2
9 Comments

Behind the scenes: 1,000 subscribers in 3 months with $0 spent

Hi everyone, I am new to this platform but am learning quickly. I will try my best to not be promotional, only educational

All statistics are between September 2020 - November 2020.

What We Did

Three interviews with a YouTube influencer (223k subscribers) discussing finance and investing (3 videos, links below only for educational purposes).
Link 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhuzYHeDwrI
Link 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Tw6M0SsTI&t=399s
Link 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i58uTksmiNk&t=944s

How We Did

Total Budget Spent: $0
Total Videos: 3
Total Video Views: 203,705
Total Landing Pages Tested: 4
Total Page Views: 3558
Total Email Forms Tested: 2
Total New Subscribers: 1004
Total Email Sequences Tested: 3
Total Customers: 3

Who Was Involved

My company, Zinvest Financial, is an investment advisor in Anaheim, CA. Marketing/Design handled landing pages and email marketing. Operations handled customer service. Engineer handled backend. I managed business development.

Why We Did It

We reached out to the YouTube KOL to engage in an interview. The primary goal was to educate & inform an audience that cares about finance, investing, and business. We wanted to connect with our core target customer while building our brand presence in the Chinese-American finance community.


Conclusion

We're improving how we talk to the community, both through YouTube and in our emails. Since we're a new company, and most people do not trust others with their finances, we really to market using educational + valuable materials. With our current email list, we've gotten better at communication and messaging. Definitely hire someone for email marketing!


Marketing Tools Used

  • YouTube
  • Google Analytics
  • HotJar (UX data)
  • Unbounce (landing page)
  • Facebook (Pixel for retargeting)
  • MailerLite (email)

We're going to check out other platforms soon, such as Quora or Chinese blogging sites. If you have any thoughts or questions, let me know!

posted to Icon for group Growth
Growth
on December 10, 2020
  1. 2

    @ZinvestUSA How did you collaborate with the youtuber? Did you offer him any monetary benefit or some kind of barter?

    1. 1

      Actually no, we found her email on her YouTube channel. Sent email, asking if wanted to talk about the market and how election may affect it. She agreed, and after the 1st video she really liked our firm and our discussion. Her audience liked our discussions too, so I Became recurring guest for 2 more times. Maybe will do another video this month!

      I will look for email I sent when I get back to office tomorrow 👍

      1. 1

        Thank you so much! It would really help me in using this idea for ruttl as well! I have been thinking of getting into the YouTube interview space for a long time.

        1. 1

          You have great product, my designer likes it. "Try to pitch to design channels, such as UX designers like chunbun or web design channels. They'd be happy to review your product, talk about trending topics that align with your product, or even say how your product solves a problem" - Designer

          1. 1

            Thanks for the feedback @ZinvestUSA! I'll keep this in mind

        2. 1

          Still looking for it, asked my team. Forgot to add in main post, big detail: we offered the YouTube KOL (key opinion leader) a profit-share from sign-ups from her video. This allowed us to gain leverage while having a strong relationship with her. KOL agreed to terms (5-7%) and has been happy since to interview, of course only 3 conversions so far (average customer value is around $400), but we believe the audience will continue as video is evergreen content, subscribers keep going up.

  2. 1

    solid. how do you like mailerlite?

    1. 1

      Love the platform. Setting up may be a challenge, but it pays for itself. Automations, embedded forms, and pop-ups make the free version awesome but the email heatmaps and optimized time deliveries make the paid version even better.

      Formerly: MailChimp, ConstantContact, ActiveCampaign, and SendFox.

      1. 1

        awesome! thank you for sharing

Trending on Indie Hackers
I spent $0 on marketing and got 1,200 website visitors - Here's my exact playbook User Avatar 70 comments Veo 3.1 vs Sora 2: AI Video Generation in 2025 🎬🤖 User Avatar 31 comments I built eSIMKitStore — helping travelers stay online with instant QR-based eSIMs 🌍 User Avatar 21 comments 🚀 Get Your Brand Featured on FaceSeek User Avatar 20 comments Day 6 - Slow days as a solo founder User Avatar 16 comments Solo SaaS Founders Don’t Need More Hours....They Need This User Avatar 12 comments