🔍 $1.5M In Sales. In 90 Days. From Youtube Organic.

Howdy!

Writing this one on National Pancake Day, invented by IHOP in 2006.

This reminds me of a podcast episode called “How to Invent a Holiday” (link at the end). Gives it a listen — it’s quite fascinating.

Who knows? Maybe you can also invent a holiday to bring your community together on that day.

If you’ve been wondering if you should go all in on video or not, let this be the sign you need to go ALL IN.

Wistia analyzed over 80 million videos published on their platform, and the main takeaway is that more and more companies are investing in video.

Here’s why:

• Video is one of the best tools for product education and TOF awareness while influencing BOF behavior
• Long-form video is the highest-performing video segment
• LinkedIn and Youtube are the most effective distribution channels for businesses
• Average video engagement rates are consistent year after year

So, Wistia took these insights and created an all-you-need-to-know report where you’ll learn:

• What types of videos are the highest-performing videos
• What the most popular channels for video are
• What to do if your video isn’t performing up to standard benchmarks
• How to increase video engagement

You can download the full report here.

“No one wants to watch content from a brand’s Youtube channel.”

It sounds logical. But conventional wisdom leads to conventional outcomes.

Mini Katana, a brand selling Japanese swords, organically drove $1.5M in new product sales through their Youtube channel in 90 days. The brand founder, Issac, shared on Twitter the strategy and tactics they used to achieve this seemingly inconceivable result.

Let’s study his playbook.

When a platform launches a new feature, there is bound to be a huge initiative for them to promote it. Use it to your advantage.

We’ve seen this with Instagram Reels and Twitter Threads; the same applies to Youtube Shorts.

Michael Silkand, who runs TikTok and Youtube for My First Million observed that Youtube Shorts drove the most subscriptions and had the highest follower conversion rate among platforms.

Issac figured out that the trick to get Youtube to massively distribute your shorts is to upload long-form videos. Youtube likes it if you use all its features. In one year, Mini Katana’s Youtube channel now has 27 long-form videos and 551 shorts.

Issac’s formula:

• One long-form video a week
• At least 5–7 short-form videos a week — scaled to 3 videos/day

Yes, that’s right. As with any content strategy, consistency is key. Michael Silkand also mentioned that their views fall when they miss a daily upload.

You get punished for missing a day.

The next question is — how to create engaging quality content for Youtube. Issac has several techniques.

• Educational content

Not every brand needs to go for funny and trendy content to go viral. In the long run, Issac says that educational content is what drives consistent engagement and what they would focus on.

• Community poll

Another feature Youtube heavily promotes is community polls.

Issac leverages this feature to interact with the existing community and also to scale the reach.

• Make videos in reply to comments.

To engage their community, Mini Katana created tons of videos in reply to subscribers’ comments, which uses a similar strategy to our previous case study on using customer objections as ad hooks.

When your content speaks directly to the questions your audience is asking, it is sure to capture their attention.

Unlike Instagram and TikTok, direct linking (and attribution) is easier on Youtube.

That’s how Issac discovered that the platform boosts sales even better than email and sms.

One of his tricks is to use community posts, which he calls billboards for free.

The beauty of community posts is they are not only shown to subscribers on their Youtube homepage. They are shown to others if they get enough traction with your followers. All for free.

Issac’s playbook for $1.5M sales from organic Youtube videos in 90 days:

• Consistent uploads. One long-form video/week, at least 3–5 shorts/week, ideally three shorts/day.
• Create educational content. Use community polls and videos in reply to subscribers’ comments to drive engagement.
• Leverage community posts as billboards for free to scale reach.

• Podcast episode: How to invent a holiday
• The Snapchat AR try-on experience is really cool
• Found out this agency was behind so many successful Kickstarter campaign
• Certainly a question on my mind -why everything you buy is worse now

*Want to sponsor Marketing Examined? Fill out this Typeform here.*

My sign-off is asking you to go follow Issac on Twitter. He’s spreading so much wisdom. It takes true talent to lead a team and achieve this monumental growth without spending the big $$.

Alex & Chi