In this 10-minute video, vidIQ’s Rob Wilson interviews Noah Morris who runs 20 faceless Youtube channels with 2.5 million subscribers. Noah reveals his secrets of running faceless channels and essentially teaches you how to start from scratch step by step:
- Finding the right niches and topics;
- How to outsource;
- Retention hack.
- Financials.
In 2022, his Youtube videos generated a revenue of nearly $1 million. In Q4 that year, his Google AdSense reached $400,000. On average, he’s been making up to $200,000 per month from his videos by working just one day a week. Obviously, Noah has a efficient and effectivesystem of creating videos that people like wo watch.
1. Finding the right niche
What are the best-paying niches? (1:40)
- Sports; celebrity; crime; etc.
- Essentially everything American audiences watch.
- Reason: Such content has high RPM (revenue per mille), a metric representing how much money you earn per 1,000 video views.
Relying on the Youtube recommendation algorithm to find high RPM niches. (1:59)
- Every day, go to Youtube in Incognito mode.
- So that you see what are trending and recommended on Youtube that have no relations to videos you watched before.
- Click on Youtube Cash Cow content (high RPM content), making Youtube recommend more of such content to you.
- finance & business tips; crypto; life hacks; celebrity gossip; luxury; food tips & recipes; animal facts; etc.
Youtube can help in another way: keyword search. (2:20)
- Search a keyword of interest Youtube.
- Filters: most view + this month + subscriber count
- Find the gap: look for channels that
- started recently (with a small number of subscribers);
- but consistently had videos getting a lot views (>200,000 views).
After finding the niche, analyze the competition landscape. (3:10)
- Ask if this niche is too satuated/competitive?
- Prefer having the “first mover advantage” over “high quality”.
- Make sure you are the first in the niche.
How to choose topics? (3:34)
- For the first few topics, try to emulate what the existing channels are doing.
- Example: the court case channel
- Started out by emulating a channel called “Courtroom”.
- See if there are older related channels.
- Found “Courtroom” was taking topics from the “A&E” channel.
- Check what other topics on “A&E” were not done by his competitors.
2. How to outsource?
When starting off with your Youtube automation channel, do NOT rush into outsoursing yet. (4:40)
- If you have no prior experience as a Youtube content creator, just start as a regular creator.
- small downside;
- but you gain first-hand experience of video making (e.g., video editing; script writing).
- Otherwise, you can be very disconnected with the team you hire.
- Start making videos on your own first. Outsource after you can earn a profit.
How to build the team to outsource video making? (5:20)
- First and foremost: find the team that carries the passion for you.
- Yon don’t just outsource the work, but also the passion.
- Script writer: find people who are passionate about the subject
- Example: When Noah finds writers on a specific sport, he would find people on Discord who play that game or people who run a blog about the subject.
- Voiceover artist:
- Does not really matter.
- Just find someone who matches your target audience.
- Crime videos: find deep male voice;
- Gossip content: high pitch girl voice.
- Video editor:
- They don’t necessarily have to have any affiliation with the niche or content.
- Make sure they understand retention based editing very well.
- Able to tell stories very well through finding the right video clips to use online.
- Thumbnail:
- Noah started out by designing thumbnails himself as he felt the designers (who were great designers) were not good at understanding what make people click.
- Example: Courtroom thumbnails.
- You do the concept, and give thumbnail designers inspiration so they can piece parts together.
- Noah started out by designing thumbnails himself as he felt the designers (who were great designers) were not good at understanding what make people click.
What is the hardest part of Youtube automation? (9:17)
- A good thumbnail designer;
- A good editor.
3. Retention hack & financials
Noah’s retention hacks. (7:40)
- Have his script writers do these:
- send them the channels of his competitors;
- tell them to find out what people mention in the comments.
- Check relative attention from the Youtube playbar.
- Understand where the points of interest increase on the video.
- Bottom line: understand what moves your target audience to take action.
How much do you make from Youtube automation with faceless channels? (8:31)
- $200,000/month in November, 2022 from AdSense.
- A break-even analysis.
- Assuming (1) it takes $100 to make a video and (2) it probably will take 30-35 videos for beginners to see revenue.
- The startup cost is $3,000-$3,500.