The Importance of Value
If you were to come up to me and ask what my top marketing/art business tip is, my answer would come down to one word: value.
Value is the North Star of my business. The way that you gain a following online (or convert people to your email newsletter or convince them to purchase your products) is to provide value to their lives.
How do you provide value for someone? You offer a solution to a problem they're facing.
Value isn't just about educating someone on something. You don't need to be a color theory expert like Jeremy Vickery to provide value. Plenty of creators provide value that's more entertainment or motivation/inspiration focused. A compelling story also provides value.
Whenever I plan out a YouTube video or a newsletter or brainstorm ideas for an online course, my first thought is always: Does this thing provide value to someone's life? Does it help them solve a problem?
Because once you've proven yourself to your audience as someone who can consistently deliver lots of value to them for free, they're far more likely to eventually choose to become customers.
But you need to have that trust and that reputation.
How I Sell Without Being Sales-y
Trying to sell your services to your audience constantly will come across as manipulative and scammy. Generally, the rule is to provide value about 3/4 of the time or more, and then market your products or services 1/4 of the time or less.
In practice, the way I usually do this is to give very brief (20 seconds or less) shoutouts to my online shop in my videos, mentioning it as casually as possible so it doesn't even register to the viewer as me trying to sell to them.
My main sales tactic isn't even to sell, per-se, but just ensure my audience is aware that my products and services exist. If they want to buy them, great!
I try to be very clear about who certain products are best suited for and who they aren't, to properly set expectations and just to be honest with folks.
Like with most things in life, honesty is just usually the best policy. And with sales tactics, it's the most relaxing strategy for you and the most refreshing one for your audience.
Business Structure & Marketing Funnels
An overview of my business structure
One thing talked about constantly in business and marketing circles is the idea of a funnel. Funnels are how you convert your audience from one platform to another, or convince them to purchase your online course, etc.
Someone might start watching one of my videos and then click on a link that takes them to my online store, and on the checkout page of my website they might sign up for my email list, etc.
Every platform continues providing value to my audience while opening up opportunities for monetization.
Our community Discord server offers a tight knit, welcoming community for artists. That's a ton of value, but it also offers monetization opportunities in the form of paid subscriptions to access even more value, like my monthly live Q&As.
Do you see the underlying structure here? My entire small business strategy is focusing on ways I can deliver value, be it in the form of education, entertainment, or community to my audience, while also giving them opportunities to support my work in exchange for more value.
(drinking game idea: take a shot every time I write "value" in this email-- jk jk please don't do that I'm pretty sure you'd get alcohol poisoning)
When you're crafting your business strategy, your target audience should be at the forefront of your mind. How can you help them be their best selves, or change their lives, or make their day just a little better?
With that, let's move onto our second story this week!
How Much Youtube Paid Me in 2022
This week on the main channel I posted a comprehensive video detailing how much Youtube paid me in 2022, breaking it down month by month.
The grand total? Over thirty thousand dollars. But that's just scraping the surface. My Youtube Adsense payments varied from $400 to over $4000 over the course of the year.
If you didn't know, 2022 was the year that essentially made the channel what it is today. 99% of my current audience subscribed at some point in 2022 (I gained 142,000 subscribers this past year, and in total have just under 150,000, meaning the previous two years before I'd only gained 8k.)
That massive difference is part of why I think it's so important for artists and creators to ensure their eggs aren't all in one basket, and create a business with a variety of income streams. It's why I've structured my business like the diagram from our first story, ensuring I have multiple touch points with my audience and multiple income streams in play.
(Absolutely no pressure, but-- if you're interested in starting your own art YouTube channel but don't know where to start, consider checking out my Artist Youtuber Workbook)
And that's all for this week! I hope you're able to find the time to create something.
Kelsey
