In three years, I took a business's YouTube channel from 16,000 subscribers to over a quarter of a million. More importantly, we turned it into a lead generation engine that contributed to around €650,000 in supported revenue in the first year alone.

I was the channel manager and YouTube team lead who built the systems, processes, and production discipline that made this possible at CareerFoundry, one of Europe's leading online career change and learning platforms.

Now this isn't a story about viral hits or intuitive creative genius (*ahem…). This is about building a sustainable content engine through strategic planning, systematic execution, and continuous iteration.

The Starting Point: A Channel Without Direction

When I joined CareerFoundry at the end of 2020, the YouTube channel already had 16,000 subscribers and a respectable back catalogue of videos. But it had three critical problems holding it back.

First, there was no clear strategic direction. The content felt disconnected from marketing goals. No single topic the channel catered to, no apparent value proposition for viewers. The lack of focus was killing any potential for sustained growth.

Second, there was no platform expertise. The team had little understanding of YouTube optimisation. Videos weren't packaged correctly, thumbnails were inconsistent, titles weren't optimised for search, and nobody understood how the algorithm actually worked.

Third, there were no production systems for scale. Videos took 3-4 weeks each to produce. The team could barely hit 1-2 uploads per month. Without production systems, sustainable weekly growth was impossible.

The Team and Resources

I had the essentials: a small team, leadership buy-in, and time to prove the system worked. Ed Wood, my co-founder here at Humble&Brag and then the CMO at CareerFoundry, had a vision for what YouTube could do for the business.

My team consisted of myself as team lead and two mid-level videographers with extensive backgrounds in traditional video production. We were embedded within a larger media team, balancing YouTube with other company-wide video needs—all while navigating the challenges of remote work during the pandemic.

The Solutions: Building a Sustainable Content Engine

Strategic Focus Through Research

Within my first couple of months, a channel audit revealed the core problem: no clear focus. The channel tried to serve everyone and ended up serving no one.

We decided to focus on one clear topic, aligning it with CareerFoundry's flagship course offering: UX Design. I'd already experienced significant growth with this topic at AJ&Smart, with several videos reaching six-figure viewership. We knew there was a hungry audience.

We'd tap into high-volume search intent with beginner-friendly explainer content. Think broad-stroke video titles like: "What is UX Design?", "What Do UX Designers Do?", "How Much Do UX Designers Make?" Real question-and-answer material positioning CareerFoundry as the expert and learning solution.

Platform Expertise and Quality Standards

We tied quality video practices—proper lighting, aesthetic backdrops, solid framing—with graphic design for thumbnails, optimised copy for descriptions, and strategic distribution on launch days.

I showcased top creators to my team, demonstrating how they framed and lit their videos, how office backdrops presented more intrigue than plain coloured canvases, and how they crafted their hooks and calls to action.

Here's the key insight: We set a lower bar for what "perfect" looked like, but a higher bar for what "done" looked like. We wanted quality, but not at the expense of momentum.

We established tracking discipline, regularly studying video performance and manually documenting results in a monthly spreadsheet. This covered impressions, viewership, subscriber gains, view durations, and month-on-month growth. Within four months of implementing the new strategy, monthly subscriber growth tripled.

Production Systems for Sustainable Scale

It all came down to batching. We batched the planning. We batched the filming. We batched the editing.

Before batching, the team would take weeks to plan, research, produce, and edit a video. I brought in stricter time-boxing and allocated resources more accurately. We'd spend a day or two filming each month, a day on the initial rough cut, several days on motion graphics and supporting content, and a day on feedback, upload, and release.

We factored in natural break points to avoid creative burnout and maintained a backlog of completed videos ready to publish. The system survived because it wasn't dependent on everything going right.

The Distribution Web

This is where so many companies fall short, and it's one of the quickest ways to gain traction. We didn't just publish on YouTube and stop. Every video became the centrepiece of a multi-channel distribution strategy.

Videos were shared with the editorial team for the blog. Our SEO specialist handled metadata and video schema for Google search results. We shared 20-30 second trailers on LinkedIn and Instagram. The next day, videos went to tens of thousands of people via email. If no existing blog article existed on the topic, one would be created.

This web of distribution leveraged the company's wider marketing assets to our advantage, elevating exposure in the first minutes and hours of release.

The Results: 2021 Performance

2021 was the first year the YouTube channel proved it could be more than a brand asset. It became a foundational organic growth lever for CareerFoundry.

Channel Growth

The channel began 2021 with limited reach: 624,000 impressions and 83,000 views in January, resulting in around 1,200 new subscribers. But these early numbers revealed the content was resonating and the algorithm recognised positive viewer satisfaction signals.

Through spring, the channel accelerated. Impressions rose from 665,000 in March to over 2 million by May.

By this point, we had also added nearly 2,000 subscribers in a single month. This was viewers were not only watching but committing to long-term engagement.

The final quarter defined our success. Monthly impressions climbed from 2.37 million in September to nearly 4.9 million in December. Views peaked at 267,000 in December, and subscriber growth hit 7,500 new subscribers, the highest of the year.

By year's end, the channel delivered: 20.3 million impressions, 1.71 million views, and 35,800 new subscribers.

Business Impact

Here's what really mattered from a commercial perspective: YouTube's impact extended far beyond the platform.

In 2021, YouTube drove over 54,000 website visits. Those visits converted into over 16,000 qualified leads. People actively interested in CareerFoundry's programmes. The conversion rate from visit to lead remained remarkably consistent at around 27%, telling us the traffic was highly qualified.

From those leads came meetings, and from those meetings came enrolments. YouTube contributed to 130 course enrolments in 2021. At an average of €5,000 per enrolment, that's €650,000 in attributed product revenue.

The revenue funnel: 54,000 website visits → 16,000 qualified leads → 130 enrolments → €650,000 in revenue.

YouTube monetisation also began mid-year, generating €11,200 in ad revenue through the remainder of 2021. This was early proof the channel could contribute toward running costs beyond sales generation.

The Long-Term Impact

The foundation laid in 2021 made the dramatic scale of 2022 and 2023 not only possible but inevitable. By the time I left at the end of 2023, the channel had reached 255,000 subscribers. Today, it sits at over 305,000.

And here's a final proof point: in early 2023, we cashed in €95,000 in ad revenue and self-funded a content expedition to the USA. The channel had become not just a lead generation engine but a self-sustaining asset.

We could chart forward predictions, better set targets and goals, and resource the team with freelancer support, new equipment, and more ambitious filming projects. We could estimate from impressions what the trickle-down would be to views, subscribers, website clicks, lead generation, and ultimately sales and ad revenue.

The Takeaway

YouTube success isn't about viral moments or creative genius. It's about strategic focus, platform expertise, and production systems that can scale sustainably.

By solving three fundamental challenges; lack of direction, lack of expertise, and lack of systems. We transformed a stagnant channel into a revenue-generating machine that continues to deliver results years later.

If you're looking to build similar systems for your business's YouTube channel, that's exactly what we do at Humble&Brag.

We help businesses turn YouTube into a sustainable growth engine through the same strategic approach that drove these results.

So if this has piqued your interest, book a call with us and let's chat.

Thanks for your time!

Calum