What is the value I'm providing through my YouTube videos,
and then how can I wrap that value up into a package
that someone's willing to pay for
that delivers like ten times the value that someone would be getting through my channel?
Now if you are making money on YouTube,
you actually already have somewhat of a business model in place.
And you have a product already.
And so if you're looking at your channel like what's my product?
Well there's two ways to think about it.
Either your audience is your product, or your audience are your customers,
and you're gonna sell something to them directly.
We're gonna talk more about revenue streams and how we capture value from our audience.
One revenue stream to consider is merchandise.
Now a lot of creators make a big mistake here though.
If you have an apparel, fashion channel, then selling t-shirts and clothing and things
makes absolute perfect sense. But if, I sold t-shirts
(my channel is about helping creators grow their audiences)
that's like a disconnect.
Like I'm subscribed for that value. Why are you selling me a t-shirt?
So you can do merchandising, but I recommend that it ties
directly into the value proposition of your channel if you're going to do it.
A few other quick ideas for you guys, and this is more a service-based value exchange
than product-based, that is consulting.
Maybe you have a skill or an area of expertise
where your audience is trying to learn from you and then
they would pay you for some of your time, for you to work with them one-on-one,
or for them to get your advice, or to be able to get feedback from you.
Or, as you begin to grow authority and establish credibility on your channel
in a specific niche or topic or area,
maybe you start getting paid to do speaking opportunities
at different events and training seminars and things like that.
Or maybe, you're going to start your own live events,
where you're gonna do your own mini conference
or your own meetup or your own like show at a certain place,
and people are gonna pay for tickets in order to come see your show or your event.
Another revenue stream to consider could be licensing.
That is when someone wants to pay you for permission to use your video content
in their video content. Someone wants to use part of your videos
in one of their commercials, or maybe in a TV show or maybe
you start selling your video footage on stock video websites.
One of the most valuable revenue streams that I really love,
when your audience are your customers, is a membership site.
Now the one I use is Patreon, but there's many of them out there.
Patreon's worked well for me.
And the reason I love it is that it's a great way to continue to deliver value
over and over and over and over again to an audience of people who say
"we want to keep supporting you, keep supporting you, every month
or every video you publish on an ongoing basis."
So the way it works is that you set up
different reward tiers with different prices associated with each one,
that gives different rewards based on how much money they're contributing
either per video that you publish or per podcast episode that you produce.
Or, just a flat monthly fee.
What's cool about this is that it's not only just a financial transaction
where someone's gonna pay you $5.00 a month in order to have access to
a private hangout with you once a month or something like that.
No, this is actually an opportunity for your community to take a next step with you.
In their support of you, yes, but also in their relationship with you.
So for me, using something like Patreon isn't just about money and transactions,
it's actually about community development.
So if you decide to use Patreon or another membership site platform,
don't pitch it as like "hey you can support me by giving me money,"
yes mention that, but make it again all about the reward and the value
that you are delivering through your Patreon community to your audience.
And they get to be a part of it, isn't that awesome!
It all comes down to what we talked about in the previous video, which is thinking about
exchanging value for dollars, instead of time for dollars.
And that could be anything from physical products, to downloadable products,
to templates, to events and services, like anything.
One of the great things about YouTube though
is that your revenue streams are limited pretty much just by your creativity.
You can come up with a lot of different ideas than the ones we've suggested here,
and I want to hear from you in the comments of this video.
What other ideas have you implemented on your channel?
Or maybe you're thinking about implementing on your channel?
And read the comments other people are leaving down there.
You're gonna learn a ton from them.
If this is something you're thinking through, you're gonna get a lot of other ideas
from those people down there as well.
Thanks for hanging out with me a little bit here and we will see you guys
at the next Creator Academy Master Class.
See you then, bye.
Thanks so much for watching!
Be sure to subscribe and check out my previous Master Classes below.