What I learnt About How To Succeed On YouTube
What I learnt About How To Succeed On YouTube
10 questions I’m going to answer around the channel and hopefully give you some thoughts and tips on how you can also grow your channel.
How To Succeed On YouTube – What’s your channel and how many subscribers do you have?
My name’s Gary Bembridge. My channel is called Tips for Travellers, and it’s really focused on giving cruisers tips and advice on how to make cruising easy. Cruising can be complicated, and my goal is to make cruising easy. I currently have about 445,000 subscribers (30 August 2024).
I have had over 160 million video views to date with at least two million views a month, my channel kind of exploded and went big. And I’ll talk about how I’ve managed to do that, and importantly, why subscribers are not that important despite people’s obsession about how many they have!
How To Succeed On YouTube – What inspired you to start your channel and tell us about your first video?
I started my channel when YouTube started. My first video went up in 2006. And I started it because I’m kind of quite geeky. I liked the idea of getting out there and experimenting.
Also, at the time, I had a global marketing job. I was travelling a lot, so I was staying in lots of different hotel rooms, seeing lots of different sights too. I started posting hotel room tours. My second video was about Queen Mary 2 and the cabin that I was staying in. Really, what inspired me was I wanted to just play around for fun, which I did for many years.
It was only a couple of years ago that I decided to focus on the channel, and I will talk about what I did (and do).
How To Succeed On YouTube – How did I initially promote my channel and gain my first subscribers?
I didn’t really promote my channel at all, and I still don’t massively promote my channel because one of the things that’s powerful about YouTube is their recommendation system. YouTube is phenomenally good at finding videos and serving videos to people that they think a viewer will want to watch. You need to bear in mind that YouTube is a business and their goal is to keep people on YouTube for as long as possible, so they can serve as much advertising as possible. Any video that gets uploaded, they try to find an audience for it.
I rely on YouTube recommending my videos, and I focus on creating content that people want. That is what has driven most of my success. Focusing on the content and the viewer. And I will come back to that again later.
How To Succeed On YouTube – Were there any specific videos or moments that significantly boosted your channel’s popularity?
Back in 2018/2019, I decided to focus on YouTube. I was doing a lot of travelling, I was going on lots of cruises. And I thought, about how to make the channel big.
That was the first ambition: “I’m going to really make this channel big”. So, I thought long and hard about who my audience is. Most people, me included, start on YouTube making videos for ourselves, or what we like.
But I had a real change of the mindset, and asked: Who is it am I talking to? What do they want? What are they seeking? I got clear in my mind about who I was talking to.
My desire was to talk to people who were very interested in cruising, and wanted help to allow them to make the right choices in cruising stress-free. People who were older, over 50. Then, I spent time thinking and finding out what they wanted and started making videos that they wanted.
The other thing that I started to do is spend a lot of time with the data. YouTube gives us an enormous amount of data, and one of the things I realised was that the most important thing for YouTube, as I said earlier, is watch time. So, every single video I made I started to focus on how long people were watching it. Both in terms of minutes but also percentage of time, because I realised that if YouTube want to keep people on the channel, they will recommend videos that people are watching for the longest.
I spent time experimenting and changing the format to keep people watching longer.
Once I started to get that right, I then spent time thinking around what is the title of my video? What is the title that’s going to intrigue people?
Draw people in, not just creating crazy titles for the sake of crazy titles and clickbait. I wanted to create titles that intrigues people enough to want to click to watch the video, and as I know the video delivers content people want to watch they stay once clicking. There’s an important measure that YouTube has to try and screen out “clickbait” which is the percentage of people watching after 30 seconds. And that’s one of their little tricks for making sure that you’ve got a really powerful hook to keep people in. So, I focused on what is a really powerful title, and that hook at the start that links to the title and make people want to stay.
I then thought more about the cascade process, as I learnt I needed better thumbnails whose job it is to stop people scrolling past my video, then when they stop they read a title that intrigues them and once clicking they hear and see a hook that draws them in and makes them interested to watch more.
How To Succeed On YouTube – When did you start monetising your channel and which methods do you use?
I started monetising my channel early on. YouTube used to have the old partner program, which they still have, and you used to have to apply for. Now, you obviously have to have a certain criteria which keeps evolving and changing over a number of subscribers’ watch time. And today around 90-95% of my income comes from advertising run on the channel.
I also then created memberships and a Patreon, which I’m focusing on now to grow.
And the third way that I monetise is from merchandise.
The fourth way that I monetise is by taking all my scripts and turning those into blog posts on my blog. So, I earn some revenue too from that through AdSense. I also take the audio from my videos, edit them slightly at the beginning and the end, put those as podcasts and now I’m earning revenue from the audio through podcasts.
How To Succeed On YouTube – Do you have any advice for creating and promoting “shorts”?
I have decided not to focus on shorts. I experimented for two years with shorts, looking both at taking my existing videos and creating shorts from them, as well as creating original ones, some which were wacky, some which were more true to the channel. But, I decided to not focus on shorts because also I did have some that blew up and got a million views, but in reality they are not really what my channel is about. My channel is about giving people tips and advice in long form videos, and that’s where I can earn the revenue.
I’m not focusing on shorts because I believe personally, based on what I’ve seen for my channel, people who watch shorts are one audience and people who watch the long form are different.
I also focus on long form because I enjoy doing it. They have more substance. And earn me way more too!
My key advice, if you want to make shorts, decide why you are making them. And then what is the right kind of content. I can see, for example, as a viewer when I look at my YouTube feed, the long-form videos they recommend are totally different to shorts, as what I watch on shorts is completely different to videos. And people I watch their shorts, I don’t watch their long form content.
Shorts do not seem to act as a funnel. I like watching comedy and skits and animals doing crazy things. But long form, I like to watch things about travel, ships, theatre stuff, so all completely different.
Really think about what it is that you want to do with shorts.
How To Succeed On YouTube – What do you believe is the key to building a loyal and engaged subscriber base?
This comes back to my original point. You’ll build a big subscriber base, and you’ll build a lot of views if you are talking to people and giving them what they want. You’ve got to be clear in your mind, who is my audience? My background’s marketing, so that’s kind of my natural thing – who is my audience? What do they want?
And what am I doing that’s different to everybody else? This is very important.
For example, if I look at the cruising space that I’m in, there are at least 250 cruise channels mostly focused on cruising content. And the way I think about it is, I imagine all go on a certain ship at the same time. Most would make effectively the same video with the same content. So think about what is it that I am doing different, that is unique and different to me. For you, it may be your own perspective or maybe the way you video.
I want to stress something else, people are obsessed about subscribers. Subscribers are not that important; views are what you want to be chasing.
Only up to 20% of monthly views of mine come from subscribers, because the way that YouTube now works is they put a video in front of people they think will want to watch it whether they subscribe or not.
As a user, when I log onto the YouTube homepage, that’s where I as a user I focus. I watch what appears on that homepage because YouTube is so good at finding what I want.
I subscribe to people, but I never look at the subscriber feed. Bear in mind that YouTube do not serve up videos automatically to your subscribers. They serve it up to your subscribers only if they believe that they will watch it.
So, don’t get obsessed with subscriber numbers, some people call it a vanity number. I love the fact that I’ve got 455,000 subscribers and it’s great, it’s very visible.
But the views are the most important thing and that’s where you’re going to earn revenue. So to build a loyal and engaged subscriber base, it’s really about you want loyal viewers. It’s about creating content they want time after time.
One of the measures that I have is every time I upload a video, I check how YouTube tells me it’s performing. If I see it says regular viewers or loyal viewers are watching this more or less frequently. This is important because they are loyal and may or may not be subscribers.
By the way, stop asking people to subscribe to you in your videos. Most creators do that as they see everyone else doing it. I have 455,000 subscribers and never ask people to do it. YouTube viewers know all about subscribing and will do fi they want. Instead use that time to ask them to watch another specific video of yours. That is a better call-to-action that will grow your channel more than asking people to subscribe!
How To Succeed On YouTube – Can you share a memorable fan interaction with us?
One of the great things about what I do is every single cruise I go on, I meet people that watch the channel. And every single one of those I absolutely love because again, it’s a chance to talk firsthand to real people, real subscribers. It’s beyond a number and that’s where you learn so much.
My most memorable interactions are meeting anybody that watches my channel whether they like it or don’t like it because that’s where you learn. I talk to them. They’re always worrying that they’re intruding but, absolutely not, I want to listen to viewers. I want to hear what you like. I want to hear what you don’t like.
Are there any other YouTube channels that you like and are inspired by?
There are quite a few. One of the channels that I really like is Trek Trendy who cover premium flights, trains and now do cruising as well. I really like his style. He’s more vlog style. I like a lot of theatre stuff. So, Wait in the Wings is a site I like because he does lots of in-depth reviews about the background of how shows are put together. Ocean Liner Designs, which looks at historical warships and stuff like that. And I have a slight quirk, I love watching videos about abandoned places, abandoned hotels, abandoned malls and stuff.
What advice do you have for creators who want to grow their YouTube channels?
I’m going to say it again, it is who are you talking to? What do they want to know and what do you do that’s different, is the most important thing. Second and a practical thing is every single video you upload, think about what is my story here? How am I going to stop people scrolling with the thumbnail and have a title that intrigues people once they stop. I have a hook that follows that on, and then I basically pack it full with entertainment, education, whatever. I constantly look at how long people are watching with the aim to keep adjusting how I make videos to ensure people to watch for as long as possible. That is how you will grow and be big on YouTube.
Hopefully that’s helped. I’m Gary Bembridge and my channel is Tips for Travellers. Good luck.
