Y'all can't deny that video is a vital office of any concern's marketing strategy in 2019.

In fact, video traffic will exist a whopping 82% of all global IP traffic past 2022 -- up from 75% pct in 2017.

It'southward clear that web visitors are shifting to video -- Facebook Lookout, IGTV, and of form, YouTube have all picked up steam in recent years. The only question is, are you going to take advantage of that trend?

I saw an opportunity to engage and grow an audience for my company, Niche Site Project'south YouTube channel, and decided to double down.

Literally. I decided to publish two videos per twenty-four hour period for a month.

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That might audio like a lofty goal -- especially as a team of i -- but I developed a workflow to exercise it without stressing out, using the help of two part-fourth dimension Virtual Administration (VAs).

The results exceeded my expectations for YouTube metrics. Compared to the previous month (when nosotros were publishing once a day):

  • Watchtime increased by 60%.
  • Views increased by 80%.
  • YouTube Subscribers increased by 37%.

At that place was besides a articulate ROI, which I'll explain later.

In this post, I'll talk over:

  • How to use project management for small teams.
  • Why I decided to publish so many videos.
  • How to ascertain the project and process menses.
  • How to do the work and adjust when needed.
  • What worked and what didn't.

But first, a quick background on who I am: I'g a Projection Management Professional (PMP) and worked as a corporate management consultant and projection managing director for 10 years. When I got laid off, I decided to turn my side hustle of Amazon Chapter marketing and SEO into a total-time gig, and that's what I exercise at Niche Site Projection.

Why Do It?

First things offset, yous accept to understand why you're doing a project. I noticed that traffic from my YouTube channel converted to email subscribers at four times the rate of any other source.

Traffic from all sources convert at an average of 4.19%.

YouTube traffic, on the other hand, converted at about 16%.

My business concern is dependent on e-mail list growth, then it was a no brainer to put more fourth dimension into YouTube.

Pro Tip: If you're trying to get your boss to let you lot work on a project idea, data makes information technology easier for her to say yes. If you don't have disarming data however, develop assumptions that you can test on a small scale first.

You lot'll want to outline your goals and so you know how y'all're doing during the projection, and if you achieved what you intended once you cease.

My ultimate goal was to abound the electronic mail listing, but I knew a few metrics that would exist able to guide me forth the way. YouTube analytics are very skillful for creators, so they'd be perfect as Central Performance Indicators (KPIs) along the way.

I wanted to improve the post-obit KPIs on YouTube:

  • Watchtime
  • Views
  • YouTube Subscriber Count
  • Quality (This is subjective but important for other metrics.)

You lot'll notice I didn't specifically note "grow my email listing". Based on the data from the previous 24 months, I already knew that YouTube traffic was converting well for my e-mail list (4X more than other traffic).

By focusing on growth on YouTube, I knew information technology would help grow the Niche Site Project audition base. So, over time, YouTube growth would be beneficial.

All but the final goal are quantifiable information points. The video quality is a perception and thus subjective, but if the quality is adept, the other three metrics will go up. Plus, if you work on something a lot in a defended way with the intent to meliorate, there's a good adventure you'll practice but that.

A Project Management Arroyo

This was my approach:

  1. Ascertain the projection and outline the process
  2. Create the squad
  3. Execute the work and refine the process
  4. Review the lessons learned

This process is not a pure project management implementation that you'd see at the corporate level. Information technology is, all the same, a model that works well for an individual or small squad.

1. Define the Project

I've dabbled with YouTube for a few years. In 2017, I started publishing more videos on a regular basis. At the aforementioned time, I was watching a lot more YouTube, since my gym had great wifi.

I noticed the YouTubers I watched would typically do a month of daily publishing, and and then review the growth. In the few examples that I studied, I saw they grew their channels a lot.

I thought virtually doing the same thing... and figured, well, why not double it?

2. Review with Peers

I unremarkably work alone, then I like to review my ideas with other people before starting a project.

I talked to a few people who were more experienced about doing a content dart on YouTube. I asked for advice and if they saw any pitfalls that I may be missing.

I phrased my question in a specific fashion:

"I'm planning on publishing two videos a solar day for a month. I've researched and have seen a few channels that have done it with slap-up results. I take X, Y, & Z planned for the process. Practise you take whatsoever experience doing a publishing sprint? Do you see any mistakes or flaws in my logic?"

In that location were no major issues with the general plan. Great!

Pro Tip: When you enquire people nigh your idea, exist careful. Some people imagine whether they could personally do something. If they don't dream big, they might discourage you from even trying.

3. Outline and Develop the Procedure

Since I had been publishing YouTube content already, I knew the full general process. I likewise knew what I liked and disliked.

I sketched out this process in well-nigh five minutes.

Pro Tip: Do it by mitt and salve time. You could utilise a tool or app to pattern your workflow, but simple is better.

By sketching out the process, it made it easy to identify the tasks that I did NOT want to do. Some things are improve for me to focus on, similar:

  • Content
  • Management

And some things are not fun for me to do, similar YouTube admin piece of work. That's stuff like:

  • Video descriptions
  • Video tags
  • Thumbnail images

I'm too a pretty slow video editor. While I bask the procedure, it's not a practiced way for me to spend my time.

Working on things that yous're good at is more enjoyable, of course, just it'south usually more productive, too. I didn't desire to exist the bottleneck in the process, so I got out of the way.

4. Tracking and Managing the Project Status

I similar tools, apps, and new tech, so I wanted to have a sophisticated project management solution.

I wanted the process to be automated and optimized right from the start.

I'll come back to this in the lessons learned section later, but for now, know that:

  • I wasted a few days trying to automate the process.
  • The simple solution is the best to kickoff with, and sometimes unproblematic is but better.
  • Y'all tin can e'er optimize later.

5. Edifice the Team

The process helps define the team. I'yard a one-person store, so occasionally, I hire VAs for advertising hoc assignments. I was already working with 2 VAs for YouTube over the previous few months, so information technology was easy to fold them into this bigger project. Here was the squad:

  • Project Director: Doug
  • Content: Doug
  • Video Editor: VA #1
  • YouTube Assistant: VA #2

It was a lean team, and I got rid of the tasks that I was bad at or merely didn't like.

Pro Tip: Earlier diving into such a big project, check with your Video Editor and YouTube Assistant to brand certain they're able to do some extra piece of work during the sprint.

About Hiring Freelancers

When I outset hired the Video Editor, it took a little fourth dimension for me to find the right person for my squad. I hired three editors for paid trial gigs to see how we worked together, and made sure they didn't miss deadlines.

I suggest hiring for paid jobs and real piece of work with deliverables that tin exist used. It's hard to interview and really decide if someone can practice the job -- completing existent work is the merely way to know.

Workflow and Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)

The team had been working together for a few months, slowly tweaking the process. So I was confident in the general process. However, I knew pressure testing the organisation would reveal weaknesses that would need to be refined.

Here'due south how it worked:

  1. I shot a video, and so uploaded it to Google Drive.
  2. I told the Video Editor a new video was set up.
  3. The Video Editor uploaded the finished video to Google Bulldoze.
  4. I uploaded the video to YouTube. (More than on this in the next section.)
  5. The YouTube Assistant did postal service-product work, similar creating the thumbnail image or writing the YouTube description.
  6. I reviewed and finalized post-production work.

As yous can come across, my process included two handoff points between iii team members -- simple and straightforward.

Pro Tip: If you're initially defining the process, then you should draft your best gauge for the workflow and process. Then, run through the process a few times and conform equally needed. Yous will need to adjust, and that'southward okay.

Executing on the Process

This part is where you do the "real" piece of work! With all my preparation complete, this function was relatively easy.

In fact, nigh of the calendar month was far less stressful than normal. It'south funny to imagine, but I talked well-nigh it with my VAs and information technology was the same for them.

Our goal was very clear during that calendar month: publish a lot of videos. And then each day we all knew exactly what to work on.

The goal was to have l% of the videos done earlier the 30 days of publishing even started. I fabricated a go-nogo decision the day before we started publishing just in case nosotros didn't take the 50% of the videos washed.

It was a mad nuance of work for nearly ii weeks, but having half the work washed early made the next xxx days much easier. If someone on the team became sick or if something unexpected happened, we would nevertheless be able to run into our goal.

Pro Tip: Things rarely become exactly as planned, so add a buffer to your timeline only in case.

In my corporate PM days, it was common to add time to the schedule to account for unplanned problems. If you finished ahead of time, information technology was corking! But, most of the time, there was some external factor that caused a delay. The project schedule could handle it with the buffer time.

Refining the Process

In project management jargon, this is the "Monitor" stage.

For individuals and entrepreneurs, monitoring is skipped frequently, nevertheless it'southward the about of import function.

During this stage, you're looking for mistakes, issues, and opportunities to improve.

People don't normally like looking for mistakes and being cocky-critical -- even though it's constructive.

Hither's why you should exercise it fifty-fifty if information technology's uncomfortable:

  • Yous tin can arrange your process.
  • You tin improve your results.
  • You'll acquire what to exercise (or non do) side by side fourth dimension.

Here'south how nosotros monitored:

  • Each week, my squad met via video chat.
  • We talked almost what was going well.
  • We talked most what wasn't going well or could exist improved.

We didn't uncover anything that was causing major issues. Generally, things were going well, and so the few things we changed were minor.

Pro Tip: Keep it unproblematic, and create an open dialogue with your squad.

Lessons Learned

The other huge benefit of a sprint-fashion project is that you learn fast by doing something daily. My video product skills increased massively in just thirty days.

What Didn't Work

Hither are some things that didn't piece of work so well.

ane. Fancy Tools & Automation

I tried to use Google Sheets, Google Calendar, Trello, and Zapier in the beginning to have a sexy calendar view and spreadsheet that was integrated.

(Zapier is a great app that helps you integrate other apps -- super powerful, just can be a flake confusing.)

I burned about three days setting it up, which was actually fun, simply not worth the effort.

Plus, after I tested it, there were problems with the integration. Information technology was a mess! I decided to just fleck that idea. Simple is meliorate.

The simplest solution was a spreadsheet -- hither's a stripped downwardly sample in Google Sheets.

2. Batching Work

I batched a few tasks in the outset, similar shooting several videos in a row. Except, it turned out, I wasn't batching often enough.

I needed to programme things out more intentionally (due east.thou. outline video ideas, shoot videos). The more than work I could batch, the more efficient the whole workflow would be.

With batching I could shoot a week's worth of videos in a few hours. It saved a ton of time with setup and breakdown of the camera gear and lighting.

3. Pre-Product Tasks

I dabbled in video for a little while but the content wasn't highly produced -- my videos were usually Alive Streams of some kind. Producing video at a fast pace taught me a lot in a very brusque fourth dimension frame. I never realized how much piece of work goes into a video ahead of time. The more training you practice, the ameliorate your video turns out.

Here are some of the pre-production tasks:

  • Outline the video.
  • Find references to support the content.
  • Detect graphics that could assist make the point in the video.
  • Understand what videos are going to be published in the time to come so a few videos can reference each other.

It seems obvious after the fact, but I was used to doing things on the fly.

iv. Uploading the Video to YouTube was Slow

When the Video Editor finished editing a video, she uploaded the finished video to Google Drive for me to review.

If edits were needed, I asked for updates. If the video was final and no updates were needed, I downloaded the video and uploaded it. The video files are big, then that takes a few minutes each time.

I knew at that place was some way to movement files from Google Drive to YouTube, but I was having trouble figuring information technology out. (More on this later.)

What Worked

Several things went well from the start and a few things improved along the way since we tried to constantly improve the process.

1. Working Ahead

50% of the videos were shot before I started publishing them. They withal needed to have the postal service-production work (e.g. thumbnail, YouTube clarification, YouTube tags), only the bulk of the piece of work was done.

This was a huge mental advantage, as the squad started publishing two videos a 24-hour interval. We knew we could exercise information technology if we were able to do half of the work ahead of time.

2. Using a Simple Content Calendar

I find it exciting to integrate apps and automate things -- just it's overkill almost of the fourth dimension.

I wasted a few days trying to integrate a few apps when Google Sheets would've worked just fine. A spreadsheet didn't have the fancy visual dashboard, just that wasn't a requirement.

Pro Tip: Yous don't demand to optimize every solution. Simply meet the requirements to solve the problem.

I managed several multimillion-dollar projects for a tier-1 telecom company using a spreadsheet. That was the official PM tool at the company because it was uncomplicated and everyone had access to a spreadsheet app.

For my content sprint, Google Sheets suited my needs, and no integrations were needed. Always opt for unproblematic over complex.

iii. The Workflow

The middle of this system was the workflow. I delegated tasks I didn't want to do (or shouldn't do) to accelerate the procedure. The quality of the resulting work was higher, besides.

Each of the steps in the workflow had start and endpoints. Each endpoint triggered the next action (e.grand. handoff to the next person).

We didn't need to adjust the main parts of the workflow, but there was one role that could be helped with the right tool.

four. Zapier for Transferring Files From Google Bulldoze to YouTube

Google Drive has some interfacing capabilities with YouTube, just I was having problem getting files moved over rapidly. Instead of a seamless transfer, I was downloading and uploading big video files each and every time.

It took well-nigh 30 minutes on average for each video. Yes, a lot of information technology was simply upload/download fourth dimension, which is largely idle, but still a waste matter of time.

I started investigating Zaps on Zapier for YouTube and found the right one.

When the video editor uploaded a video to a specific folder, Zapier would transfer the file over to YouTube. Boom! This was a huge upgrade to the process.

Now, one time the video editor uploaded a video, the video transferred to YouTube seamlessly. And then, my YouTube Assistant could do the post-product work. Finally, I did the concluding check earlier publishing.

Takeaways

This process is a great example of a sprint of piece of work where I used relevant project management tools from the corporate world in a real-life application with a small squad.

I started with a set of goals and some assumptions that I tested on a pocket-size calibration.

The idea of continuous improvement is applied throughout the process by encouraging open dialogue within the team. We were able to improve along the manner which fabricated u.s. more than efficient.

Additionally, I noted what could be improved in the future. For instance, I knew that Trello could have been a swell solution to aid in the project management of video product. I didn't use information technology for this projection because the rest of the team hadn't used Trello earlier.

Afterward the sprint was complete, notwithstanding, I introduced Trello to the squad. Information technology has some benefits over Google Sheets without adding too much complication.

Conventional wisdom suggests that I should keep publishing more than and more videos to grow. But there are other factors to consider besides just growing your watchtime and YouTube subscriber base. And, near importantly, information technology's unsustainable over a long period of time if you have a lean team like I do.

However, the benefits are long lasting considering the videos can be watched in the future if the topics are evergreen. So, the YouTube KPIs may not grow at the aforementioned charge per unit after the sprint is complete, just the Niche Site Project audition continues to grow from YouTube. Another benefit I hadn't considered is being seen equally a YouTube Influencer, and then companies and other influencers want to piece of work with me.

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Originally published Jun 17, 2019 vii:00:00 AM, updated June 17 2019