Special Guest Reveals Top 5 YouTube Traffic Secrets - a podcast by Russell Brunson

On this special episode with Russell’s first ever guest interview, we hear from Joe Marfoglio about the best things to do to grow your YouTube channel. Here are some of the informative things you’ll hear in this episode:

• Find out why thumbnails are so important to how many people watch your videos.
• Hear why Russell’s long intro on Funnel Hacker TV cost him views.
• And find out what tool you can use to not only track your own videos, but also the videos of your competitors.

So listen here to find out Joe Marfoglio’s best tips to grow viewership on your YouTube channel.

---Transcript---

What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, welcome back to the Marketing Secrets show. I hope you guys are excited for today. We have a special guest, and I’ve rarely, if ever, brought on a special guest to the show. But as we are getting closer and closer to the Traffic Secrets launch, I thought it would be fun to bring on Joe Marfoglio, who is the guy on our team who does all of our YouTube stuff.

So we’re calling these tails of a funnel hacker, and Joe’s episode is going to be walking you guys through some of the stuff that we’re doing to grow our YouTube channel, and are following some things that didn’t make sense to me, like cutting out our amazingly designed intros and making thumbnails that look goofy because they increase viewership and a whole bunch of other stuff. He literally took one of our videos that had less than 1000 views, edited a couple of things and boosted it to over 100,000 views with no ads spent.

So these are the kind of things he’ll be talking about on today’s episode. So I’m going to queue up the theme song, and when we come back you guys will have a chance to meet my friend Joe Marfoglio.

Joe Marfoglio, Joe how are you doing, man?

Joe: What’s happening man? Hey, glad to be here. Thank you for that awesome intro.

Russell: Hey man, this is the first time we’ve done a live interview on this show before, which is really exciting. Very exciting. And I love you have your Funnel Hackers shirt on, and all your Two Comma Club awards in the back.

Joe: That’s it man. I’m just waiting for the Two Comma Club X to come in the mail to kind of even out the set, it’s going to be awesome.

Russell: Joe just won one last week, you guys, at Funnel Hacking Live he got one, which is pretty cool. Alright, so obviously we don’t have a ton of time, but I’ve got a lot of questions for you. So inside of the Traffic Secrets book, there’s a whole chapter on YouTube traffic. And most of it I pulled from you, because you are the guy who on our team is doing all of our YouTube, doing all this stuff, and you’ve done such an amazing job. So most of the things are there from you.

So this is kind of to tease people a little bit about what’s happening inside the book, but also to just get them to know you and understand some more about YouTube. So why is YouTube, do you think, different than all the other platforms that are out there? You know, we’ve got Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, all this stuff, why YouTube, why are you so passionate about YouTube?

Joe: You know, so yeah you have Facebook, Instagram, and I see a lot of people, it’s very easy, it’s sometimes easier for them to build a big following on Facebook or Instagram, they kind of go to YouTube and they struggle a little bit. And it’s because YouTube isn’t just a social media platform, it is a social media platform, but it’s also a search engine where people are searching for a certain, you know, certain topics. Maybe they’re searching how to do something.

You know, so what you have to do with YouTube is not only put up content that’s engaging that people want to watch that has value, but you also have to add kind of a story element to it. And the one thing that you don’t want to do, and I see people do this, is kind of repurpose your content. Like say you have content you put on Facebook, and then Instagram or a podcast and you like, you know, and you distribute to all these different channels. If you put it on YouTube, a lot of times you find that it’s not going to get that much traction.

And think about YouTube like this, when you watch YouTube yourself, if you guys are out there and you’re watching YouTube, why do you subscribe to a certain channel? If you’re going to subscribe, maybe they’re showing you how to make money online, or how to grow your instagram, but there’s a ton of videos on there that talk about how to grow your instagram channel, but it’s like, what makes you subscribe and want to watch somebody? It’s going to be their personality, it’s going to be the way they engage with you. And it’s going to be the way the content comes across.

So what I would say for YouTube, the difference is, is treat YouTube like it’s it’s own thing. Make videos just for YouTube and try to approach it not as a marketer, but as a creator. Not that you’re going to sell anything but that you’re going to build your audience and your following.

Russell: Yeah, one of my favorite things about YouTube too, and I talk about this in the book a little bit, every social platform, like let’s say you do a Facebook live, like we’re doing right now, it’s happening and then it’ll drop, it’ll be  here for the next couple of days, then it will drop down the newsfeed, and then eventually just disappears and nobody will ever see it again. Whereas YouTube is the only platform where you create something and then it grows over time, because it’s not just social, it’s social and a search. And that’s why it’s so, it’s different because you create something and if you create it the right way, then it sits there and it grows throughout time, as opposed to everything else, which seems to diminish over time.

So it gives, at least someone for me, who’s creating stuff, it gives me more incentive to create stuff that’s nice because it’ll last beyond the moment. Whereas Facebook live is there for a moment, and then it’s gone. Whereas YouTube it can last for forever. I mean, like we talked about earlier, the Overcome Pornography videos, overcoming pornography addiction, they still get hundreds and hundreds of views every single month, and we don’t even sell the product anymore, which is probably sad because you were an affiliate making money when it was there.

Joe: No, yeah that video, I think I sent you a screen shot when you were doing the book, and it has hundreds of clicks on there, and what it does is the content builds on each other. So you put a video out three years ago, and if you keep putting content out, you’re going to keep getting leads, you’re going to keep getting people subscribing and watching your stuff, and yeah, it doesn’t disappear, it just builds on top of each other.

Russell: Okay, I want to ask another question, this is off the questions that you sent me as pre-questions, because I’m excited about this one, I hope that’s okay. I’m going to put you on the spot a little bit. I think a lot of times people think YouTube strategies like, ‘Okay, I gotta make the most perfect video in the world.” And you look at companies like Dollar Shave club for example, where they made this video, and it goes crazy viral and then builds this huge company up, and he sells to whoever he sold for, for like a billion dollars. So we’re like, ‘Okay, I’ve got to make the perfect YouTube video.” And people stress about it and because of that, they never actually make something at all.

Versus like, you told me, in the book we share the example, but you talked about the strategy of like Gillette or other things like that. Will you talk about that? Because I feel like that’s a strategy that more people like me could actually do. Not I gotta make the perfect video, instead looking at it a little differently. Will you talk about how Gillette did their strategy and how we can use that as well?

Joe: Yeah, so here’s the thing. When you guys are starting your YouTube channel, think of it like in, the first thing you want to do is really go deep in your niche, whatever you’re doing. So for example, Gillette, what they did was they didn’t go out there and say, well, they did. They tried to make a viral video like Dollar Shave Club, and it flopped. So what they did was, they said, “Listen, we want to dominate for the keyword how to shave.” Because the people that watch how to shave videos buy our product. So they did how to shave your head, how to shave your back, how to shave your legs.

They did all these videos that got hundreds of thousands and millions of views, and they were very targeted to their subscribers. So the thing I would tell people is, figure out what your niche is, figure out what you’re going to go after and go deep in that niche. Kind of like the way you explain the whole blue ocean strategy in Expert Secrets. Because, the one thing you don’t want to do is go and look at someone who has a million subscribers and follow what they do.

So say you’re doing, because they’ve already been established, they already have a huge audience. So say you’re doing Amazon, what you want to do is go through Amazon and say, okay, make videos on Amazon, on Amazon FBA, on Amazon Drop Shipping, on Amazon Affiliate. And then go through and hit, every time, anything that someone is searching for Amazon, you want to make a video on. And it doesn’t have to be a perfect video, like you said. It just has to be engaging enough to get retention, but it doesn’t have to be this high production video.

But what you don’t want to do, is you don’t want to make a video on Amazon, then make a video on how to make money online, then make a video on procrastination, then make a video on the Corona Virus. If you want it to, if you’re just starting, you want to create this traffic lane that like YouTube knows, “Okay, when Joe puts a video out, it’s going to be on Amazon.” And then they’ll start showing your video to more and more people that search like Amazon stuff, and then you can expand out from there.

Russell: Very cool. Yeah, actually go look at Gillette’s. It’s funny, after you told me that story I went and looked in there and you see all the, there’s stuff that I never would have dreamt people are looking to shave. So, alright, there you go. There’s a video for that now too, which is awesome. It’s very cool.

Okay, my next question for you is when someone creates, let’s say they’re creating videos and posting them on YouTube and they’re not getting any traction, they’re not getting a lot of views, what would be the best way for someone to look at that, and be like, “Okay, here’s how I tweak it or optimize it to get people to actually start watching my videos.”

Joe: That’s a great question because I see this all the time. I see people posting their videos up there and they’re getting no views and they just keep posting the same videos. So here’s the thing, think of it like this, think of your YouTube channel, say you have a store, a brick and mortar store, think of your YouTube channel as, that’s your storefront. The videos that you create are your product, and the people that view it and subscribe are your customers, right, they’re raising their hand and saying, “I want that product.” If you’re putting videos out, and no one is watching them or subscribes, or very little people are watching or subscribing, you change up the way you make your videos, there’s something wrong with the way you’re making your videos.

Don’t batch out your videos and just throw them out there. You have to see what videos are engaging. So what I would say is, the first thing I would start out is like I said, find your set of keywords, your content bucket. Start putting those videos out, see which videos start getting some traction, and then double down on those keywords. The other thing you want to do is constantly be testing your thumbnails. The two most important thing about your video is going to be your thumbnail and your attention. You get the best video in the world, but if your thumbnail stinks and your title doesn’t have a hook, people aren’t going to click on it. So the thumbnail is, that’s like the visual hook, that’s going to stop people from scrolling and saying, “What’s happening here?”

So big faces, little bit of text, your title has your keyword in it, but it also has your hook. And then the video, the first 30 seconds to the minute is the most important part to your video. Because that’s where you want to hook people, and that’s where you want to keep at least 80% retention, and you want at least 50% retention all the way to the end. If you’re not getting that, the best thing to do is after you shoot your video, putting call outs, put in some b-roll, kind of do some pattern interrupts, to keep people visually engaged with your video. Because unlike say a podcast, when people are watching on YouTube, if you’re not visually engaging them, they’re going to look somewhere else.

Russell: There’s like a hundred different options for them to click on around the video of like, uh, distraction.

Joe: Right. A good example of this is on your channel, you had a video up on sales funnels and you know, you posted it a few years ago, it got a couple of thousand views, we took that same video, just added call outs and b-roll, I think that new video has 150,000 views.

Russell: Wow.

Joe: And the simple thing is, is even though it’s amazing information, it doesn’t matter who it is, if people aren’t visually stimulated, they’re going to go off.

Russell: Yeah, interesting. A couple of things that I learned from you that were crazy is like the thumbnail one, like you said. We used to make these beautifully designed thumbnails, and then the click through rate wasn’t very high and then you made these, no offense, but these ones I’m like, “Ah!” and then it’s like 5x more click throughs. I’m like, ‘Oh, crap.” And it was interesting at Funnel Hacking Live, Prince Ea talked about that, he said when you do a shoot most people do the video and then they try to find a still to make the thing. He’s like, no, you bring professional photographers. That’s the most important part, the thumbnail. He says they’ll spend more time trying to get the thumbnail sometimes, than the entire video as a whole. So I think that’s one big thing.

The second thing that I learned from you that was interesting, and we did 100+ episodes of our Funnel Hacker TV show, and I loved it, they were so much fun, but we never got tons of views. I was like, “Why are people not loving this?” and when you started looking at our stats, you’re like, “Well, the reason why is people watch the first little bit, then you have a 30 second cool intro that was amazing. It was the most amazing intro of all time. Any creator would be so proud of this amazing intro. And then it got into the content.” And you showed me like, “Here they are hooked and then the intro starts and then people at the end that make it through that stay gone.” And you went from like, “Take a 30 second intro and make a one and a half second intro.” I was like, “But it’s like, it’s so, on a tv show they have a huge intro and it’s amazing.” And you’re like, “They’re not watching TV, they’re sitting here with YouTube with a thousand things around them, distracting them. You’ve got to be focused and get to the point quick and engage them and keep them hooked.”

So yeah, things like that, that I think creators like me are like, ‘Oh, look at my intro, it is so long.” And that’s not the right move.

Joe: Yeah, exactly like, the best kind of format is like a 15 second hook, 4 to 5 second branded intro, 10-15 seconds who you are, your content and then a call to action at the end.

Russell: So cool. Oh man. Well Joe, I appreciate you coming on man, this was fun, being my first live interview. I’m not the best interviewer, but you were a great guest and shared some super actionable, and important things. And I think what I would recommend, you know we’re funnel hackers here, so we’re good at looking and modeling what people are doing. So go look at our channel, and look at the videos that get a lot of views and ones that don’t get very many. And Joe’s in it always optimizing stuff and figuring things out, but half of this whole game is looking at what’s working and then be like, why is that working?

That’s what I’m doing, that’s what you’re doing, we’re always doing that in all aspects. Why is that working, what was the reason? And then trying and testing and making little tweaks and changes. I would love if you shared one last thing, just because I remember the first time there was a plugin in Chrome, I think it was Chrome, that you told me to download, and I downloaded this 3 or 4 years ago, and now every time I go to YouTube I see all the stats and it’s so much fun to see all that stuff, and I think most people don’t even know that there’s stuff, tools like this available, to give you all the analytics and all the detail on the video. I want to talk about any of the tools like that, that you use right now that people can use as well.

Joe: Um, yeah. So one of the ones is VidIQ, it’s the one I told you about, which is I love it because I do SEO. So the data in there is amazing. Everyone should get it. They have, the best part about it, you can put your competitors in there, you can see what they’re doing, you can see what videos are trending for them. So that’s a great video. Another one I think is Two Buddy, which is, you know, it’s okay. But My preference is definitely VidIQ, just because it has all that data. Especially if you’re constantly testing and looking at stuff.

Russell: It’s great that it’ll show you your competitors videos. Like this video got added x amount of people to subscribe to their channel because of this video. And this is how many views it got. How many it’s getting per day, and all the… You’re just like, “How are they telling me all this stuff? This is amazing.” It shows you all the stuff that, and then you can reverse engineer it from there. As a funnel hacker that’s what we’re looking, how do we reverse engineer things? And this gives you like, it’s basically like, “Here’s what happening with the video.” And from there you can reverse engineer like, “Cool, now I know what I need to do. What do I need to create? How do I make something better? How do I make something that’s going to beat that one out so I get all those views coming to mine instead?” and stuff like that.

Joe: Yeah.

Russell: Awesome man. Well, thanks Joe. I appreciate you coming and being on the show. Everyone, if you had a good time with Joe, comment down below and say, “Thank you, Joe. We love you.” He’s been such a huge you know, support for me for the last, almost ten years. It’s been almost ten years, hasn’t it? Since we first met?

Joe: Yeah, I think so. 2012, I think.

Russell: That’s crazy. So a long time, and a huge help for us inside of Clickfunnels, growing our YouTube Channel and helping us get the message out to more people. So grateful for you man, thanks for being on the show. And everyone, please comment down below and tell Joe thank you for spending time with us today.

Joe: Alright, thanks guys.

Russell: Thanks man.

Joe: Thanks Russell. We’ll talk to you later.

Russell: Alright, see you man.

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