Gentleman's Agreement Subscriptions

A strategy for asking viewers to subscribe on YouTube without being overly aggressive or cringe-worthy, while still driving significant subscriber growth.

Core Concept

• Created "Gentleman's Agreement" approach to replace traditional aggressive YouTube subscription requests
• Proved highly effective at driving subscriber growth
• Demonstrated that asking for subscriptions works, even if creators think it doesn't matter

Key Results

• Channel grew from 150,000 to 360,000 subscribers
• Added 210,000 subscribers in one year
• Showed clear correlation between implementing the agreement and subscriber growth

Implementation Lessons

• Consistency is crucial
  • Need to maintain regular mentions of the agreement
  • Effectiveness decreased when they stopped mentioning it regularly
• Must develop new variations
  • Original concept became less novel over time
  • Required creating new versions to maintain engagement
• Watch other YouTubers
  • Study successful subscription request methods
  • Copy and adapt effective approaches

Broader Takeaways

• Traditional marketing tactics work even if they seem annoying
  • Similar to Facebook ads - people claim they don't work but data shows they do
• Finding non-cringe ways to do "cringe" things is valuable
  • Can turn standard practices into something more palatable
  • Example: Also applied this to ad reads with "Thrill of the Shill"
• Don't need much extra effort
  • Just requires creative thinking to make standard practices more engaging
  • Benefits both creator and audience when done right