How This Creator’s Content Strategy Made Her $5M
Here’s her secret
Even though I no longer run my own business full-time, I love to know how people make money.
And creating on YouTube is one way to build wealth.
Most of those who make it in the YouTube World are the ones people talk about a lot, such as Ali Abdaal, Mr. Beast, and Logan Paul.
But here we are this Asian girl who secretly racked up 25 million followers on YouTube (more than Ali Abdaal and Logan Paul) and a presumed networth of $5M. How did she do that?
Her content is free and easily assessable
I may have been living under the rock, as I only came across Chloe Ting for the first time last week while searching for at-home yoga videos.
I got distracted by someone who posted a transformation video after taking up Chloe’s fitness challenge.
Seeing that transformation prompted me to check out Chloe. I didn’t have time to watch all her videos, but what immediately caught my eyes were her banner, her burp and the number of subscribers.
25 MILLIONS!
This piqued my interest, and I went into the rabbit hole.
As I clicked on “more” to find out, I saw this:
My favourite word: F. R. E. E.
Even though I was short on time (I was supposed to do my wind-down yoga and call it a night), I couldn’t help but visit her website and check out her free workout programs.
To be honest, I didn’t expect much.
Many creators have enticed you with their apps or websites by offering a few free videos. However, if you want to do more, you will have to pay.
But Chloe’s videos are completely FREE.
When you get to her website, you will see her workout programs and different challenges you can participate in.
If you register as a member and choose to start a challenge, you can monitor your fitness journey. You can also add a journal entry to the day of your challenge and see how you progressed.
Now, here is the interesting part.
She didn’t create new content for these challenges.
All her videos can be accessed on YouTube. But what she did, was to organize and put together into a program so it’s a lot easier to follow along.
I’ve done similar challenges from other creators before but often found it difficult to keep track. I couldn’t remember whether I was on Day 6 or Day 8. But with Chloe’s challenge, I can clearly see where I am at. I can preview the next day’s challenge, but I can’t do Day 2 without completing Day 1, so it pushed me to be more disciplined and not to skip any workouts.
She is different
Unlike many creators in the fitness niche, Chloe’s videos aren’t just all about fitness. She has videos on how she cooked healthy meals (she also has a library of healthy food recipes on her website, and yes, for free), or videos where she critiqued all the latest fitness gadgets, which is quite entertaining.
She also has reaction videos to subscribers' comments and memes that make her really fun to watch.
If you read the comments from the videos, you will notice people talk about how much they enjoyed her content.
People also commented about how they initially judged her by the book—this tiny, naive-looking Asian girl trying to teach fitness. However, after doing her exercises, people acknowledged her program worked. There was testimony everywhere.
Chloe sometimes messed up in her videos, but her imperfections made her relatable. She never pretends to be any gurus or professional personal trainers who shout, “You can do it.”
Instead, she approaches her programs like you have a friend in the gym training together.
How does she make money?
Giving out all her training videos and recipes for free becomes a strong lead magnet to her income stream.
- YouTube — By grouping her videos into free challenges, she drives traffic back to her YouTube videos to increase watch time. For example, this cooldown video was created 3 years ago and has accumulated 18 million views.
- Ads—She sells ad space on her website but only on pages with free content. She always asks her audiences to watch ads. “Watch the ads, engage the core” is her pet phrase. People laughed at it and she made fun of it.
- Brand sponsorship—Her success on YouTube led to multiple sponsorship opportunities with fitness and lifestyle brands such as ZARA, Shopbop, and Panasonic.
- Own brand — Chloe launched her own line of fitness clothing and equipment. Her products are sold through her YouTube, website, and even in Walmart across 3,000 stores.
She has been doing this for a long time
According to Wikipedia, Chloe started her YouTube journey in 2011, posting randomly about travel and fashion. But in 2017, she started pivoting to fitness. During the COVID lockdown, her “Two Week Shred Challenge” went viral on TikTok and earned her the title of most influential at-home workout content creator.
If you look at Chloe’s journey, she didn’t start off as a superstar.
Born in Brunei, she migrated to Melbourne, Australia, at 16. She started her YouTube journey at 29 (now 38). She started posting in 2011, and it took her nearly a decade to rise to fame. She took the opportunity during Covid to promote her at-home workout.
What can we learn from Chloe?
Many of us, myself included, focus on how to create content to make more money.
But Chole is a smart girl. She did the opposite.
She focused on delivering value, creating her community by being authentic, personable and relatable. She thrived to be different and not afraid to try new things.
She wasn’t afraid to make her content free because this leads to more revenue as more people can access and talk about it.
And most of all, she continues to show up even no one was watching for years.
There is really no secret to it.
