Vegan Food Truck Business Podcast

Grow a Loyal Fan Base On YouTube - Vegan Influencer Secrets From Ali Essig of PlantWhys: Ep. 8

• Heather Zeitzwolfe (Savvy Frugal Vegan) • Season 1 • Episode 8

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🔥 Ready to grow your vegan business and reach more customers using YouTube? In this episode of the Vegan Food Truck Business Podcast, YouTube creator and vegan influencer Ali Essig of PlantWhys reveals the strategies that helped her turn a personal health crisis into a thriving channel with thousands of dedicated followers. Discover how she creates engaging content, attracts loyal subscribers, and uses YouTube to drive her business success—all while juggling life as a mom of six!

🚚 Whether you're running a food truck or looking to expand your reach online, this episode is packed with actionable tips to help you build a loyal following and boost your business.

🔑 What You’ll Learn:
✅ How to create engaging videos that resonate with your target audience
✅ The secret to building a loyal community through authentic storytelling
✅ How to leverage YouTube’s algorithm to increase views and subscribers
✅ The best ways to optimize thumbnails and video titles for maximum clicks
✅ When and how to approach sponsorships to monetize your content
✅ Why consistency is key—and how to stay motivated even when growth is slow

💡 Plus, discover Ali’s biggest mistake that unexpectedly skyrocketed her channel—and why you shouldn't fear imperfection!

👉 This episode is a must-listen for vegan food truck owners and content creators ready to turn their passion into profit. Don’t miss out on these proven strategies for mastering YouTube!

🔗 Connect with Ali Essig (PlantWhys):

🎁 FREE RESOURCE:
Grab Ali’s Plant-Based Starter Guide: plantwhys.com/starter-guide

🔎 Keywords: #VeganBusiness #YouTubeStrategy #PlantBased #FoodTruck #ContentCreation #VeganEntrepreneur #PlantBasedBusiness #FoodTruckMarketing #VeganFoodTruck #SocialMediaMarketing

Follow Savvy Frugal Vegan:
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Check out the website for upcoming workshops, events, coaching, and more
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Heather: [00:00:00] Ever wonder why some YouTube channels are crushing it, while others barely get noticed? Today we're gonna dive into the secrets of YouTube success, with someone who's lived it. Ali Essig of PlantWise.imagine this, your life is going along normally when suddenly your 37 year old husband has a stroke.

In that moment, everything changes. That's exactly what happened to Allie. she transformed this crisis into an opportunity, launching a YouTube channel that would help thousands of people transition to a vegan lifestyle. now you may have been thinking about starting your own YouTube channel,

 Allie breaks down exactly how she wentfrom zero to thousands of followers.

And she shares all of her insider secrets about sponsorships, thumbnails, and what it really takes to build a successful channel. Get ready for some real talk on how to turn your YouTube dreams into a reality. This [00:01:00] is the Vegan Food Truck Business Podcast, and I am your host, Heather Zeitzwolfe

Heather: We are here with Allie Essig. Welcome to the show. 

Alisia Essig: Thank you. It's good to be here. 

Heather: your story into veganism is kind of a tragic one. Your husband had a stroke. Your dad had, heart problems in his fifties. Tell me about how you got into, the vegan plant based world. 

Alisia Essig: I never thought this is what my life would be like now.

I used to work on Capitol Hill for a congressman. I have six kids after leaving Capitol Hill, I worked on political campaigns. I'm a pilates instructor that was my life until October 1st, 2019 I got a call that my husband was not okay.

I remember opening the ER door, scanning the room. Finding him slumped over in a wheelchair and in my heart. I knew instantly. It looks like he's having a stroke. Like he looked, like he was 80 years old.it took doctors hours, so many hours waiting and so many tests to Find out that what my heart knew was true and that he was suffering a stroke.

It was affecting his vision my father had previously [00:02:00] passed away from a heart attack, the mother bear in me was like, I can't do this. I gotta do something that's in my power. There was no clear reasons why a 37 year old would have a stroke.

His cholesterol was elevated. He was. slightly overweight. there was no heart arrhythmia, no hole in his heart, no genetic history, we were left with a piece of paper that said from here on out in order to reduce his chance of having another stroke, he needs to follow a heart healthy diet.

I dived deep to find out what is a heart healthy diet. What does avoiding saturated fat cholesterol and trans fat actually look like when it comes to cooking meals and dinner, after going, whole food, plant based for five months, his vision did finally come back.

He lost a ton of weight. His cholesterol, his blood pressure, everything went down. It like totally transformed him I'm grateful every day you wouldn't even know he had a stroke. 

it change our life it put me on this trajectory I became obsessed with this way of eating. it would have saved my husband a stroke. Everyone needs to know this. that's why I'm doing what I'm doing today.

Heather: that's amazing. 

Alisia Essig: your stuff is so beautiful. were you in marketing or were you a chef before [00:03:00] any of this? I didn't even really like to cook. I was just like, what is fast and easy. But there's something about making something vegan that is so intriguing to me.

it's such a creative process. It'slike, 

okay, I used to make lasagna this way. Now, how can I make it vegan without just putting in the vegan cheese? how can I make a tofu ricotta? How can I, Change it up and be creative. I love the creative process. I love the challenge and I experiment a lot and sometimes it fails.

most of the time it's fun to come up with something. especially when I can feed it to non vegans and they're like, this is so good. I'm like, yeah. And it's vegan. 

Heather: when you go vegan, You're like, OK, I'm going to let the world know about this. I'm going to start a YouTube channel. Tell me about that.

How did that get started? 

what was that process? 

Alisia Essig: Yeah. after people saw results in my husband, they began to ask questions like, how'd you do this?

What are you feeding your kids? All the questions. I decided if I was going to do this, I was going to start a business. I saw in my future, I have six kids and the youngest kids were in just a few more years going to school and thinking, okay, I want to make something out of this.

I, first started by having a [00:04:00] coaching business. And when you pay for ads and all these other things, I started an Instagram and I was like, there has to be a better way to find clients than just, paying all this money to Facebook ads and posting every day to Instagram.

I went to a conference where I saw Daryl Eves he wrote the book called the YouTube formula.

my heart just knew like I needed to do this, luckily I had a friend who was an editor that was asking if I had any work, and so it all came together in the right space. I also met someone who was really successful and it had nothing to do with Veganism.

But she was like, you have to start a vegan YouTube channel. and I prefer plant based, like vegan actually, because I am more scared of it, but then she's no, you have to do the research like Daryl Eves teaches in his YouTube formula. this is what I want everyone who is thinking YouTube channel to know.

This is the most important thing that I can share with you. That's in Daryl Eves book, but he goes deep into it, is doing your recon and research. start a new email account, log into that and just go to a fresh YouTube page and search, like I search plant based [00:05:00] education, I thought I would start like a plant based education YouTube channel.

And then you click on whatever videos pop up. You watch the video. If you like the video, you subscribe. And then you notice what YouTube is pushing on your homepage or on the right hand side videos And I noticed as soon as I started watching some plant based videos all of a sudden all I see on the right hand side Is vegan recipes that YouTube was pushing vegan recipes And I was like, I guess I have to be a vegan youtuber

it's so important to understand the algorithm, like what is YouTube pushing, what are people searching for, and it makes sense when I'm searching for a recipe, I'm searching for vegan, I'm not gonna search for plant based because if it's plant based someone might put dairy in it, 

And so I wanted to make sure it was vegan. And that is what I'm posting now. Even though I'm not even perfect all the time. I have six kids. It's impossible to control everything they're eating But I realized okay, if I start doing this, and then you also look for, this is another key for anyone interested in starting a YouTube channel, you look for outliers.

Look for the videos where they're getting more views than [00:06:00] subscribers. And then, copy the same type of topic. you see, what is it they're using. One thing that I do all the time is, dump and go. Or dump and bake. So I have a bucket that's just my dump and go recipes. There's another bucket that is, that I noticed did really well in other videos, was everyone needs to know. So I did another bucket. And then I found another one that's like hacks. I noticed that hacks would do really well that some of the videos that came, the vegan hacks that everyone needs to know, what would pop up.

and then I have a hacks bucket and you really kind ofcycle through these buckets. And then if one bucket isn't doing very well, then you drop it find another outlier, find another type of content that you can do. it just. really made it easy for me. I was like, okay, I'm going to start doing this.

I have these buckets, like some were super cheap vegan meals, for beginners or high protein. And you'll notice now that I've told you this, if you go through all my videos, you see those four themes. And then you see, when I start to switch a thing, you see, when I dropped the high protein and moving to the hacks and then the hacks took off.

And then you see, okay I, there's only so many hacks that you can teach. And so I had to drop that [00:07:00] just because I don't have. that many hacks up my sleeve. And so then you'll see, okay, I started picking up more dump and go recipes.it's really interesting you really have to do the research, and see what's trending and then do a version that is right to you and authentic to you.

are these different playlists that you would create Yeah.once you have enough videos, you turn it into a playlist. 

Heather: Dump and go.What does that mean? Dump and go. 

Alisia Essig: Basically dump and bake, dump it. There's a couple of different ways, but when I did my Recon and research, I noticed there's a lot of vegans who are single women who, you know, maybesome of them do really well, but they use really elaborate recipes.

Like I can't find that in my grocery store. There wasn't just a mom trying to make this work for her family. There wasn't a lot of people who had. Six kids. There wasn't a lot of people who are just like, look, I have to run to soccer. I have to run to gymnastics. Like I just need a quick meal that I know is healthy.

And so dump and go really reaches that type of crowd. I saw this and this is where it's really important to see and do the research because in other recipe channels that aren't vegan, they're all [00:08:00] so many of them are doing that like cheap dump and go fast and easy. And so I wanted to apply that in the vegan world too.

dump and go instant pot. Like you just. Dump it in, turn it on, go. Dump and go crockpot. Dump it in, turn it on, go. 

Heather: it's really knowing the terminology ofyour target audience Because I would never think of the word dump and go.

 yes, that makes sense, especially if if you have six kids, you're always on the move. So knowing your target doing this research. I love this idea of just opening up a new account because.

When I do the similar kind of search, I still have all my like SNL comedy stuff coming up, this is disgusting. But my husband had earwax impacted. I looked up these videos now I get an overabundance of earwax videos coming up in my.

feed we want to have our stuff in the feed not earwax.That's a different kind of dump and go, how long before you saw results?

Alisia Essig: Yeah, it took a year. I would get a couple of subscribers, but I posted, and this is another thing. When you start a YouTube channel,It has to [00:09:00] be that you post at the same time every single week.

So every Saturday at 8 AM Eastern time, I've been posting never miss a week. If I plan ahead, if I'm going to be out of town or if there's a vacation, but. I invested a lot of money in the sense of I was paying for an editor, but I was able to do that because I had a coaching business I knew that this was my long term plan.

YouTube, is like investing in real estate. you're not going to see benefits right at first. But over time, it appreciates. it's so much better than Instagram because it's searchable. 

it took a year and I was, paying my editor every week, I was learning and was crappy at the beginning. I didn't even know where the lens was on my camera, 

Heather: did you find when you were doing these on a regular basis, there were certain sweet spots as far as the length your thumbnails, like I know it's all a learning process and things are always changing, Did you go back and tweak things?

what were some of those, hiccups along the way that you learned from? 

Alisia Essig: A hundred percent. there is a magic formula and length. You want it at least to be eight minutes, you want to be able to get the ads in there so you can make money. My sweet spot.

is around 12 minutes, I spend [00:10:00] one day filming sometimes I'll mix it up into different days, but to me filming more than three recipes is overwhelming. another food blogger, friend does five recipes every week.

she's not running a coaching business. for me, it was three recipes. Other people spend a lot of time on one recipe, but their production value is amazing. I knew coming off the bat, I'm using my phone to this day. I still record on my cell phone.

nothing fancy. I bought a mic and that's it. Cell phone and mic. Mic was like a hundred bucks. the first couple of videos, I didn't even have a mic. it took me a while to even get there. I just wanted to put it out there. you learn from the thumbnail. You always want to see the whites of your eyes.

you don't want to be so far back. People need to trust you. The more like. Excited you are, want them to be curious to look at it. And sometimes just, experiment, just showing the food. If the food can sell itself, then it's delicious enough.

my editor and I Like with the reps got better and we still have room to improve, at first where there's a lot of white space, where we're cooking and now it just goes clip, to keep people's attention.

we move the camera every three seconds. There's so much that goes into it, but you only learn by doing. you just have to start, put something out there. here's the biggest thing I want to share too.most [00:11:00] people who go vegan didn't grow up this way, of us are perfect.

in one of my hack videos, I used a ranch dressing mix that, I didn't double check and it had buttermilk in it. And I didn't know. And so I showed Oh, you can make a ranch dressing dip instead of with sour cream. You can do it with tofu. It was my hack.

I put it in there. at the time, I had 2, 000 subscribers. I had been doing YouTube consistently every Saturday for a year. Nothing, you know, and I'd even hired a consultant to help me get better and help me, and he really was good being like, okay, this view, make it change this angle, you know, helping me be better, but not much had changed.

And then, I accidentally made that mistake and so many people commented that's not vegan, that's not vegan, that's not vegan, and I was like, I had no idea, oh my gosh, but because of all of those comments, it propped my video up and overnight I got 6, 000 subscribers, overnight, all of a suddenmy channel just shot up and I gained, I mean I went to, from there to 20, 000 so fast because of that one mistake.

So don't be afraid to make mistakes, I thought I checked. I [00:12:00] didn't know that in the recipes that might contain some milk, I'm still learning. 

Heather: Yeah. Vegans are ready, To chastise people when they use something that is not vegan.

 the comments can get out of hand. That is really funny.I have friends doing Instagram and I found spelling errors in their video. And I was like, Hey, just to let you know, you got spelling errors.

They're like, I know I purposely put them in there so that I would get comments. yeah, it was a magical mistake. you know, Things are always changing. Now we have, YouTube shorts, which has been around now for a little while. Do you dabble in that at all?

Alisia Essig: Yeah, I have dabbled and feel like I don't have the formula. I don't haveon Instagram either. I, I post Instagram. I have around 27, 000 followers there, but I have random videos that have done really well and I'll get like 7000 followers, but I can't duplicate it. Like I don't know the formula on Instagram.

Like I feel like YouTube I'm catching the formula and repeating what works and it's slowly growing. I think it's similar in the sense of I have just reposted what I've done on Instagram over to YouTube Shorts and it [00:13:00] doesn't do very well. I get like 5, 000 views when on average my videos get, anywhere between 10 to 20, 

 It can be done and it can work. I haven't figured that part out yet. So I'm just going to stick with the long form and go from there. it's been a game changer for my business the coaching business side, where II have a membership, I help people transition to plant based eating.

I'm there for them. Like I wish someone was for me when we had the health event. It's helped so many people. I always offer, this is another trick for anyone wanting to build your business. You always want to gather emails. in every single video your intro has to be super short, no longer than 30 seconds.

It's not welcome back to my channel. I'm so glad. No, cut them out. I'm making three recipes. They're dumping go. They're yummy. Let's go. And then you show the recipes. And then in the middle, I always say, Hey, really quick, have you signed up for my free meal guide? And in my free meal guide, I have a full week of delicious whole food, plant based recipes with the shopping list.

once they do that, then I can capture their email. at the end of the YouTube video, it's really important that you keep them on YouTube longer. Because you want them to keep watching more. Because YouTube is paying me to create content, and I [00:14:00] want them to keep watching more at the end, I'm like, if you like this video, then I know you'll like my other video. And I always refer to another video. So that's like the formula with each one. I'll always do three, usually three recipes. If I'm going out of town now that I have enough content built over the last two years, I'll just do a compilation video, like 10 of the best lentil recipes, black bean recipes.

And I'll just pull from my other videos and then have my editor do it so that I don't have to film an extra week, especially if I'm going out of town. 

for people who have a food truck, one of the biggest selling points is the food that they're preparing? people love to look at food. So how do you go about making your food look beautiful on film? You've mentioned you have an editor. do you always make sure that you have Good, still photos, photos of the process when it's done,It's true. You know, You need those shots. You have the, okay, this is what we're going to make pull in. A picture of video of what it looks like. And so I know I need the shot of the final product. I have, photography overlay. So I put on the ground right by my door.

my kids are walking home from school. I'm like, don't come in yet. You know, Taking a picture of it.It's hilarious. A lot of times I'll [00:15:00] put behind the scenes on Instagram. look how pretty this looks. And then I look up and it's my front door wide open. got to get the natural light in there somehow.

Heather: how do you taste test? Do your children help you, taste test your recipes? 

Alisia Essig: Oh yeah. They love it.

What about getting the plaque from YouTube? Did you get one of those? 

Not yet I have to hit 100k. That's my goal. I'm at 45, 000 subscribers. that's a big thing.

It will go right here on my wall. 

Heather: you talked a little bit about monetizing. you make money from YouTube, from ads Have you ever talked to anyone to sponsor you? Is that in the works 

Alisia Essig: such a great question.

So you want to decide before you start YouTube, what is your end goal? my end goal was to capture emails for my coaching business. I make more money on the coaching side, I have my membership I love that YouTube pays me to create content 

The pay is great right now. I'm making more than what I pay my editor. this month. It was twice as much. I'm like, yeah, it's finally, at first I was like, my goal is just to cover the cost of the editor. And after 4, 000 watch hours, or at least 1, 000 subscribers, you can be qualified to be, monetized, [00:16:00] basically, from YouTube.

So then you have to fill in all the work. And luckily for me, that happened right before I made that mistake on the hacks, putting the ranch dressing in. once my channel did blow up, then I could get money from everything right away, which was It was amazing. It was such a gift.

I am reached out to probably once or twice or three times a day from people who would like me to sponsor this or sponsor that. my, YouTube coach that I met at the beginning, said, do not. Do any sponsorships until you've reached at least 50 000 subscribers because people need to know and trust you Before they even invest anything else and then once you do it has to be worth your time Because you're taking time away from telling them to get the email guide to go to your business And so where are you going to make more money from your business you know, in fact a really big vegan brand I won't say who it is, but they reached out and I was So star struck I met with a famous vegan influencer. felt so honor. It was just so cool. And then the proposal came and I was like, I know I would make off of the sales, but I'm like, I make more in two core cells, than I would from, it's just not worth it [00:17:00] because I have my business on the other end.

So again, you have to think what is the purpose. certain things that I'm using, I always have my Amazon links and if I already love it,I'm more than willing I'm not asking to be a partner.

I'm just like, give me a referral link. Cause I use it anyway. you got to be smart in that. So if you're going to use it anyway, then might as well make some money. 

besides the research you've done on YouTube, are there certain things little hacks that you've used building, like SEO on your site, making sure that your thumbnails are better do you have any advice on that? there's a great AI tool called Spotter AI. this tool was made specifically for YouTube. And like I said before, when you're looking for outliers, Open up Spotter AI, search vegan recipe, and it will immediately show me all of the outliers, all of the videos that are trending so I can easily get ideas.

Then for thumbnail it will give me ideas At this point, I'm in a routine where I show the recipe or my face pointing If you look at Mr. Beast, like the same face, it's not like he has 20 different faces.

It's pretty similar. It changes a [00:18:00] little bit, and it's also really helpful for the title because I'll have an idea, like 10 smoothie recipes and I can put it in Or, you can use this variation. So spotter AI is awesome. also other plugins, like tube buddy that I've used that will help you.

I think Spotter AI a great tool that's worth the price. 

Heather: Awesome. once you get yourself camera ready, you might as well like get.

a green screen and just take a bunch of pictures of you like surprise, disappointed, you're talking about the pointing and the happywe might as well just get them all done and cut them out when you need them.

Alisia Essig: It's so true. And you need the right lighting. But yeah, I use my same three faces, 

Heather: we know that you do coaching. So you do coaching as far as people who want to, 

Start or maintain a vegan diet. Tell us about what you offer and how they can get ahold of you. 

Alisia Essig: Yeah. It's funny because again, when you start a business and you probably feel this way, too, when you start a business, it's your passion about it. You want to start it. And then you realize if you build it, they don't come.

Like you have to market. You have to do all these things. So you have to dive deep into all that. Another thing I learned is you got to sell people what [00:19:00] they want and then give them what they need. I sell plant based weight loss. Because that's what people want.

Beginning when I was working with clients, helping them, maybe they had gout or super high cholesterol. We got their cholesterol down. We got their gout symptoms to completely go away. But if they didn't lose weight, they were disappointed. 

if you want to lose weight. You are intentionally not eating enough calories, when following a plant based diet, as long as you're eating enough calories, you're getting enough protein, 

If you're eating 1500 calories, you still want to be hitting at least around for women around 60 grams of protein a day. So that's where, when they come into my program, I have what's called like a jumpstart. So the first six weeks, as we go through we establish your plant wise plate.

We make sure you're eating a fruit veggie, whole grain, 20 grams of protein with every meal minimizing calories it's amazing what these little tweaks like eating more fruit, eating adequate protein, and how the weight just starts to drop because you're satiated, you're full 

Heather: Wow.

Alisia Essig: thank you so much. how do people get ahold of you? 

 for anyone listening, if you are interested in my program, I'm going to give Heather a free 30 day trial that you can't get anywhere else, try it for [00:20:00] 30 days, see if it's the right fit. If it's not, you're welcome to cancel, and then you can find me on Instagram. My company is called PlantWise, P L A N T W H Y S, I like to teach the why behind eating more plants. And then you'll find me on YouTube, it's under the same name, just PlantWise, P L A N T W H Y S. 

Heather: I love it. Thank you so much, Allie.

anything else that you want to add, anything we didn't cover? 

Alisia Essig: Yeah. I say just go for it. if you have it in your heart Like I knew in my heart I needed to do YouTube. I was scared and I was embarrassed and allthe reasons, but just start, you'll get better over time.

be consistent. And that's huge. And be willing to ask for help, be willing to invest in an editor to make it possible, invest in, coaching to make sure that you're getting the right angles and you're doing the right things to actually make it entertaining. Because that made a huge difference for me.

even if it's just investing in AI software so you can continue to improve. And I always like to say this,Personal development always comes before business development I have to be willing to grow myself. I have to only put myself out there to change, to learn something new.

it's so scary. It's [00:21:00] so hard, but you become a better person because you're pushing yourself. If you're comfortable, you're not growing. If you're uncomfortable, you are growing. And so being willing to be uncomfortable, because when you do that, then your business can also grow.

I agree. it's always important to put yourself into uncomfortable situations in business. Unless you are willing to fail, you're not going to win because you have to take those risks. like you said, if you're doing YouTube, it takes a while.

Heather: It's not an overnight success 

thank you so much, Ali.