Case Study:
“I want a million subscribers on YouTube”
“I want a million subscribers on YouTube”
How we got 2,318.37% increase in views and 154.65% in watch time in 7 days.
Every once in a while the stars align just right and things move pretty fast.
This is one of those times.
My new client Daniel Marcos, founder of the Growth Institute and an amazing man in his own right, decided that it's time to build his own personal brand and set himself an amazing goal: 1 million subscribers on YouTube within the next 3 years.
Daniel is an expert in scaling businesses and supporting CEOs through the journeys of growing their businesses. From operations, to mindset to team building and culture - he's done it all.
He's also currently working with billion-dollar companies, helping them navigate the challenges that come with being a billion dollar company.
He runs in-person workshops, leads online communities and flies around the world to meet with his clients and mentors regularly.
Add to that a wife and kids, the guy doesn't have time for "more content", and definitely zero minutes to sit down in front of a motionless camera blabbing about the latest themes.
Enter: Expert Gene Activation
The challenge we have with building Daniel's English YouTube channel and growing it to a million subscribers (real ones, not the fakes you can easily buy) is that most of Daniel's brand has been built in Spanish.
He's a big deal in Latin America, and the best-kept secret in the US.
What will the US market be into?
What will resonate with them?
We had to figure that out first.
The methodology:
Being in the marketing business for over 11 years I know one thing for sure - there's no magic pill.
There's no secret formula to building thought leadership online.
It's all a matter of trial and error - you put quality content out there, independent of what you think should work, and you let the data tell you what to toss and what to double down on.
With that in mind, we found some time in Daniel's busy calendar for an Activation Session: being that we're in the same city, this one will take place in person.
I will act as a human prompter, bringing out all the golden nuggets hiding in Daniel's mind.. we'll talk about his vast experience, what CEOs need to know to avoid the drama of a CEO life as much as possible and discuss his framework and current trends.
An hour of his time will create a month full of content that will allow us to start the awareness process to getting his name on the US map.
But then I had a brilliant idea
Why not use AI to help us test the water.. see if we get any interest on specific topics and get the needle moving before we start.
That way, we maximize Daniel's time and stretch it even more.
Enter Munch
Munch is an Israeli Startup that I've been working with for the past 6 months or so.
Their sole purpose is to use data to help you create short engaging videos.
Daniel has a great interview in English that's not doing as well as he wanted. Why not take that interview and let Munch do its magic... and just test?
I pitched the idea to Daniel and luckily, he was game.
And so we fed it into Munch.
We took our opinions out of the way
If you know me, I'm extremely picky about design, look and feel and everything we put out there.
In other words, I have opinions about what's good and what isn't. I'm sure you do too.
But I also know that this is a game of speed. We don't have to create the Mona Lisa with every piece we put out there. We need to share a lot of value, as fast as we can, and then see what works.
Because this is a new YouTube channel, with not a lot of subscribers and views, we agreed to refrain from judgment, put ALL the Shorts Munch created and just see what happened.
Worst-case scenario - nothing happens and we're back to where we started.
Best case scenario - we learned something about Daniel's audience and we can continue down that line.
Base Line
First short video is being posted on Jan. 31st 2023
1 day later…
3 days later…
And we started getting achievements too
Yeah, we got an A+ for being awesome!
Jan. 2nd, 2023
Feb. 5th, 2023
In conclusion..
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- This is the fastest I've seen Shorts work on YouTube. It usually takes a lot longer to ramp up to thousands of views a day and boost up the Watch Time with less than 40 subscribers.
This validates the notion that most platforms are focusing on Shorts and Reels. Focus on that as well.
- This is the fastest I've seen Shorts work on YouTube. It usually takes a lot longer to ramp up to thousands of views a day and boost up the Watch Time with less than 40 subscribers.
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- It's hard to take your emotions out of the way, especially when you're creating branded content with the goal of positioning yourself as a Thought Leader. You have to keep in mind that it's about your audience and what they're looking for, not what you think is pretty.
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- The name of the game is SPEED. Speed and Data. Put yourself out there with as many pieces of content as you can, and let the data dictate your actions.
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- Tools like Munch can be very helpful, but keep this in mind - shit in, shit out.
The reason Munch was able to get good clips out of the interview is because Daniel provided solid value throughout. I've tested different YouTube clips with Munch and got a lot of useless shorts back because the original piece wasn't good.
- Tools like Munch can be very helpful, but keep this in mind - shit in, shit out.
And most importantly - you have to start. Just start.
Yes, YouTube has been there forever.
Yes, There are plenty of Channels like yours, etc. etc. etc.
None of that matters.
If you put good, quality content out there, you'll be building your own thought leadership and authority too.
The road to a million subscribers is long. We just started. But in the 10 days we've been putting out content we already learnt a lot about Daniel's audience and what to double down on.
And that's what this game is about 🙂
Take our 747 service for a ride
If you're a high-earning expert we will turn a strategic interview into 4 posts a day, posted up to 7 platforms, 7 days a week (aka 747)
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