What was the problem? How was it hurting the business? 

John Bevere wanted to expand his online reach through a Youtube podcast.

He had done just about everything you could do as in the Christian space. He’s traveled the world to speak, written 20 plus books, (some even bestsellers) and developed an incredible non profit that has given over 50 million in biblical resources away since 2011 to non-english speaking nations.

But there was still something missing.

The time it takes to prepare for a sermon is around the same it would take to prepare for a day of podcast tapings. You deliver a message to a few thousand in person, maybe there’s an online stream as well. But that message only impacts the people in the room. Some churches do a good job of hosting their messages online, but hardly ever package them properly for maximum reach.

John also has a beautiful family and it’s still growing (his grandkids are very cute) and traveling the world every weekend to preach can come at the cost of more time with family.

John and his team had already identified that Youtube was the place to further his message and teachings. This would decrease the amount of time John would need to travel, plus it would create a ton of reach for his books, courses, and the Messenger app with minimal amount of effort 

But there was one small issue.

John’s YouTube videos weren’t performing, and that’s where we come in. 

What solutions did they look at and ultimately reject and why? 

I’m sure John’s team looked at many other solutions to solve their issue.

Why did they choose our product as the solution? 

Problem #1 - Unintentional Packaging

One of the first big problems we saw on John’s channel was that his packaging was pretty bland. His titles acted more as descriptions of the actual episode instead of intentional, attention grabbing copy. His thumbnails were also 

But here’s the cool part…His videos were actually good.

If you bothered to click on the video and you got past the packaging there was gold. John is a phenomenal teacher and communicator. His videos were extremely impactful. But the way his videos were packaged, the audience  had to do a little bit of digging to find that out, which is the opposite of what you want your audience to do.

You need to make it easy for them to find value in what you are providing.

To use an analogy, on YouTube, the presentation of the meal is just as important (if not more) as the actual quality and tastiness of the meal.

We knew if we could package John’s videos in a way that made them seem enticing and helpful to the viewer, we were in for massive growth on his channel.

But, there were a few other problems stopping us from doing this.

Problem #2 - Navigating an Existing Internal Team

One of the bigger issues we faced while growing John’s podcast was navigating the existing team that was running his channel.

Their team was made of awesome people, everybody had been at the company for a while, but John had brought our team (Mission Studios at the time) for a reason. We understood podcasting. We understood Youtube. And we produced some amazing results for clients in the past.

Despite that, this was not a solo operation, we still had to work with their team to publish the weekly episodes. This created a little bit of friction.

We’re a strong believer in Raymon Loewy’s theory innovation coined MAYA, short for Most Advanced Yet Acceptable.

Derek Thompson explains it as, “consumers are torn between two opposing forces: neophilia, a curiosity about new things; and neophobia, a fear of anything too new. As a result, they gravitate to products that are bold, but instantly comprehensible… to sell something surprising make it familiar; and to sell something familiar, make it surprising.

This theory also pairs well with Virgil’s Abloh’s 3% change rule which suggests that you can create something new by only changing a process, product, or perspective by 3%. 

Generally, change is accepted more easily in small increments.

Let’s just say we were doing a little more than 3% of change.

We were using more aggressive titles, dicey imagery in the thumbnails, snappy fast paced hooks, and we were talking about controversial issues… all from day one.

This caused some friction and pushback in an effort to protect the vision of John’s Youtube channel and to uphold the integrity of the Messenger International brand. 

There were many meetings about our process, and if our packaging and topics were too extreme.

But really, it was just the pain of change.

By no means did we hijack John’s Youtube channel or push the team against their wishes, but to grow an audience and expand reach you often must do something new or change directions.

And what’s growth if there’s not a little pain involved

Eventually, John’s team began to see the value of doing the podcast in a different way and even began to push more extreme ideas than us!

*Here’s a pdf show you the overhaul we made* < show john’s pod direction here 

Problem #3 - Idea Gen

*show Patty idea visual here*

I have to credit Paddy Galloway here for this framework. It’s something everyone should do.

Often, when creators try to figure out the reason their podcast isn’t working they begin looking at stats like CTR, AVD, Watch time, spike’s in retention, drops in retention, etc…

They start tweaking the words in their thumbnails, changing their editing style, and cycling through thumbnails.

But they are often missing the most important question you can ask.

Was this even a good idea?

I know it sounds simple, but it actually takes the most amount of information to answer.

It also takes the most amount of empathy.

What does my audience like?
Who else do they watch? 

What can I offer that other creators don’t?
Is this just something I want to talk about or are people asking for this?
Is there even a title and thumbnail that works with this video idea?

These are the questions every creator should ask, but often this thought process occurs long after production.

From there you are fitting a square peg into a round hole, and the views will reflect this.

With John, he’s very headstrong. He knows where he’s going, and what he wants to do. But he’s also data driven.

So as the weeks went on, our leash got a little bit longer, and we kept pushing new ideas on him before we sat down to record. We kept pushing ideas, the data kept backing them up, and our trust grew.  

Interrogate your ideas before you start filming. It’s the most important thing any creator can do. 

What are the results and benefits they are getting? 

• 1.5 Mil Views generated through 11 videos 

  • Started in May (only took 4 months)

• 252,9k Watch Times Hours

• Highest performing video 279k

  • Had 100k in less than 24 hours (will keep growing)

  • Jesus’ Most Important End Times Warning

• 145k views per episode (since taking over) 

• 7 out of 10 podcast episode hit over 100k views

  • Other 3 all over 70k views

• 3 out of the 10 videos hit over 200k 

• +26.9k subscribers

• 490.1k views in August