Tips for Capturing Viewer Attention in Video Thumbnails

Video terrifies most marketers. Nothing is more devastating than pouring time, sweat, and money into a video no one watches. The world's best video creators ensure that never happens with this simple tactic: They create headlines and thumbnails before writing a script or picking up a camera. Why? Because headlines and thumbnails are the cheapest way to stress-test your video concept. If you can't come up with headlines and thumbnails that are undeniably clickable, don’t make the video. Want to create headlines and thumbnails with an amazing click-through rate? Steal these strategies: ✔️ Tell a mini-story. An ugly thumbnail that tells a story is exponentially better than a pixel-perfect thumbnail that doesn’t. ✔️ Don't play it safe. Watering down your headline and thumbnail is the quickest way to ensure your video loses right out of the gate. Being bold is a necessary ingredient for high CTR. ✔️ Set the stakes. State an ambitious goal in the headline. Use the thumbnail to show the dramatic obstacles you must overcome to achieve it. Show the audience the consequences that will happen if you fail. ✔️ Strip back everything unnecessary. Leave only the most essential, emotionally-compelling concept. ✔️ Keep it honest. Your headline and thumbnail are the elevator pitch to your audience. Don’t risk your credibility by making a promise you can’t deliver. ✔️ Create a curiosity gap. Intentionally leave questions unanswered so people feel the need to learn more. ✔️ Create a headline and a thumbnail with a single person in mind. The more specific you are with your target audience, the more likely you are to find them. ✔️ Emotional value first, SEO value second. Keywords alone don't make a good title. A boring title is a kiss of death for your video. Use emotional words to create interest around your primary keyword. Don’t treat headlines and thumbnails as an afterthought. Make them the first step in your process.

This YouTube video popped off unexpectedly. Let’s break down how they (and you) can replicate its success. This video (300k views) does 2 things differently from their prior uploads (10k views avg): 1️⃣ Skimmable, simple thumbnail  2️⃣ Connects a VERB in the thumbnail to a NOUN in the title That’s it. You’ll notice the other video thumbnails & titles don’t do either. Instead they're: 👉 Crowded 👉 Undisciplined color splash 👉 Vague; an attempt at mystery gone unnoticed These things make the thumbnail non-skimmable, which means they aren't clickable. To determine what makes this video successful, lets get aligned with a few thumbnail truths: 👉 People read text in thumbnails before the text in the video's title 👉 The story of the thumbnail must lead into the story of the title 👉 The thumbnail must inspire the viewer to "take the next step" and read the title *SUPER IMPORTANT* You have to decide if reading the next line of this post is worth your time, the same way that a viewer goes from the thumbnail to your title. The title comes into play only AFTER the thumbnail hooks the viewer, and the video only gets clicked WHEN the title builds upon the thumbnail. 📺 Example Video:  Thumbnail text: “We make them disappear” Title text: CIA Assassin Unmasks Deadliest Black Ops Force in the World (1.3 million views, 3 hours long) ✅ The VERB “disappear” in the thumbnail is the word directly before reading the NOUN “CIA agent” in the title. The closer you get the verb to the noun, the more views you get. The closer the verb/noun is, the less processing a viewer needs to do. The less processing, the less of a chance for confusion. The less confusion, means more clicks. 📺This viral video Thumbnail text: "Never Justify" Title text: "Don’t justify your prices. Do this instead" ✅ The VERB “Never justify” in the thumbnail connects to the NOUN “prices” in the first half of the title. This video popped off because it did this one thing better than the 1,000 videos before it. It has nothing to do with the quality of the video (which is no better than the others), but the way in which it was packaged.   This channel uploaded 12 times since this viral video. Each of those videos hover at their baseline of 10k views, and again, don't implement either of these 2 rules. Hopefully this post changes that for their future. Should I deconstruct one of their new videos and publish a recommendation for a revision so that we can all learn in real time? What do you think, Chris Do & Ben Burns? #youtubestrategy #videocontent #contentcreator P.S. You can’t save Linkedin posts yet, so if you want to refer back to this later, I recommend sharing it to make it easily accessible for re-reading. Doing that helps me bookmark my favorite posts!

Here’s a weird test that turned into a major unlock: We had a client where performance was stagnating, even after rolling out 10+ new creatives. But once we changed just the **thumbnail**... CTR jumped 47%. Not the hook. Not the offer. Not the script. Just the first-frame thumbnail on the video. Here’s why: 1️⃣ Most viewers scroll with the sound off. Your thumbnail *is* the hook. 2️⃣ Visual cues can quickly signal who it’s for (or not for). 3️⃣ Ugly thumbnails that look raw and native? Often outperform polished ones. We now test thumbnails like we test headlines. And in many cases, they *make* the ad. Found this useful? Like, follow, and repost ♻️ so others can too! ps. struggling with creative bottlenecks? We can help.