Why Does High-Quality Editing Matter to Your Channel and Career?

It’s worth it in the end, we promise!

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

What is it about a well-edited video (whatever that may mean to each creator) that really helps drive a channel forward and grow it? Although you probably didn’t start your YouTube channel thinking of it as a business, once it becomes a career, this shift needs to happen in order to keep growing and maximizing its potential. One way in which you might not be helping that is by refusing to outsource some tasks that other people could do to free up your own time (during which you can do things that nobody else can – create your content!)
Photo from unsplash.com<br />
When you do look at it in a business-like way, you realize it’s much easier to make decisions that benefit your channel growth and help you build a more enjoyable career. And when you specifically choose to outsource your editing to a freelancer or a team that will take that weight off your shoulders and elevate your content, the list of benefits just keeps going and going.

On the one hand, there are direct benefits to improving your editing quality. The first has to do with how viewers see your videos – simply put, how much better it looks to them. This can vary depending on what type of creator you are: for some, it may mean “funnier”, to others “faster” or even “more professional”. The fact is that people gravitate towards higher quality content, so that’s already a quick leg up for you.

People also consume more of what they think is “good”. In YouTube terms, this translates as increased audience retention and long term views. And this spike in preference for your videos will in turn drive the algorithm to work in your favor by promoting your videos more often.

By now, you must have noticed a common thread in these scenarios: they all lead to an increase in adsense profit. It’s a very simple equation: more viewers (and more engaged viewers) equals a higher revenue for your business. Yay, growth!

On the other hand – and this is something that most creators tend to overlook – there are indirect benefits that come with improving the editing quality of your videos. They mostly derive from the increase in subscribers and new viewers that we talked about but, how, specifically?

To mention a few, you’ll probably see an increase in the number of stream donations, Patreons and YouTube memberships, as well as increases in merch sales and (this is a big one) improved and higher price brand deals – you know, since you’re so popular now. As more and more brands realize the potential of creators in promoting their products, they bet on you as the future of entertainment. So the more authentic and engaged you are with your audience, the more (and bigger) brands will come knocking on your door.

Let’s take an example.

Picture this: you chose to invest (either time or money) in better editing for your videos. Since people are watching it more, the algorithm is working in your favor and promoting your videos to new viewers. So someone new -let’s call him Pete – comes across one of your videos. Because it’s better edited than most of the ones in its niche, Pete watches it all the way through. He likes it so much, he subscribes and decides to watch one of your videos everyday on his lunch break. So he’s watched roughly 20 of your videos in a month (which generates Adsense revenue). The following month, he decides to get a hoodie from your merch store ($20 profit – he’s a serious fan by now) and he also clicks on some affiliate links and makes some more purchases (say $2 more in revenue). So within 2 months, you’ve gotten $22 plus Adsense revenue from one single new viewer. Thanks, Pete!

Now of course you wouldn’t be gaining only one new viewer, let’s say it’s more like 5000. Out of those, maybe 750 of them subscribe and also watch 20 of your videos a month. That’s now an increase in Adsense revenue. Maybe 100 buy a hoodie: $2,000 in merch profit. Maybe 300 click on affiliate links, generating $600? The total now is $2,600 – plus increases in Patreons and sponsorships – over a two-month period, all because you decided to invest in better editing.

Photo by Peter Stumpf - @peter.stmpf<br />

It’s pretty clear right now that improving your editing quality is worth the extra time or money (up until a reasonable point), because the value per extra view is actually worth a lot more than just the individual video adsense earnings (which is most creators’ metric for video editing budget). In other words, this is the reason why you should really consider working with a freelance editor or editing agency.

To really understand why having an editing budget is your best professional bet, check out this article.

Hope you found some useful ideas – thanks for coming by!

NC team

Tags: Video Editor, Editing, YouTube, Creator, Growth, Content Creation