Case Study
Lecrae
Lecrae and the B-Side App
What Was the Problem?
B-Side needed to drive awareness and produce a top of funnel podcast show that is not only helpful, but entertaining.
This show also has to be at minimum generating 200k views per month so it’s attractive for brand partners and ad spots.
The show was already up and running when we took over, but as you know that can be just as difficult as starting from scratch because you have to work with someone else’s foundation.
The show found early success, due to hype and frankly, a few killer episodes, but started to dwindle off in the next 5 episodes or so.
Another obstacle is that Lecrae is an artist. He isn’t a podcaster. He was also new to the competitive landscape of Youtube. Despite the illusion that anyone can just hop on a mic and start talking, creating an engaging conversation is hard. And battling other means of entertainment is an ongoing struggle for any creator today.
At the time, the B-Side App had one successful show, Tim Ross’ The Basement and another show that wasn’t doing so hot. So, there was a lot riding on the success of Lecrae’s show.
Let’s make the implications simple.
The Funnel
The engine that makes the business starts at top of funnel content. Simply, this is just free content that is easy to see. It drives awareness and can pull someone deeper into the ecosystem of content that the B-Side offers – usually another podcast, and then a newsletter, and then a 7 day trial, which eventually converts into a year long commitment to the app.
No top of funnel content
No newsletter subscriptions
No app downloads
Business dies.
The podcast has to work.
Problem #1 - Lack of Audience Knowledge
Early in the show’s launch, we were making videos for a certain person. 25-30 year old Christian males that like helpful, but intellectually stimulating conversations. If the conversation is a little edgy and raw that’s a big benefit. They probably already watch a laundry list of other Christian podcasts as well and they’re social media/Youtube natives. Let’s call this person Damian.
Under this audience target we actually saw around 500k views in less than 4 videos, but we had one small problem…
Women loved our videos.
In fact, 80% of our views came from women ages 25-44.
For some reason we noticed the data, thought it was cool, and continued to make videos for Damien (the original audience).
Yeah, that didn’t end up working so well.
Our next few videos underperformed heavily. We nabbed less than 200k views over our next 5 videos total.
At this point we know we have an issue.
People weren’t clicking on our videos.
We weren’t hitting our view targets.
People weren’t downloading the app as a result…
This wasn’t good.
But I’ll let you in on a secret, this is where we thrive.
See, there is no better place to be than at square one. Especially after testing something that didn’t work. You can now take a more accurate shot on goal knowing what you didn’t know before.
From there we erased all previous assumptions we’d made and interrogated the previous strategy.
Is it true that men prefer to watch Lecrae’s podcast over women?
If not, what topics do women care about?
What topics could Lecrae talk about in this realm?
Are people tired of hearing Lecrae monologue by himself?
Should we bring on guests?
If so, why did the previous guests not work?
Are our titles not engaging enough?
What about our thumbnails?
All of these questions needed to be answered (this is where the fun begins).
To answer any question, we first believe it’s best to run an experiment. You want to be able to prove yourself right or wrong + you want the data to analyze afterwards.
So, we started our research.
We looked at every channel in the Christian podcast niche.
⁃ Who are they having on?
⁃ What’s working for them?
⁃ What titles are they using?
⁃ What thumbnails are they using?
What has worked for Lecrae in the past?
⁃ What didn’t work for Lecrae in the past?
⁃ What are the reasons why?
⁃ Wrong topic? Idea issue?
⁃ Did we pick the wrong thumbnail/title to use?
From this data, we created a hypothesis…
Ex: If the majority of Lecrae’s podcast views come from women ages 25-44, then we should start bringing on female guests that are Christian to start appealing to that audience. This should increase views + engagement on all content moving forward.
I know that sounds simple but 98% of YouTubers fail to test their theories in a logical way that’s trackable.
This keeps them spinning around in circles with low views, a confused audience, and 0 reasons why it’s not working.
We then ran our experiment!
What changes: topics, packaging, thumbnails
what we measure: views (most importantly), ctr, avd, returning viewers
what doesn’t change: gender of guest, podcast format, hook format, when we post
We then analyzed our data
This is the most important part.
Problem #2 - Lecrae Wasn’t a Podcaster
As stated, Lecrae wasn’t a podcaster. He was an artist.
So, part of our role was to make him one.
Granted, Lecrae is an exceptional communicator, he’s witty, he’s funny, and well-respected. You can shoot him a question and he’ll promptly rattle off a coherent, engaging response.
The capability and talent was always there.
The real issue was time. Lecrae was still touring, he’s still making music, he’s traveling, he’s a father and a husband.
And again, people underestimate how hard it is to breakthrough on YouTube, let alone the podcasting space.
You need to know exactly who to have on (if anyone at all)
Research episode topics
Write scripts
Pick a compelling title with a thumbnail that matches.
Book talent and work with their management teams
Edit compelling hooks to get people into the video
Shoot your podcast or find a videographer that can do it
Edit your videos or hire an editor that can do it
Make sure you sound good
You get the point!
Part of our role was just making things easy for him. We researched each topic and guest before shoot day. We were a helping hand on shoot days. Provided a plethora of angles for the conversation to go in, and even sat in on shoots to make sure there weren’t holes in our episodes or loops of curiosity we hadn’t closed for the viewer.
Before we knew it, Lecrae was more excited to podcast than he was to make music. People were asking to be on the podcast and it became his main thing!
Problem #3 - Training Editors and Designers
On some creative teams we work with, there are already in-house editors, designers, or even built out post production teams.
This was certainly the case on this project.
All of our assets for YouTube were handled by an oversees team. They created our thumbnails, our hooks, and our episodes.
While having an oversees team can cut costs for creators and small businesses it can sometimes leave a lot to be desired in terms of quality control, excellence, and communication.
Our job was to bridge the gap and fill in the holes where possible. We acted as the shield between mediocre/average work and our talent (which was Lecrae). We often pushed for revisions, and even revised the world ourselves until it was world class in our minds.
While this is painful for both us and the editors because it results in much more work in the short run, over the next several months our process ironed itself out.
Because we refused to move the line on what the standard of excellence was, the editors got better and started to create exceptional edits without the need for mindless revisions.
The Results
Lecrae’s podcast has been a success by all measures.
Here are some things we accomplished
Lecrae’s highest performing video ever (not including music)
806k Views
Jackie Hill Perry Gets Deep With Lecrae
126k views per episode (since taking over)
879.4k views in August w/o shorts (highest performing month)
4.9M Views since December 2023
1.3M Watch Time Hours since Dec. 2023
$27k made since December 23 (no mid roll)
+54.5k Subscribers since Dec. 2023
15 videos over 100k
5 videos over 200k
2 videos over 300k