Transcription
Are you struggling to get views on your YouTube channel even though your videos are good? Well, most businesses think that YouTube is all about flashy edits and perfect thumbnails and trying to go viral, but that's why it feels so flipping hard.
Meanwhile, you see other channels blowing up with the simplest, the most boring videos drawn out on things like whiteboards with handwriting so bad it makes a doctor's note look neat. And you think, "How are they getting away with it?" Well, the reason this low-effort content works so well now is because inside those boring videos are four foundations that most people can't see, but viewers always pick up on. And taking this approach landed me my second silver play button.
So, in this video, I'm going to show you why making boring videos works so well now, why they are the easiest way to grow a business on YouTube, and why this approach is only going to become more important next year. All right. So, first let's just look at what a boring video actually is and why they will grow a business's channel.
So, boring videos are things like Nick here makes who grew his school community to over $300,000 a month just from driving YouTube traffic at it. They're what Hamza used to become one of the fastest growing self-help channels of all time and make millions. They're what the wizard Liz uses to get massive views. And really, they kind of look unplanned and they come across as very authentic and they can be of any real length. Now, the visual in these boring videos are often non-existent. Maybe a whiteboard, a few scribbles, or something drawn out and some paper, and these channels just seem to crush it for views and sales still. So, that's a boring video.
But does that mean all you need to do is just whip out your camera and talk authentically to it? Absolutely not. That is the worst advice out there because the people who win with boring videos aren't winging it. They're applying four foundational things that most people completely miss out on and can't even pick up on. And these are the 20% of actions that drive 80% of the results and make boring videos work so well. So now I'm going to show you what these four foundations are and how to use them as well as why this will generate you more sales over the long term.
All right. So, the first of our four foundations of a boring video harnesses something called viewer expectations. And messing this up is one of the biggest reasons videos don't get views. So, let me show you how this works. Which of these videos on screen generated hundreds of thousands of views? Well, the answer is the boring one. Surprise, surprise. But how? When all of these other ones have much slicker packaging, right?
Well, this is Nero knowledge. He grew his channel to 100,000 subscribers in like a few months and he's making millions for it. And when he blew up, everyone was like, "How's this guy getting traction, Ed?" when he's making videos that remind me of school. Well, the reason is because his thumbnails and the length of his videos set expectations that you're going to get a simple deep dive whiteboard video if you click on it. And then in the video, he just delivers on that and matches those expectations. Now, if you'd used the thumbnail like this and then given them a whiteboard video inside, this potentially wouldn't work because people who don't like long, slow whiteboard videos would have gone, "Ah, no, this isn't for me." after the click just based on that, meaning the video might get less traction. So, viewer expectations isn't the same as clickbait. Clickbait is basically when you don't deliver on the promise. This is more about giving viewers the style of content they love and making it very clear your video is that style in the packaging. I get all of my clients to focus heavily on a few key areas in videos now that massively impact viewer expectations.
The next foundational element of these boring videos that makes them work so well is they're not designed to be watched. They're designed to be listened to. Meaning you can have them on in the background or whilst you're making dinner or whilst you're going for a run. They're basically podcasts. And if you don't have to watch a video for it to work, that gives them two big advantages. It gives them more chances of being played because people can just fit it around their lives. And then it gives them more chance of building even more watch time as a result.
And then the third foundation of boring videos is reducing what's known as cognitive load. So you've probably been told, "Give tons of value in every video you make." And as a result, most people can cram in way too much information to a video. But when a video is overloaded, it increases something known as cognitive load. Basically, this means the viewers have to think a lot harder just to keep up. And that mental strain can make them switch off and leave. And that's why teaching in a video is just not about dumping everything, you know. It's about making key ideas stick. And the best boring videos do this in three ways.
The first is they often just tell a heck of a lot of stories because stories teach people without spiking cognitive load. Meaning someone can be cooking dinner or driving and still follow along and learn because the story paints pictures in their minds. And once you create a visual in someone's head, you don't really need much else. They then use something that I call the rule of threes. So experts often fall into the curse of knowledge. Basically means they think about every tiny little detail and how important it is to share. But research shows people can only hold about four chunks of new information at once. So when you are planning your video and you're thinking how much information should I give in this step, don't go more than three. Now this doesn't mean you can only have three bits of information in a video, the point is if you get into the habit of thinking in the rule of threes, it will mean each section of your video isn't overloaded. And then the next way they keep cognitive load low is like this with almost childlike simple kind of ugly visuals. Now, although these visuals are pretty pants, they work because too many creators, they clutter the screen with like really complex graphics and they assume viewers know exactly where to look and won't get overloaded by all of that extra information that doesn't matter. Whereas boring videos often only highlight or include the thing that matters in the visual, meaning people have to use way less brain power to understand it.
Now, here's a little trick I have to help you work out if your video is spiking cognitive load. So, go and watch your last video and just pay attention to when you feel like you have to focus harder to keep up. That's cognitive load spiking. And if you're feeling it, your viewers will be 10 times more, too.
And that brings us on to the final foundation, and I think it's probably one of the most underrated secrets to success. All right. So, when you're making a video, do you worry to yourself, what if someone argues with what I'm going to say? What if people don't believe me? When you think like that, it comes across in the way that you present and the words that you say. And as a result, this can massively impact your own credibility. So, for example, if you say, "Maybe this will work for you," or "It can get amazing results," that lack of certainty in your words can wreck your credibility. Whereas, if you switch your words to this will work for you, and this always gets amazing results, your certainty makes it sound like your advice comes from a place of experience, not a blog post that you've ripped off.
Hamza, in particular, this guy was the master of this. So, I'm going to throw a clip at you, check it out, and then I'll explain. >> When you're in the gym and you're lifting weights, there's something which is absolutely fundamental to making muscle, but that most people skip out on, which is how hard you train. So, the best boring video creators in the world get so many views because they say everything as if they are just 100% certain it's true and that makes them more believable and makes the content more engaging.
Okay, so now you know what boring videos are and why they grow channels. Let's look at how they're going to grow your business faster, too. So, most people think YouTube only works if you get hundreds of thousands of views. But to do that, you basically have to become a full-time YouTuber who is obsessing over every second of your video. and you're going to need to spend weeks just making what? And I know that because that's what I used to do and it got me millions of views. But it left almost no time to run my business. But not having time to run a business isn't the only problem with chasing mass views. It's actually less profitable than boring videos. So check this out.
So I took a ton of data from Revra, my software that's currently tracking sales across over half a billion YouTube views, and I discovered this. So look at this graph. So, let's say channel A decides to go the viral route with the aim of getting six figure views per video and they pour a huge amount of effort into each video. So much so they can only post one a month. What you can see on the graph here is a 10-year timeline and you can see they start to make a lot of sales, right? But channel B takes the boring route and they post one simple video a week that takes 5 hours to make and get about 3,000 views on each one. Look at this. Eventually, channel B generates twice as many buyers. And after 4 years, their results become exponential just from remaining frequent and consistent.
So, boring videos don't just grow your channel, they'll allow you to get better business results over the long term with a fraction of the work because they're built on the right foundations and they keep you consistent. It's kind of like the story of the tortoise and the hair, right?
Wait a second. Hang on a sec. We got to stop the video. I've got to point something out. So, I just told you that a channel who posts four simple videos a month wins long-term based on some magic internet data I have. I didn't tell you how I worked out the formula to come up with this graph. I didn't tell you what metrics and benchmarks it's all based on because that will spike your cognitive load too much. I just said this is how it is and you believe me because I said it with such certainty. So, can you see how powerful these foundations are?
And that brings us on to the most important reason you need to make boring videos now. So earlier this year, I spotted another creator in my niche who you might watch with a video title almost identical to one of my own. So I clicked on it and straight away I thought, do you know what? That sounds like me. And then I realized, wait, that is actually my intro with a few words changed. And then as I kept watching, I saw them using my examples, my research, insights I've picked up from half a decade, what in their video just rephrased ever so slightly. And then I went on their community wall and I found loads of my own community wall posts just run through a and lightly changed. Parts of their channel were basically 80% me and 20% machine. And you could basically see my fingerprints were everywhere. And that's when it hit me. If I can see the fingerprints and we share a very similar viewership, sooner or later the viewers are going to too. And when that happens, their credibility is going to vanish because you can spend years building trust but wreck it in a single day.
And this is why mastering the foundations of boring videos is the future. Because boring videos are where your fingerprints show up the clearest as they are your unique lived experiences, your stories, your certainty, your credibility. And in an AI saturated world, most people are going to be lazy and they're going to just start recycling other people's work. But the genuine experts, the ones who make it clear they're not just another AI channel, are the ones who are going to thrive because the moment viewers get a whiff that you are faking it, they're going to quit on you.
And if you want to learn how to turn those views, your boring videos get into buyers, check out this video next. And I'm going to show you how businesses are adding 20 to $100,000 a month mastering these foundations. My second silver play button. So, oops. Cut that bit out.