How I'd do video for Ghost

I audited Ghost’s online presence and found room to improve their video strategy, especially on YouTube.

My main conclusions are:

• Almost nobody mentions Ghost as a top newsletter option;
• And Ghost isn’t making videos talking to their ideal customers.

Keep reading to see the strategy and 3 videos I would create if I worked for Ghost.

Where things stand

Ghost was focused on blogs and later added newsletter capabilities. But the public perception hasn’t fully caught up with how much the platform has changed over the years.

Its main ICPs are content creators and media publications monetizing written content via memberships.

But content about newsletters rarely recommends Ghost as a top 3 or top 5 option. I’ve seen this both when searching on LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini, or video platforms.

This happens despite Ghost being a popular topic on YouTube when compared to the main competitors (Substack and beehiiv).

I give props to Ghost’s team, as they have posted more content appealing to creators on social media and in the newsletter.

But you can still see lots of technical tutorials on the official YouTube channel.

The strategy

Since there’s already an audience watching YouTube videos about newsletters and even searching for Ghost, that’s where I would focus.

Ghost isn’t present on TikTok or Instagram anyway, and I’m confident YouTube will pay off.

Most search-based videos in this niche get around 1k-10k views. These are the ‘Ghost vs Substack’, ‘Ghost review’, ‘beehiiv tutorial’, etc.

The bulk of my strategy is to target broader topics using proven video formats.

The broad topics strategy follows an established good practice for growing YouTube channels: make videos based on what the audience wants to watch, not only what the company wants to promote

For example, the topics ‘starting a newsletter’ and ‘growing a newsletter’ show several outliers with 20k-100k views.

These outliers show there’s interest in the topic, and these channels are getting more views than normal! Even HubSpot has a video with more than 100k views (a good sign, as companies can get views).

So, let’s put Ghost in the conversation from the start, and not only when creators need to migrate away from Substack.

The Video Ideas

Here are 3 videos I would create if I worked for Ghost.

These ideas were selected because they match Ghost’s values and what they defend for publishers.

Video 1 - Newsletters Are NOT Dead

People love to say that something is dead.

SEO is dead. Ads are dead.

And they have been saying that newsletters are dead for the past 20 years.

But Ghost has data proving the opposite, so let’s make a video about it.

For the thumbnail, I would take inspiration from Matt McGarry.

I would try to draw attention to the ‘Not Dead’ argument to open a loop and to the $100M (earned by Ghost users). This is a huge number and something worth paying attention to!

For the title, I will use ‘Newsletters Are Not Dead’ as this is the main thesis of the video, so we don’t risk clickbaiting people.

Video 2 - How long it takes to grow a newsletter

For the other 2 videos, I will repurpose some of the great content I have found on Ghost’s newsletter, starting with the issue ‘Taking your Time’.

The internet is filled with 30-day challenges and claims that growing a newsletter is fast. Spoiler: it’s not!

It takes years of hard work for the majority of creators to see any results.

So, I will take that idea and adapt it to the topic of ‘growing a newsletter’.

My thumbnail inspiration is a mix of Jeff’s and Cole’s images, combining the zero-to-one visual and the question (‘is it worth it?’).

I would blur the number of subscribers on the right to open a curiosity gap.

My title suggestion is ‘The Painful TRUTH About Growing A Newsletter’.

I want to appeal to curiosity by implying that other videos aren’t telling the whole truth when talking about how hard it’s to grow a newsletter.

Video 3 - Why your newsletter isn’t growing

The topic ‘why my newsletter isn’t growing’ is a common frustration for creators, and it has some potential as a video.

So, I will repurpose the newsletter titled Saving your subscribers.

This video will be about newsletter churn, as it can be a common reason for the lack of growth.

Inspiration for the thumbnail comes from Patrick Walsh’s video “How to Grow an Email Newsletter from 0 With BeeHiiv or Substack”.

I tried to make the pain point visible by showing a gain of just 42 subscribers in 6 months.

As for the title, I would pick ‘This is why your newsletter will NEVER grow’. This is an intentional bold claim (will never grow) and touches on the pain point again.

Landing the plane

I think improving awareness is the biggest win available for Ghost.

My plan is a new content direction targeting a different audience on Ghost’s channel. This means stopping technical tutorials on the channel to avoid making a common YouTube mistake.

I recommend a similar split in my Transistor YouTube strategy audit to make one channel attract a broad audience (serious podcasters) and another handle product education.

The effort would go towards helping people find Ghost earlier, instead of waiting for them to get frustrated with their current tool.

This awareness job is a long-term play that needs a broad marketing effort. YouTube is a route to, potentially, get thousands of views from their ICP and put Ghost in the newsletter conversation without waiting for LLMs to rank Ghost higher.

If you want me to audit your company channel, contact me. I audit YouTube channels and create strategies to help businesses grow and sell with video content.