Medical marketing: results of running a YouTube channel. +109 thousand subscribers in 6 months

Maintaining Large YouTube Channels

Six months ago, we were contacted by a client who runs an expert YouTube channel dedicated to medical topics. The channel regularly posts videos about the benefits of exercise, facts about the body, recommendations, and tips. The channel has gained popularity thanks to the doctor's charisma and experience.

9 361 532

views on the channel

109 300

subscribers

10 300

subscribers from paid advertising

$0,059

average price per subscriber

$12 343,54

channel monetization revenue

Details

GEO

CIS Countries

Target audience

People interested in healthy lifestyles and disease prevention, people with or predisposed to chronic diseases, medical and health care professionals

Nisha

Medicine

The purpose of contacting us was to increase the number of views and subscribers on the channel. The client was also interested in increasing monetization, as there had been no growth in this indicator in recent months.

Before the client contacted us, his channel already had 500 thousand subscribers. Therefore, it was important not to change the format of the channel drastically, so as not to scare off the existing subscribers. But at the same time, add tools to attract new ones.

Work progress

Channel analysis and audit

Conducted a detailed channel audit, including analyzing current content, audience and metrics. Identified key points that needed improvement, such as updating the design, optimizing video metadata, and working with content strategy.

Design update and content optimization

Revamped the channel design concept, including video covers and icons, making them more attractive and in line with the channel theme. Optimized old videos by changing titles, descriptions and tags for better ranking in search and recommended videos.

Development and implementation of content strategy

Created a content plan with a focus on serialized content and video “engines” that were already performing well. Included content creation for new audiences to expand reach and increase subscriptions.

Introduction of YouTube Shorts and live streaming formats

We introduced the format of short videos (YouTube Shorts), which is actively promoted by the platform's algorithms and started to bring new subscriptions and views. We also started regular live broadcasts, which helped increase engagement and the number of regular viewers.

Running paid advertising and video promotion

We launched paid advertising on YouTube in the format of Video Ads in Feed (Discovery) to promote the best videos through a closed link. This approach helped to avoid deterioration of organic reach and attract new viewers through promotional videos.

Analyzing the results and adjusting the strategy

Over the course of six months, regularly analyzed results, including growth in subscribers, views, and monetization. We made the necessary adjustments to the strategy to maximize results. The result was 109,000 new subscribers and a significant increase in revenue from the channel.

It should be noted that running a channel is like a marathon. That is, the chosen content strategy gives results after a few months of running a YouTube channel. The analytics graph clearly shows the start of work with our team and the first results of growth thanks to the new content strategy.

A graph showing getting started with 4Limes and the first growth results

First of all, the growth of a YouTube channel is possible when your regular audience is engaged in the video, which requires you to shoot serial content. When we created our content plan, we took into account which videos were best received by our regular audience.

For your channel to grow as quickly as possible, you also need to create content for a new audience that will come to the channel, engage with serial content, and become subscribers. Youtube has a breakdown of data by audience, and it’s clear that since we started our work, we’ve seen an increase in both regular and new audience on the channel.

Graph of new audience growth

When working with large YouTube channels, you should stick to serial content, which can be based on video “locomotives.” These are videos that gain a stable number of views and bring in subscribers. Make a sequel to them or develop this topic, as it is most likely to be included in recommendations.

Here’s an example of video analytics for a “locomotive”:

Example of locomotive video analytics

Paid promotion of a medical channel on YouTube

Since the channel had good organic traffic, we decided to focus on paid promotion.

Usually, ads are launched to gain views and promote a single video by position. But we had a different goal – to bring a new audience to the channel without changing the current statistics (so as not to accidentally worsen organic reach).

Therefore, we used individual videos in the promotion, which were available only via the link. For them, we chose the Discovery video ad format, which shows ads in recommended videos.

The videos for promotion were chosen based on the number of views in the recommended videos and the number of subscribers they brought. Since the video has shown itself well in organic promotion, it will also show positive dynamics in paid promotion.

** Many people run ads on individual videos, but when you have good organic traffic, it’s better to refuse this step. Our approach will not reduce retention on other videos, but will only allow you to get a new audience from promotional videos.

Results of promoting a medical YouTube channel

Key results

9 361 532

views on the channel

109 300

subscribers

10 300

subscribers from paid advertising

$0,059

average price per subscriber

$12 343,54

channel monetization revenue

Within six months of working on the channel, the number of subscribers increased by 109 thousand, and the total number of views reached over 9 million.

To demonstrate the growth of the audience more clearly, here is a comparison of the effectiveness of the two time periods. The right side of the table and graph shows the channel’s statistics for the first 6 months before you contacted us. The left side shows statistics for six months of our work on promoting the channel.

We can note a clear increase in the “content selection function” – views increased by 1 million (the indicator indicates the frequency of video selection from the main page). There is also an increase in the section of recommended videos, external sources, and a new section of short videos.

The right part of the table and the chart is the statistics of the channel for the first 6 months, before you contacted us. And the left part is the statistics for half a year of our work

We also provide general statistics of the channel for six months of promotion. Here you can see the growth rates of channel monetization.

Channel statistics for half a year of promotion, which shows monetization growth rates

We also provide general statistics of the channel for six months of promotion. Here you can see the growth rates of channel monetization.

Monetization prior to the launch of 4Limes

The following screenshot shows the data on organic on the YouTube channel. Over 96 million impressions, with 74.9% of them coming from recommended sources.

screenshot shows organics data on YouTube channel

Analytics on Shorts videos

To organically promote the client’s channel, we used additional formats, including Shorts. These are short and dynamic videos up to 1 minute long. They collect views in a separate feed, which is now very popular on Youtube. Nowadays, Shorts, like TikTok, gets the most organic traffic using unique algorithms.

Let’s take a closer look at a few videos

The first video brought about 5.8 thousand new subscribers and more than 750 thousand views. It has been indexed for over 45 days and continues to gain views. Such videos have a good retention rate and faster growth in terms of views.

Shorts video views and monetization statistics

Audience retention data

And the next video, as you can see from the graph, didn’t immediately start getting many views. However, it shows good results in terms of subscriber growth of +1.1 and viewer retention of 99.3%. Therefore, it works successfully in the Shorts feed.

Statistics on the second video after the start of the 4Limes robot

Audience retention data for the second video

Results of paid promotion of the medical channel

Between December 6 and January 5, we launched 4 videos. They brought new subscribers at the best price – $0.059. With their help, we managed to attract 10.3 thousand subscribers through paid advertising alone.

The main task of the advertising campaigns was to promote the selected “best video”, which was uploaded separately with access via a link, and it was intended only for advertising. This is necessary for the constant recruitment of new users, as well as to minimize the risk of deterioration of analytics indicators.

Conclusions

When managing large channels, it is important to gradually introduce new tools and refrain from radical changes. It is important to focus on both working with the existing audience and attracting new viewers.

As a result, we managed to accomplish the main task of increasing the number of subscribers and monetizing the channel. This was achieved through video optimization, a competent advertising strategy, and the use of short videos. Quality content, which the client submitted for publication on time, also played an important role in the promotion.

Interested in promoting your YouTube channel? If you need to promote your YouTube channel, don’t hesitate to contact 4Limes. Leave a request, and our specialist will contact you shortly for a consultation.

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