Cathy Yoder’s Funnel Explained
Her fans call her "The Queen of Air Fryers." She gave away recipes. Her fans demanded a cookbook. One $15 PDF later, Cathy Yoder had a 5-figure launch weekend—and she hasn't looked back. With over 700K subscribers, Cathy built a content-powered Shopify business that turns viewers into superfans (and customers).
In this episode, Cathy breaks down:
If you're a creator, a merchant, or both—this is the funnel playbook you've been waiting for.
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Kurt Elster
This episode is sponsored in part by Boost Commerce. Imagine a search bar that's actually smart, one that helps your customers find what they're looking for without frustration. That's what Boost AI Search and Filter is all about. It's like giving your store a personal shopper right in the search bar. With Boost, shoppers can filter by everything from size to rating. So finding that perfect product is easy. and the frequently bought together and related items recommendations are tailored to your store, giving customers a reason to add more to their carts. Boost even lets you spotlight bestsellers or new arrivals using powerful merchandising tools No coding skills needed. And if you ever do need support, their dedicated team has your back. Ready to make your store smarter? New customers can use the code Kurt. That's K-U-R-T. to get thirty percent off for their first six months. Head to the Shopify App Store, start your 14 day free trial of Boost AI Search and Filter today. To Today on the unofficial Shopify podcast, we're gonna have someone break down for us YouTube sales funnels. I wanna know how someone, in this case our guest, takes 700,000 YouTube subscribers. And then gets those people to make a purchase, right? Building an audience is, I think, the hard part. But once you've built an audience, now, okay, how do we monetize that? How do we provide value to that group? And YouTube is a wonderful way to do this. When you combine a YouTube audience and a Shopify store, some magic can occur. And so Kathy Yoder's going to join us today. and break it down because she has seven hundred thousand YouTube subscribers, a best selling book. She's been a blogger for years. She has been there, done that, and is going to break it down for us. Kathy, welcome to the show. How you doing? Hey, so good. I'm happy to be here. Would you give us a rundown of of your business? What it is you do, you sell. How does Kathy Yoder make money today?
Cathy Yoder
Oh, lots lots of different ways. Lots of uh revenue streams, but Um I had a so I've been, as you mentioned, blogging for years. Actually, 2008 is when I started all the blogging fun. And um Pivot 2020. I had a lot of content on my blog recipes, and so I decided to start creating content on YouTube just for another revenue stream Right? And it was just I was my goal was to get ad sense and then affiliate revenue. And that's what I did for a little bit until my audience started asking for more.
Kurt Elster
What did that what were they asking for? I mean a phenomenal for it your audience to tell you what they need.
Cathy Yoder
Right. Yeah, because I was giving them all of this free content. I was doing food. I started kind of broad on different food and then m niche down into air fryer recipes because that's what was lifting. And after doing that for a few months So I would give the full recipe, I would write the entire recipe in the YouTube description. It was just like here. I would if I had it on my blog, I would link to it on my blog. Like I was like, they don't need anything more. I've given them everything. And they were like, we want a cookbook. And they have hundreds of comments of people like, we want a cookbook. And I was like, I don't know how to do that. Right? So I was like, mm, okay, I'm gonna do an e-book. Like I can do that. We can Gather up what I've already created, send it to somebody on Fiverr, had them format it, built a funnel, and threw an ebook in there. And Mother's Day weekend 2021. We launched it and I was like, okay, here it goes. And we were floored at at what happened there. Like 15k. in sales for the ebook was like I think $14. 95 when we had an order bump. We had like a a dessert ebook they could add on if they wanted. And it was insane.
Kurt Elster
Do you still sell ebooks?
Cathy Yoder
Um, I do have, yeah, not that particular one. So that one had like 50 recipes in it. And they were like, we love it, that's great. We want an actual book. We want a physical cookbook. And again, I was like, what? I don't know how to do that. And um after some time and then grinding for a couple of months and working with somebody else on Fiverr. We built another funnel and started uh like I think we launched it right before Christmas in 2021. and found like a printer in the US that kind of would, you know, quote unquote drop drop ship it, which was kind of expensive. But we sold the cookbook for it was like $32 after shipping. I printed cookbook. We thought we might like we put our initial order in for 500 and sold eat, you know, sold that in the first weekend. And then my business partner and I are like, huh Okay, we're gonna sell more. So we up the order. Anyway, long story short, after that first like two weeks, we realized It was bigger than we thought it was gonna be and we needed to save money and source from China. And so all the earnings from that first two weeks of sales paid for a a massive order of ten thousand cookbooks. and we had to fly 3,000 of them here, which pretty sure that was like a fifteen thousand dollar plane ticket. It was insane to fly cookbooks here. And then the other seven thousand came by boat. Um but there was such demand. It was insane. We just didn't expect it.
Kurt Elster
The you know, and you would expect like a very this digital native audience, you know, a YouTube audience w may prefer digital content. And it sounds like As much as I love digital products, because they're you know like 98% profit, right, um, it that the audience preferred physical books.
Cathy Yoder
Yep. They demand Interesting. Yeah, they wanted the the physical.
Kurt Elster
And for content marketing, I have seen your recipes just be so successful over and over. We've worked with brands like Meat Church, Cosmos Q, anyone that is at all related to food, kitchen, you know, anything you eat, even if you're a step removed from it, recipes just make for phenomenal content marketing, whether that's you know SEO, uh YouTube or lead in your case lead generation.
Cathy Yoder
Yeah, and and I know my audience resonated with me because I just would straight up tell them I don't like to cook. I'm a lazy cook. Like that's why I'm using air fryer. And if it's a recipe with a million ingredients or things I can't pronounce or I'm like I have no idea where that is in the store, then like I don't do that. So my recipes are simple But also not full of processed food. But they're just pretty basic. And my kids taste test on the videos, so they're, you know. for the most part family approved. Anyway, so they could see that. It was just giving them, showing them they saw it and they were like, we want more.
Kurt Elster
So let's start with the the big picture here. YouTube drive sales. How walk me through how as a casual viewer I go from a a search to buying your product.
Cathy Yoder
So it's funny because I have a lot of comments, I mean not I don't know, I couldn't put a percentage, but a lot of people are like, I don't even have an air fryer and I like to watch your content. Or you're the reason I got an air fryer. So some people come in not even having an air fryer. Others will come in like, I got the air fryer, how do I use it? And then, you know, YouTube's beautiful because once it figures out who your avatar is, they know, right? They know what people watch, they know what they like, and they just start serving my content out to people. That are like, wow, I didn't know I needed an air fryer. Now I'm getting one. So it's it's pretty magical the way the YouTube algorithm works. Um but going back to your original question, um Golly, no, I forgot what the original question was.
Kurt Elster
There we're I want the I want to visualize this funnel or this process that a customer goes for like they found you. Now they end up purchasing from you. How do we go from A to B?
Cathy Yoder
Right, right, right, right. So they find me and then I see that I'm just real. And if I mess up, I don't edit that out. If my kids you know, give something a thumbs down, but I still like it. Or there's even been times that we're all like, ooh, this is terrible. And we've got footage of my daughter spitting the food out in the trash can. So they I'm authentic and um I think normal. They come into my kitchen. I'm not like a fancy, it's not a production studio. It's me with my camera on my little, you know, gorilla tripod and I'm just sharing what I'm doing in the kitchen. So they resonate with that. Not everybody does, but I'm not a pro pro chef and I don't claim to be But when they see what I'm making and see how actually easy it is, then they're like, okay, I want more. And they have more, you know, they could get it all on my channel, but people like things packaged for easy consumption and that's the cookbook.
Kurt Elster
So And you've got um Your Shopify store. That's Pine and Pepper. Pineandpepper. co. Yes. And that's got it's got the the air fryer recipes cookbook. You've got a magnetic air fryer cheat sheet set, which I think that's so clever. And you walk me through some of the other accessories and products we're selling here. In addition to digital downloads.
Cathy Yoder
Right, yeah. So I started just with the cookbook, right? And I also mentioned that I was Amazon affiliate. So the beauty beauty of Amazon is that I could see, you know, natural amusing products in my videos And I could see what are the top selling things. And then it was like, it would kind of just be a no-brainer to do those ourselves, you know, and you know the the me to products. So The cheat sheets, you know, they're all over Amazon, but all we had to do was go through and read um reviews and see where they went wrong. And it was things like The it was too hard to read. Well, my audience is 55 and older, so we knew we needed to do a larger font. We need to make it really clear and easy to read. I had an audience, so I surveyed them as like, what do you want to see on a cheat sheet? And had a long list of all these different foods. And we literally picked the ones that that were the most voted for So, because it's disappointing to buy something you're like, well, I'm not making liver chicken liver, so why do I have chicken liver on on this cheat sheet? You know, whatever. So it's user generated and I could promote that and say this is the stuff you guys chose to be on this cheat sheet And then it's also user-tested, like the times and temps are I had all the data from all my past recipes that we know generally a steak's going to take this long to cook in the air fryer at this temperature. And then we also made it better because we included the internal temperature that you need to cook food to. So we have all the data on there. So we just made it better and sell it.
Kurt Elster
It sells really well. So I've got so you start with Amazon affiliate links because that's a fairly easy way. Oh yeah. Fairly straightforward way to monetize something, like passively. But it there's analytics to it, right? It shows you what you're getting paid out on, what you're getting commissions on, what people are buying. Doesn't it show like what they buy in their cart together?
Cathy Yoder
Yes, everything in their cart. So even though I wasn't necessarily promoting cheat sheets in my videos, I could see that they were buying them. And I was like, they need this. So they didn't ask for the cheat sheet. That one I figured out that they were buying and they wanted and I knew I could do it better.
Kurt Elster
The that's really clever. And especially I've heard that advice before that it reviews, customer reviews, especially Amazon reviews are just a gold mine of uh of research. And in your case, you're like, okay, we know what they're buying after watching the video. Now, how do we make a better version of it? And then the reviews tell you where those those other cheat sheets are falling short. And then you confirmed it with customer surveys. And then that becomes part of the messaging. Like, hey. You, you you, my people, have helped us shape this product. Very clever. Yeah, it's worked out well. Do you use um There's a YouTube Shopify integration where like you could show like a little shelf of products embedded right on YouTube pulled out of Shopify. Do you use that?
Cathy Yoder
Yes, and we've actually only been using that October. So five, six months. So we got or we started our Shopify. So I to be clear, I started with just a cookbook funnel, yummyairfryrecipes. com. That's where I started. And then then we created the cheat sheet and it was like okay airfryer cheat sheet. com. And we realized then we were going to do the thermometer because that's such a key uh product that I promote and it's like a must-have. Um, but I was like, oh my gosh, we don't need all these funnels. And people were wanting to buy multiple products, so it didn't make sense to continue doing funnels. I mean, I still have those. And I have old videos where I call out those URLs, but it made sense then to move to Shopify so people could build their cart. and and see all of the things that I was offering, it was just becoming too confusing. So we actually created a another like sister brand is Pine and Pepper, because my YouTube channel is Empowered Cooks. Anyway, partly also uh the goal is to sell pine and pepper, right? Down the down the road. So we need to separate that from me specifically. Then when we figured out that Shopify and YouTube had integration, it was just like, what? There again, I could just go, and that's kind of that one piece. where people would fall off. Like my audience is older. They couldn't find links in the description. So I was losing a lot of sales because they would just go, you know, search it on Amazon and go buy, you know, the air fryers, whatever it might be. they would just go buy 'em on Amazon. But now I have these, so I went to all my top videos, especially the ones where I'm talking about products. And we add the shelf, but then also timestamp it. And now that I'm creating content, I can actually call it out point. I know it's going to show up right here. And just like you'll you can find it right here. And it's such a natural, easy way to integrate. And then you get the data on Shopify and on YouTube so I can see how much money that has made me just by adding that to my videos. It's so fun.
Kurt Elster
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Cathy Yoder
Yeah, because YouTube on the back end they they've got their um Like there's tons of different stores. Like Walmart, Target, like pretty much everybody except Amazon you can link to. And so it's just my own store is there. And I can select the products and add to the videos. And it also like if I have the links in the description, it also just like automatically knows here's suggested ones to add to your videos. So it's really easy.
Kurt Elster
We reduce the confusion where it it's very easy for you as the creator to say, like, okay, here's this is the product we're talking about. You can get it at my store, click below. Right. Okay. Now the other catch here is you have how many subscribers do you have?
Cathy Yoder
Um I don't remember.
Kurt Elster
It's over 700,000. It's a lot. Yeah. You got to that first hundred thousand in four months. A hundred days, you got a hundred thousand subscribers, which is extraordinary. How, what's the strategy there? How do you do that?
Cathy Yoder
So that came from I I should be clear that I started in May 2020 and by December 2020 I was at I can't remember the number. I was maybe like at 5,000. And then from December to March is when I went from like five to hundred. So I didn't start like completely from scratch and do it in three months, but Regardless, I spent that time in those first several months teaching the algorithm what my channel was about. So there's just some strategy on number one, don't just be willy-nilly and posting whatever. You need to be strategic. and stay stay in your lane for the content that you're creating so YouTube can figure out what you're about and then once they figure out what you're about then they're like okay these people would like this content and they start kind of pushing it out. But so you've got to be clear and like linking linking titles together and making somewhat similar videos. So I I started under the umbrella of recipes, but then I did air fryer, instant pot, slow cooker. Um freezer mills, copycat. And I just alternated between all of those five different groups And then um I was uploading twice a week for long form, which is a lot of work, especially with food. I mean probably thirty hours between with the product you know, filming and editing and all of that. But The key is, you know, the more you do, the better you get. The first videos are absolutely terrible. They're still on there. But like, you know, my head's cut off in some of it. I'm looking at the the viewfinder, not not at the camera, right? Um, they're just absolutely terrible, but it's just that's how you learn by being completely terrible. And then teaching the algorithm was like I had some old videos on my channel, like from my couponing days that were like There was a little kid toy review on there and there was a Sam's Club promotional video that I did, a sponsored video. That we're getting views, but it confused the channel because when somebody does find you and they're like, oh I really like this, I'm gonna go look. And see what else they have, then they see this random toy review and a Sam's Club video, right? So I unlisted those and hid those. So it was very clear what my channel was about. And then we just kept alternating between those different topics and tying things in. Like at the end of your video, use like the last seven seconds to tell them what to watch next. Because the longer you keep them on the platform, the happier YouTube is, right? All all the all the platforms. But um and then I just had data. Like the the data you get from YouTube Analytics is incredible. You can see when did people stop watching? When were they, you know, what was engaging? What kept them watching? Did they click on this end screen? Did I have a specific enough call out? And then you just improve. You you analyze it, you tweak and and improve and get better.
Kurt Elster
With the so you to figure out topic and then niche down on that and then with experience you get better at production and actually shooting these videos. Because they're early on it's rough. You know, d it's hugely time consuming because you don't know what you're doing just to make a mediocre video that literally tens of people might watch. Right. Right? It's discouraging. Yep. And so For you, you know, how did you figure out that ideal format? Or rather, what made you keep going?
Cathy Yoder
Well, it was I had done enough research, especially when I dialed into Airfire only. The content that was on YouTube in 2020 was just very slow-paced. It was hard to watch. You know, there was air fryer content, but I was like, I knew I had a I could be a little bit different and make it a little more fun. Like people didn't need to see me stir. for a minute, right? And I it actually had a friend who had been doing it, so she mentored me. And she's like, you know, change it up every three seconds. There needs to be something different. And it needs me engaging. And understanding that, understanding the need for engagement, especially in long form video, um, just kind of it I think it sh fast tracked me. And I I didn't have to sit there and you know, produce terrible content for too long. I I do want to say, like, I filmed all my content on my phone, like for the first, almost the first year. It was all just on my phone.
Kurt Elster
So Yeah, it's been a while since I've heard anyone ask, like, oh, well, what what equipment do I need? What camera do I need? I think at this point we all realize, well, your phone is probably the best camera you own.
Cathy Yoder
Yeah.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, so Do you still shoot on your phone?
Cathy Yoder
No, I just have a DSLR, but it's like still not fancy.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, well, and especially if you're not used to it, it's like why complicate it? Right. You're just adding more steps to screw up. Right, right. So the so your approach seems to be like move fast, launch, tweak, adjust. How and you know you know that to teach the algorithm, there's this very specific niche it has to fit into. If there's a format I'm sure you've found that works, how do you fit testing new things into that without disrupting what you've built?
Cathy Yoder
Right, so it's it's we call it a test a test bucket or test topic. So I have my once I narrowed down to air fry recipes, I've done different things like five ingredient 15 minute recipes. Um high protein, those are kind of my buckets right now. And then the tutorial, like my tutorial videos do so well when I just teach people what to do. And there are plenty of videos that have done terrible, you know, you just kind of figure it out. But when I have an idea for a different um Like maybe you could call it a subtopic under the air fryer realm. I'll try and do like three videos. And I you space them apart, right? Four or five weeks apart. and then tie it tie the one to the last one. Um and if they just don't lift, then like, okay. My people don't care about it. And and there's also, you know, talking to my people, but then also you've got to create content to bring in new people. So I always know around Christmas time, around praying day, like everyone, Mother's Day, people, there's more people. There's an influx influx of air fryer owners that are gonna come to my channel. So I've you know gone back and I've remade some of my best videos. Some of them will take over, like I think my second most popular video is 7 million views, and I redid it. Last year I think. Anyway, that one is now showing up. That's like the evergreen now. My old one that used to be super popular. YouTube doesn't serve that out anymore. They're serving the newer one out. But then I also redid a my very top video and they still serve out my very my old one. Anyway, so we just we keep trying, right?
Kurt Elster
We just learn go. In your head, I bet you have a very clear idea on this is the correct format of a Kathy Yoder video. What does that look like?
Cathy Yoder
Um really quickly hooking them in, letting them know what it's gonna be about. But in right, everything's about hooks, catching their attention, and then just getting right to the content. And you know, it's it's telling a story, but my story is food. And so here's here's what we're gonna make, and I will show B-roll of finished product or some in interesting in process. footage and then we just start, show them what they're gonna need, and we go through it go through the videos. I have found like if I Sorry, we go through the recipes, but and what I found is that if I just made one video about air fryer chicken with like one recipe, it doesn't do well because I can do that in about three minutes. So what I have to do is, which is tiring, but usually I need anywhere from three, even I have videos with 30 recipes, which are just compilation videos. But I found at least if I can get them around 14 minutes, give or take, but even up to 22 minutes, that's what I aim for for my average video length. Some are shorter. Like the next one I'm doing, I just can't. I'm talking about air fryers and oil. Like I cannot drag that out. I don't even know if I'll get it to eight minutes. But it's It's a good video. I mean, people need to know about it, so it's gonna answer a lot of questions. We'll see how it does.
Kurt Elster
For you to know what format works best for you, what length, what topics, etc. I bet you there is a graveyard of videos, you know, delisted in your YouTube channel. What content ideas seemed great, but then totally flopped for you?
Cathy Yoder
I've actually a lot of them are still listed. There's only one I've ever unlisted, and that was just a blooper reel my daughter made for my birthday. And it's just embarrassingly terrible. So and nobody was watching it and it's like it doesn't have to do with my channel. So I left it up for a few weeks and I delisted it. But Um otherwise I think it's important to show the flops. And there are some, you know, I'm trying to think of one that's just a terrible Um oh, like I did a Halloween one a couple years ago and it just did terrible. And then I was like, well, it's because my audience is older and they're not necessarily excited about making intestine guts, you know, in the air in the air fryer. It looks like, you know, it's like a puffed pastry. It's a delicious meal, or I have a zombie meatloaf. That are kind of fun.
Kurt Elster
I want the zombie meatloaf.
Cathy Yoder
Right. But you're not my average viewer, so I just learned.
Kurt Elster
A good 15 years younger, it sounds like.
Cathy Yoder
Yeah. Yeah.
Kurt Elster
So uh a lot of people try YouTube and fail just because it's so much effort up front just to get no views. What's the biggest mistakes you see people consistently making?
Cathy Yoder
Well, that's the interesting news. Like it is a lot of work. So for me Because I have a business partner and it was taking a lot of time. So we had a conversation and I believe it was right after I got monetized in October 2020. I got monetized in the first month I made like $130. And I was like, oh, wow.
Kurt Elster
And by monetizing like you you get to a certain level of subscribers and then YouTube lets you run their ads in your video. They give you the great honor. Yeah. And then it really doesn't The the the CPM, the ad rate, it's not great.
Cathy Yoder
It just it depends on your content, um, and then they they give you a percentage. There's some niches that get really high CPMs. I can tell you where mine lands, but it was, you know, for not a lot of views. It was still money, but it was just like Uh as a business owner, I was like, we need to have a substantial amount of money based on the amount of time I'm putting into this. So my business and I, partner and I had a discussion, and so it was like October 2020, and we decided that if I wasn't making $4,000 a month by June 2021 that I was gonna stop. So we just kind of put this deadline on. But there again, I just my in my gut, I just knew I had something and it just needed a little more time. And so then November 2020 happened and I made 300, so I doubled. And at this point in time, that's when I had gone all in on air fryer. And then December 2020, I had a video idea and I almost didn't make this video because I was really focused on SEO and I was like, well, no one's gonna go search YouTube and say What are air fryer mistakes I shouldn't be making? Right? And and it was like, oh, no one's gonna search air fryer mistakes But it's such a good title. Anyway, so I just went with it. But it was quite the debate. And that video was the first week of December, and that just shot things up And and I really gained traction. And that is now my number one video. Um, the top refaire mistakes video. And then by Christmas, so at Christmas time, then I had enough content. air fryer stuff, then everyone, Christmas twenty twenty, is getting air fryers and they go search and who is the top creator at this point? It was me. And it just literally exploded to the point like at this point I was responding to every single contact comment on YouTube, right? Because it wasn't that many But I still remember that week of Christmas 2020, I was inundated with comments and it was so mostly, you know, 95% positive. But it was like I I I had to like pause because it was so much. And I I wasn't used to receiving that much praise, the criticism, whatever, but It was just a lot. My point though is trusting your gut if you know you've got something, if you've got a message or a product or whatever. And you believe in yourself enough that you're like, I know I'm creating good content. I just gotta give it some time. And if you think that your context content sucks, then go get some training, right? If you're really awkward on the camera, there's so much information available now. You can, it's a skill you can learn. Right? This the resources are out there. But yeah, for me it was just trusting my gut and I knew I had something that was gonna help people. And I actually had no idea what it was gonna turn to that my products or that I would number one create products. And number two, that my product sales were going to um crush what YouTube was paying me in ad revenue. Right. The the ad revenue is great, but essentially I look at it as as uh you know Google AdSense, I'm getting paid to get leads. Instead of paying. I'm not buying ads. I'm actually getting paid. To get leads to my funnels, to my Shopify to my affiliate links and sponsor you know, I'm eligible for sponsorships and there's so many different revenue streams. I had no idea.
Kurt Elster
That's really cool. It's tough to predict, but then you know the thing with Your tenacity, where you you're like, look, there's something here. I could feel it. You sometimes you have that sense. Even if it's not working out the way you want, just seeing like a little bit of incremental growth is enough to go, all right. There's something here, right? It's not just falling flat. Right. Hey, still struggling to increase AOV? You've built a great store, but your upsells and cross sells, they're underperforming. That's because outdated apps rely on guesswork. And that costs you real money. Enter Zipify one-click upsell. Their AI-powered tech finds the highest converting upsell for every customer. No complicated setup needed. Over 10,000 Shopify stores trust OCU. and it's already generated nearly a billion dollars in extra revenue. So if your upsells still run like they did five years ago, it's time to upgrade. Get Zipify one-click upsell Free for 30 days at zippify. com/slash curt. That's zi-p I f y dot com slash k u r t. Don't leave money on the table. Try AI powered upsells today. Was it sounded like that initial air fryer video that really takes take gets this business to take off. It sounds like you weren't you weren't convinced that was gonna work Right? But then you tried it anyway and it surprised you. Is how often does that happen? Like is is failure accepting that failure may occur an inherent part of this process, so just try it?
Cathy Yoder
Yes, and it's funny because the other video I almost didn't make in February 2021, and that's my number two video right now. But I had the idea for it. It's uh 15 things you didn't know you could make a narrow fryer or something like that. And I was working on it because it was 15 different recipes. So I, you know, it's not something I can do in one day. And so I was about, I don't know, 60% done with the video. I need to shoot intros. I need to f I still had to do I was doing all my own editing at this point. And I had not missed a week. I had been completely consistent through holidays, through everything. I got everything done and This video was set to go live, um, I don't know, third week of February, and then my entire family got COVID. And I was like felt terrible, right? I ha I got terrible sore throat, terrible head pounding, body aches. And I was like, crap, I haven't finished that video. And I've never missed an upload. What am I gonna like? So it was just this whole debate. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? And I just decided to suck it up. I got dressed. I put makeup on and I finished filming the video. And then I sat here at my desk and edited it. And got it, it uploaded, it went live. And that one, so that at that point I was doing pretty well. That one just went and that's the one that took me to 100,000 subscribers. Like that video alone. has made, you know, over the last four years has made over, I think over $70,000. It's brought me in, I think probably $200,000 of my subscribers came from that one video. So I I kind of use resistance as a signal that I'm onto something. Interesting. When I'm like when things get really hard and are trying to stop me from doing it, like, uh, that's gonna be a good one. So instead of letting it shut me down, I'm like, I'm gonna fight against that resistance and but let's see what happens.
Kurt Elster
So when you feel like you're You're talking yourself out of an opportunity is when that might be an important opportunity. Is that the mindset?
Cathy Yoder
Well, and it's it's like when everything in life starts to go wrong all of a sudden. I I've had it happen where I there's a a conference I was gonna go to and then it's like the worst week ever to walk away from my family and go to this conference, but then I have a life-changing conversation. Not not life-changing, but it was a pivotal moment and I I I can pin look back and just see all these little things and there's always resistance and chaos trying to shut me down and keep me from doing something that's about to be really great. So that's my it's my signal now when things get rough.
Kurt Elster
You put a lot of yourself into your content. I think for sure that authenticity is important. You've mentioned uh it being intentionally a little bit raw, where like maybe some mistakes get left in and that's fine. That makes it more real. Um authenticity, I think, has been a buzzword in content marketing for you know the last two years. We hear it a lot. But with uh social media, I think that's what people want. Is there a point where a video gets too polished where suddenly it works against you? I I'm in no f no risk of making a too polished video, but you may be.
Cathy Yoder
I don't know. I like I'm just thinking I read a comment last night on a video somebody was being critical of something I was doing and they're like, Yeah, e even your s editing skills couldn't say that. And I was like, well, number one, I didn't edit it and Anyway, I I was getting some criticism and I I mean I'd have to go back and look and see what did we edit something out that made it look like I've I'm faking a result here? Because I don't think I was. Um, but I think I'm probably just lazy enough that I'm not polishing things. Pretty much my my work is B minus, maybe B plus. I mean I see other food creators. I mean they've got beautiful shots. They can style their food. In a gorgeous way. My thumbnail, my thumbnails could probably be better. But I'm just like, it's just, it is what it is, and it's working for me. So I can't compare myself. I don't know if I have the problem of being too polished, honestly.
Kurt Elster
Your success speaks for itself, so I wouldn't would not worry about the quality of your content. You mentioned comments a couple times. YouTube comments are, I find, unusually odd as far as social media goes. Especially like when you get a crappy one, you ever click through on one of those users? Never have they uploaded. It's always zero videos. Right? The most critical people have never actually uploaded anything to YouTube and had that experience. Have you ever done anything to try and like it intentionally a little controversial or like intentionally misstate something to try and drive engagement. Like something harmless, but just to get people to comment because you know they're gonna be like, oh gotcha
Cathy Yoder
I my very first video about air fryer steak, in in the mix there's an ingredient called um I don't I call it wooster sauce now. It was a word at that point in time I could never say, so I just butchered it like no other. Like it's one quarter cup of Worcestershire, Cheshire Shosh, you know. And that just kind of was a joke in my house. It was like the one thing we could no one could pronounce, so we would completely mispronounce it. Anyway, I got so many comments from that one. Like you know, mean ones or just like honey let me help you. This is how you say it. And you know, a lot of people I have a lot of people in UK. So I had a few of them just say just call it Worcester Sauce. That's what we call the town here wherever. Anyway. So it's like, okay, I'm just gonna call Wooster Sauce. And then when I remade that steak video a few years later, I referred to that moment because I, you know, it was the exact same recipe. And then I still get some comments. Well, you're still saying it wrong. So it's it's fine. It's just it's funny. People are funny.
Kurt Elster
At some point do you just start ignoring the comments?
Cathy Yoder
Oh yeah. Yeah. A lot of times I'll get some in there. I got one time, this was, you know, a few years ago, so now I'm 50, but uh the person said, you're 50, get off the internet. And they just make me laugh. And so I'll screenshot and send them to my family group chat. And there's occasionally some that are just like They'll sting a little bit, or there's some that are inappropriate or just like really you know, commenting on my body or some you know, something about that. And then I'm like, okay, that's uncalled for, I will delete that. But for the most part, I leave them up.
Kurt Elster
You know, I find YouTube ha the YouTube moderation uh stuff they give you for comments is pretty good. Oh yeah. Like it it's good at finding and filtering out just like vulgar nonsense and spam. Right. Yes. The um you know you you give away a lot of content. I've a question I've heard from merchants is like, well, you know, with with content marketing, especially in a content marketing-driven business. Where's the balance between stuff I give away for free that's valuable and stuff I charge for?
Cathy Yoder
It's tricky. I mean, because there's sometimes that I feel like You know, there's there's a whole method of do a webinar for lead generation and you know sell. I I have like a membership on the back end and things I can do. But I'm like I I it does I like there's nothing more I can give. I literally given everything out. The only difference now is that things I'm repackaging things differently. So I actually I have a membership. um where I have all of my recipes and as I mentioned earlier, my videos are anywhere from three to thirty recipes. I have each recipe is now in a single, like we cut them into single things. I have them in a database that's searchable. You can search by ingredient. We have a PDF of the recipe. So we've just taken all of that and repackaged it and made it very user-friendly because I would get a lot of comments where people are like, I remember seeing you make the apple fritters, but I can't find that video Because the video has, you know, if it's got five recipes in it, I'm not listing every recipe in the title. So There are ways to search and you could do some digging in in YouTube. You know, you can go right to the channel. There's the little search bar within that channel, but then you still gotta find it within the video. Anyway, so I just made it easier. And I sell, I sell that to my video recipe catalog. And, you know, added value by creating the PDF of the recipe so they could just print it out and So it's again just repackaging things to make it to make it easier for the viewer.
Kurt Elster
You I was shocked at the usage a print recipe button got on a a Shopify blog. There's a we do work for uh a couple seasoning companies and they both do very you know they both share post recipes to YouTube, post them to blogs. And the thing that shocked me in heat mapping is that print recipe button, that is just lights up like our Christmas tree at a heat map. The number of people who print a recipe blew my mind. I still occasionally fire up the old laser printer, print some recipes. It's convenient. I just was shocked that I'm not alone here.
Cathy Yoder
Oh yeah. Yeah, and and uh we'll print them and then we'll print 'em again when we're like, wait, where'd that go? Okay, we go go search it There's the blog, print it again.
Kurt Elster
If you wake up tomorrow and said, look, I'm not uploading any more YouTube videos, what would you be doing instead?
Cathy Yoder
We've had these conversations, because it can get draining I don't know. I I really love the connection that I have. So I I in one of my memberships I have like a monthly call where we get on the same call, we cook something together. And that I love. Like if I could still connect with people and and do a Zoom call or whatever, but YouTube's my lead gen, so It's not going away anytime soon. But anything that I could do that would still serve people and help me connect with people is really That's what I would do.
Kurt Elster
That would be And if someone wanted to build a business the way you did, where you go, all right. I mean content first, audience first. then products. What's the one thing they gotta get right?
Cathy Yoder
Your camera present presence, right? Being being true to yourself and figuring out how to like if if somebody came and tried to mimic and do exactly how I did and speak the way I speak, but that's not how they actually were, it wouldn't come across well, right? So being your true authentic self And creating stuff and doing it because you want to help people. I think that's gotta be, you know, understanding your why and being willing to be terrible at something. And just focusing on trying to master that skill of how do I speak my truth on camera so it reaches the right people because everyone needs a different somebody, right?
Kurt Elster
That's great advice. Everybody needs a different somebody.
Cathy Yoder
Yeah. So that's when people are like, oh, it's too full. There's already enough air fryer recipes or whatever it would be. It's like, well There's somebody else that needs to learn it from you and not from me, right? Because they're gonna resonate with you more than they would with me. So maybe it is the you're an amazing chef. And you could totally up-level the air fryer in a chefy way, not a mom way. Like somebody, there's a whole group of people that need that. Because they my recipes are not advanced enough for them. Right.
Kurt Elster
Smart. Yeah, there's always a way to to add your personality to it, your background, your experience, and then in doing so, make it unique. But if I watched ten videos on air fryers from ten different creators, and then I sat down and made my own. It would be different than all ten of those. I mean I own an air fryer. I can figure this out. I'm not saying this video would be any good, but it would certainly be different. Right. I hope. Right. If I needed air fryer accessories, recipes, and advice, where do I go to find you?
Cathy Yoder
So if you go to empoweredcooks. com, that takes you to all of my You know, it's kind of my hub page. It'll get you to my YouTube channel to my online store. My Shopify is pineappepper. co And then, yeah, we're also on Amazon and all the places. Wonderful.
Kurt Elster
Kathy Yoder, I have learned. I've learned a lot and I'm now feeling quite insecure about my approach to YouTube I gotta I have to rethink things. You've given me a lot to think about. Uh so yeah, pine and pepper, check it out. Kathy Yoder, thank you so much. Thank you for it. It's been a lot of fun. Crowdfunding campaigns are great. You can add social proof and urgency to your product pre-orders while reducing risk of failure. But with traditional crowdfunding platforms. You're paying high fees and giving away control all while your campaign is lost in a sea of similar offers. It can be frustrating. That's why we built Crowdfunder, the Shopify app that turns your Shopify product pages into your own independent crowdfunding campaigns. We originally created Crowdfunder for our private clients, and it was so successful we turned it into an app that anyone can use. Today, merchants using Crowdfunder have raised millions collectively. With Crowdfunder, you'll enjoy real-time tracking, full campaign control, and direct customer engagement. And it's part of the Built for Shopify program. so you know it's easy to use. So say goodbye to high fees and hello to successful store-based crowdfunding. Start your free trial and transform your Shopify store Into a pre-order powerhouse today.
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