How to Create an EFFECTIVE YOUTUBE THUMBNAIL? (Part 2)

Today I will be explaining a Concept I call "The Target Group Story", and why focusing inwards on your own channel is a better strategy while creating content instead of blindly copying creators like MrBeast

Before going further, let me show you how much a thumbnail can make a difference. A recent video we made was performing horribly. It was ranked 10/10. I decided to play around with the packaging and Bam! 1/10.

Now that you understand what good packaging can do, here is how to think about it.

Imagine: You’re in a supermarket, trolley in hand, going through the aisle. All of a sudden, something catches your eye. You pause, inspect it, maybe glance at the ingredients, and then decide whether it lands in your trolley. But what made you stop in the first place? It was the packaging!... Thumbnails, (in my honest opinion) work in a similar manner. Each one is like a little package, neatly wrapping up your content and placing it on the shelves of the YouTube supermarket.

Let's take this analogy a step further... When I was a kid (between the ages 10-12) I used to love products that had bright colors, shine, and glitter and especially loved it when it had some sort of mascot or a cartoon that I enjoyed watching. But now that I am older, the products that attract me have very different packaging. The stories that attract me are now very different.

To tell these stories, a company spends an insane amount of money on brand building, from using the right colors, the hiring the perfect brand ambassador, to the words that will be in the copy. So much effort just so that, if you fall in their Target group and tomorrow come across their product, You connect immediately. It works the same way on YouTube. Just like how companies put a lot of time and money into R&D to understand their customers and TG (Target Group), you need to do the same.

Who’s the audience that is going to be watching this specific video?

What’s their age?

What's their preference?

What are their values?

What are their problems?

Once you understand which target group are you making this product (your video) for you can then write, present, edit, and package your entire video so that it hits the intended audience. We have internally made it into a habit that whenever we discuss topics the entire editing team. Why? Each team member is a student from our AevyTV Video Mastery Cohort and falls in our TG. They used to watch AevyTV then joined the Cohort, then got hired by us, and have been working with us ever since. Talking to them is the closest we can get to our audience. Recently I suggested that we make a video on “Dating Apps In India” and talk about how difficult it is statistically for men to get a match on these apps (It's VERY difficult). But it turned out that none of the editing team could relate to this topic, instead, they suggested that we make a video on Loneliness. We took that suggestion and ran with it, ending up with this video:

Results? It flopped.

This was the first time listening to my audience directly didn't yield the result. I went back to my desk to figure out what went wrong, as I was watching the video I realized, that the biggest target of loneliness is men. And nothing about my packaging screams MEN, this video is for YOU. I was so focused on creating everything HIGH TAM that ended up targeting everyone and therefore alienating my main consumer. This video was made for my students, for my audience, for my editors. So Instead of targeting all of India, I decided only to target MEN. I changed the thumbnail to show what men who suffer from Loneliness go through and changed the title so that I was DIRECTLY talking to my main consumer.

Results? This video currently is doing 1/10 with an additional 350,000 views.

Insight: Being a big fish in a small sea is not a bad strategy at all.