Last updated on July 12th, 2020 at 07:45 pm
Content marketing is a powerful tool for brands to establish themselves as experts and educators in their field. This is the opposite of a hard-sell, but it’s a long-term approach that generates brand loyalty and can pay off big in the long run.
In this episode of Tube Talk, Dane Golden sits in for Jeremy Vest and talks to freelance blogger and content marketing expert Bree Brouwer about how both brands and YouTubers can use content marketing through video and other means to grow their audience, their brand, and their income.
Enjoy, and please share if you find this episode valuable!
Transcript:
Dane Golden:
My name is Dane Golden from vidaction.tv and today we have Bree Brouwer here. Welcome, Bree.
Bree Brouwer:
Thank you, thanks for having me.
Dane Golden:
If you know YouTube, you know Bree from the many publications she’s been in about YouTube and she’s a pro B2B writer in the online video industry. Does that describe what you do?
Bree Brouwer:
It does. I definitely try to help as many of the digital media and online video companies out there tell their stories through, ironically, mostly non-video means. So, it’s kind of an interesting angle.
Dane Golden:
You’re talking about video, but you’re writing.
Bree Brouwer:
Yes, exactly.
Dane Golden:
Okay, and you wrote this article recently for YouTuber Magazine called “How YouTube Creators Can Use Content Marketing To Make Money,” so it seems like this is one of those worlds collide situations here. Where you’re taking YouTube creators on the one hand, who are mostly people would perceive about advertising or sponsorship dollars when they’re making money, but then you’re putting content marketing and you’re bringing that, which is more of a B2B term, not always. Sometimes it’s B2C. You’re bringing that together and saying YouTube creators, you can use these content marketing principles. Is that accurate? Am I describing that right?
Bree Brouwer:
Yes and, actually, the idea behind creators using content marketing is really, I mean, as you probably know, as many of the listeners probably know, content marketing is a fairly old concept. You know, putting out content that changes the behaviors of their audience, makes them trust you, makes them see you as an expert. That’s been around for a while, but YouTubers have, consistently, really relied on the, like you said, the advertising model, but because of a lot the changes over the last few years, for example, like Vine shutting down and Viners not having a platform anymore and then, of course, the adpocalypse, where the YouTube creators are starting to be like, “Oh, maybe I should actually not 100% rely on advertising revenue.”
So, really, content marketing’s probably the best way to do that, to reach audiences and start earning money back.
Dane Golden:
I can think of, frankly I can think of three people in my arena, which is, you know, just helping companies use YouTube. That they may not call, you may not think of them as being content marketers, but, in fact, they’re videos are loss leaders that do get them sales. Tim [Schmoyer 00:02:50] is the most clear example of Video Creators on YouTube. He gives credible tips, but he makes a lot of money from selling his books.
Bree Brouwer:
Right.
Dane Golden:
He’s a book business that looks like a YouTube channel.
Bree Brouwer:
Right, yes, exactly.
Dane Golden:
Darrell Eaves, he is an agency that looks like a YouTube channel. The guys over at Video Influencer, Shawn and Benji, for instance, give great tips, but they are consultants as well and do a lot of production. Sometimes people may not be really hard selling what they’re bigger money earner is, but they just may say at the end, “Hey, if you want to find out more, visit me here.” It’s a very soft sell. What do you think about the soft sell?
Bree Brouwer:
I believe and this is why I actually have my own business. It’s one of the missions and, I shouldn’t say missions, it’s one of my biggest pet peeves in my business is I firmly believe in the power of story telling and the power of not selling hard, but selling softly over time. Because I believe that builds your trust and reputation with your audience and, so, that’s why I firmly believe content marketing is important for businesses to put in. There will always be advertising in some form or another, there has been for millennia, but if you consistently try to sell hard people will not respond to that. They might at first, but then, if you keep pushing and pushing and pushing, it’s essentially like an annoying relative that keeps calling you and you don’t want to talk to them.
So, yes, I think soft selling in the form of content marketing is one of the best things any brand creator or business can do for themselves and, unfortunately, not a lot of the are utilizing it.
Dane Golden:
Well, let’s go a little deep into the term “content marketing.” I always hear it referred to, most people say blogs when they’re really talking about content marketing. Sometimes podcasts, like this one, but what is, how would you sum up what content marketing is generally?
Bree Brouwer:
Sure. I actually would call content marketing any type of content that is created by a brand, a business or creator, an entity to build up their reputation with their audience, educate them about their industry, and then, eventually, change their behaviors as the ultimate goal. That, obviously, means that hopefully in the future once you give them enough information and they love it and they trust you, they’ll stop buying from your competitor and start buying from you. So that’s how I would define content marketing and if anyone wants to look up other definitions I always point people to contentmarketinginstitute.com. Joe Pulizzi runs that, he’s been around for forever in the content marketing world and that’s essentially his definition as well, but that is the best way to describe content marketing.
Dane Golden:
So, let’s think about that in reference to video. So, a lot of brands, for instance, and that’s my perspective, mostly, they might put a few videos up on YouTube. Maybe spend a lot money in production and paid media and not get the traction that they were expecting and say, “Well, you know what, YouTube doesn’t work. I don’t get it.” I know it’s got a lot of cool YouTubers. Maybe they aren’t following these rules, maybe they are just saying, “Hey, look at this great video about our company. Why are not we views and conversions and lead generation?”
Bree Brouwer:
Sure. Well, obviously, there’s a lot that goes into that, right? Like, analytics wise, did they actually target the right people? But, really, from a content marketing standpoint they’re looking at it the entirely wrong way. What they should be asking themselves is, is the message on point? Is it match up with our brands messaging, with our goals, our missions? Does it resonate with our audience that we understand from our research? Also, they’re just looking at it in such a short-term way when they’re like, “Oh, we didn’t get that many views or leads or anything.” Obviously those help towards getting more recognition for your brand and more sales and stuff, however, with content marketing the goal is to tell your story. You can’t just tell a story really quickly and suddenly expect everyone to be in love with you.
For the most part you have to, it’s almost like dating, you really have to date your audience and that takes a while. That can’t happen overnight and you would just expect them to suddenly want to buy from you. So, that’s definitely, you know, that’s the mentality you have to take when you look at content marketing. Especially in terms of video. You can’t just expect one video to be an overnight success. I think, unfortunately, brands seem to think viral is just around the corner for them every single time they post a video.
Dane Golden:
Right, right. So, the idea is to make it, I took this out of your post, valuable, relevant, and consistent.
Bree Brouwer:
Yes.
Dane Golden:
So, what’s valuable, is something, “Hey, someone is interested in buying from my company, thus I need to put a whole bunch of videos saying how awesome my company is.” Is that content marketing?
Bree Brouwer:
That sounds more like advertising.
Dane Golden:
So, what’s valuable, like I think of valuable and I’m sort of being coy with my questions.
Bree Brouwer:
Of course.
Dane Golden:
You and I are both on the same page, but I’m leading you through because I really believe in “how to” type of content.
Bree Brouwer:
Sure.
Dane Golden:
Is that content marketing?
Bree Brouwer:
Yes, that’s what I would call most “how to” content, content marketing. Obviously it depends on how it’s presented and written or created and such, however, as an example, I was going to bring up, is I just read about this company and, unfortunately, I don’t remember their name, but they’re pool building company. When they stopped, essentially, advertising in a sense telling their audiences, “We build pools, here’s how awesome we are.”
When they stopped saying that and took the content marketing angle with their videos and their materials on their website and that they put out on social media, when they took the angle of being educators or “how to” people, saying, “We’re the best educational company about how to build pools, why pools can help with your fun family time.” They educated their potential customers about their industry and not just about their industry, but, also, about how pools and getting a pool installed in your house helps the homeowner, essentially.
Dane Golden:
What I don’t hear from you is how their company does it. What I hear from you is what the industry is about. So, that’s probably a B2C type of thing and it can be B2C or B2B.
Bree Brouwer:
Yes, yeah.
Dane Golden:
But what’s the difference between telling somebody how to do things related to your individual product versus the industry as a whole?
Bree Brouwer:
When you talk about your industry as a whole and this is, in my opinion, more useful for B2B content marketing, but when you tell people about your industry as a whole, it sets you up as a thought leader, an expert. So, if you prove that you know, not just your business but the entire industry, you look a lot more trustworthy and like you know what you’re talking about. So, that’s definitely, I think, more important in B2B, but if you can prove that you know your industry, a lot of B2C companies can also work with that.
Dane Golden:
Let me ask you this, because I’ve been, sort of, testing out this language and I don’t know if it’s accurate or not, but I tell people that content marketing for B2B on YouTube, which is my platform of choice is helping people do their job better. If you’re helping the viewers do their job better, then you will get people coming back week after week to learn new things.
Bree Brouwer:
Yes.
Dane Golden:
So, if you helped them, if it’s accounting software you’re selling, very boring. Who cares about accounting software? But if you taught people how to manage their money with a different tip every week, people want to know that and then when it comes time to buy new software, “Hey, I’m interested.”
Bree Brouwer:
Right.
Dane Golden:
Or it could be even more tangential for, like, B2C. For instance, if you sell soccer balls, right. Now, do I really want to know as a customer what the stitching is all about and how many gallons of air it could hold? I don’t, I know what a soccer ball is, but what if someone did a channel where because there’s so many kids playing soccer. What if they did a channel about how to coach soccer or how to run drills or how your kid can be better or how to be the mom that runs the pizza party after the soccer game. You know, that really would draw in people and then they’re like, “Oh, yeah.” And it’s Spalding soccer balls. They’re like, “Oh, yeah, Spalding, we should get one of those next time.”
Bree Brouwer:
Right, yep.
Dane Golden:
So, you’ve showed your expertise and it doesn’t necessarily have to, I feel it doesn’t necessarily have to be directly related to your product, but it has to be close.
Bree Brouwer:
Yeah, it should be pretty close. I mean, obviously, there’s this argument online that you should just be yourself when you’re doing content marketing, but if you are talking about something completely unrelated to your industry on a consistent basis, once or twice telling your audience that you’re eating a ham sandwich for lunch today is fine, but consistently doing that means that you’re not, again, staying on message and on point with your brands mission and messaging, so that’s what you have to keep in mind when you’re doing content marketing. Either B2B or B2C is literally just ask yourself every time you’re thinking of creating a piece of content or video is this on point with my brand’s messaging? Is this something that I want my audience to know and understand?
Dane Golden:
How can, I have no idea what your answer’s going to be on this, but how can a YouTuber be more like a brand and a brand be more like a YouTuber?
Bree Brouwer:
Actually, I think that’s a really good question and there’s actually been a lot of speculation about that, I believe, in the last couple of years. For starters, let’s talk about the YouTuber being more like a brand. I think a lot more YouTubers are becoming aware of that angle, especially like I mentioned before, because of the adpocalypse, they’re trying to understand how run, some of them, at least, are trying to understand how to run their channels more like a business or brand now instead of just as a hobby. So, they need to start looking, personally, I believe they need to start looking at more business practices like study, do case studies as to why certain brands are doing so well, selling with their content marketing, with their video. Why do they connect with their audiences?
So, essentially, YouTubers need to become more business like, but on the flip side, brands actually need to become a little bit more influencer and to put it nicely, they need to be more like real people. Brands always want to work with influencers because they’re, influences, are the one who connect with the audience. Well, if brands want to be connecting with their audiences then they just need to take lessons from the YouTubers. Like, why are the YouTubers so successful. What kind of terminology do they use that connects with their audiences. Because, for example, Pewdiepie, always has the bro fist, like, that’s his term. If brands started using those kinds of tricks and elements in their marketing then they won’t have to necessarily continually reach out to influencers. They might become an influencer or YouTuber, of sort, themselves.
Dane Golden:
Just for the people coming from the side that may not know what the adpocalypse is, could you sum it up in a sentence?
Bree Brouwer:
Yeah. Oh, in a sentence?
Dane Golden:
A paragraph.
Bree Brouwer:
Sure. Brands, some brands in, I believe, the UK first noticed earlier this year, in 2017, that their ads were showing or running against extremist violent content on YouTube and they pulled their advertising from YouTube and consequently a lot of creators revenues were affected by this and YouTube is still trying to deal with the repercussions of it and figure out how to avoid advertisers videos running against poorly thought out or improper content and where the line crosses there with creators and how they deserve to get paid.
Dane Golden:
But there’s a lot of content that is very innocuous that is also losing revenue for years.
Bree Brouwer:
Yeah, like there are some channels that I’ve heard of that were, there were rumors and rumblings and complaints of certain videos on certain channels like with creators coming out and talking about their homosexuality or their sexuality of choice. They, apparently, their videos were not chosen to have ads run against. So, it’s been a big struggle for YouTube to figure out, “Okay, what’s okay for creators to talk about.” What’s considered, “brand friendly?” It’s also been learning, I would hope, a learning point for brands to understand what it’s okay to talk about or not.
Dane Golden:
Well, I mean, there’s been a broad range of videos that are very plain. At VidCon there was a, the folks at Jukin Media were talking about how some videos about dogs talking to each other or birds flying around were banned because of a bad key word.
Bree Brouwer:
Yeah, oh yeah.
Dane Golden:
So, there’s all sorts of things and it’s basically the task they have is quantifying and tabulating all video shot by anyone, anywhere on Earth and determine if that is appropriate or not, which is not easy.
Bree Brouwer:
It’s momentous.
Dane Golden:
So, back to content marketing, what’s the difference between content marketing for blogs and content marketing for, let’s say, YouTube? What is the difference?
Bree Brouwer:
Are you talking about blogs as content marketing?
Dane Golden:
Well, blogs that are, well, when I think of blogs I really am talking about company blogs that are promoting, from my perspective, of B2B and those tend to be, if they’re doing it well. I see them, well I see them as, like, 80% about the industry and 20% about them, but I don’t think that most brands are doing that on YouTube.
Bree Brouwer:
Right, right. So –
Dane Golden:
Should they?
Bree Brouwer:
Pose that question again in terms of YouTube.
Dane Golden:
From content marketing perspective, content marketing blogs versus content marketing on YouTube.
Bree Brouwer:
On YouTube.
Dane Golden:
What’s the diff? You know, should, if you were doing it right, how are they related?
Bree Brouwer:
Well if you’re doing it right both should be part of your overall content marketing strategy, right? You should be using a YouTube channel to not just grow your channel, but to drive people to your website or to your products or to another video. Blogs, your blog is essentially going to be doing the same thing. Like, you want people to keep coming back, you want them to keep reading it, you want them to buy your product, you want them to recommend you to their friends and family. So both should really be part of your content marketing strategy. The difference, obviously, is in the format and the presentation. Your readers are going to prefer something different than, you know, audiences on YouTube are.
Obviously that’s a difference between visual content and then written content. Some people just like written content and they might like it to be 500 words, they might like it to be 2,000 words. For video, that can completely change, depending on your audience as well. There’s companies that will make full length documentaries or short films, right? They’ll put those on YouTube and their audiences love it. Other brands just need shorter videos explaining one or two things about maybe some news in the industry and that only needs to be three minutes. So the difference between content marketing with blogs for businesses and content marketing on YouTube with videos is essentially just the format and understand your audience and what they want to see on both platforms and what works best for you on both platforms.
Dane Golden:
Well, Bree Brouwer, you’ve given us a lot to thinking about today.
Bree Brouwer:
I hope so. I think that’s good.
Dane Golden:
We’re going to keep thinking about it. How can people find you and your services, Bree?
Bree Brouwer:
Sure, they can just go to my website, it is my name breebrouwer.com and Brouwer is Dutch, so it’s spelled differently than you might think. It is B=R=O-U=W=E=R. So, that’s breebrouwer.com.
Dane Golden:
Okay, and my name is Dane Golden from vidaction.tv. At vidaction.tv we help businesses, particularly B2B, with our content marketing strategies on YouTube. So, a great topic for us today. You can find me @DaneGolden everywhere or vidaction.tv. Very interesting, Bree Brouwer. Oh! Don’t forget, Jeremy Vest, follow him @vidpowbam on Twitter, vidpow.com. They do excellent brand management of channels. They do shareable videos. Great company, Vidpow.
Bree Brouwer:
Jeremy’s great.
Dane Golden:
Jeremy is great. And everyone else on his team, Hello. Until next week, keep talking Tube.
