Nowadays people prefer to make money with digital products by promoting them on websites, social channels, newsletters, and so on. But, most of the time, people fail to generate revenue through these digital products.
No worries. Here we have Nancy from NancyBadillo.com who has been helping entrepreneurs to make money through digital products. Besides, she used to offer free YouTube training videos to help others to sell easy digital products. Furthermore, she will also share her incredible success story in this blog.
How to Start Selling Digital Products?
Generating revenue with digital products is the easiest way to do business if you know how to do it correctly. To effectively start this business, you need to know why you are doing it. This will help you to keep going.
Besides, try everything! Find what works best for your business and what doesn’t. Also, don’t start doing the viral thing, except, do the thing that works best for you. Besides, you can try selling digital products through affiliate marketing.
Ways to get into the affiliate marketing
First, you need to write content for affiliate products. After promoting your affiliate products, add affiliate links to the products. Besides, you can also write listicle blogs to add multiple affiliate links.
So, blogging is the ultimate way to promote and sell your affiliate program.
How Often Should You Publish Blog Posts on WordPress?
You should publish 3 to 4 blogs per week at the start of your business. But after some time, you can decrease the number to 1 or 2 as you have earned credibility and reached the position that you don’t have at the start.
Besides, you can publish listicle blogs as it lets you promote numerous affiliate products through one blog. Also, you can publish pillar content on your website. Now how to choose a topic for your blog post? You can get the topic idea from answerthepublic.com. Furthermore, you can generate YouTube videos on these topics.
Is it Worth Selling Digital Products on YouTube?
Yes, selling digital products on YouTube is 100 percent worth it. Because you can earn a good amount of money through YouTube videos. But, first, you need to offer free valuable videos on YouTube and after building credibility, you can publish paid training videos.
For example, Nancy created 800+ free YouTube videos at her early stage. Then she started creating paid training videos for YouTube that generated $52,000 only in one month.
You can also earn money like Nancy if you succeed to generate quality and valuable videos for YouTube. Canva can be a great tool to create background images for your videos.
You can also increase brand awareness through these engaging YouTube videos.
Advice for Young Entrepreneurs
If you are a young entrepreneur, keep one thing in mind, there is no failure in doing business. Either you will learn or succeed. Also, don’t get tired of trying new strategies for your business. Because nothing works great when you try it for the first time. So, keep trying until you succeed.
Wrap up
Now, start creating free digital products for your business. Don’t jump into building paid products without offering free resources. Because first, you need to establish credibility for your business, then you can sell paid plans on your social channels or website.
Here’s Where To Go Next…
Get the Course Creator Starter Kit to help you (or your client) create, launch, and scale a high-value online learning website.
Also visit the creators of the LMScast podcast over at LifterLMS, the world’s leading most customizable learning management system software for WordPress. Create courses, coaching programs, online schools, and more with LifterLMS.
Browse more recent episodes of the LMScast podcast here or explore the entire back catalog since 2014.
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Episode Transcript
Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch and scale, a high-value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of lifter LMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. stay to the end, I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. My name is Chris Badgett and I’m joined by a special guest. Her name is Nancy Badillo. She’s from nancybadillo.com We’re gonna get into Nancy story, which is very cool. She’s been around the block in all the areas of making money online, doing marketing, helping other people through digital courses. We’ve got a lot to talk about. Nancy, welcome to the show.
Nancy Badillo: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Chris Badgett: The entrepreneur origin story is often kind of interesting. And something happened. There’s there’s usually a catalyst where people are like, Okay, I need to make, I need to figure out how to I need to make some money. I think I want to do it online. How did you get catapulted into this world?
Nancy Badillo: I’m telling you, I got pulled into it. Because in 2007, when the market hit, like we have the financial crisis, I was younger, and I was like 24, I just had bought my first home. And the financial crisis hit. And I was trying to save my house, I was losing my home, I had to stop going to school because I was paying for the power University out of pocket as well. My I was working at Bally’s. Thus, that tells you my age Valdez the gym back in the day. So I’m making a significant amount of money to almost like 15,000 a year and like they went through bankruptcy at that time as well. So I got hit pretty hard. So I was Googling online about how to make money online. I’ve heard about it before. But it wasn’t like now you know, allow now you know people the resources, cores, there are so many courses, you can take so many free trainings, you could just go to YouTube, back then it was in there wasn’t that many resources out there. And a few that were were very expensive back then compared to now. So I remember just Googling it. And obviously, it didn’t happen for me, I lost my home, I went to bankruptcy. I went to foreclosure that followed me for 10 additional years, you know how it follows you and your credit. So I went through all that. But in the course of all that I kind of fell in love with it. I remember like, I made a penny and I thought that was so exciting. And I was like nothing but I made a penny and then I just kept with it. I was doing jobs throughout the years. But I did my side hustle was trying to figure out how to make money online. And back then I didn’t have focus, we didn’t have the resources we have now. So I did try a little bit of everything, I will do freelance and then that got me burnt out because I’m doing a full time job and trying to work with freelance people. I was doing blogging, one minute, I’m a PPC specialist, one minute, I’m an SEO specialist. The next minute, I’m trying to sell things on eBay trying to figure that out. But nothing was really working. I just start making money through affiliate marketing, which now is one of my biggest income streams. But back then it wasn’t right, I will make 100 here, maybe 50 here. But with all the little courses that I took or any type of training that I took, I was always on the negative I didn’t make enough to quit my full-time job. But that’s how it started. It started with a hardship it started because I was gonna search like how do I save this house? How do I make more money? And that’s how it started. For me.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. If you’re the earlier version of yourself was here today, and you were advising this person, and they’re, you know, they’re trying to figure it out, they need to make money online, they’re trying to do it. And there’s all these different things they could do. You know, maybe courses isn’t the best place to start. A lot of this audience is really into courses. Like if somebody what’s like the fastest, easiest way for people to or what would you recommend if somebody’s just like an option overwhelmed and they’re trying to figure out this online business thing? Where should they start?
Nancy Badillo: So the first thing I always say is, know your why understand why you’re doing it. Because you have to really understand your why. So therefore when you go through the month that you’re not making any money because first you’re gonna be really excited and then you’re gonna hit that wall that you’re not making money. And then you’re gonna say this doesn’t work and you’re gonna want to quit. So if you know your why the outcome of why you’re doing it is going to help you keep going through it even when things happen or when it doesn’t happen for you at that moment. The second thing I highly recommend is if you do end up trying different things to see what you could stick with what works better for you, that’s okay. But once you find something that you’re either passionate about or are passionate about the outcome that you’re gonna get from it, stick to stick with that other times when we see other people doing good on something, we’re like, oh, let me try that, you get that shiny object syndrome. And when you start doing that and start doing too many things, you stretch yourself too thin, and you don’t get results. So the biggest thing is find something that you’re passionate or something that could become a passion that you know, you kind of enjoy it, and you try to learn as you go. And then just develop those skills and stick with it. To be honest, a real business, a profitable business can take up to 24 months before it becomes profitable. If it becomes profitable for you sooner, then you got lucky, because for many of us, it doesn’t work that way. And especially if it’s your first time, having an online business is so much to understand, you’re a solopreneur you wear so many hats from marketing to creating the product, or creating whatever you’re creating, from having consistency from time discipline as well, not getting distracted by so many things. So I think the biggest thing is, find something that you’re passionate about, or that you would like to become passionate about, stick with it, give it enough time, become an authority within that specific niche. put your blinders right, and don’t start jumping on I hear a lot of people say I’m gonna do tick tock because everybody’s blowing up there, I’m gonna try to do this, stop trying to jump on things that are viral, or you think they’re viral. Building a sustainable business for the long run is not jumping on something that you think is vital, and it’s going to help you a lot of times, things that go viral don’t really help you anyways. So that will be my best advice, just stick with it, and give it enough time. And if it doesn’t work out, then you could pivot to something else. And that timeframe that you spend is going to be enough experience for you to make the other business even better.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. What and I agree with you 100% around, I call it the valley of despair, like those two years are talking about. Like, it’s pretty exciting at the beginning, but it’s gonna be a rough ride this first two years, especially if you’re kind of doing it on your own. You it’s, it’s it’s really challenging. So that passion and alignment with who you are and needs to be there. Let’s talk about affiliate marketing. You mentioned a lot of your income now is comes from that one of the benefits of affiliate marketing is you don’t have to create the product. What How does one get into affiliate marketing these days? And how do you get people to your affiliate links.
Nancy Badillo: So for me, it’s a little bit different. Because with affiliate marketing, when you hear it online, a lot of people are like affiliate marketing super easy. All you got to do is have throwing some Facebook ads, send them to a landing page where they click and then from there, it takes them to the product page. And that’s all you do. I did try that way. And it really didn’t work for me, because a lot of the stuff that I was promoting are stuff it’s like make money or stuff that’s for more in my niche of people that want to build a business online. So I was getting a lot of like, you’re about to get your account suspended from Facebook, all that stuff. So what I ended up doing was, I have a whole separate niche, aside from my Etsy and my digital marketing, which is health blog. I have a blog that I have. And then what I’ve done in the last four years taking me four years to build up this blog is that I create a lot of content on that blog, I create a lot of content and I add Amazon stuff, I have my affiliate my high end affiliate products that are high ticket that I make money from. So I do a lot of Pinterest, blogging, and that’s all I do, I don’t run any advertising. Now for the month of January was my highest month 37,000. Now the last two months, I struggle a little bit more I know it’s because of the economy. Everyone has seen that effect. So hopefully next year or the year after that, because I believe me my head of recession, but hopefully my rank, it will go a little bit smoother, but I’m still making decent money from it. But I’m using more of an organic approach. Because when I was doing more of the Facebook ads, it didn’t work out for me. I know many people do it that way. And it does work out for them. But for me, what I found easier is through blogging to be quite honest. And when you do evergreen platforms like podcasting, YouTube, blogging is the best way to grow a business, whether you doing affiliate marketing, or you’re promoting your products and services because of the fact that evergreen people are searching for this. You create searchable content, and you’re gonna start driving ranking and eventually you go from barely any traffic to I think I’m about 600,000 per month on views. So it does work you just take a little bit more time because you’re anytime you grow something organic, it takes like triple the time compared to when you’re running ads for sure.
Chris Badgett: So it was four years to overnight success.
Nancy Badillo: Yes, exactly. You said it perfectly.
Chris Badgett: And that’s really cool. I mean, some of the people watching here are experts, you know, and they’re thinking about making courses, but also writing and creating all this public content is great. How much? Like how much? How often do you would you publish a new blog post, or piece of content on this affiliate blog?
Nancy Badillo: Well, now I’m up to four pieces per week, because I was trying to, like, continue that momentum. But when I first started, to be honest, I was just doing two per per month to promote because I was like, although I was a first time parent, I was I just had started my YouTube channel, my husband went through cancer had a tumor in his brain. So it was a lot, it was a lot of things I was doing like a lot of moving pieces. But now I’ve been able to do a little bit more. And I actually do two, which is the list products, like I’ll say, I don’t know 11. And sexual essential vitamins you should have, right. And then the list, the list blog articles are easier to write because it’s just like, you just dropping the products. And the ones that have a little bit more contents actually hire someone to do the work for me. So that’s why to write for me, that’s the reason why I’m able to do four, I’m doing two, and then they’re doing two. So they’re doing the long form content, because I’m not a writer. And then I do the ones that are a little bit shorter, that I don’t really have to worry about it so much. And I also use, it’s like a cheat sheet. There’s this tool called Jasper is an AI. I’m sure you heard of it. And it’s $30 a month was so worth it. Because if you’re not a writer, or if you want to speed up the process, you could just type in vitamins, and actually creates your introduction with the keyword. And then you could do like the outline of it. And then you could do the conclusion and then I just fill in the middle. So it’s really simple. You’ve learned these things, right processes and systems. With a lot of work and dedication and consistency. You start learning how to create a blog post that maybe took you like three days in the beginning to do that you could do it like in one day. But that comes with time and practice, basically.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. Can you give if somebody’s thinking like, hey, maybe I’ll get some help and try to outsource some writing? How much does it cost per article, roughly what you say? And where’s it Where’s, where’s a good place to go to find writers.
Nancy Badillo: I went to Upwork. And I got lucky that I found this gentleman that did the he actually did my editing for my course originally. And he’s great. But before that, even that Upwork, I had a little bit of a battle of trying to find someone that will do a really good job versus just like very generic. But with him each article is 400. I don’t think that’s too bad. Because other people have told me a lot more. So I’ve been lucky. But I know that it fluctuates depending on the person’s experience, there are people that write for Forbes, and those people will charge you a lot more. So
Chris Badgett: That’s cool. You mentioned your course what’s your course creator story.
Nancy Badillo: So my course creator story. I mean, I’ll tell you when it’s really interesting how you self sabotage yourself. So when I started, so my first year, next year, I started an Etsy store. Let me back up a little bit. I started it as another testing of let me see if I could do an Etsy store and make money from it. Because the year before that, I had gotten engaged. And someone told me shop on Etsy. I’ve never heard of them before. I’m not a kind of girl like knitting and I don’t do nothing like that handmade. I’ve never done anything like that stuff. I don’t think I would have ever shopped there before. Until now there’s more popular. So when I went in there to buy stuff for my wedding, because I’m a marketer already. And I’m thinking about how to make money all the time. I mean, how is these people making six figures with digital products selling my principles? Like what in principles? So that’s where my idea came in. So then I did it. And because I didn’t know what I was doing, I just did Word document I did quotes for movies lyrics, song lyrics, did a PDF. Well they did a quote a road across this girl’s on fire, save that as a PDF and sold it on Etsy. Then I got trouble for infringement, right because I was selling stuff that I’m not supposed to be selling this copyrighted so they might switch to the wedding niche, but my first year, just want to be realistic with everyone you are going to make mistakes. My first year I made 21,000 And in the second year made 86,000. Now mind you, I was able to make that money not because it was overnight success, because before that I spent nine years trying to figure this out. And I already had a lot of experience with growing organically. I did that already. I was already working for an ad agency for five years. So there’s as a digital marketing specialist. I had even went back to school and got my Bachelor’s and Master’s in Business with minor marketing, because I told myself, if I cannot make money online, I’m gonna work in this field because I loved it that much. And that’s what I’m telling you when you are passionate things will happen eventually, hopefully, with now with all the resources that will happen a lot quicker than when I started, obviously. But that’s kind of how I got started. So then I ended up saying, Okay, I’m going to do a course, and teach people how to make money with digital products on Etsy, will you sometimes self sabotage yourself, because you feel like you’re not good enough? You feel like, no one’s gonna pay for this. So I ended up doing a course 18 videos, and I gave it for free on my YouTube channel. Instead of selling it. I decided I’m gonna give it for free, and see how people react. And everybody loved that. And then I felt like, why am I doing this for free, right? So then I decided, Okay, I’m gonna do the course I’m going to add more to it. By then I’m on my third year of Etsy, I’ve made even more money. And I have all the stats, all the proof of it. So then what I decided to do is, in those three years, I was already building my credibility online, I had niche dominance. And Etsy coach, I’m creating videos, after videos, after videos on my YouTube channel, I’m establishing myself establishing my credibility. So that was there already. But I wasn’t monetizing my audience because I didn’t believe in myself. So the minute that I did that, the minute I said, Okay, I’m going to create a whole new course. And this time, I’m not gonna give it for free. And I did the outline, and I put it on teachable. My first 30 days, I made 52,000 when I put it out, and I because already had a huge email list, I had been given everything for free. I’m doing I did three years of free Etsy critiques, I gave so much value, and doing videos, videos, after videos, like, put it this way, four years later, I have 100 YouTube videos. That’s how much free content I have given that takes so much time. My competitors have like 60 videos for the same followers. Which is ridiculous, right? But I learned a lot from it as well. So that’s kind of how I started and then even though I made like, 52,000, I remember my job. Let me go on February 24 of 2020. Because of COVID, march 24th 30 days, exactly, they call me and they were like, Nancy, you know why? We love you, you’re great employee, we want you back. We got like a small, small loan business approved. So we only get certain people we want you back. I think when they had call me I had made already like 26,000 around there because I launched my course, right in the middle of March was like March 10, I think. And I remember saying to myself, Should I go back, but had made 26,000 And I had literally talked to myself like I was talking to my son Jordan and say, If Jordan came to me and said, Mom, I made 26,000 Should I go back to this job? I would have a heck no! You keep doing what you’re doing. So that literally the conversation I had within myself. I quit my job and then I never looked back but that’s kind of how started a lot of self sabotaging for sure.
Chris Badgett: Was a cool story. Um, so you’re helped me understand the mission a little bit like so the YouTube channel and then this course focus on help helping Etsy creators, right? Is it only se digital product creators?
Nancy Badillo: In the beginning? Yeah, in the beginning, I started it was it was called the arts principal Etsy course. So it was all about digital products. But then what I realized was that the first four modules, I talked about how to build a memorable store, how to do market research, how to do keyword research, how to do SEO online. Well, that applies for both digital and physical it doesn’t necessarily have to be digital. So what I ended up doing that eventually I changed it to the Etsy mastery course. And then what I ended up doing is adding the arts principal course as a bonus for those that want to learn how to do digital prints. So now is more of a course for anyone that sells on Etsy no matter what niche because I knew that I was losing revenue, just marking it even though I would tell people not just buy it because everything else applies. People just see the name art printable, but they sell jewelry so they don’t want to buy it. So I had to rebrand it again and redo it and kind of structure are different. But yeah, so originally was for digital products now is open for everyone.
Chris Badgett: And one more niche question. I shopped at Etsy but for not for digital things. What are people selling that is digital on Etsy?
Nancy Badillo: Oh, there’s so many things. You could sell stickers that are digital.
Chris Badgett: What does that mean? What is somebody who buys what do they do? Then they gotta go printed somewhere. Right?
Nancy Badillo: Exactly. So you could buy you could buy sticker paper from Home Depot, I mean an office and print it at your Home from your comfort of your home. Or you could go somewhere like Kinkos or, or Costco and they print it out for you. They sell coloring pages, they saw activities for kids to do like their ABCs, wedding principals, birthday invites, wedding signs, with other digital financial planners. Wow, pretty much anything that is basically in an electronic form ebooks. I do digital invites, like party invites that you send through your phone. You could do YouTube stuff, like due to templates like YouTube, art, social media, templates, resumes, I mean, everything. That’s just to kind of give you a little bit of already right there.
Chris Badgett: What a cool niche. Let’s talk about your YouTube channel. I noticed you just crossed 100,000 subscribers. Congratulations. Thank you. When did it start? What year did the channel start?
Nancy Badillo: I started in December 2017. So it’ll be five years this December. So it’s about a four and a half years. Right? I started.
Chris Badgett: And if I understood you, right, the YouTube subscriber base was also a big part of what you were able to sell your course into?
Nancy Badillo: Of course, yeah, YouTube has been the best thing that I’ve ever done in different ways. I make I mean, last year made 40,000, just from YouTube revenue,
Chris Badgett: is that just partner ads or whatever?
Nancy Badillo: Yeah, that’s just from that. And I know for many people, they say, Don’t focus on that, because it’s different for everyone, it just depends on the view, like, obviously, you get paid for, if somebody watched the full view of your video, then you make more money than people that potentially, um, you could have more subscribers than me and make less than me because people aren’t, maybe I’m not watching as frequent. So it’s just more based on views not based on the subscriber count. But it’s been a really good platform for exposure for brand awareness. Like I said earlier, when you post in there, I have videos that are four years old, that people are still watching, it’s still giving me exposure. And then you take advantage of the bottom of the video in your description box where you put affiliate links related to your niche and products that you sell, or maybe other channels that you may have. But again, another story for you guys, for anyone listening that wanted you to channel when I originally started it. I knew YouTube was something that I wanted to do. The issue was is that I’m an introvert. So for me to get on camera, I don’t like the way I look. I don’t like the way I sound. I get nervous even doing this right now. I’m nervous. Maybe you can see it. Maybe you don’t, right. But to be honest, that was the hardest thing for me. If you go back to my channel, I cringe. The videos are horrible. The content was great, but the video were horrible. I didn’t even do the editing correctly. And on top of that, for the first I want to say the first year and a half. It was screen shares. And behind the scene. Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. Hey. And I think I did a few here and there where I show my face. I think I did like maybe four or something like that. But the minute that I told myself, Okay, I’m just going to start recording my face and talk to the camera. The minute I did that, that was a game changer for me. I think the first video I did that had the most comments I’ve ever seen. And everybody was like, Oh, there you are. Oh my God, I am so excited to see you in camera. So what I realized is that when you do a video, if you are talking in the video, is going to be more personal for that person, then a screen share, I think was saved me is because I didn’t just do one video a week of screen sharing that was it. What saved me was is the first three years of my YouTube career. I did over 160 Free critiques. I was providing so much value. And free not charging anyone that even though I wasn’t showing up on the computer itself. People appreciated that and that helped me grow credibility. But if I would have done it sooner probably would have grown faster also.
Chris Badgett: That’s so cool. Just quick tactical question. Do you do your own cover graphics?
Nancy Badillo: Oh, yeah, you could tell I do that myself.
Chris Badgett: I can tell I was like these are cool. Like catching is do you use Canva? Or what do you do?
Nancy Badillo: I use Canva. Yeah. Originally, I was using Photoshop. And then I got into Canva. And it was like Canva forever. But if you go I’m always constantly changing them. Because I’ll do something. I’m like, Oh, I think this is cool. And then six months later, I’m like, oh, it looks horrible. And then I do it again. But the difference now with my covers compared to before. If you scroll back, you’ll see that none of them have photos of me. And there’s a few of them the Do but that’s because I have updated it like lately. It wasn’t there before. Um, but yes, I do my, my thumbnails using Canva is super simple to be quite honest, it’s user friendly for anyone that maybe feel like they’re not tech savvy. It’s just the best platform to use, not just for you to vote for everything for your business in general.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. I noticed your videos, they range in, in views, like some are like single digit 1000s, you have a lot 30 50,000 And then I come across this one that has 544,000 how to start an Etsy shop 2022 the right way, what, what affects like, and I know, like, sometimes it’s fine. If you’re in a tight niche, you have a smaller view count, but then you hit some and you really hit a nerve, and it goes big. What’s the what causes videos to have more views than others?
Nancy Badillo: So I’ll be honest with you guys, because I want to be transparent. Originally, when I started my channel, when I talked, I wanted my channel to be the go to channel for Etsy. So if you want to learn like how to change your Etsy banner, I have that video, if you want to learn how to add a new listing to your store, I have a video for that if you want to learn how to do a coupon for your listings, I have a video. So that’s what I was doing. But what I didn’t realize is that those I’m already in a very small niche, Etsy, right, it’s very micro niche down. On top of that, when you create videos on how to change your banner, you’re not gonna get a lot of views, right? Eventually, you may reach 2000. And it’s like two years later, but you don’t get a lot of views. What I’ve noticed was that whenever I talked about how I made 100,000, the six last six months, or how I made, how I make passive income, or how I make money with affiliate marketing, what I realized, when I was doing those videos, those were getting high views, because I guess other people that want to maybe transition to Etsy or transition into affiliate marketing will watch them and because of the fact they have, how to make money. That’s what I noticed. And I was thinking like, a good tactic would have been, let me create more videos of that, and stay away from creating generic videos. But what I’ve learned is that I easily became bored, I didn’t want every video to be, I don’t know how many videos I could pull out with how I made 400,000 How I made 200,000, or here, how may 20,000. It just to me, it just became like, that’s not the point of my of my channel, even though my competitors are doing that. I didn’t want to do that no, no more. And I tried it for a little bit. And I decided I’m not going to do that anymore. Now the last few videos that you see the fluctuation, I’m actually testing out YouTube ads. So what I do now is I’m running ads. And I’m noticing the same trend, that the videos that talk about how to make money through digital products or templates or anything with passive income tend to do a little bit better. And the videos, there’s more of my story, like how hard it is to be an entrepreneur. But how you could push yourself, those videos don’t perform that great. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people, as much as a lot of people say clickbait videos are the worst, people still watch them a lot, for some reason they perform better. So what I’m trying to do now is not focus on vanity, because I was focusing on that at one point, to the point that I was kind of changing my strategy and just talking about digital digital products all the time. And what I’m trying to do is just let me not focus on vanity, let me focus on providing value. And even if one person got that value from that one video, then no one else is watching. That’s okay. And that’s what I’m focusing on now. But I do I am testing out ads. And that’s why you see that fluctuation so much at the end, versus before that it was a little bit more consistent. And then when I did talk about how I made 200,000, then it went up really high. But now it’s like all over the place. But I think is has to do with the ads. I’m just testing different things just to see what takes just to learn.
Chris Badgett: What’s your videos per week schedule? And then how do you figure out what to make videos about? Like, what’s your process there.
Nancy Badillo: So I try to make at least one to two videos per week. I am a single parent right now because we’re in the process of moving so the last two months I’ve been a single parent. So it’s been like the toughest thing to do to manage our toddler there’s like a hurricane right now like tantrum 24/7 and then trying to run my business but I try to do one to two but I am consistent. I’ve been consistent since the day I started. So if you’re not gonna get two, you’re gonna get one every week. So one to two week to week and the best thing that you could do, which I was doing really, really great and I kind of fell off the last month because I had a family a family member that passed away. It is creating content pillars. And what that is, is just taking. So if your niche is Etsy like me right just to give you an example, you take four or five subcategories that you want to talk about, and you rotate between them. So for me is digital products, because that’s how I started. And I love digital products. So when I make those videos, not necessarily for click bait is because that’s what I sell. And that’s what I love. So digital products, passive income, because I do make passive income, I talk about Etsy tips. And then mindset, those are my four kind of like core videos. And then I throw in like a Canva, or an affiliate marketing video, because Canva could be used for small business owners, Etsy sellers, and teach them how to do different things, to market their business with it. So then what I do is I alternate between those topics. And then another really, really great thing if you don’t know what type of videos to put, I want to say I am might be saying this opposite I think is ask the ask the public.com. I will have to get that the address for you by believers asked the public.com is a website where you go if your niche is, I don’t know jewelry, and you don’t know what to write about. You could just type in the word jewelry, do a search. And it actually gives you questions that people are searching online.
Chris Badgett: And just looked it up. It’s answer the public.com.
Nancy Badillo: So the public was saying the wrong answer the public.com. That’s a really great tool, I think you get three searches per day for free. So it’s enough because if you do three searches, you get about like 30 questions. So you just type in your niche, like, you could type in Etsy tips. And then it tells you like, all these questions that people are asking, how do I grow on Etsy? How do I get sales on Etsy? And then what you do is, that’s the video, how do I grow next? That’s a video to talk about, how do I get sales on Etsy? That’s the video right there. How do I get more reviews on my Etsy store, that’s another video and it’ll give you so much content, that you’re never gonna run out of content. And then you do that for every subcategory that you picked. And now you have 30 questions for this 134 mindset 34 Etsy tips 34. I don’t passive income, right. And then you put that in the spreadsheet, and you kind of scratch it off as you go and you just create content.
Chris Badgett: Wow, I actually just did a search in there. This thing is blowing my mind. I’m saving that for later. So I can focus on you. But I think that tip was worth the price of admission. So that’s answered the public.com Thank you.
Nancy Badillo: For that well go and just use the three for free if you don’t have the budget right now. Yeah, research is for free and is enough to get enough content, you will get about 90 videos from the three searches.
Chris Badgett: Um, I noticed your videos are minute, most of them are like less than 10 minutes. What’s an ideal? or what have you learned around video length? And you know, what, what’s the general target?
Nancy Badillo: I feel like a lot of people have I have read in and listen to so many bloggers, and YouTube creators that say 10 minutes is ideal. But if you look at some of my videos that are longer, they perform pretty well. Yeah, like some videos I have, like 40 I have one that was like an hour and a half. I don’t know what I was thinking, like 50 mistakes to avoid or Etsy or something like that. So my main trailer, and that one has gotten the most views organically and the most comments organically. And it’s super long. And I did that and in the middle of the heat in a car because I was trying to get away from the house because I record a video because too many people in the house making noise. And it’s crazy, like what are the best videos and I might even in the in the video is just me talking on a slide presentation. So what I’ve learned is, if you do a video that doesn’t require a lot of content, then make it around less than 10 minutes. But if you’re doing a in full tutorial about something as long as you make it educational, I do think you could go a little bit longer and people will watch, especially if they’re into whatever you’re teaching. But if you do in 10 minutes of just talking about yourself or 10 minutes of like your introduction is too long, too long, people will drop off quickly. That’s another thing I noticed about mines. I was talking too much in the beginning. So now I tried to get straight to the point. It’s unfortunate because sometimes I feel like I want to say hi guys welcome back. Like I want to like greet people, but I’m like trying to rush through it because I know if I take too long, they’re gonna like leave because you see it when you check your analytics, you see people dropping off like right in the beginning of like that you didn’t even give it a shot. So it happens to me a lot and I’m working on it. I honestly feel like when you have a business, you’re forever growing and learning and trying to adapt and what works for one platform. form doesn’t work for another one. And that’s another thing I’ve learned, I used to try to drive my traffic from Instagram, to my YouTube. And what I realized is a lot of people use Instagram, but they hate YouTube. A lot of people love YouTube, but they don’t use Instagram, and vice versa. So what I tried to do now is, if I do a YouTube video, when I’m promoting it on Instagram, I try to make it more Instagram. Like, share it there. And then kind of say, if you want to watch the rest, go back to my YouTube, I try to give a little bit more than I used to, I used to say, new video, go to the YouTube channel, but that doesn’t really work. So it’s about learning, adapting, looking at your analytics, seeing what works, what doesn’t work, you’re always going to be changing, I’m sure the strategies I’m doing this year next year, I’m gonna be like, What was I thinking? And I’m gonna be refining it all the time.
Chris Badgett: You mentioned mindset videos. And I’m curious if you know like your most popular mindset video and just in general, what do you find your mindset tip the most help that entrepreneurs out there? Like what was that about?
Nancy Badillo: So I think the most helpful video is the one that I just talked about the 50 myths, mistakes, or 50 things I have learned as an Etsy seller in there, the first tip is you know, you have to start, you have to, if you want to be great, you have to start right it’s, it’s a quote by Zig Ziglar can remember the quote, you don’t have to be good to start, but you have to start to be great. That’s the quote. So that’s the first thing I start with, because it is so true, like your first video is going to suck. Your first Etsy listing is gonna suck your first blog post is gonna suck your first podcast is gonna suck, everything sucks in the beginning. And the more you do it, the more you do it, the better you get at it. So that probably is the most the best one, I think, because it has a combination of mindset, things that I talked about, but realistic things that I talked about, about running an Etsy business. And what was the second question you asked me?
Chris Badgett: Just what’s your? What’s your biggest tip for entrepreneurs? Just from a mindset perspective? Yeah,
Nancy Badillo: I think the there’s two tips that I always give one, there’s no failure, you either win or learn. That’s it. Because everything that you go through right now in your business, I guarantee you in two, three years from now, if you do make and you stay with it, and hopefully people will, you’re going to use, you’re gonna learn, you’re going to be better because of it. So that’s the first tip. The second thing is iversity has a lot of valuable insight, all the adversities that I have been through, before even starting my journey, as a digital marketing specialist in my life, and everything I have gone through in the last 13 years to kind of get where I’m at now, which is really scratching the surface, I’m not even know and nowhere where I want to be. So adversity gives you a lot of valuable insights. A lot of times we go through adversities, with our business, even personal stuff. And we don’t realize how blessed how you could find a silver lining in there, how you could find something that would definitely help you.
Chris Badgett: That’s great. A lot of digital course creators and digital entrepreneurs. You know, I advise to do YouTube work, but also Facebook groups. I know you’ve you’ve had some success building out a Facebook group, tell us how you did it? And how you monetize it? Or yeah, like how does. I know a lot of people want a Facebook group and it’s hard. But you pulled it off? How do you do it?
Nancy Badillo: So originally, how I used to grow a Facebook group, a lot of people will disagree with me and say, Oh, why would you do that? That’s a lot, but I’m gonna just gonna be transparent. When I used to grow a Facebook group, whether it was for me and for a client, I used to do it for Mercedes Benz is that I will join other groups that are relevant to my group. So let’s say I joined another Etsy group, right? So then from there, I will be friends, right? Add friends of those groups. So Mary connected with me, we connected, I will add her as a friend. So my account my to my profile, Joe connected with me, let me add just a friend. I asked her a question I gave value. They’re like, Oh, thank you, Nancy, I know that I added them as a friend. Why? Because they’re more apt, they’re more likely to go ahead and accept the requests. So now I’m adding it’s a lot of work. I’m adding 20 to 25 people per day, right? So now I’m up to 5000 Facebook friends, and I don’t know nobody, but you know, get the point. So then you open the group, and you invite your friends to that group. Because these people are relevant to your niche, they’re going to follow and so in the beginning, it takes a little bit consistent. If you’re growing a group organically, and you’re not doing as and you’re and you don’t have an email list and you don’t have an online presence. This is the quickest way to get people in the group. addition to that, when you get them in the group If you need to set up questions, the first one is have them ask a question. Have them give me your email for some sort of lead magnet, because now you have them in your email list. In addition to that, ask them what is your Instagram account, let’s be friends, I go to Instagram and add them there, why I want to keep them in my ecosystem. So now when I post on Facebook there in my group, when I post on Instagram, they will see my posts, hopefully, right. And if not, I could do remarketing campaigns, I could go and like they’re, they’re posted, they go back to mines, and because they engage with mines, now I could do a remarketing campaign and show whatever I want to promote 24/7 to them. And, and I’m keeping them in my ecosystem. Plus, I’m doing all this organic stuff like YouTube. So now they’re seeing me everywhere. And that’s how you do it. So originally, I would do that for maybe a month or two. And then once you start getting traction, and you start getting people commenting and posting, and, and you do live videos in there, and you do stuff like that in your in your engagement is growing, Facebook starts promoting it for you, you don’t have to do anything after that is almost like a snowball effect. So like my group was up to 91,000, the pilot would have been 130. But you know, you got to remove the spammers, you got to remove like, people, they’re just there for the wrong reason. But if it wasn’t for that, it would have been like, even bigger, but it’s about 91,000 for four years, that’s not bad. And it’s quality people, you know, people that are interested in your niche, not just random people. But after that Facebook takes care of you. And you go in there every day and you got one day, you got five people per day. And then when you least expect them like now I get like 60 people per they, you know, on a good day 30 to 60, let’s say on a good day, but you know, you get what I’m saying you automatically, you get emails automatically for free, you get new followers and new connections as well. So that’s how I do it. That’s my advice. A lot of people don’t like that. Because they’re like, well, you’re adding these people. It’s a lot of work. I’m like yeah, but you know, a lot of people don’t accept your request, you just cancel it later. Sometimes you do become really good friends with these people as well. It’s just a strategy just for a certain time to kind of grow that account. But or you could do it just organically just creating a group posting a lot of content and just waiting and promoting it outside. Also, not just leaving it on Facebook like telling people on YouTube Hey, join my group, telling people on Instagram by the way, we have a group promote, promote, promote everywhere you promote your business cross promote, you have an email list, send them a link.
Chris Badgett: Do you do YouTube and Facebook do you use like kind of YouTube and Facebook together? So for example, when you’re done on YouTube, you’ve uploaded a video you’re optimized the description everything. Do you go share that YouTube video and Facebook in the Facebook group?
Nancy Badillo: were everywhere I got a group I got to Reddit groups I have everywhere the my audiences that I’m at now I will say this, it can become overwhelming for people. Yeah. The other day we had an update actually had an update. I did a video with a toddler. Share the video did an email list in an hour. And my husband’s like you did that in an hour? I’m like, Yes, I did. I took you seven days. But I want to be the first Etsy coach with the news out there. I don’t want to wait to one of my competitor was like on Friday, we’re gonna be talking about this. I’m like, Oh, girl, I’m gonna talk about it right now. I’m doing it right now. So when you’re, when you have so much experience, it just becomes easier to kind of do it in the beginning, you might feel overwhelmed. And what I tell people is, even though I am everywhere it is it really does overwhelm people, because what they end up doing is not using the platform the correct way. So if you’re just posting on Pinterest, but you’re not optimizing your Pinterest account the right way, you’re just another Pinterest user. If you’re just posting on Instagram and leaving, you don’t have a community, if you don’t do anything else, then you’re not using it intentional. So it’s just better for you as a business owner, when you are starting out to have one dedicated platform. So I always recommend your business. And then something evergreen like blogging, YouTube, podcasting. Pinterest is evergreen, because it’s a it’s a search engine. And then having email marketing, those three should be enough for you to blow up your business because I’ve done it before. I did that with my Etsy business the first year and that’s all I did. So you could do it. And then eventually, once you have systems and processes and you’re batching out your content and you feel comfortable, and you know that you’re using the platform to the best possible, right. I’m not an expert in every platform, but I know I use it to the best possible once you see the growth and you’re getting traffic and leads and conversations, etc. Then you can say okay, you know what I’m going to start promoting now on Instagram. I’m going to tackle that I have these things set in place. I have automation set in place. I have system set in place, right. So now I’m going to do this. So that’s what I recommend. But for many people, I want to make sure I say it It is worth promoting in all platforms, right, because the more you promote it in different platforms, the more exposure, your content, your YouTube video will have the issue with as many people get tired, because when you post on Instagram, you got to optimize it for that platform, the picture and when you post it on Reddit is different. And when you posted on Facebook is different. And when you do Twitter is different when you do Reddit, I mean, I came and think LinkedIn is different. So a lot of people get overwhelmed with it. And over time they give up because they’re doing too much and stretching themselves too thin, versus just focusing on two or three and then working up to those additional ones, if you want to that you don’t necessarily have to either. There’s a lot of people that are successful, and they just have email marketing and Instagram account. And of course, and that’s it. It just depends on the type of person you are as well. I like I like doing it that way.
Chris Badgett: Well, that’s those are some pro tips right there. Nancy, one of the things I admire about you is your heart, your work ethic, your open mindedness to like fail, or you know, even crossed the line and be like, Oops, I violated some term and I got the company reached out, I gotta change, I can’t do that again. Or to go back to old videos, and maybe the ones that are getting the most views and update the graphics or whatever. I just hear a lot of continuous improvement and hard work. Where does that come from? From you?
Nancy Badillo: I don’t know, because I grew up I’m adopted from my grandmother. And I grew up in a home where they have fourth grade education. So it’s really hard for them. We always had an apartment. We never had a home, we never had vacation. We struggle my grandma lived on welfare. We have government, she’s government everything in my house. And that’s how I grew up. My husband’s like the opposite of me in private school, perfect English, I you know, I struggle with everything. My learning, like to learn things, it takes me a while to learn things, because of my background. And I think growing up in that setting. I did have it did have its pitfalls. And it did hinder me. But then it also gave me like good strengths. Also, it helped me to see something like I want to do better. I want to do better than my my grandparents. I want to have more things. I want to be able to offer my son more things. And even though I wasn’t like the smartest or the prettiest or had the best resources. I always been that type of person that I just hustle and try to figure it out. And I think it stems from my background. I think it stems from you know, living you know, I never had a bedroom when I was little I used to live sleep in a pullout couch on the kitchen. I think it just stems from that, that I didn’t want to have. I wanted to break the cycle basically. I wanted to break the cycle. And I I think that’s where it comes from because I don’t know if that’s where it comes from. Yeah,
Chris Badgett: very cool. Thanks for sharing that all one other question. As a I’m like you I’m an introvert but sometimes, as a marketer, a content creator come across like an extrovert and sometimes as an introvert. When you look out across the internet, like YouTube or social media, it seems like everybody’s extroverted. Um, there’s a lot of introverts out there, and a lot of awesome introvert entrepreneurs, what advice do you have for the introverts out there?
Nancy Badillo: Introverts? I think, honestly, like, I remember when I was like, I think I was like, in middle school, and I did a Harriet Tubman. I memorize the whole thing. It was like a presentation. And it was my first time and I had a dress like her and everything. And I was talking. And I remember the rush that I got from it. And that was the first time I realized that Oh, I kind of like being a kind of like doing presentations. But then throughout the years, I never did that again. And then now that I’m older and I’m doing videos, it does get me nervous, right. And I think a lot of my nerves come from my own insecurities. I don’t speak perfect English and all these other things are playing my back in my back of my head. But I don’t know. I feel like with time as an introvert with time, the more you do it, it does help you a lot. I mean, after 100 videos, it’s helped me I can’t do that. And it’s like if you go to my first videos horrible I don’t even have energy. I’m like, Hi guys, like, I thought I was had energy right? I thought I was like bubbling. But I really wasn’t because I’m not a bubbly person, but many people think I am but like they look at my feet and like how I don’t think you’re an extrovert. I’m I know Matt, like you said a lot of us. Introverts are the ones like killing it. It’s great. The introverts are killing it more and there’s some extroverts are doing wonderful too but you I feel like the interviewers are the ones killing me more. Because we understand we understand that you have to kind of be extroverted, obviously, you can’t go in the car and be like, Hi guys. And that, you know, it’s all about energy basically like that song. I love that song energy. But I forgot the name with a song that I wanted to talk about. But anyways, it’s all about energy. I feel like the more you do it, the more you put yourself out there, the easier it will get. A lot of people tell me, I want to do YouTube, I can’t do it. Because I’m an introvert, I might just do it. Because you you videos is the future if you look everywhere, video, I mean, even Facebook now got Facebook real LinkedIn got a form of reels like everybody got reels now it’s like, it’s the future. So you might just want to get used to it.
Chris Badgett: I love that. And you know, a lot of the entrepreneur work is lonely work. So if an introvert you know, you sit down on the computer, and maybe you’re doing social things on the internet, but you’re actually alone at your computer, which is where you get energy, of being an introvert being more withdrawn or alone and then that kind of thing. That’s a superpower too.
Nancy Badillo: Yeah, that’s what I tell people. Like, if I’m around like even now like after I’m done with you, I need to like decompress podcast today. We’ll sit down eat something and just like decompress because that’s how we recharge we really do. But for anyone listening, I’m just doing it because I don’t know what is about us intrapreneurs even though it’s scary to speak in camera, even though we need that recharge even though I do better in in, in larger than small groups is we’re right. larger groups do better than small, the small want to talk too much. It’s like, oh my God, even though we feel that way. When you actually do it, like when you actually do a presentation or you do a YouTube or video you do a live or you do one of these where you do a podcast, you feel good, is weird. It’s the craziest thing. Like you’d be like, I want to be in I’m putting it in the new universe. I want to be a transformational speaker. I want to be like Mel Robbins for anyone listening. And for me to think that big. Being an introvert, it’s like what I want to do that where she has to talk to small groups and large groups and be everywhere. As much as as terrifying it is, is very rewarding. That’s what I’m trying to say. For me at least I don’t know if you feel the same way.
Chris Badgett: Yeah, I agree. I totally agree with you. Nancy, this has been awesome conversation. You’ve added so much value to the to the listener and the person watching this. Can you share whether somebody’s you know, interested in Etsy thing or want to follow along with you on your entrepreneur journey and your online entrepreneurship tips and everything? Give us the website and the social media has to go for people to go find you.
Nancy Badillo: Okay, so I’m gonna give you my website because when I started my business 13 years ago, I didn’t do the social media handles the right way. We just have the same name across all don’t have, like I do. The best one is head over to Nancybadillo.com. And in there, you have all the social media links in there. You have my YouTube channel, my blog and everything else that I teach online. I’m very active on Instagram. That’s nancybadillo13. One three at the end. So just in case,
Chris Badgett: Nancy, thanks for coming on the show and sharing all your wisdom and your story with us. We really appreciate it.
Nancy Badillo: Thank you, Chris. I really appreciate it. Bye guys. Have a wonderful day.
Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMS cast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at lifterlms.com/gift go to lifterlms.com/gift. Keep learning. Keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.
