Introduction
Welcome back, friends! In today’s video, I’m sharing my invaluable insights from six years of experience building an online audience of over 6 million followers across YouTube and various platforms. If you’re looking to grow your own audience from the ground up, you’re in the right place! This article aims to provide you with expert advice that’s applicable even in today’s ever-evolving digital landscape.
Throughout this journey, I’ve learned numerous strategies that can help you stand out in a crowded online space. Join me as I dive into the most effective approaches to audience growth, content creation, and building a sustainable online presence.
Understanding Your Niche
Finding Your Target Audience
The key to audience growth starts with clearly defining your niche. A niche is a combination of who you’re targeting and the value you’re providing. It’s essential to know:
- Who is your target audience? Are you reaching aspiring marketers, upcoming YouTubers, or perhaps other entrepreneurs?
- What value are you offering? Depending on your target, the content vastly differs. For instance, as a marketing agency owner, my content could be tailored for fellow marketers on growing their businesses.
Content Buckets and Viral Replication
Once you’ve established your niche, brainstorm various content buckets or themes. Consider researching popular blogs or other YouTube channels focused on your target audience. This leads us to a method I call viral replication:
- Identify content titles and thumbnails that have garnered significant views.
- Replicate successful formats while adding your personal touch.
This technique provides a surefire way to create engaging content without replicating others' work entirely.
Becoming a Guide, Not a Guru
The 10% Edge Concept
In my early days of content creation, I focused on being a guide for medical students looking to enter prestigious universities. Using Amy Porterfield's concept of the ‘10% Edge’, it’s vital to help those who are just slightly behind you in knowledge or experience.
- Who can you guide with your expertise?
- How can you genuinely help them illuminate their path?
As I shared study tips and productivity hacks, I organically transitioned to teaching about productivity — which resonated with my audience's needs as they began requesting more content.
Content Creation: Systemize for Success
Embracing Structure and Process
Creating engaging YouTube content isn't only an act of creativity; it’s about systemization. The content creation process should be:
- Structured — Think about implementing a three-part structure in your videos: introduction, main content, and conclusion.
- Package Well — The video title and thumbnail are your first impressions. Without an enticing packaging, your content may remain unseen.
The Importance of Consistent Quality
In my experience, I found that creativity can also be a systematic process. Developing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for tasks such as idea generation, scriptwriting, and editing turned content creation into a scalable process.
Content Strategy for Growth
Setting Input Goals
A strategic approach I’ve adopted is to set input goals: goals based entirely on what I can control, such as committing to uploading once a week.
- This method reduces the pressure of fluctuating subscriber counts or view statistics in the short term.
- Focus on delivering authentic value to your audience consistently.
The Power of Patience
It’s essential to remember that building an audience from scratch requires patience and faith in the process. Many aspiring content creators quit after just a few months when they don’t see immediate results. Remember, it took me more than 80 videos to hit 4,000 subscribers.
- Stick to a long-term strategy to gradually nurture your audience.
Tools of the Trade: Utilizing Music and Affiliates
Leveraging Epidemic Sound
One of the critical components of my content strategy has been using Epidemic Sound, which provides an extensive library of royalty-free music. Here are a few notable benefits:
- No worries about copyright strikes — all tracks are original and cleared for use.
- Over 40,000 tracks and nearly 1 million sound effects to choose from.
- Having engaging background music significantly enhances viewer retention.
Affiliate Marketing as an Income Stream
Another aspect I explored was affiliate marketing. Signing up for the Epidemic Sound affiliate program created an additional income stream while providing value to my audience at the same time.
- Recommendations can lead to significant earnings without added pressure.
Creating a Production System
From Solo Creator to Team Collaboration
A huge milestone in my journey was realizing that I didn’t need to do everything myself. Setting up a team changed the scale of my productivity.
- Idea Generation — Someone else handles this workload.
- Editing and Publishing — Delegating these tasks frees me up for more creative pursuits.
- Repurposing Content — Turning video content into various formats for different platforms expanded my content reach.
By treating my YouTube channel like a franchise, I could implement effective processes that other team members could follow for producing high-quality content consistently.
Conclusion
Building an online audience takes time, effort, and strategic thinking. From finding your niche to producing quality content systematically to collaborating with a dedicated team, every step is vital in creating a compelling online presence.
Take the time to implement these strategies, remain patient, and continue providing value to your audience. As I’ve learned from my journey, success in building an online audience isn’t just about chasing numbers — it’s about making genuine connections and creating lasting impact. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Happy creating, and I can’t wait to see your audiences grow!
hey friends welcome back to the channel so in this video I'm going to take my 6 years of experience of growing an online
audience to over 6 million followers on YouTube and across all the platforms and I'm going to share what I would do if I
was trying to grow an audience completely from scratch today this is something I've learned absolutely loads
about over the years and people always ask me about it and so I wanted to share my best advice and conveniently a few
months ago I was interviewed by my friend and fellow YouTuber and entrepreneur Noah Kagan and he and his
audience asked me a bunch of questions around how to build an online audience and so this video is going to be the
best advice from that interview ideas kind of stem from Niche and for me Niche is sort of a
combination of two things there's the Target and the value who is the Target and what is the value so for example as
a marketing agency owner I could be targeting other marketing agency owners and teaching them how to grow their
business that would create very different content to for example targeting dtoc consumer brand managers
and trying to teach them how to use Tik Tok ads to level up their d2c campaigns and one once I've nailed that at that
point I would start thinking okay cool what are all the different content buckets of ideas what's popular on blogs
that are targeting that audience what are the other YouTube channels in the space let's sort them by most popular
views and let's see what are their videos that have gone viral we call this technique of viral replication just kind
of funny basically like the easiest way to get content that works is to copy the title and thumbnail of another piece of
content that has worked and then just do it in your own way so you're not really plagiarizing them that would be how to
approach it if we were to zoom out a little I was making very Niche videos teaching people how to get into med
school in the UK for specific University Oxford Cambridge Imperial UCL those were the only things I was targeting very
very very Niche audience but I had an unfair advantage in that space cuz I was a medical student at Cambridge and I'd
been running courses teaching people how to get into med school for like 5 years at that point so I was making videos
about what I knew I wasn't trying to make videos trying to be a general productivity self-help Guru cuz that
wasn't even on the radar it was literally just how do I add value to people that I'm comfortable I can add
value to Amy Porterfield has a concept she calls the 10% Edge who is the audience that you're 10% ahead of that
you can illuminate the path for you can be a guide rather than a guru so I was being a guide for medical students
helping them get into med school and then they got into med school and people started asking me for advice on how to
study study for exams and I was like okay I can do that so I read a few papers I studied psychology as part of
my medical degree and I started sharing the Gary ve model of document don't create I was documenting the stuff that
I was doing to study for my own exams so again I don't need to be a guru here I'm just literally like hey here's how I
take notes here's how I study for this exam here's what I discovered about how to build a study timetable and again
this was this quite Niche I I think it took me about 80 videos to get 4,000 subscribers 50 videos to get the first
1,000 and then from that point on people started asking me questions about productivity they were like huh you're a
medical student SL doctor and you managed to make videos and you managed to do other fun stuff on the side and it
seems like you've got a social life how are you so productive and i' never really thought of the word productivity
before then this was around 20 like 19 or something 2 years years into the journey where I started thinking huh
maybe I should make videos about productivity and now if you ask people like Ali abdal what's the one word that
comes to mind the word that that word would be productivity I think it's it's interesting it's like Ryan holiday
started out making content from marketing and then he kind of did some journalism type thing and then he
stumbled on stoicism with the obstacle is the way and now the one word that Ryan holiday is known for is stoicism
and he's just doubling down on that so similarly I decided I want to double down on productivity we're trying to go
productive we really just need to figure out what is the 820 like how do we really 8020 the hell out of this stuff
so how do I put in a small amount of time to get the maximum bang for my buck in terms of content now when it comes to
YouTube in particular that comes from basically title and thumbnail in terms of the packaging of the video if no one
clicks on the title and thumbnail no one's actually going to see the content so spending a decent chunk of time on
the packaging is super helpful but then when it comes to the content I I think the hook plus the structure is the main
thing so for the hook it would be the first 30 seconds and for the structure it would be the sort of rough three-part
structure of video content creation can be systemized I think people think of content creation as like a creativity
thing it's not really a creativity thing it's more like systems and processes and Sops thing and actually oh there was a
sick quote I read creativity is a systematic process and I always thought creativity was like some mystical thing
I was like I don't think I'm very creative it's like I need Creative Energy left brain all of that stuff but
actually it's a systematic process it's like that that quote from some famous writer that I only write when
inspiration strikes luckily it strikes at 9:00 a.m. every morning and I found that the more I can systemize my content
creation the less I need to worry about me being a creative person and the more I can actually just get results of my
business oh and by the way if you wondering about the absolutely sick background music that we've been using
this video and that I've been using on my YouTube channel for the last 6 years that has been provided by epidemic sound
who are very kindly sponsoring this video epidemic sound are absolutely amazing they provide a huge library of
royalty-free music that you can use in pretty much whatever way you want in your videos epidemic owns 100% of all of
the music they provide so there is zero chance that you'll ever get hit with a copyright strike and epidemic sounds
library has over 40,000 tracks and 990,000 sound effects with new tracks added every single week the music is
also professionally produced and it's all original music they've got a commercial plan and a personal plan now
the personal plan is the one that we as a team use personally and that's perfect for YouTubers and podcasters and
bloggers or anything like that and it works on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook and all these other platforms
or alternatively if you happen to be a freelancer or an agency or a brand then the commercial plan let to use
background music in your client videos without ever worrying about a copyright strike also just as an aside one of my
many income streams as a result of having this audience has been affiliate income and actually the epidemic sound
affiliate program is also a great way to earn money as a Creator and also earlier this year the epidemic sound team
invited me over to Sweden to visit their offices and we took a trip to like the Arctic North and was absolutely sick and
they're super super friendly and their music studios are absolutely incredible and so I'm just like epidemic sound fan
booy for life basically anyway if you want to try out epidemic sound which is literally the thing I've been using for
the last 6 and a half years and you can check out the link in the video description and you can sign up to a
totally free trial of their personal or commercial plan and in those days you can browse their library to your heart's
content and you can use any music that you want from that library and then even if you don't want to become a paid
subscriber you can still use any of the music that you used during the trial and not worry about copyright strikes at all
so thank you so much epidemic sound for sponsoring this video there's no there's no easy answer
to this um everyone I think wants a Magic Bullet for consistency but really it's about patience and it's about faith
it's about patience that it takes a long time for this stuff to see results and it's about faith that if you do the
right things and show up consistently that eventually the results will come and that's why personally for me I find
that the main strategy for consistency is to set input goals goals that are within my control like it's not within
my control whether I hit 10,000 subscribers it's not within my control whether I get a million views on a video
but it is within my control can I show up every week and share something authentically that I feel would add
value to my target audience and if the answer to that is yes and I can find a way to make that process at least Vue L
enjoyable and just know that I'm going to do it for 2 years is the thing I tell my students if you want to do YouTube
commit to posting a video every single week for 2 years that's the kind of time Horizon you need to basically guarantee
that it's going to change your life the problem is when people do it like oh I'm not seeing any results 2 months later
I'm still I'm still terrible at making videos I've never talked to a camera before in my life but for some reason
I'm expecting results from day one that's just completely absurd it takes 8 years of training in the UK for a
medicine to get someone even remotely in front of a patient If You're Expecting six figure results seven figure results
in your business you you canot not put in the work and yeah of course people are busy but if it was easy everyone
would have seven figure businesses based on organic content marketing it's not it's going to start off feeling like a
really heavy lift where you're like oh my God I'm recording for an hour and I'm getting 10 minutes of content out of it
it's not worth it it takes too long to edit but if you push through that pain just like you did when you were starting
your business and you start building systems and processes and using templates hiring people to do the things
you don't want to do that's ultimately the thing that makes it consistent cuz time management only gets you so far
like you can't time manage yourself to getting you know two videos a week out on YouTube while you have a full-time
job while you have a family and kids and a life that's just not going to happen you've got to build the systems and
tools you've got to use the knowledge that businesses use to leverage yourself so that you can create content at
scale early on like first like one year or so literally flying by the seat of my pants thinking H okay it's a new week I
need a new video what's the video going to be this week uh come up with ideas okay cool let's make the video write it
film it edit it like trying to do that all well in medical school in a week hit upload as the video is uploading
figuring out the title and the thumbnail and just being like all right cool slap some text on the thumbnail using Adobe
spark at the time upload the video let's move on to the next one that was the very rough process and then I realized
fairly quickly a few months in hang on this is a recipe for Burnout this is not sustainable I need to systemize the
whole thing and then I read an amazing book called The e- Myth Revisited by Michael Gober uh which is I'm sure you
guys some of you guys have read that book completely changed my life because it introduced me to the idea of
systemization and delegation and I was like oh I get it I need to think think of my YouTube channel as a franchise as
the Prototype for a franchise so you know how you can walk into any McDonald's anywhere in the world and you
get an identical experience the same food the same experience they can put any random ass 16-year-old with zero
qualifications into one of those jobs and the 16-year-old will follow the process and will get the result for the
customer that's amazing so how do you therefore create systems and structures in your own business that make it a
theoretical franchise what is the system that I would follow to franchise out my YouTube channel okay cool there's a
process for idea generation there's a process for writing there's a process for filming there's a process for
editing there's a process for publishing etc etc and initially I was doing all of these things myself and then very slowly
over time I started delegating small bits of that so now someone else does the idea generation someone else does
the research for some of the videos I still do the writing because I've tried Outsourcing it and it's really hard to
Outsource writing for your own videos obviously I film my own videos but then someone else edits someone else
publishes someone else repurposes someone else looks at the analytics then takes takes the footage and they will
turn it into like Instagram and Twitter thread and a LinkedIn Carousel and an Instagram Carousel and a Tik Tok and
we've got the whole repurposing process as well cuz what we found is that we've put in all the effort to make the video
we might as well chop it up and turn it into a Twitter thread a LinkedIn thread a kind of Carousel we might as well make
it sweat and repurpose it across all the different social platforms that is what the six years later the evolution of the
content pipeline looks like with a team of 14 people 10 of which are basically focused on the content side where we
have a coures business that supports the whole thing and we have a general manager in Angus so that I don't need to
worry about the day-to-day management starting off with me as a doctor trying to hustle to make videos one at a time
to this whole like production Empire where now I don't even know what happens on the YouTube channel I see a video
being uploaded I'm like damn that's cool I watch it I give feedback to our editors while recording a loom and it's
just it's just great so I can focus my time on the thing I actually care about which is drawing drawing diagrams on a
page and talking to a camera which is the thing I'm good at everyone else does everything else which is all the things
Heads up!
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