YouTube for B2B: From Zero to Results in 90 Days with Samu Kovacs

#47 - Most B2B marketing leaders know YouTube is the second-largest search engine on the planet. Almost none are actually using it well — and that gap is still wide open.

Samu Kovacs, founder of KS Media, has built a YouTube-first agency that works with over 40 B2B clients — including Adam Robinson of RB2B — to turn YouTube into one of their top pipeline channels. In this conversation, he breaks down why B2B YouTube strategy is one of the most underleveraged opportunities in marketing right now, what's keeping most companies from cracking it, and what a real YouTube-first approach actually looks like in practice.

If you've been circling YouTube but haven't been able to justify the investment, this is the episode that gives you a clear-eyed picture of what it takes.

About Samu Kovacs:

Samu Kovacs is the founder of KS Media (ks-media.co), a YouTube-first agency helping B2B companies build high-performing channels that generate measurable pipeline. His clients include some of the most recognized names in B2B SaaS, including Adam Robinson of RB2B.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why 90% of B2B companies still haven't cracked YouTube — and why that gap is the opportunity
• What has to be true before YouTube is worth the investment (ICP, product-market fit, and beyond)
• The realistic timeline to results: the 90-day, 4–6 month, and 6–12 month milestones
• YouTube-first content strategy vs. repurposing what already exists — and why the distinction matters
• Founder-led channels vs. company-branded channels: how to decide what's right for your business
• Long-form vs. Shorts: where B2B YouTube ROI actually comes from
• How YouTube is beginning to show up in LLM citations — and what that means for your B2B YouTube strategy

Chapter Markers:

• (00:00) Welcome and Episode Overview
• (04:25) The B2B YouTube Opportunity
• (12:25) Timeline to Results
• (20:53) YouTube Content Strategy
• (32:44) Case Studies and Takeaways

Resources:

Samu Kovacs on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samu-kovacs/

KS Media: https://ks-media.co

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Growth Activated is produced by Mandy Hornaday.

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Transcript

Mandy Hornaday:

Welcome to Growth Activated. I'm Mandy Hornaday, your host with 15 years of experience leading marketing teams ranging from small startups to large service organizations. I've built high-performing teams of all sizes and have seen firsthand how fast the landscape is evolving, making marketing leadership more complex than ever. Today, I help marketing leaders elevate their strategies, lead with confidence, and build careers they love. If you're ready to drive impact and unlock growth for yourself and your company, you're in the right place. Let's get started.

[EPISODE INTRO]

Mandy Hornaday:

Everyone in B2B knows search matters. You optimize for it, you build for it, you track it. And as AI-powered search has changed the game, the smartest marketing teams have adapted right along with it. And yet YouTube — the second largest search engine on the planet and increasingly a source that LLMs are actively pulling from — is almost entirely ignored by the B2B companies who would benefit most from it.

Mandy Hornaday:

Not because they've tried it and moved on, but because they never really started. And that gap is the opportunity.

Mandy Hornaday:

My guest today is Samu Kovacs, founder of KS Media, a YouTube-first agency working with over 40 B2B clients, including some of the biggest names you'll recognize if you spend any time in B2B SaaS circles. In this conversation, we'll dig into why YouTube is still wildly untapped for most B2B companies, what has to be true before it's worth investing in, how long it actually takes to see results, and what a YouTube-first content strategy looks like versus what most teams are doing.

Mandy Hornaday:

If you've been circling YouTube but haven't been able to justify the investment, this conversation will give you a clear picture of what it actually takes. Let's get into it.

[INTERVIEW]

Mandy Hornaday:

Hey, Samu, welcome to Growth Activated. We're so excited to have you here today.

Samu Kovacs:

Hey, Mandy, thanks for having me.

Mandy Hornaday:

Let's start with your background. How did you get into YouTube, and how long have you had your agency?

Samu Kovacs:

I started this whole thing around four years ago as a freelance video editor. That was my starting point — I was doing a lot of different videos, not just YouTube, but short form and other things. But I started working with more and more people who were doing YouTube videos and naturally got a lot more behind-the-scenes information about what it takes to grow a YouTube channel, what it takes to make a successful YouTube video. So I started learning more and more about it, and as I went along and got more experience, I thought — why not create a whole service around YouTube, not just the editing part? That's how the idea came first.

Samu Kovacs:

At that time I was still doing the work myself as a freelancer, but as I was getting more clients, I naturally hired another editor so I could concentrate on the other parts. That's how I built it up at the initial stages. Since then it's been a long journey, but I've stacked a lot of clients and now it's a full team.

Mandy Hornaday:

That's amazing. You have some really impressive clients — that's actually how I found you. Sometimes the cobbler doesn't have their own shoes. Do you have your own YouTube channel personally, or do you mostly just do it for clients?

Samu Kovacs:

Yes, I actually have my own YouTube channel, although I didn't do a great job the last couple of months because we were growing so fast that it became a lower priority. But I was still posting, and I'm getting back to it now. Before that I was posting super consistently for years.

Samu Kovacs:

I get most of my leads from LinkedIn, but YouTube is where I nurture them. That combo — LinkedIn as my top-of-funnel channel where I create most of my content, and YouTube where I can really nurture people and build deeper trust — that's what helped me scale to over 40 clients. So I definitely try to practice what I preach.

Mandy Hornaday:

Talk to me a little bit about YouTube in the B2B space. It felt like a few years ago everyone raced to create podcasts. Where do you feel YouTube sits with B2B today — is it still a blue ocean opportunity, or is it getting competitive?

Samu Kovacs:

That was the podcast boom a couple of years ago. YouTube is kind of going through that now, although it's not quite a YouTube boom — more that more companies are recognizing its importance. For about 90% of B2B companies, it's still super untapped.

Samu Kovacs:

YouTube is the second-largest search engine after Google. Everyone in B2B knows how important SEO is, and almost all B2B companies do it at some point — but YouTube is nowhere near that level. Very few B2B companies do it properly. A lot of them have a YouTube channel and have uploaded some videos, but most don't have an actual strategy. They don't have a proven system. They're not creating business results from YouTube — they're just using it as a video storage platform. So for most B2B companies in their specific niche, YouTube is still a wide-open space.

Mandy Hornaday:

Part of why I'm talking to you about this today is that it dawned on me earlier this year — probably too late — what an opportunity YouTube represents. Not only for discoverability and credibility, but also lead generation. And I think what's so powerful about YouTube is that it accomplishes a lot of our major marketing goals in one channel, whereas other channels can't necessarily say that.

Samu Kovacs:

I definitely agree. YouTube checks a lot of boxes. For most B2B companies, their ICP is on YouTube. Even if you're in a very niche B2B or SaaS space where you can't expect tens of thousands of views per video, you can still generate really good pipeline. We have clients who generate a couple hundred views per video and still bring in over six figures a year from YouTube leads alone.

Samu Kovacs:

It's definitely a channel with a lot of potential, and you don't need to go viral or be in a super broad space to succeed. Beyond direct lead gen, YouTube builds authority, and it influences the sales cycle for people who come to you from LinkedIn or any other channel. It has a compounding effect on all your other marketing channels — which is why we always think about YouTube as something you're doing for your entire marketing mix, not just for YouTube itself.

Mandy Hornaday:

I read something a while back that YouTube is now showing up in LLMs. Is that true? And how are you seeing that play out?

Samu Kovacs:

Yes, it's something more and more of our clients are seeing. ChatGPT and other LLMs are citing YouTube videos, and YouTube is increasingly where they pull from. It's still quite new — we don't have fully developed playbooks for YouTube and LLM rankings specifically. Our best bet right now is doing the things that would make you succeed on YouTube and rank well on Google anyway, since those same principles seem to apply to LLM visibility.

Samu Kovacs:

What we are definitely seeing is that many of our clients are starting to show up in LLMs. And if you go into YouTube Studio and look at traffic sources, you'll see ChatGPT listed as a referral source for a lot of our clients. That's a clear signal that a meaningful percentage of views are now coming from ChatGPT.

Mandy Hornaday:

So let's say we're sold as marketing leaders. Where does this go wrong when getting started, and what has to be true for a client to be set up for success?

Samu Kovacs:

There are two parts. The first is what needs to be true to succeed on YouTube — and that's knowing your ICP and having a proven offer, some degree of product-market fit. If you're at the early stages, still figuring out your offer, without a specific ICP or clear pain points you're solving, YouTube is not the right place to experiment. But when you already have a business that's doing well, that's where YouTube becomes really powerful — because then you know exactly who you're targeting and exactly what pain points to address.

Samu Kovacs:

The second part is how you'll actually execute. There are really only two approaches that work. One is working with an agency or vendor like us. The other is building a dedicated in-house YouTube team — but that requires at least three hires: a script writer, an editor, and a thumbnail designer at minimum. For most companies that aren't large enterprises, hiring three people specifically for YouTube doesn't make sense early on.

Samu Kovacs:

The mistake many companies make is trying to solve YouTube by putting it on existing marketers. YouTube is very specific — it's not short-form content, it's not SEO, it's not LinkedIn. Unless those marketers specialize in YouTube, it's very hard for them to figure it out given all the components: ideation, scripting, editing, thumbnails, and more. We always recommend either working with a vendor or, if you're at a later stage, building a dedicated in-house YouTube team.

Mandy Hornaday:

How long do you typically find it takes to build momentum and actually see sales being generated?

Samu Kovacs:

Most of our clients understand it's organic and needs to compound. If a client comes expecting results in two weeks, we know it's not a fit.

Samu Kovacs:

On average, it takes around three months to see the first signs of success when starting completely from zero. If you already have an audience — on LinkedIn, a newsletter, wherever — we sometimes see results in the first or second month because we can leverage those existing channels to amplify the YouTube content early on.

Samu Kovacs:

Starting from zero: around three months for the first couple of booked demos or signups, which we track with UTM links. Four to six months is where results become consistent. Six to twelve months is where you've successfully built YouTube as one of your top consistently generating channels.

Mandy Hornaday:

Where do you see the most impact from a conversion perspective — email capture, demos booked, free trial signups?

Samu Kovacs:

It depends on the type of business. We typically go with whatever conversion method that business already uses with other channels. Product-led SaaS — free signups. Sales-led — demos are the easiest path. If a business has a strong system for converting email subscribers into clients, we'll go with an email opt-in or lead magnet. But for most of our clients, it's either a book-a-call or book-a-demo funnel, or a free signup funnel.

Mandy Hornaday:

I was wondering this morning whether newsletter conversions would work with YouTube — it almost feels like if you're on YouTube, your preferred method of consumption is probably video, so I wasn't sure if a newsletter was a natural conversion path.

Samu Kovacs:

We've seen it work. Many big B2B YouTubers actually use that approach. Newsletters are longer-form text content, and YouTube videos are basically the same thing in video format, so there's real overlap there. We still prefer, in most cases, to drive the conversion directly on YouTube — into either a free signup or a book-a-demo — rather than routing through an email list first. But it definitely works.

Mandy Hornaday:

For large enterprises with multiple solutions, multiple personas, multiple industries — can YouTube still be a powerful channel, or does that dilute performance?

Samu Kovacs:

If you're in one industry with a couple of different personas, talking about one specific topic and a set of related pain points, YouTube still works very well. But if you have multiple unrelated industries and very different ICPs, we'd never recommend putting all of that on one channel. YouTube gets confused when a channel has videos for completely different audiences — performance suffers.

Samu Kovacs:

In those cases, we recommend either creating multiple channels or focusing one channel entirely on your highest-priority ICP. It depends on your resources and strategic priorities.

Mandy Hornaday:

What about founder-led marketing — do you build the founder's personal brand and lead people to the company, or do you recommend the company have its own channel?

Samu Kovacs:

It depends on whether you're already running a founder-led growth motion. In Adam Robinson's case, RB2B is growing primarily because of his LinkedIn presence — so extending that to YouTube was a natural fit. For companies where there's no existing founder brand, starting one can still work, but it's less powerful without that foundation.

Samu Kovacs:

Generally, if a client is open to scaling their founder brand and it's a priority, we recommend that over a company-branded channel. But a company-branded channel can still feel very personal — if videos are recorded by one person or a couple of key team members, it can be human and engaging. And growing two channels in parallel is possible if you have the resources, but for most companies new to YouTube, just start with one channel and focus there.

Mandy Hornaday:

I had Dave Gerhardt in my mind — he's his own brand, but then also has Exit 5. Would you build both in parallel?

[Editor's note: "Dave Gerhart" in auto-transcript corrected to "Dave Gerhardt" — verify against audio.]

Samu Kovacs:

We actually just started working with them — we're editing their podcast right now, which is exciting.

Mandy Hornaday:

Amazing. Congratulations.

Samu Kovacs:

Thank you.

Mandy Hornaday:

Let's talk about content strategy. You mentioned a lot of companies are just uploading the videos they have — podcasts, webinars, product demos. What does a proper, high-performing content strategy actually look like?

Samu Kovacs:

Most companies make the mistake of uploading videos that weren't made for YouTube. They just happen to be videos, so they get uploaded. What we preach — and what we do for the majority of our clients — is creating content specifically for YouTube, optimized for the platform from the ground up.

Samu Kovacs:

If you look at all the B2B channels that have actually made YouTube work, every single one created YouTube-specific content. That's the foundation.

Samu Kovacs:

Here's what that process looks like: first, we get very clear on the ICP — pain points, desires, customer research. Then we do YouTube-specific research: what's working in your niche and in related niches? What thumbnail concepts have worked? What title structures? What hook structures? We look at that data and make decisions based on what already works — not reinventing the wheel.

Samu Kovacs:

When it comes to the actual content, I always say: copy the wrapper, never copy the content. Get inspiration from what's already worked in terms of packaging, but make the core of your video unique to you. Share expertise only you can share, make it more valuable than anyone else in the market — that's how you dominate a niche on YouTube.

Samu Kovacs:

As for product demos — they don't work as organic YouTube videos. Parts of a video might reference or relate back to your product, but uploading a standalone product demo will do essentially nothing for you organically.

Mandy Hornaday:

Does housing those product demos on YouTube hurt you, or is it just neutral?

Samu Kovacs:

You can still house them on YouTube, but we always recommend making them unlisted. That means they're accessible to anyone with the link, but they don't appear on your channel. When someone visits your channel and considers subscribing, they should only see your YouTube-optimized content. So keep the channel clean and make everything else unlisted.

Mandy Hornaday:

How do Shorts fit in? Do you focus almost entirely on long form for B2B, or do Shorts play a role in the strategy?

Samu Kovacs:

We really specialize in long form. With B2B specifically, we haven't seen significant results from Shorts. The ROI consistently comes from long form, and that's where we double down.

Samu Kovacs:

The common thinking is: use Shorts to get awareness, then convert those viewers into long-form viewers. What we've seen is that these are actually two different personas. Someone watching Shorts is typically not the person who'll want to watch a 10 to 15-minute YouTube video. They tend to stay in their format.

Samu Kovacs:

And when you think about it — who is your ideal B2B client? Is it the person scrolling YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels, or is it the person with a specific problem who's actively searching YouTube for solutions and willing to watch a substantive video on that topic? Almost always the latter. We do Shorts for some clients as a repurposing play, but it's not where we see meaningful results for B2B.

Mandy Hornaday:

What does execution actually look like? For marketing leaders who are in it — whether they use an agency or do it in-house — what's the workflow?

Samu Kovacs:

It starts with creating the strategy: customer research plus YouTube-specific research to generate solid video ideas. Once you have that, the next step is scripting.

Samu Kovacs:

Many of our clients have a lot of existing content — LinkedIn posts, newsletters, blog posts — that we use as source material. You don't have to start from zero. But there's a lot that goes into turning that material into a proper YouTube script with the right hook, the right structure, and the right calls to action.

Samu Kovacs:

In our model, recording is the only step the client does. That takes around two to four hours per month shooting four videos. After recording comes production: editing, thumbnail creation, SEO — title, description, tags — and upload. The last step is distributing those YouTube videos across your other channels. A LinkedIn post linking to the video. Embedding in blog posts. Including in email sequences before demos or sales calls. There are a lot of opportunities to make YouTube work harder across your entire marketing funnel.

Mandy Hornaday:

Can a marketing team that already runs a webinar series or podcast turn that content into high-performing YouTube videos, or do you really have to create with YouTube first in mind?

Samu Kovacs:

Better than nothing — you can still package webinars and podcasts with the right thumbnails and titles and get some results on YouTube. But if you really want to crack YouTube and grow as fast as possible, it needs to be YouTube-first.

Samu Kovacs:

And here's the good news: the inverse works really well. A lot of our clients create for YouTube first and then take the audio — no effects, no music — and upload it as a podcast. Two birds, one stone. YouTube can be great pillar content that gets repurposed into a podcast, blog posts, whatever. It just doesn't work as well when something else is the pillar and YouTube is the repurpose.

Mandy Hornaday:

Wow. This is exciting. I'd love to hear some case studies — where has this really exceeded expectations for your clients?

Samu Kovacs:

One of our biggest — and probably the most recognizable — is Adam Robinson of RB2B. We started working with him around October of last year, about six months ago. At that point he had no YouTube-specific content and was sitting at around 2,000 subscribers — essentially a dead YouTube channel relative to his LinkedIn presence. He was just re-uploading his podcast or webinars, but that was it.

Samu Kovacs:

We created a separate channel for his podcast to keep the main channel clean, and for the main channel we started scripting YouTube-specific videos based on his LinkedIn posts and newsletters. Since then, he's approaching 10,000 subscribers, with some videos hitting 20k+ and 40k+ views. When we started, videos were getting around 300 views. He's also generated over 100 RB2B signups from YouTube — though exact attribution is tricky since the videos are distributed and embedded across LinkedIn too.

[Editor's note: "Taylor Herron" below — verify spelling against audio before publishing.]

Samu Kovacs:

The other case study is Taylor Herron — he's the cold email specialist who works with RB2B. Adam referred him to us after we started working together. Similar situation: around 18,000 LinkedIn followers but essentially no YouTube presence. We started scripting YouTube-specific content for him, and in the first month he made 10x his investment with us. That's super rare — we never promise or expect that — but that's what happened. Right now he's booking over 30 sales calls a month from YouTube specifically. One video essentially went viral for the space — it's now at 60k+ views in the cold outbound niche, which is extremely specific. He turned that video concept into a LinkedIn post, and it became his best-performing post ever: over 5,000 comments and hundreds of thousands of impressions. That's YouTube working as pillar content in a very concrete way.

Mandy Hornaday:

Is there due diligence you'd recommend marketing leaders do to vet whether YouTube is right for their specific business?

Samu Kovacs:

The easiest thing you can do is search your niche on YouTube. Try a few different keyword combinations related to what you do. See what's there: what types of videos are ranking, what results those videos are getting.

Samu Kovacs:

If you search and find only a few videos with a couple hundred views maximum, that gives you a sense of the organic reach ceiling for your niche. But that doesn't mean it's not worth it. In very specific niches, deal values and average contract values tend to be much higher — even a couple hundred views per video and one or two deals can pay for the investment many times over.

Samu Kovacs:

The key is setting the right expectations from the start. Before we begin with any client, we look at their niche and tell them honestly what's realistic. Sometimes that means saying, "You probably won't get more than a few hundred views per video, but we're confident you'll see strong ROI." That kind of candor matters.

Mandy Hornaday:

That's a good reminder. A while back I interviewed Eric from Hatch, and he made a similar point: 50 B2B views can be 10x more powerful than the same number in a B2C context. We're all consumers in our personal time, so we carry these expectations about view counts that just don't translate to B2B.

Samu Kovacs:

Exactly. That's a really important thing to always keep in mind.

Mandy Hornaday:

Any final tips or things we didn't cover that would be helpful for marketing leaders evaluating this?

Samu Kovacs:

The big thing I want to emphasize is the importance of long-form content overall. A lot of B2B companies and even founder-led personal brands are only focusing on short-form — LinkedIn posts, Shorts, Reels — and getting good results from it. But if you paired that with a podcast, a YouTube channel, or any form of long-form content, those results would compound significantly. You'd have a place to send people who want to learn more, go deeper, and build real trust — and that makes your sales cycle shorter and your conversions easier.

Samu Kovacs:

Long-form is where you build the kind of trust that actually closes deals. Without it, your competitors will build that trust instead. A lot of marketers and founders haven't made that shift yet, and I think it's one of the most important ones right now.

Mandy Hornaday:

Absolutely. It's been such a pleasure — I've learned so much. I appreciate your time today.

Samu Kovacs:

Of course. Thank you so much for having me.

Mandy Hornaday:

I'm sure people can find you on LinkedIn. If they want to learn more, should they book a discovery call or check out your YouTube channel?

Samu Kovacs:

Yes — YouTube, LinkedIn, and our website. Our website is ks-media.co. Anyone can book a discovery call there. I'm also very available on LinkedIn. If anyone wants to explore what this could look like for their specific company, I'm always happy to chat.

Mandy Hornaday:

Awesome. Thank you so much.

[OUTRO]

Mandy Hornaday:

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of Growth Activated. I hope this conversation sparked new ideas, challenged your thinking, and gave you practical tools to help elevate your impact as a marketing leader. If it did, I'd love for you to pass it along to a friend or colleague in B2B marketing. The more we grow together, the more we raise the bar for what marketing leadership can look like. And as always, in the meantime, keep activating growth for yourself and your company. See you next time.