YouTube is uniquely challenging in that there are so many pieces you need to get right:
Ideas
Titles
Thumbnails
Script-writing
Lighting
Audio
Video production
On-camera presence
Video editing
So, if a video doesn't perform, it can be hard to know why it failed, especially if you didn't get many views before it went flat.
This is why I recommend you put your biggest effort into their video's packaging.
The package of your video is the thing people see before deciding whether to watch or not:
Title
Thumbnail
The Idea
Most people talk about Title and Thumbnail, but you can't ignore the idea itself. You can't title or thumbnail a video without an underlying idea, and you can't satisfy a viewer without delivering on the idea in the title and thumbnail, either.
Paddy Galloway told me that a "good idea" that you can't create a package well "isn't actually a good idea."
When we started focusing much more of our time on the package of our videos, our Click-Through Rates (CTR) immediately increased. Because of that, our baseline for views increased dramatically, too.
When you publish a video with a good package, you'll at leastget data to build from. If the package is good, your video will get clicks, and the YouTube algorithm will learn who to show your videos to.
You'll establish a baseline for what a "good" CTR is for your channel. You'll see how good you are at retaining viewers (and be able to make some assumptions about WHY you lost people where you did).
Without a good package, your video won't get any views, and you won't have any data to build from.
One of my favorite ways to ideate on great video packagesis 1of10.
You'll spend a lot of time thinking about and researching video ideas – and 1of10 makes that much easier.
We use it to find examples of high-performing videos outside of our niche. I like to find thumbnail examples by going deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of Similar thumbnails:
This saves us hours researching titles and thumbnails and helps us quickly generate tons of new video ideas.
And 1of10 just rolled out the V1 of a new IdeaGenerator, so you can now take a high-performing video and generate ideas tailored to your channel.
If you want your channel to grow, you need to spend more time on packaging in pre-production. You could research video packaging the old-fashioned way by scrolling through YouTube, or you could research a LOT more videos much more quickly (and without the algorithm getting in your way) by using 1of10.
The 1of10 team is offering Creator Science readers a one-month free trial. Just use promo code CREATORFREE.
PS: Not only do I think 1of10 is a great product, but I really respect their team. It's an indie team of YouTube veterans who only care about helping creators grow their channel. That goes a long way with me!
