had not subscribed debt ceiling if I had subscribed and see a different video.

Scott: There is a video you can set up so some people when they hit that main channel of video which a lot of subscribers do you can see why you subscribe is coming from. So I will subscribe to do from that my main channel video. So it is important and I’ve got a video that says Hey if you’re seeing this video you go to our channel here you know that’s what I said. Gave them together and subscribe. Laughs. Laughs I probably don’t like that but you know just wanted to promote them to sign up you know and yes that main channel page is is good. You should also check out a guy called Tim Moyer. I member who is kind of good. There is no Cagan you know no McKagan. He is the guy behind AppSumo and the Sumo things. He did a great interview with Tim Schmoyer on his podcast. That’s worth checking out myself and that is excellent. But since you are again sort of like I like Tim’s a super analytical and really into it I think there’s a lot to be learned.

Best Practice When it Comes to Custom Thumbnails in Videos

Ilana: It’s funny because you know you’ve said that not to use a custom thumbnail. Tim is all about having it custom done now it is my advice.

Scott: Yeah absolutely yeah. Yeah it’s interesting I think that for them it’s the best practice thing isn’t that I think best practice is to have some fun. But I think that I’m trying to think of a different. Like if I was to mountain bike in a wouldn’t. I don’t think I’d have stand for miles. Maybe I don’t even look at Andy Schrock who runs the outcome what is YouTube channels. He’s like one of the most followed skateboarders in the world a dope thing. Let me just check. Actually I don’t lie.

Okay he has no thumbnails and no text on it he’s got like one point six million subs. Yeah and he’s got in late. But if you look at his channel if anybody wants to check it out. Andy Shrock itself S C H R O C K. If you check it out the thumbnails are definitely considered. It’s not uploaded it just like that it uploads and then he’s going to think about like I’m not sure I’d we in custom thumbnails but he’s definitely looking in detail at that video wanted to upload it and pic in a thumbnail that is going to spark some curiosity for sure. So it’s not that I’m just saying don’t worry about it just look load it and upload it and leave it just you know and I think it works for him as well. Skateboarding you don’t want to see text on a skateboard. You want to see some dude you know halfway up a half pipe battle. I just for something like ragingly a clear letter. Yeah I think somebody that does use thumbnails in that same niche actually is the RIDE channel. They do use them nails and Daffodil’s are great actually but if you look at them there’s still a lot of it.

The video it’s so you’d have to look at it to check it out but it’s definitely most of it is imagery and then maybe I’m a tiny little logo in the corner or something like that but again that they are showcasing what’s in the video because it is visually exciting or very visual in terms of the content that’s going to be discussed or watched within the video. Again like if your Paklin or whoever you know it’s going to be different. Oh you Illana it’s going to be different than it probably does make sense to have a film now with text in it. Tim Schmoyer it right. So Tim Schmoyer has the same background on every single one of his videos. He stood in front of a camera so if he was not to have a text in his in his emails he would be crazy. It is just that weird wouldn’t it be just sort of like some dude sitting in front of the camera so he needs it.

Keyword Research on His Content

Ilana: Interesting. I mean how considered are you with your video titles and headlines. You sort of do keyword research about that or you just know.

Scott: I’m super excited about doing a keyword research. I’m just going for like what’s going to spark some intrigue.

Ilana: So you know like a catchy headline rather than a keyword after that.

Scott: Yeah absolutely yeah absolutely. Like you get and sometimes you’re going to do well in sort of like long to the long tail of it because it might have a good keyword in it anyway. Like slap bass loads. People search for slut based on YouTube. So if you’ve got that term in the title that’s going to help for the long tail but I just go really kind of like that for the for the blogging type of chanting you know three slut based mistakes that every play makes that type of thing you know that you want to number in because that’s what people want. Oh there’s three. I want to know what the three is you know. Yeah. And just that’s one of the descriptions. Yeah generally are right in the because we do embed them over on the site still right because we want to you know soak up the ASIO from that but I just the text are written for the lesson which will include key words for the lesson and then plug into the description books on YouTube. So that’s there do you make sure that the tags are there as well. And what else to do and then obviously sort of like the links to the Web site the top of the description as well. But HGP whatever wherever you send in the media.

Advice for Someone Starting Out On Youtube

Ilana: So for somebody who let’s say is not starting out but has a YouTube channel which am looking to grow what what would you say is kind of the best advice you would give them. I mean you sort of touched on a regular content as well as making reality TV style videos anything else that you would recommend to someone.

Scott: Yeah. So the consistency is the key because you’re out you know you play in YouTube’s backyard and you know that there are rules and then to give you bonus points if you’re consistent with your posting content. So that’s what I would say if you can bat shit but I can’t let the media people feel better about this whole blog. Yeah but yeah try and be like I think the guys in the States call it blogs or Vlogs. I think some of the guys in the States call it the Vlogs anyway so yeah like experiment we use different content style see what people are resonating with the most. And you know what really I think helped me the most in the first part of the growth on YouTube is I go out but I haven’t told people about it.

I really think that when you start out you cannot just posted on YouTube and hope that some of you can find it. Like I was really engaged on a few forums based forums in the knees and every time overloaded a video on there I went onto that forum and posted about the video I was like hey guys you know go check out the new video of dōn and I was making sure that I was on them forums interacting with people and being real and helping them out with no end goal in sight. You know I wasn’t like there wasn’t any kind of ulterior motive for me helping them out on that site than being cool and hey check out my stuff because if you just turn up on a forum and start posting links to your YouTube videos you know people are going to be like oh am just sort of like you know we’re the BSME super high now everybody been online long enough to realize that people are trying to pull a fast one.

So yeah just be on. Try and find forums. So if I was going to be on YouTube and I was like say like mountain biking or something like that and only make a mountain bike in videos or knitting videos or whatever I’d be looking for forums where I could get involved in those communities and be a positive addition to those communities. And then every time I linked every time I created a free bit of content I’d post on the forums and tell people to go check it out. And I think that really helped just because these issues now were online like them you like into you know the like even though there’s a lot of people checking out place guitars online. Everyone knows each of the right so it’s easier than you think to get like organic mouth to mouth kind of someone’s cold mouth to mouth resuscitation. You get the organic word of mouth thing going on within you know online communities. Look for Facebook groups as well that you can be involved in and try and get into that instead of just going to create cool content posted on YouTube and hopefully somebody will find it because that’s a hard sell.

Closing Remarks and What You Could Do More to Build Your Database

Ilana: Yeah totally Scott. I’m really mindful of your time you’ve been so generous with your knowledge and your time and yeah you’ve provided a huge amount of info that hopefully I know I’ve learned a whole lot from you and hopefully our listeners have to. So where can people find out more about you.

Scott: Just Scott’s bass lessons Dot com which is our main product that we sell. Check it out. It’s a membership website even though doko website got its a membership website that we you know that teaches bass essentially and I’m trying to think of like and that’s like basically how we make revenue the company and I’m just trying to think if we’ve missed anything off that yet is there anything else. And the main way that we actually sell it is through email. So getting people onto on that e-mail list and nurturing them along you know doing the whole thing e-mail marked in the world. Right. You know send them down an auto responder and giving them relevant offers along the way.

Ilana: YouTube to build the email database to build the membership.

Scott: Yeah. Yeah. YouTube just to build that sort of follower vibe of what you’re trying to do and then.

Ilana: And value of content.

Scott: Yeah. And then when the game people over to the Web site in a really nice organic and real way not too forced and then getting them an e-mail list and then converting them via you know by all the ways that people convert them but yeah awesome that you’ve had me on a lot really. I could talk about this stuff all day like seriously.

Ilana: I seriously want to give you one for part two.

Scott: Oh yeah. I’m a super nerd. I’ve got you know we’re doing some interesting stuff and the minute we’ve got this as I mentioned earlier were building out this huge membership platform that’s been custom built from the ground up so we’re moving away from WordPress which is obviously scary as hell. Yeah I know because I understand WordPress right. Know I’m moving away to this other thing and yeah we’ve got these different products and things that are coming up and yeah it’s going to be a 2008 crazy year and then we can talk about that for sure. And then also my content within the membership as well. I do have certain ways of producing content that is really efficient. Probably your listeners will enjoy in the future like a batch a lot of that.

Ilana: That would be awesome.

Scott: I do like 50 percent of the content in one month for the entire year. Like that kind of stuff.

Ilana: That’s impressive.

Scott: Yeah. Yeah. And I know it’s not even me. I like pay outsourced guys to get guns I like big names in the space to create courses for as I were about to. In January we’re going to go to New York and record over the for now for a few weeks and we’ll create all the content for the for the membership or 50 percent of what we do and we’ll create over in New York in January and I’ll see you January 2000. December 2018 a brilliant plan. So we should talk about that. Sure. Like in a different one.

Done part two. Stay tuned to cover. Thanks so much Scott. You’ve been awesome and yeah we’ll talk soon.

Scott: Thank you for having me Ilana. See you later.

Ilana: Okay Bye!