[Top Agency Series] Secrets to YouTube Marketing Mastery With Marlon Doll of Vireo Video

Marlon Doll is the Founder and CEO of Vireo Video, a specialized agency dedicated to helping brands achieve success on YouTube through strategy, optimization, content creation, and advertising. With over seven years of focused YouTube experience, Marlon and his team have served over 200 clients, including well-known names like GitHub, Thinkific, Best Buy, and Eckhart Tolle. His expertise has also led him to grow his own channel, Bachelor on a Budget, which boasts over 70,000 subscribers.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [3:32] How Vireo Video leverages YouTube marketing to grow brands
• [4:44] The common mistakes brands make with their YouTube channels
• [6:49] The importance of thumbnail design and title optimization in YouTube success
• [8:30] The essential tools Marlon uses to optimize and monitor YouTube channels
• [10:49] The types of YouTube content that generate audience engagement and why
• [13:11] The value of strategically designed YouTube channel banners
• [22:05] The synergies between organic content and paid YouTube advertising
• [28:13] How Marlon’s strategies helped GitHub increase their YouTube viewership
• [33:32] Things brands can do to improve their YouTube presence

In this episode…

Are you looking to stand out on YouTube but can’t determine why your channel isn’t gaining traction? Could you be missing out on some critical optimization techniques or advertising opportunities that can supercharge your growth? How does a focused strategy tailored for YouTube make a difference?

YouTube marketing expert Marlon Doll dives deep into the intricacies of creating a successful YouTube presence for brands. He emphasizes the need to avoid a scattergun approach, highlighting the importance of research, consistency, and creating value-driven content catered to target audiences. He plunges into thumbnail strategy, explaining how minor changes can lead to substantial increases in click-through rates. Marlon also shares his favorite tools for tracking and testing YouTube success and explains why edutainment is a particularly powerful format for content creators.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz hosts Marlon Doll, Founder and CEO of Vireo Video, to talk about YouTube marketing and optimization. Marlon discusses how Vireo Video leverages YouTube marketing to grow brands, common mistakes companies make on YouTube, the significance of thumbnail optimization, and the power of split testing to increase engagement.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Marlon Doll on LinkedIn
• Vireo Video
• Bachelor on a Budget

Special Mention(s):

• Second Bite Podcast
• Harry Mack on YouTube
• Coffeezilla on YouTube
• vidIQ
• TubeBuddy
• ViewStats
• MrBeast on YouTube
• A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
• Practicing the Power of Now: Essential Teachings, Meditations, and Exercises from The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Related episode(s):

• “[Sweet Process Series] How to Save Hundreds of Hours a Month Using Top Productivity Tools with Adi Klevit of Business Success Consulting Group” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Agency Series] Most Valuable Advice When Selling Your Agency With Todd Taskey of Potomac Business Capital” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Agency Series] Growth Through Acquisitions – What is Your KPI and Northstar? With Jason Swenk” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “Building a Great Team and More Helpful Insights with Jason Swenk Host of The Smart Agency Master Class Podcast” on the Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable Moments:

• “The most important thing is starting with a fundamental strategy that is based on research.”
• “Thumbnails play a major role in YouTube success; it’s like the packaging for your video.”
• “Creating edutainment is combining both education and entertainment to engage your audience.”
• “For a successful YouTube ad, it’s not just about the targeting, but crafting a compelling creative that hooks users.”
• “Collaboration on YouTube is about finding the intersection of mutual value for both audiences.”

Action Steps:

1. Develop a clear and researched YouTube strategy that aligns with your brand and target audience: A precise strategy helps to prevent scattering resources and ensures that your content resonates with your desired viewership.
2. Optimize video thumbnails and titles to increase the click-through rate: These are critical elements in attracting viewers and outperforming competitors on YouTube.
3. Regularly perform thumbnail split testing to refine visuals and maximize video performance: Ongoing testing allows you to gather data and improve the visual appeal of your videos, ultimately leading to better results.
4. Utilize analytics tools to monitor performance and adjust your content strategy accordingly: Tools like vidIQ provide valuable insights that can guide your content creation and optimization decisions.
5. Experiment with blending education and entertainment to create engaging video content: “Edutainment” can significantly enhance viewer engagement, keeping your audience both informed and entertained.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:01 

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz 0:22 

Dr Jeremy Weisz here, founder of inspiredinsider.com, where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today, today is no different, I’ve got Marlon Doll of Vireo Video. You can check them out at vireovideo.com and Marlon, before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes of the podcast people should check out. Since this is part of the top agency series, and there was one really good one I loved, which was with Adi Klevit. And so she’s an interesting niche Marlon, and she helps people. She’s done for you business that helps people create SOPs. So if someone wants to smooth out their onboarding process for staff or clients, she’ll come in, she’ll document it, she’ll create it in some software where everyone can locate it. And we geeked out on our favorite tools, software, productivity hacks. So that was a really fun episode.

Another good one was with Todd Taskey. Todd Taskey runs a Second Bite Podcast, and he pairs agency owners with private equity and helps sell agencies. And it’s called Second Bite, because sometimes, when they you know, the private equity acquires the agency, and they sell again, they sometimes make more on the second bite than they do on the first bite. So he talks about the agency space valuations. That was a really good episode as well. And of course, I have two episodes with Jason Swank where he talks about building up his agency’s eight figures and selling it. So those are really good episodes too. So check those out. Inspiredinsider.com.

This episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. How do we do that? We do that by helping you run your podcast. We’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast, and we do the strategy, the accountability and the full execution. So like Marlon does for YouTube ads, we are kind of like the magic elves that run in the background and make it look easy for the host and the company, so they can create amazing relationships and great content, and most importantly, run their business.

For me, the number one thing in my life is relationships, and I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships, and I personally have found no better way over the past decade than to profile the people and companies I most admire and share with the world what they’re working on. So if you’ve thought about podcasting, should you have questions, go to rise25.com or email us at [email protected] to learn more.

I’m excited to introduce Marlon Doll, he’s the founder and CEO of Vireo Video. Marlon and his 20 plus team, they specialize in helping brands grow their business through YouTube marketing and advertising. They’ve worked with 200 plus clients, including brands like GitHub, Thinkific, Best Buy, Eckhart Tolle and many, many more. And Marlon, I’m excited to chat. Thanks for joining me.

Marlon Doll 3:18 

Hey, thanks for having me on Jeremy.

Jeremy Weisz 3:21 

So I want to start with just talk about Vireo Video and what you do. And as you’re doing that, I’m going to pull up your website here so people can check it out.

Marlon Doll 3:32 

Sounds great. So Vireo Video is a YouTube marketing and advertising agency, as you mentioned, so we’ve been specialized in that for the past seven years. So we don’t focus on anything else, but we’re just trying to be the best in the world at helping brands be more successful on YouTube. So we offer a couple core pillar services, but that starts with strategy, then moves on to optimization, creation, content creation and advertising. So those are kind of our four pillars of services, and each one of those plays a pivotal role in helping brands be better on YouTube.

Jeremy Weisz 4:11 

We’re going to get into, I know you started and jumped into this whole industry because of BBTV, and we’ll talk about some of the learnings there, but you mentioned optimization. When you go in, and I know you have clients go in and go, Hey, Marlon, talk about our YouTube channel and optimization. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see people making? And maybe I’ll pull up yours, and you’ll point out, well, these are the mistakes that obviously they’re not on your channel, but that you’ve seen on others.

Marlon Doll 4:44 

Yeah, sure. And for our channel, we are just starting to practice what we preach and put out more content for YouTube, but there’s definitely some valuable learnings within this. So some of the mistakes that brands make is they don’t go in with a strategy, so they just put out videos, and it could be from multiple departments, and it becomes just a place where videos go to die and conference video recaps, just videos that people aren’t really interested in, that don’t retain an audience and don’t really provide value.

And so most important thing is starting with a fundamental strategy that is based on research, whether that is from your existing channel of looking at what’s working or what’s not, or looking at competitors and seeing who is successful in the space, what videos are most likely to or the top performers for those channels, and not just direct competitors, but also competitors of your target audience’s attention. So that would be a fundamental thing to start with. Other mistakes more specific to optimization pertain to prioritizing the wrong thing.

So things like tags, keywords, while SEO is an important factor, tags and keywords don’t play a big role where the thumbnail and the title, those have much greater impact for a brand than keywords do. And so when you overly keyword stuff or focus on that. It is just putting the video in the wrong priority, where really it’s about creating a great video and then having great packaging. And the SEO is going to come through the title and description and the captions, but keywords don’t play a big, big role.

Jeremy Weisz 6:36 

What about from a thumbnail perspective? I know I’ve watched several of your videos, they’re great. People can check them out on YouTube. And you do talk about how thumbnails are so important.

Marlon Doll 6:49 

Yeah, thumbnails. It’s the first thing that people see. It’s kind of like the trailer for a video. And so when people are scrolling on YouTube, they’re deciding on what to watch. And there’s so much competition. And so you really have to compel people to click, and you can do that by inspiring curiosity to click. And so what we do is we do thumbnail split testing, and so we AB test at least two thumbnails against each other. And so that gives us not only great data for that specific video, but great data to be able to improve our thumbnails on an ongoing basis, and there’s a couple tools that can be used to achieve that, but that’s one of the, I think, most valuable things that a channel can do to be able to optimize the potential performance of a video that has already been recorded.

Jeremy Weisz 7:37 

I know that. I don’t know if you want to share your screen, but I know you geek out on tools like me, or you could just talk about them, whatever is best for you.

Marlon Doll 7:48 

Sure. Happy to share some tools, let me share.

Jeremy Weisz 7:56 

And as you’re doing that, Marlon, I’ll just say, you know you also have another channel like you, you actually were like, okay, I should probably have my own channel. And this was a BPTV and you started a Bachelor on a Budget, which I think you grew to over 70,000 subscribers, and so people can check out some of your and I know you’re not a bachelor anymore, but your whereabouts and some of the good dishes you’ve created, and again, use the same methodology with that channel as well.

Marlon Doll 8:30 

Yeah, that’s how I started in, in being able to put out my own content and really understand the platform and what works, and do the keyword research and see the things that are most likely to have an impact on YouTube, but speaking to some of the tools, though I have a few different tools that I use. So one of these is kind of a standard vid IQ. There’s a couple tools that do this specific feature, but I find this feature really valuable the outlier score, because it can show you what videos are doing much better than another.

So this is great for competitor research. When you pull up a competitor and seeing, okay, well, what videos are most likely to continue to grow and what videos are most successful. So you can see, in this case, like this, video was 100 times outperform the channel average, or 70 times, or 6.3 times, so you can get a better understanding really quickly. And vidIQ has lots of other great features along with TubeBuddy, they’re kind of the most known and standard. But in combination with the tool like this, I will track those videos, and whether it’s a great thumbnail or competitors that I’m trying to track, and I’ll use a tool like click pilot.

And so click pilot is a tool where you can be able to, if I want to capture this video, I can choose what, what folder I want to put this in, and then have a suite of different thumbnails for it. And that could be really valuable to be able to go back and see, okay, what thumbnails work really well for a specific niche like real estate or health or business thumbnails for example or specific client. So that’s a great tool. Other tools, Mr. Beast has just launched a premium version of his tool, View Stats. And so View Stats also a Chrome extension, can give you a lot of data, but it can also show you history of thumbnail split tests, which can be highly valuable to see, okay, well, what was the thumbnail that a brand started with, and what was the improvement since then? So those are a few of the tools that like to use.

Jeremy Weisz 10:38 

What are some channels you look at to get inspiration. You just mentioned, MrBeast, obviously. What are some channels you look at?

Marlon Doll 10:49 

I have a couple like YouTube channels that I’m really fond of. So my favorite YouTuber is Harry Mack.

Jeremy Weisz 10:56 

Oh yeah, I love his stuff.

Marlon Doll 10:58 

Yeah, he’s the best freestyle rapper in the world, but he had a unique series of Omegle bars. So we would go on Omegle, the random streaming site, where you would randomly stream across to someone else, and he would just ask for three words and do a freestyle rap. And so he’s definitely a favorite fort. And I think the inspiration that could be taken from that is he had a unique value proposition, or multiple So, one he has a skill set. And so he took…

Jeremy Weisz 11:30 

It’s a crazy skill set, like, if anyone’s listening, just watch a few of I mean, for me, it’s addictive for definitely to watch his stuff.

Marlon Doll 11:39 

Yeah, exactly. So his skill is unparalleled, like nobody can touch him in terms of this, in my opinion, but he did the series that was on Omegles, and so he had a unique value proposition, and he added some novelty to that. And I think that is something that is super important for you to be successful is identifying what is the unique value proposition that only you can add and provide on your YouTube channel that there aren’t a ton of other brands doing, whether that is through the values of your company or through the tone, maybe you’re more humorous, maybe you have access to specific studies that your company is doing that you can provide exclusive insights to maybe you have access to a network that you can feature on your channel, or staff that are highly talented that you want to feature. So those are some of the key elements to be able to actually generate an audience, I think at a much more rapid pace is being able to trend Jack, create novelty and have a unique value proposition.

[Continue to Page 2]