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Organic YouTube growth · 4+ year partnership

From 300K to 2.38M YouTube subscribers, 100% organically.

How 5FilmsMedia built the production and distribution engine that scaled one of the most respected mental health education channels on YouTube, with zero paid advertising.

Client
Dr. Tracey Marks
Industry
Mental Health Education
Platforms
YouTube · TikTok · Instagram
Period
Jun 2021 - Present
Dr. Tracey Marks case study
+1.8M
Subscribers gained
695%+
Subscriber growth
172.2M
Views (partnership)
8.7M
Watch hours
47.4M
YouTube Shorts views
100%
Organic, zero paid ads

About the client

Dr. Tracey Marks.

Dr. Tracey Marks is a board-certified psychiatrist with over 20 years of experience in general and forensic psychiatry. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, she has built one of the most respected and widely followed mental health education channels on YouTube, reaching millions across depression, anxiety, ADHD, bipolar disorder, sleep and emotional regulation.

Beyond YouTube she is the author of Why Am I So Anxious? (2022) and has appeared on CNN, ABC's 20/20 and the Investigation Discovery Network. She has been recognised alongside figures such as Dr. Drew, Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil as one of the foremost celebrity doctors in the mental health space.

Where we started

An established channel with significant untapped potential.

  • ~300,000 subscribers: built through Dr. Marks' own consistent weekly publishing since 2018.
  • No short-form strategy: high-value long-form content was not being systematically repurposed for TikTok or Reels.
  • Unscaled community management: collaboration enquiries, media invitations and institutional outreach were at risk of going unanswered.
  • The opportunity: the credibility, expertise and content library were all there. What it needed was a production and distribution engine to match.

Our approach

Building the infrastructure around her content.

Our role was not to reimagine Dr. Marks' content or direction, which she owns completely. It was to engineer maximum reach from every long-form video she produced.

ServiceScope of work
Long-form YouTube production4-5 videos per month: editing, captions, titling and upload-ready delivery, produced to the clean, authoritative standard her audience expects.
Short-form repurposing20-30 TikTok and Instagram Reels per month, clipped and formatted from long-form content, with captions reviewed for medical accuracy.
Community managementRegular DM and comment monitoring across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, ensuring no collaboration request, conference invite or keynote opportunity was missed.
Custom video projectsOn-demand videos for university partnerships and institutional clients covering mental health, anxiety and ADHD topics.

The results

2.38M subscribers, entirely organic.

  • Subscriber growth: +1.8M subscribers gained, from approximately 300,000 to 2,385,755, an increase of over 695%, achieved entirely through organic content with zero paid advertising.
  • Viewership and watch time: 172.2M views and 8.7M hours of watch time over the partnership, with 1.3M unique monthly viewers and 46.9M views in the most recent 12 months alone, up 19% year-on-year.
  • Shorts performance: 47.4M Shorts views and 2.7M Shorts likes, directly attributed with +96,100 subscribers. Top titles include "9 Symptoms of Depression" (1.5M views) and "The 5 Psychotic Symptoms" (1.2M views).
  • Reach and discovery: 69.5% of watch time came from non-subscribers and 61.9% of monthly viewers are new to the channel each month, with 2.0 billion lifetime impressions on long-form content.
  • Engaged core: 241,100 subscribers with all notifications enabled, and a broad cross-gender audience led by the 25-34 age group.

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