Hundreds of hours of research and 73 pages of notes—that’s what it took for Aprilynne Alter to multiply her YouTube subscriber count by 12 times in 30 days!
By the time you finish reading this post, you’ll know how she did it, too. More importantly, you’ll have actionable steps that you can use to boost your subscribers and grow your channel on YouTube.
There’s a lot of competition on YouTube — Is it worth it?
To understand this in context, let’s look at some facts first. YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine. It’s also the top streaming platform. Hundreds of millions of creators jump onto the YouTube bandwagon yearly—but only a tiny percentage succeed.
Is it worth investing the time to become a better YouTube Creator?
Absolutely—and the numbers confirm my thinking, too. YouTube’s 4.95 billion monthly active users eclipses Netflix’s 40 million. And according to SocialBlade, YouTube has over 61 million creators. The platform has one of the best creator programs in the world, and it has a growing collection of high-quality, free resources. If you put in the time and energy, I believe YouTube can open up incredible opportunities for you and your business.
As a YouTube Creator, I always leap at the opportunity to learn from others in this space. In the past, we’ve gained wisdom on The Smart Passive Income Podcast from more prominent YouTube creators like MKBHD and Sean Cannell. But this time, I wanted to speak to an up-and-rising YouTube creator. We liked what Aprilynne was doing with her YouTube channel, so we invited her to the show.
Listen to Aprilynne on The Smart Passive Income Podcast:
12x YouTube subscriber growth in four weeks
Aprilynne grew her YouTube channel from 1,000 to over 12,000 subscribers in four straight weeks.
And yep—those are real numbers. As I write this post, I see that her channel has over 52,047 subscribers. But that’s not why I’m sharing Aprilynne’s lessons with you. Here’s why I think her approach is worth examining:
Like most internet-based platforms or social media, YouTube is rapidly evolving too. And that’s why Aprilynne’s learnings are very relevant—because everything you’re about to learn is based on what she discovered by doing in the last six months.
Adding tens of thousands of new subscribers to a brand-new YouTube channel isn’t easy. Aprilynne doesn’t have a background in media or video either—in fact, she previously quit a career in finance! She also had a challenging experience with her first YouTube channel.
She’s also achieved this without creating too many videos—her channel has just twenty-four videos as I write this. It’s evident that Aprilynne’s success comes from careful research—she’s been studying the best YouTube creators. Take a closer look, and you’ll see the results of her study: four out of the twenty-four videos have over 200K views. And one of the four videos has over 800K views!
So, what did Aprilynne do differently with her second YouTube channel?
When I spoke to her on the podcast, it all started to come together. So, without further ado, let’s get into Aprilynne’s four-step process for YouTube subscriber growth. Implementing these four steps will definitely help you grow your YouTube channel fast. So get ready to take notes because this one is super actionable!
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Aprilynne’s four-step process for YouTube subscriber growth
What you’re about to learn is simple to understand, but it can be hard to implement if you miss the details, so pay close attention. Here are Aprilynne’s four steps:
- Start with the Packaging
- Focus on the Intro
- Pay Attention to Your ENTIRE Audience
- Preplan Like a Boss
These steps may appear self-explanatory, but let me walk you through each one of them step-by-step.
1. Start with the packaging
“If you think about what goes into the success of a video, it’s around 50 percent the packaging,” says Aprilynne.
Packaging is about the three critical elements of a YouTube video:
- Idea
- Title
- Thumbnail
Aprilynne realized she spent 99 percent of the time creating the video and just one percent on the packaging. I like the word packaging because it is something we experience every time we buy physical products at a store—packaging is what you see before you experience a product.
It’s the same with videos, too—people experience the above three elements before they watch the actual video. And if they aren’t clicking on your video, then the video might as well not even exist.
Start with the idea—what do you want to communicate to your audience? How would you describe your video in one line?
Once you’ve nailed your packaging, it’s time to move on to step numb