4 Ways to Grow Your Subscription Box Audience on YouTube

Have you given YouTube much thought? The content over there lives on forever and ever. It's time to build your audience in multiple places. Grab your earbuds and come join me.

Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. Now here's your host, Sarah Williams.

All right, let's talk YouTube. It is a powerful tool to use to grow your audience, especially if you have a subscription box. But here's the thing, posting videos just isn't enough, and if no one's watching or subscribing, it's just not working. So today on this episode of Friday Fuel, I'm going to give you 4 ways to grow your subscription box audience with YouTube. I'm really excited about that. I have been working on my YouTube channel for a now, and I'm really getting some good growth with it. These are real doable strategies that are going to bring more of the right people and turn more views into more subscribers. All right. So I'm going to give you 4 tips. If you're a note taker, grab those notes and let's go. So tip number 1, we've got to be consistent with what you post. So people subscribe to your YouTube channel because they know what to expect from you. So what I want you to do is pick a couple of video types that make sense for your subscription box and let's rinse and repeat those on a monthly basis. And then we just got to stick to them because they're going to come back for more and more. So here's some really easy ideas of things that you can think about. Monthly unboxings. That's a no-brainer. You should be doing a monthly unboxing on your YouTube channel. Another one that is really popular is behind the scenes. Packing and shipping days are super— they're just super video content. Like, they're super recordable, as I was trying to say, but it's not really a word. But they're just great. So doing behind the scenes packing and shipping days would be another great video post that you can do. I love to do style guides for my t-shirt club. So you can do styling guides or how to use items from your box, how to decorate with items from your box. Really depending on what your box is, we can form some sort of video with that each month. You could also do how-to videos or tutorials that relate to your product line. And then of course you could always just get on there and do some subscriber stories or do some Q&A sessions. But I want you to think of your channel like a favorite show. Your audience should know what kind of videos that they'll get when they hit subscribe and being consistent matters. So pick 2, 3, 4 of those ideas and just rinse and repeat them every single month. All right. Tip number 2, we need titles and thumbnails. That's the picture. We need titles and thumbnails that sell. Okay. So we've got to sell the click. We need them to click into our video. So it really doesn't matter how good your video is if nobody actually clicks on it. So your title and your thumbnail are first, and sometimes it's the only thing people see before they decide whether they want to watch or not. So I want you to make sure that your titles and thumbnails do 2 things. They grab attention and they clearly tell people what the video is about. When it comes to title, clarity beats cleverness every single time. So when you're thinking about the title of your video, don't be punchy. Don't be— it's not— you're not trying to be a wordsmith here. You want to provide clarity. Say exactly what the video is about. I want you to use keywords that your ideal customer is already searching for. So instead of March box reveal, that could be one of my titles. I might say unboxing our March subscription box, self-care must-haves. So do you see how I get the word unboxing? I get the word subscription box in there, and I'm also talking a little bit about what's in that box. It's self-care must-haves. Okay. Another idea would be if you're doing some behind the scenes, instead of calling it like packing day, you could say packing 200 subscription boxes behind the scenes. That instantly makes me wanna watch. Oh, they've got 200 subscription boxes? Let me go over there and watch that. So I want you to really think about making your titles a little bit more in depth, using those keywords that people are searching as they're looking for your content. Your thumbnail needs to do the same. So I want you to think about bright colors that might pop, What are your brand colors? What combinations of those brand colors can you use on your thumbnail? We want big, bold text, just a few words. It doesn't have to be the whole title, okay? The title is in there and it's searchable. The graphic doesn't have to say the same thing as the title, okay? A few words, not a paragraph, not a full sentence. And I want you to have faces on your thumbnails. I like to use a lot of faces with different emotions. Maybe my hands are doing something different. I'm always wearing a different shirt in my thumbnails. So I want you to have faces that show emotion. And then sometimes I don't use faces, I'll do an open face of the box. So I'm showing like a clear visual of what I'm about to unbox on my page. So you can show packaging, products, it doesn't always have to be faces, but faces really work in thumbnails. Okay, now, Number 3, win them over in the first 30 seconds. This is so, so important. YouTube shows your videos to more people when viewers stick around longer, and it all starts in that first 30 seconds. Most people decide whether to stay or leave almost immediately on your video. If you are wasting time rambling, fixing your lighting, apologizing for your messy desk, they're likely out of there. And YouTube takes that as a sign to stop recommending your video. So what I want you to do right away is to clearly state what that video is about, like instantly, like jump on. I don't care if anybody's there or if you're recording it. Just start right away and don't make them guess about what your video is about. Then I want you to build curiosity. This is all in your first 30 seconds. I want you to hint that something exciting or useful is coming later. And then I want you to show energy and confidence. Like, your excitement makes people want to keep watching. Okay, so let me give you an example of this. So it would be, today I'm showing you exactly how we pack 200 subscription boxes in one morning and a packing tip you've probably never tried. Do you see how immediately I'm pulling them into action? I'm giving them a reason to stay. And when I say something you've never heard, now they're curious. I'm pulling in their curiosity. Okay. And so you want to really set the tone that you're giving them a little bit of an insider look to what's happening. So that's how I want you to really focus on that first 30 seconds. We need them to watch as long as possible because that's going to feed the YouTube algorithm and it's going to help get your video pushed out there. Now, tip number 4, you've got to tell people what to do next. And I know it feels simple, right? It feels simple. Why do I need to tell people? Because they need a reminder. Watching your video should never feel like that's the end, like that's the dead end of a street or something. If someone made it all the way through your video, they trust you. Now you need to tell them exactly what to do next, or they'll just move on to the next random video that YouTube suggests. So we have to lead them, and if you don't, they may not act in the way that we want to. This is our customer journey. We have funnel them through the journey. So here's some ideas of how you can suggest this to them. Subscribe to the channel. You don't want to miss next month's box reveal. So instantly I'm going to get them to subscribe to my YouTube channel. So that's one call to action. Another call of action would be join the waitlist. The link is in the description above or below on YouTube. It's below. Another one could be drop a comment and tell me which product you'd want to see in your next box. You're getting them to engage with you. That's the action that they're taking with you. Or maybe you have a freebie and you could say, download our free gift guide. It's perfect for subscription box lovers like you. Whatever your call to action is, we need to make sure we have a call to action. So we want to clearly say that at the end of our video and also show it visually on the screen. You can even pin a comment under your own video linking directly to your waitlist page or your freebie or your website. If you've got that requirement met on YouTube. So growing your subscription box audience on YouTube is really about showing up, is about standing out, and it's about giving people a reason to stay connected. I want you to pick one thing from today's episode, take action, and keep building your audience. I'll see you next time for more Friday Fuel.