This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Is YouTube really top of funnel for educational creators? In other words, is YouTube the best way to turn viewers into paying customers, or is it just a platform where people expect free content? We're gonna hear from a creator today, and let's kind of break down whether YouTube really works as a sales funnel. How can it work? Does it work?
How can it work? What's the best thing to do? YouTube is packed with educational creators who are sharing valuable content. They build big followings. Some of them seem to be thriving, but does having a large audience naturally translate into paying customers?
So that's what Jason from Vancouver wants to know. He's been making personal finance content. He keeps hearing that YouTube is the best way to drive sales for courses, coaching, memberships, et cetera, but he is skeptical. Do these YouTube audiences actually buy, or do they just expect everything for free? Can it be a proper sales funnel, top of funnel as some marketers sometimes say?
Or are there better ways to monetize your expertise? A few different directions we could take this. As always, I want to try to give you something helpful to answer the listener's question, and hopefully somebody else out there as well who's trying to figure out their next business idea or side hustle. So let's attempt just that. Quick shout out to our sponsor, and then Jason's question.
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Hi, side hustle team. This is Jason from Vancouver. I create educational content on personal finance, and I keep hearing that YouTube is the best way to build an audience and drive sales for courses, coaching, or memberships. But is that actually true? I see a lot of creators with big YouTube followings, but I wonder if those audiences actually convert into paying customers or just expect everything for free.
Is YouTube really the best way to attract buyers, or are there smarter ways to turn an audience into paying customers? - Well, Jason, YouTube is absolutely one of the best ways to build an audience. There are some creators who are YouTube first, like people who are active on multiple platforms, but swear that YouTube is the best and biggest and most effective for them. But of course it really depends on the creator. So whether it actually converts to sales depends on how you use it.
And some creators do get stuck kind of in this flywheel of giving away tons of free content without converting enough of their audience to paying customers, and then they kind of get stuck. I read a really long sub-stack post recently of someone who basically worked full-time at their project and had built up a really good-sized network on YouTube, and they were earning ad income, but they were also spending a lot of money on production, and it really wasn't worth it in the end. So you want to kind of approach this correctly from the beginning, if possible, strategically structure your content. Instead of just providing random lessons, create videos that naturally lead to your paid offers. So for example, Jason is doing personal finance.
If he has a course on budgeting, don't just make a video called "How to Budget." That's a little basic. Make one called "The Biggest Budgeting Mistakes People Make and How to Fix Them." It's a very YouTube-friendly title. And you're sharing a lot of information through that video, but ultimately the solution points to your course. So as part of that, you want to balance your free content with premium content. If you give away everything for free, there's no reason for people to buy.
A good rule of thumb is to teach the what for free, but sell the how. So a free video might explain why having multiple income streams is important while your paid course walks people through setting them up step by step. Now, one more thing here, when we're talking about top of funnel, don't forget about YouTube's built-in monetization. Like if you're producing a lot of content anyway, and it's getting a lot of views, you might as well take advantage of features like channel memberships, YouTube's partner program, even paid sponsorships to generate income while you build your audience. So it's not just about using YouTube as a funnel.
You can in fact get paid directly for the views. So is YouTube really the best top of funnel strategy? Kind of depends on your execution. If you post videos and just hope people will naturally buy from you, probably not gonna work. But if you use it strategically to build trust, capture leads, and then move viewers into this well-structured funnel, it can in fact be one of the most powerful marketing tools out there.
How's that? I hope that's helpful. We got a lot of people out there doing really interesting things, trying to make progress, trying to start something new, take more ownership of their financial situation or their employment situation, whatever the case may be, just working on something creative, that's good as well. And I hope that this daily podcast helps you do that in a small way or a big way, whatever is best for you. I hope you'll subscribe, follow wherever you get your podcasts.
Much more is coming up. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
