Last updated on June 14th, 2024
Trena Little shows you how to use YouTube to build your business email list.
GUEST: Trena Little of TrenaLittle.com [YouTube].
HOST: The VidAction Podcast is hosted by Dane Golden of VidAction | LinkedIn | | YouTube
SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by our affiliate partners, including: TubeBuddy, VidIQ, MorningFame, Rev.com, and other products and services we recommend.
PRODUCER: Jason Perrier of Phizzy Studios
TRANSCRIPT
Dane Golden:
It’s time for HEY.COM. This is the podcast where we give you video content marketing tips to help you get your customers coming back to your videos again and again. My name Dane Golden from HEY.COM, and today we have a special guest, Trena Little from TrenaLittle.com. Welcome, Trena.
Trena Little:
Hi. Thanks for having me.
Dane Golden:
Thanks for being on. Now it’s Trena T-R-E-N-A Little dot com.
Trena Little:
Yeah. Correct.
Dane Golden:
All right. You recently did a video on your YouTube channel called “Build Your Email List With YouTube Videos.”
Trena Little:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dane Golden:
I found this very interesting because we don’t always think about our email list when we’re thinking about video. But it’s a great way to grow the email list, apparently, right?
Trena Little:
Yeah. A lot of people don’t realize, YouTube is a great spot to really grow your email list, and get people into your world by letting them know what you have to offer.
Dane Golden:
Right. Why is it so important? If you have a ton of subscribers on YouTube, why is it important to get their emails too?
Trena Little:
We never know with social media when it could be taken away. Now I know YouTube won’t disappear tomorrow, but that’s a possibility. It’s important for us to have a way to reach our viewers, or the people that enjoy our content in a different way. By having an email list, you basically own those emails. If anything were to happen, even if your channel were to accidentally get deleted somehow, you still have a way to reach your people if your main platform disappears.
Dane Golden:
Very, very good point. But there’s a problem. There’s no place to enter their email, so what do you do?
Trena Little:
Yeah, so the first way to get started is to just link it in your description box and have a call to action in your video to say, if you’re talking through 10 tips on how to do something or a process you go through, if you have something for them like an opt-in that’s a worksheet or a checklist, just letting them know where they can get it and say, “Click the link down in my description box to get your free checklist to help you go through this process a lot quicker.”
The first place to go is your description box because on YouTube, you can’t add a card that clicks to a website unless you’ve reached that golden monetization phase where you have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time.
Dane Golden:
Anyone can put it in their description.
Trena Little:
Yeah, anybody can put a link to your landing page where you have a place for people to enter their email address, and give them something of value for their email address.
Dane Golden:
Then if you’ve reached a certain number of viewers and watch time, then you can actually put a link somewhere in the video, either in the end screen, or I think also in the cards.
Trena Little:
Yeah, that is correct, in the cards or end screen.
Dane Golden:
Now, what is it? How do you get them to … What is the incentive to get them to give you your email? Is it just give me your email?
Trena Little:
Generally if you just have a newsletter, that’s not really valuable to people anymore. They tend to have an email inbox that is exploding with emails coming in by the minute, normally. Just handing over your email to get on this ambiguous newsletter isn’t going to work anymore. You need to promise that you’re going to give them something. What are they going to get by giving you their email?
You can call this an opt-in, or a freebie. It can be as simple as a checklist, or a worksheet, or even I know some people who talk a lot about journaling and self improvement. They do journal prompts, like, “Here are 10 journal prompts to help you start journaling.” It’s just something of value to them, to get give them their email.
Dane Golden:
Some people also call this a lead magnet.
Trena Little:
A lead magnet. Yes, that as well.
Dane Golden:
But does this create problems? Should we just send everyone off every video to give us their email, or does that create problems?
Trena Little:
The problem you run into on YouTube, is YouTube wants people to stay on the platform. When they start to see people ending their viewing session on your videos because you are sending them to your opt-in, it tends to get a little tricky on whether or not your content will continue to grow.
What I suggest doing is if you’re walking through a specific process, make that video specific to your opt-in. For me, I have a YouTube launch roadmap. I’m going to create just one video that walks through this process, and at the end of the video, tell them, “I have this worksheet, I have this checklist that walks you through this process if you want to have it in paper format, or on digital format. You can grab that at this link.” You don’t want to pitch it in every single video that you have, because you don’t want to end the viewing session.
If you want to do an increase in email subscribers, do a video specifically for that opt-in, walking them through it, so then you pitch them that opt-in at the end of the video. That will help you with not ending your viewing session on YouTube, in every single video.
Dane Golden:
I wonder if you could … That’s a fantastic idea, just a single video that’s designed to send people off, and so that there’s not so much. Each video won’t have a ending session that’s the watch time session.
Trena Little:
Yeah, I like to think of it as a sales video. It’s basically a sales video for you. You’re not technically selling anything, but you’re pitching them this freebie to get them their email. Incorporating that into your video strategy or your YouTube strategy maybe once a month, maybe once every six weeks to get people into your email list. That video lives on YouTube for as long as you have it up there, so it will continue to drive traffic to your email list. But that is just that particular video, and it’s not all of your videos.
Dane Golden:
Now I wonder … In the description box which can be much more than just a description, you can have a lot of links to things, and you could have a link to that sales video from almost any video because there’s a smaller chance it’s going to get clicked on without a call to action somewhere in the video, right?
Trena Little:
Yeah. I tend to just … I always have the link to my opt-in in the description box, ’cause not everybody is looking in the description box unless they’re really interested in what I have to say. They’re going to be much more likely to click through than every single person that watches my video. If somebody is looking in my description box, I probably peak to their interest and they’re wondering how to learn more or get more from me. I leave the link in every single description box as part of my upload defaults.
Then I do pop it in a card, because I have reached that threshold that I can have a card linked to a website. I don’t make a significant call out to it, it’s just up there. If it grabs somebody’s eye and they click on it, it gets them over there. But there’s no hard call to action to actually click that. It is there, it gets in front of their face. If it does interest them, they can click through.
Dane Golden:
Now, how would you do your landing page where people go to. Would you do it any differently than someone does a normal lead magnet? Or it’s a lead magnet?
Trena Little:
Yeah, it gets a little tricky when you’re looking at cop conversion, copywriting, and conversion rates on landing pages. I like to keep it pretty simple. If they are coming for my video specially, they already know who I am, and I’ve already built that know, like, and trust a bit. They’re more likely to actually put their name in because they’ve seen a video.
But I do know videos on landing pages do increase your conversion rate, meaning if you have a video on your landing page, it’s more likely people are going to sign up for it than if you didn’t have a video. Even if it’s a quick video that says, “Hey, in this free opt-in, or this lead …” You don’t want to say lead magnet because then it becomes very sales-y, but you say something like, “In this checklist, you’re going to learn A, B, C. Once you download it, you’re going to know exactly what you need to do to launch our YouTube channel. Just pop your email in that little box beside me.” Make sure the email opt-in box is right beside the video. Then that’s how you can get their email address. Just really let them know again, the value this lead magnet is going to be for them.
Dane Golden:
Just to be clear here, so I have it straight, you have an initial video, and then a call to action for a second video that’s on YouTube. That leads you to the landing page. On that landing page, it’s actually also a distinct video, so a different video for each distinct phase. Is this correct?
Trena Little:
No. Just having a video around your lead magnet would be your sales video. Then your cards and your links would go to the landing page. There doesn’t need to be a middle video in there, just one video specifically about your lead magnet, and then one video on your landing page for your lead magnet. Because if that’s a lead magnet you’re using across your business, if you’re sending someone from Facebook over there, or Pinterest, or if you’re speaking on a online summit and you want to send people to this lead magnet, they may not be seeing that video or any video that you’ve done. Being able to actually have a video on that lead magnet let’s people get to see you, lets them get to see how you teach and your personality to increase that click-through and that conversion.
Dane Golden:
Fantastic. Tips from Trena. Trena Little really did give us some great tips about getting your customers’ emails from YouTube. Trena, how can people find out more about you and what you’re doing?
Trena Little:
Yeah, so I’m on YouTube, YouTube.com/TipsWithTrena. I also, one of my favorite platforms right now to just get behind the scenes is Instagram. I’m on Instagram.com/trena_little. I love Stories over there. Then my website is TrenaLittle.com.
Dane Golden:
Thank you Trena Little, T-R-E-N-A. My name is Dane Golden, and I want to thank you for listening today. HEY.COM is about helping you get your customers coming back to your videos again and again. How do you do this? By sharing your expertise, because when you share your expertise in a way that helps your customers live their lives better, or do their jobs better, you’ll earn their loyalty and their trust, and their business.
Thanks to our special guest, Trena Little. Please subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app, and on YouTube, and wherever you watch social video. Please follow me on LinkedIn, or just email me help at HEY.COM.
Until next week, here’s to helping you help your customers through video.