While the content of the video is huge, if nobody clicks on the video, it doesn’t matter. The classes at YTContentLaunch walk you through how to craft the best titles and thumbnails that will catch your audience’s attention and accurately depict what the video is about.
We go over a variety of design principles like color contrast, facial expressions, thumbnails composition, text usage, to design the most optimal thumbnail for your video. We then go over how to optimally design the title of your video to entice the viewer to watch based on the thumbnail you selected. Often times you see the thumbnail before the title of the video and most people will decide to watch based on the title alone.
Students also learn how to leverage analytics to A/B test titles and thumbnails to serve their content and audience. They might need to switch up the aesthetic of their thumbnails, or tweak titles to more accurately represent the content they’re producing.
The course also explores the psychology of the scroll. This is not just a matter of colour; it is about creating a “curiosity gap”. Instructors show how to ask a visual question that can only be answered by the video. This could be a dramatic “before and after”, or a moment of high drama. The aim is to provoke an emotional response — surprise, curiosity, excitement — that makes the click compulsive, rather than a choice.
The final core principle of the YTContentLaunch approach is the idea of consistency. Even as you differentiate individual content, you still need to have a unified voice or visual language across your channel to maintain in the long-term. The course will teach you how to find your unique visual flair, whether it’s using specific fonts, colors, or graphic formats, to build an audience of followers. A strong visual style means when your content appears on a busy home page, people will know it’s yours immediately, even before seeing the name on the channel.
Last but not least, they really drill home the concept of the difference between being “click-worthy” and “clickbait”. You’re taught that you need your viewer’s trust, and even though you may get that click from a baited thumbnail, it will end up killing your view time and algorithmic trust at the same time. You’re taught to create a package for the video that sells the video, but does not mislead it. You’re taught to create a cover that creates an expectation, that the video delivers on that expectation, and that a high CTR should also mean a good view time, and that in turn should mean channel success.