Beauty YouTuber Shares How She Quit Her Job for YouTube with Stephanie Marie: The YouTube Power Hour Podcast 266
“I wanted to help people who were struggling.”
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Stephanie Marie is a New Orleans based YouTuber, beauty influencer, and social media consultant who has become the go-to source for attainable real-world beauty and lifestyle advice. Her mission is to help women feel better about themselves as they age and make better buying decisions. Stephanie provides easy to follow makeup and skincare tips, tutorials, and advice, as well as honest and thorough product reviews. Through her content, she has been able to reach women of all ages with her thoughtful, engaging approach, and has worked with numerous brands, including Sephora, Nordstrom, Estee Lauder. Stephanie currently has over 165k subscribers and 17 million video views!
Stephanie has been on YouTube since July of 2016 after her seeing her 10 year old daughter constantly watching beauty videos on YouTube. As a makeup enthusiast, Stephanie was initially apprehensive to her daughter’s encouragement for her to get onto YouTube because she had a full-time job, but eventually she caved, believing that life was short and… why not? She didn’t tell anyone but her household for the first 9 months of having her channel! Stephanie saw that there was a gap in her demographic no YouTube. There were younger beauty YouTubers in their twenties, and older beauty YouTubers for women in their 50s, but there wasn’t really anyone catering to women in their late 30s and early 40s when women’s skin really begins to change. She immediately knew what she wanted to create and for whom. Her goal was and still is to help women make better buying decisions, do things better, and make life easier.
“It was the best decision I ever made for myself.”
Stephanie’s channel saw steady growth. She had one video take off and it was surprising to her that it did, because she believes she has other videos on the same topic that are even better! She tried to capitalize on the success on that video and tried to make more along the same idea, but they haven’t taken off the way the first one has, despite being better quality. The steady climb of that video gained her about 16,000 subscribers. Rather than an instant overnight success, it went viral slowly, which helped her channel in the long run. The beauty niche is super saturated, and even though Stephanie has a target audience and topic within the beauty niche, she still has to carefully plan out her content. She is meticulous about her content calendar, that she plans 3 months out in advance! She has her core topics that she knows appeal to her viewers (but could also appeal to others): her “top” grouping videos do well, as do her videos about foundation and concealer. She also is sure to do skincare and anti-aging videos once per month, and she has started to find that her drug store product videos are starting to do well also. She sprinkles in a few how-to videos to break it up (and because not everyone can just purchase product all of the time). She rotates her ideas around her calendar and is careful not to put too many of the same topic near each other. As for trends, Stephanie doesn’t tend to get caught up in the trendy video ideas because it’s not what her audience likes. She creates what she would want to see because that’s what her audience likes to see. By having a strategy 3 months in advance, she won’t fall behind.
“No one’s making me do this. There’s no one that’s going to make me get up in the morning and do what I need to do. I have to do it.”
3 Key Interview Takeaways
Three Key Takeaways:
- When to quit your full-time job for YouTube. There’s a lot of things you have to think about before you take the leap. It’s not just about matching or replacing your income. For Stephanie, she had to consider health insurance, life insurance, her 401K, atc. Stephanie’s channel started as a hobby, then evolved into something that earned her some extra cash, and then it was an entire second full time job. She was exhausted but realized that it was her day job that needed to go, and as her YouTube income grew, so did her passion for creating. But make sure you have all your ducks in a row before making that decision.
- Don’t have all your eggs in one basket. Quitting your job for YouTube is scary, but it would be smart to diversify your income and have multiple revenue streams. AdSense is really not that much. Stephanie earns money from affiliates, sponsorships and brand deals, blogging, etc.
- Outsource. As Stephanie began to feel burned out and overwhelmed, she realize she needed to let go of some of the things she was doing on her own and outsource it to someone. Outsourcing is not for everybody, but if you’re in a position to let go of some of the things you don’t enjoy doing to alleviate the burden on yourself, do it!
Mentioned in the Episode:
Eyeliner Trick for Hooded, Downturned, Aging Eyes | Quick EASY Eye lift!
How to apply Estee Lauder double wear WITHOUT looking cakey! | EASY! (ORIGINAL VIDEO)
How to apply Estee Lauder double wear WITHOUT looking cakey! | UPDATE
Connect with Stephanie:
Resources
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FREE GUIDES:
Creating Content During Crisis: How to Create Impactful Content During COVID-19 Pandemic
Getting Started on YouTube: YouTube Niche Workbook
How to get onto PR lists and receive a TON of free product even if you have a small following: PR List
YOUTUBE OPTIMIZATION PLUG-IN I RECOMMEND
TubeBuddy [Use the code ErikasBuddy to get 20% off]
MY FAVORITE BUSINESS TOOLS
Course Creation: Looking to create a course? Kajabi is the BEST platform hands down. I use this for my course after extensive research on all the other platforms.
Live Calls and Interviews: I use Ecamm for my podcast interviews, both audio and for YouTube that you see here on YouTube. It makes it super easy to share my screen and create the split-screen with my guest. I’m not super techie and this software is really easy to use!
Webinars and Live calls: I use Zoom.us for my group coaching calls in my private membership group for female YouTube creators. It’s also the software I use to record my Road to 100k YouTube Subscribers Masterclass!
THE BEST YOUTUBE/PODCASTING EQUIPMENT
After interviewing HUNDREDS of successful YouTube creators, these are the pieces of equipment that hands down get mentioned time and time again. You can’t go wrong with anything on this list!
- 4k Camera: Great for starting out and vlogging
- Lens: This lens is recommended highly by many of my podcast guests, it gives the blurry “YouTuber” background look.
- Audio: If you want to upgrade your set-up, audio should be one of the first investments (after a good camera). This microphone is unanimously the favorite amongst my podcast guests.
- Podcast/Voiceover Microphone: If you are looking for a great microphone for a podcast or video voiceover, this is it! This is the one that you see in all of my videos and the one I’ve recorded my podcast on for years.
- Webcam: For my interviews, that you see in my videos, this is the webcam that I use. Super inexpensive and easy to set up!
- Inexpensive Lighting Kit: Need to pick up some lights but don’t want to spend a ton? This is a great set that will get you started and help improve the look of your videos.
- Ring light: Looking for that beauty look? Invest in a ring light! This is an inexpensive light that does that trick!
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