Can I tell you a secret? Over the last 5 years, I've helped hundreds of business owners grow their YouTube followings, and they all have one big problem in common: they find coming up with thumbnails incredibly hard and insanely time-consuming. The thing is, it doesn't have to be that way because there's a thumbnail style that's faster and easier to make, and is incredibly effective at blowing up channels. So, in this video, I'm going to show you what it is, how to make it, and how to split test it so that you can use it to get more views and then drive more people to your products and services. And if you're struggling to come up with ideas for your next video, just try this out and let me know how you get on in the comments. So, to start, let's look at a channel exploding using this method, and you can see how effective it's been from their Social Blade data on screen right now. What's great about their strategy is they keep their images so simple. Like anyone could

make these, and the channel is called Diary of a CEO. And all they do is they use a face and some simple text in their image. That's it. But we need to go one level deeper to understand what's actually going on here to get these sort of insane results so that you can actually use it too. So this fun in particular, I want you to take notice of. So let me show you why it's so powerful and how other channels are using the same system so you don't think this is a one-off. For example, this image. It's very simple, but it's using the exact same strategy as well as this one here. And here's me using it on my old Channel, Film Booth. So why are these so powerful for generating views? The reason these thumbnails have helped the videos explode comes down to a few things. Firstly, they are very simple, and they're designed so that the text is the first thing that stands out. If it didn't, what happens next just wouldn't be as effective. So it's critical that when you try this, you

don't overdesign your images, and make the text a secondary part. The Diary of CEO thumbnails do this really well because the highest point of contrast is black and white. And what that means is the text pretty much couldn't stick out anymore, even if they tried. I mean, look what happens when I use other colors. Just doesn't work as well, right? Now, the next reason, and the most powerful, is due to this: when we are presented with information that conflicts with our beliefs, it creates a psychological discomfort called cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is a big word that's used to describe feeling uncomfortable when you have two different beliefs, or when your actions don't match beliefs. So, for example, we've been told for ages that we need to have 8 hours sleep at night, right? And we've been told to relax. And then we've been told we're visual learners. And of course, we're always told to upload videos so people want to click just to find out what the heck is going on because it

challenges what they thought to be true. These funns are amazing because it suggests there's more to learn that we may have missed out on something important. And they click magnets because it builds curiosity in us, which is the key to getting views. But how do you make this fun not St for yourself so you can blow up your views in your business? Well, step one, you just want to ask yourself, based on the topic I want to talk about, what do most people believe to be true that maybe isn't? If you're struggling for ideas, head over to chat GPT and type, I need some examples of things that could create cognitive distance in the music production Niche. You would of course put your own niche in there. It'll then fire out a list of examples, and you know what? It's pretty good too. Here's a few statements it came up with in relation to the music production Niche. It said good marketing can make any song a hit, even if the production quality is poor. It also said you don't need to know

music theory to make songs. It also said expensive gear doesn't make your music sound better. Knowing your tools does. And then you move on to the next step. You work out how to get this statement down to four words or fewer. Although some of my examples I showed you don't do this. As a general rule of thumb, we want fewer words so the thumbnail is faster for people to read. Do not turn your thumbnail into a title. And then the third step is, and I touched on this before, you have to design so your text sticks out. First, now a few simple ways to do this are make the text the highest point of contrast on the page, which I mentioned, but also point arrows at the text and keep your design very simple so nothing competes with it. And that's why I love these 'cause they're easy. Step four is all about context. Ran's team used a brain in the Don't Relax image as it tells the viewer straight away what the topic is related to. Now you could use any item at all, a person, but really kind

of want to give visual context to what the topic of the video is about or just keep it very simple like Diary of a CEO and let the words give that context. Now I don't recommend you do this because with no context, well, this video could be about any topic in the world, right? Another thing to be careful of is if you're in the image, make sure your expression matches the statement too. So the days of over-the-top mouth open thumbnails are dead, especially if you want to build credibility for your business. So think about the emotion you want to convey and then see how you get on. Now there's a few other things I think are really important here too. Firstly, look at this. Which one FS more credible to you? Pulling out steals from a video should only be something you do because you had no other option. The smart move is just to bad shoot a ton of photos making different expressions with a quality camera and lighting setup. This is going to give people a way stronger first impression and then you can just pick from all of those different photos.

for every thumbnail you make, you're going to notice a lot on YouTube, especially the business channels. They use the same photos over and over again because it saves so much time, and you don't need to reinvent the wheel for every video. This next part's genius because you have to learn about what appeals to your viewers if you really want to get views. And one amazing way to do that is to make three versions of a very simple thumbnail like this with different words on them. Then you just pick the one you think works best and you launch it. And then wait a few hours and see how it performs. And if it doesn't do that well, you can then switch it to the next statement. What can happen is over the coming hours, you can see views spike or maybe even decrease. And what this means is people are more interested or they are less interested. And this is how you learn what appeals to people. And then what's even better is let's say the views do spike, you can reuse these words or very similar on a

new title or an old video to try and get views in that. So it's just such a good way to learn about what your viewers care about without having to spend days doing multiple designs. Or you can use the new YouTube split testing feature where you simply load three thumbnails in, and then when you post your video, you wait a few hours for the data to load. Now if you're a smaller Channel, this might take longer, but when it does, it's going to tell you which option is working the best for your audience. What's even better is you can run split tests like this all of the time on old videos too, so you can learn faster about what your viewers click on. There is one issue with this though. So new and small channels, you guys don't really get enough impressions to play around with this yet, so you'd have to put out a video and then wait a lot longer before you started to see any results. But either way, it's critical you always have at least three versions of every thumbnail. I mean, look at this video it

was a 9 out of 10 when I launched it. I switched it to this thumbnail, hey Presto. Having just one thumbnail is a death sentence for your content. How is this going to make you more money? Well, for those of you who have an offer, more views should equal more money if you have your marketing set up well and you haven't completely overcomplicated your videos descriptions. But for those of you who don't, every video you make is training you to understand what your viewers are interested in. And when you learn about what copy attracts them, you can use the same strategy all over the place. For example, you could use your video's packaging as a hook to drive attention towards your email list. Or when you do have an offer, you could use the same copy as a hook on your landing page to help drive people down the page and make them read more there. Small YouTube all over the place using hooks of this nature to grow their channels and make big money. And if you want to know how else they generate six

Seven-figure incomes from sometimes tiny views. Watch this video next to discover the secrets to making money on YouTube.

YouTube's hard, until you know this pro trick

I'm on a mission to help business owners build YouTube followings that generate income so they can work less.

I transformed the YouTube channel Film Booth into a $1.2M/yr business in a couple of years  and now I want to help more business people do the same. 

And the best part? 

It was just me and one other team member, all within 21 months of leaving my previous business and starting from $0 turnover. 

This channel is designed to help you do the same.

I'll make videos that cover 

1. How to build a profitable following on YouTube without going viral .
2. How to come up with info products to monetise your audience  
3. How to use storytelling to generate views and sales.
4. Strategies to help you achieve your own personal goals using YouTube

Im also on the look out for any educators who have built businesses and want to share their stories too. Feel free to email me your story and if I can get it in to a video i'll share it with the world. 

