- [Narrator] Waking up to zero new subscribers,
every single day, sucks.
(splat)
But it doesn't have to be like that.
You can get tons of YouTube subscribers
using one of the simplest tricks there is.
And here's the thing, you already know what to do.
You just need to know when to do it.
(scream)
It's not yet.
(bell ring) Question time!
On average, how many subscribers do you gain
from each video that you make?
As usual, let us know in the comments below
but after you've tried this tactic,
return to that comment and update us.
Because we tried this on just one of our videos
and it doubled the number of subscribers we gained.
And all we needed to do was ask.
That's right,
it's one of the oldest and simplest methods there is.
You don't get if you don't ask.
Now, personally speaking and regular viewers,
will know that I almost never ask people
to subscribe to vidIQ during our videos.
I'll tell you why this is at the end of this video,
but recently I decided to do it as a one off.
As you can see from a little over 100,000 views,
this video gained a little over 2000 subscribers.
That's a rough conversion of one subscriber every 53 views.
Which is not too shabby, is it?
Now, by comparison on a another video
with a similar amount of views
where I did not ask the viewer to subscribe to vidIQ,
it gained 930 subscribers.
That's a rough conversion of
one subscriber, every 116 views.
Basically, we doubled the number of subscribers we gained
Because we asked. Which is awesome!
Not yet!
(upbeat music)
The biggest mistake everyone makes
is asking viewers to subscribe far too early.
I mean, we're nine seconds into this video
with its excruciatingly long, pointless intro
and we're already being asked to subscribe.
And you know what my response to this is?
As a viewer, why?
Why should I subscribe to your channel?
You've not done anything to earn it,
and you've annoyed me by asking.
Wasting the first valuable seconds of your video
asking for subs
will tank your audience retention.
Try to think about the viewers journey here.
You promised something in that thumbnail and title.
And you need to start delivering on it immediately.
Oh, and by the way, while it may seem
like I'm picking on some random persons video,
they did submit their channel
for our Tuesday channel reviews,
so I think they're fair game.
So let's take a look at this video
with its 2000 new subscribers
and see how it started.
There are two huge pain points
all small YouTube channels face.
1000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time.
But in a massive YouTube monetization update,
all of this could become a thing of a past.
Yeah, thought that'd your attention.
So after 15 seconds, audience retention is at 81%.
Which is solid.
And consider what happened in those first 15 seconds.
I didn't introduce myself,
I didn't tell you what vidIQ is about,
and I certainly didn't ask you to subscribe.
No, I didn't do a video intro.
I tried to grab the viewers' attention with a video hook.
I identified the pain points of a target audience of a video
YouTubers who want to get monetized
and then teased a possible solution to that pain point.
In short, the video hook was all about the viewer.
And to be honest, that's a general rule
that you can apply to all aspects of YouTube.
Put the audience first.
And that's exactly what we did
For four minutes, 42 seconds,
we explain the rumors around the monetization updates.
What might happen, and how it may help or hinder creators.
We gave nothing but value
until 30 seconds before the end of a video
But whatever happens, I've got an unusual request.
I haven't asked anybody to subscribe to a VidIQ channel
for almost two years,
but if you do wanna stay up to date
with all of these monetization changes,
yeah I think you need to subscribe
and turn on a notification bell.
I can't believe I've said that!
We gave people a compelling reason to subscribe.
You've just watched a video about monetization.
If you wanna know more about monetization on YouTube,
you should probably subscribe.
And what's more,
we know these people are invested in the content
because they've got this far into the video
Audience retention, at the point
these subscribe calls-to-action appears, is at 35%.
Which by law of averages suggests
that about 35,000 of the 100,000 people
who clicked on the thumbnail entitled
are still watching.
On the surface, that sounds like a small fraction
of the audience and a missed opportunity.
But if you've done your job right
and made the viewer feel that the video was made for them,
you've established a relationship
You've made them care.
So yeah, I now know
that subscribers are really important to you.
And if you wanna know how to get more subscribers,
we're gonna do tons more videos on the subject,
so get to it.
You don't have to wait until the end of a video
to ask for the subscribe,
but what you must do is deliver significant value first.
As for why I don't typically ask people to subscribe,
it's a big fat waste of time.
We've already got a million subscribers.
Being serious for a second though,
beyond 1000 subscribers, it's just a vanity metric.
Return viewers and average views per viewer
are far more valuable metrics
when measuring channel health and channel growth.
And we made videos on those topics!
But you don't care about any of that, do you?
You just want more people tapping on this.
And if you wanna know which is
the most valuable subscribed button there is,
then check out this video over here.
You better do it quick!
(bomb explosion)