- I made a post about a month ago
asking you what it is that you want most.
Do you want to make money?
Do you want to get views or do you want to get subscribers?
And out of 17,000 votes,
making money was definitely the winner.
And in that post,
there were a lot of people that were saying things about,
you know, hey I don't care if I make money from doing this,
I just enjoy doing it.
And on the other hand was people saying
that they want to make money so that they can be sustainable
with making content on a regular basis
or in other words so that they can reinvest
what it is that they're doing, plus eat,
plus pay their bills,
plus take care of their families and all of that.
So let's talk about how you can make money
on YouTube or as a content creator.
And we're also going to talk about
some opinions around making money on YouTube,
that some people might I disagree with
and we're starting right now.
Okay, so the very first thing that I want to talk about
is when it comes to making money on YouTube,
on YouTube and in all of the communities around YouTube,
there's this stigma that goes along with it.
To where people say
if you make money from your YouTube videos,
you're doing it for the wrong reason.
Or they'll say that if you're making money
from your YouTube videos, that you're a sellout.
Here's the thing.
When it comes to being a content creator
somebody is doing this full-time
or somebody that's doing this as a hobby,
it adds up over time financially.
So if you're paying for everything out of pocket,
for example, your cameras, your computers, your phones,
if you're a mobile content creator,
your lighting, subscriptions, to music services
so that you don't have to worry about copyright issues.
Subscription to tools like to TubeBuddy
and Morningfame and Tube Spanner and Tuber Tools
and all the other tools that are out there.
Going to conferences.
Once things get back to normal, of course.
YouTube books and other educational YouTube things
to make sure that you're staying on top of your game.
Hard drives to store your footage,
plugins for your editing software or color packs
and Luts and that sort of thing.
I mean, look, I can talk about the things
that you might need as a YouTuber for an hour,
because there's that much stuff
especially at your channel grows.
So I think you get the point
that as you are creating content
and going through this process,
it's important to make money.
So let's talk about how you can do it.
The very first thing, regardless of your channel size,
and the reason that I say regardless of your channel size,
is because if you start monetizing now
through some of the methods
that I'm gonna be sharing with you
then as your YouTube channel grows,
these things are going to be built into your video archive.
So when you have a hundred videos up on YouTube
you have a hundred videos
working on your behalf to bring in revenue
that's going to help support your YouTube channel.
And in that scenario, as your channel grows,
your income also grows.
But the first thing that you can do
and is usually the easiest
for a lot of content creators is merch.
Merch, if you're not familiar with the terminology
is things like coffee cups, flip-flops with logos on them.
And of course the thing
that you'll probably end up selling the most
as a content creator is clothing.
Things that people can actually wear.
Setting up a merchant store is free
through services like Spread Shop, for example,
and all you have to do
is you have to figure out on your end
and you can use services like fiverr.com
or you can do it yourself through an app on your phone
but you have to figure out how you can take just texts
or simple imagery and put it together
in a way that would make sense or resonate
with the people that are interacting with your content.
Things like catch phrases are really popular in merch.
Of course you can put your channel logo on there
but when you're thinking of really getting the most
that you can out of the merchandise that you sell
from your YouTube channel,
think about the things that the people
that are watching your content would find funny
or things that they would find clever
because selling logos and that sort of thing,
it's effective especially if you have a larger channel.
However, the thing that's really gonna make you
the most money is if you can come up with something funny
or clever or just blanket statements
that people will resonate with when they see it.
But in a nutshell, the merch process works like this.
You come up with something clever
that you think would be a good fit for the people
that you're reaching with your content.
You turn those words or phrases into designs
and you create those designs
on an app on Photoshop or on placeit.net as an example.
I'll put links to all this stuff in the description
by the way.
Once you have your designs made
you would go to an online merch store
upload your merch designs there
and this is free to do by the way.
You can upload your stuff there for free
but once your designs are up in the store
then you can start sending people to that store.
And here's the best part.
You don't have to pay for anything at all ever.
Instead, your merch store, we'll say
Spread Shop as an example, they hold your design there
and you send your viewers to that store.
And when somebody buys your merch,
they print and it up they ship it to them
and then you get a percent of the money that's made
on that shirt or whatever type of merch is.
Even if it's a coffee cup or a hat or a lens cloth
or whatever it happens to be whatever your merch is.
You don't have to pay to make it.
You get paid when people purchase it.
It's a win, huge win.
And really quick, before we get into the next way
to make money on YouTube.
If you want me to put together a step-by-step,
like this is how you create a merch store
and get stuff up onto it.
Let me know in the comments and I'll add it to the list
if I get enough comments about it.
Number two is affiliate marketing.
What affiliate marketing is, is you sign up with a service.
A lot of people will start with Amazon.
Some people do it with other things
but you sign up with the service.
And with that service, you get a link.
That link is unique to you.
And you put that link in your video description.
And any time when somebody clicks on that link
and they go and buy something,
because you recommended it in your video,
you get a percent of the sale
even though you didn't make the product,
even though you didn't handle warehousing
or shipping that product
or anything like that, you get a cut of the sale
just because you showed that link to your viewers
or told them that it was there, they clicked on it.
And they went and they made a purchase.
Affiliate marketing is a sweet deal for you
because of course you can generate income.
It's a sweet deal for the viewers
that are watching your content
because you get to introduce them
things that you like and that you're sharing
in your videos that will add value to them, which is a win.
And the company where you're an affiliate wins
because they wouldn't have had that sale
If you wouldn't have sent them there.
So with affiliate marketing, everybody's a winner
and it doesn't cost anything
to get into affiliate marketing.
Now, when it comes to affiliate marketing
the way you want to think about affiliate marketing
when it comes to your YouTube channel,
is there's two different approaches.
One of those approaches
is that you are thinking solely of the buyer intent
or the potential buyer intent.
And you're making content for the sake of reviewing things
and bringing attention to specific products
so that the intent of the person that clicks on your video
they have a possible purchase intent.
And they're watching your video
for information before they make that purchase.
If you make content in that fashion
then your conversions will go up
because the people that are actually watching your videos
are people that are already interested
or they're exploring information
about the things that you're sharing in your video.
I call that active monetization or the active approach.
And what that means is,
when you are putting your content together,
you're being very intentional about the sale
that you might generate and you're crafting
everything for the sake of giving me viewer the information
that they need to make a logical decision,
or to make a good decision I should say,
on if they should purchase that thing or not.
And keep in mind, if you are doing affiliate marketing
that you want to make sure
that you're being very trustworthy
with your affiliate marketing.
Because if people start to buy things
through the links that you have
and they start to recognize,
"Hey, they're leading me down the right path here,
everything they recommend is good."
Then people are gonna keep taking your recommendations
and they'll keep buying stuff over and over and over again
from the videos that you put out.
However, if you're like,
"Hey I'm just trying and to get the sale.
So I'm just going to say, everything's awesome."
Then in that case,
people are going to figure that out really fast,
because they're going to buy
some of the things you recommend.
They're going to suck.
And then they're gonna be like, you know what?
I'm not going to take recommendations
from this person anymore
because it's clear that they're just trying to make a sale.
So if you're doing affiliate marketing, be cool, be honest
be upfront about whatever it is.
That's good or bad
about the product that you're bringing attention to
and you'll be rewarded
with audience loyalty while making money.
Now let's talk about the passive approach to the same idea.
The passive the approach
is where you're putting your videos together
and you put links down in your description.
That would make sense for the people
that are watching your content.
Those links would still be in your description
and you can still spread awareness
and let people know that those links
are down in the description.
For example, I've got links down in this description
that'll help you out that I will make money from.
If you click on some of those and you decide to make a sale.
Or should I say, decide to purchase something.
but that you have done in your description
those are there for the people that do happen
to go down into your description
to look for things that you might've talked about
in the video.
Or again, if you just let people know,
"Hey, I've got some stuff down there
that you might find interesting,"
then people will go down there more
and people will click
on your links more as those links apply to them.
So here's a tip.
If you want to make more money
from the links that are down in your video description
what you want to think about
is if somebody is coming into my video
on this particular subject,
then whatever it is, that's down in my description,
I want to make sure that those links
are in alignment with what it is that somebody
might be watching this video for.
If we put that into a real life situation,
and let's say that you have a homesteading channel
in that case having a bunch of links
to the camera equipment that you use to make your videos
doesn't make a lot of sense,
but links to things that homesteaders commonly use
or things that you commonly recommend
or things that people ask you questions about,
would be a fantastic fit for that content.
And really quick, if you are a gamer,
because I know a lot of gamers watch my stuff.
So if you're a gamer,
and you're thinking,
"Hey, this is great, Nick.
But you know, as a gamer I don't know
how I'm going to be able to, have things in my description
that would apply to the gaming world because it's games."
I challenge you to go deeper, just think to yourself,
"Hey if I'm playing games, then there's other gamers
that are most likely watching my content."
So because of that, what do gamers care about?
Well we've got headphones and mic's for those headphones
we've got the actual gear for your stream.
If you're actually streaming your game.
You've got the computer specs
of all the computer stuff have inside of your computer.
The graphics card that you use can be listed.
The motherboard that you use could be listed.
The RAM that you use could be listed.
And basically anything else
about your computer can be listed.
But what you want to think about
is have gamers are watching my stuff.
What types of things can I put down there
that gamers might ask me about on a regular basis
or that I can help other gamers figure
out how to do something better
because I have those links down there in the description,
because even though to you,
it might seem like common knowledge
that you need certain things in your computer
to get certain things out of a game.
Some people don't know.
So you putting some of that stuff in your description
to help people build a better computer can benefit them.
And of course it will benefit you.
And as another tip,
if you want to level that whole thing up as a gamer
then go back to the active approach for some of your content
and make some videos about the stuff that you use.
Okay, so next on our list is crowdfunding.
So if you're not familiar with that terminology
what crowdfunding means is
basically you put up something that's available somewhere
and people can donate to you either as a donation
or in exchange for something that you provide for them.
Some services that are known for this are,
Patreon, which you might've heard of.
Ko-fi which you might've heard of.
Buy Me a Coffee, which you might've heard of.
And all of those make it easy for people
to be able to donate to you
in exchange for something that you give back to them
be it exclusive content, be it access to you
if they have questions, be it postcards that you send them
or anything else that you can possibly think of
for the type of content that you make
and for the people that are watching your videos
that would add value to them
in exchange for a monthly donation to you, okay?
So now let's get into some fun stuff.
So another thing that you can do to make money
from your YouTube channel,
and again it doesn't matter if you're a brand new channel
or if you're an established channel,
is offering services from your YouTube channel.
So if you have a skill set and you're like, Hey, you know
I'm making videos about this particular thing.
I might as well let people know
that they can hire me for this particular thing.
And just by letting people know
that you have something available
is going to allow you to create a side hustle
or possibly be able to create an entire business
around the services that you're able to provide.
That's actually how I got started on YouTube
in terms of making the transition
from being a sort of a content creator
to being all in on things all around YouTube,
was offering services initially way back
in the day for my YouTube channel.
And even to this day,
we just recently launched a video editing service
called VidCharge.
You can find that@vidcharge.com
or I'll put a link to it down in the description
but VidCharge is a video editing service for YouTubers.
So I'm using my YouTube channel to spread awareness
about that video editing service vidcharge.com.
Next on the list is products.
And what I mean by products,
don't think that you have to go out
and like have something manufactured because you don't.
What I mean by products is just something digital.
So if the type of content that you make
supports it offering something digital
that people can download for a fee
is another way that you can make money from your channel.
As an example, if you're a gamer
you could make downloadable guides that people can download
for free off of a website called Sell File.
Put a link to that down in the description,
but you could make downloadable guides
where you show where all of the stuff is
for a particular game.
If you're a crafter, you can provide digital downloads
around the specific things that you do as a crafter.
If you're in the beauty or fitness space
you could create a course
that people could go through
that would teach them about the things that you know about
fitness or beauty,
or just general digital download PDF guides,
if you don't want to go through the process
of putting a course together
even if you're a builder like Paul Peck DrywallTube,
or Roger Wakefield, the expert plumber,
you could put together digital downloads
of things to keep in mind
when you are putting together your drywall.
Or how to do the perfect drywall or in Roger's case,
you know how to do the perfect plumbing
or common things like the ultimate guide
of checking out the plumbing for your home type of thing.
But regardless of the type of content you make
you just do a brain dump into some videos
that you put together that you have available for sale.
Or if you don't want to do the video thing
you can put together a downloadable PDF guide
that you can put together.
And something like Google Docs.
The idea is that you have stuff in your brain
that people would like to have access to.
And if you gave them access to that
in a nice package format, then people would give you money
in exchange for some of the information that you hold.
It could be a lot, or it could be a little
depending on exactly what it is that you shared
and all of that.
However, again, as your channel grows,
your income would grow from that thing
that you've made because you make it once
and then you can sell it for quite some time.
Now, another way that you can make money
from your YouTube channel's through sponsorships.
Now, if you're just getting started
this one's a little bit more complicated
because of course,
if somebody is going to sponsor your YouTube channel
they want to see some views coming in.
Because if they're gonna be giving you money or products
in exchange for you making a video about their thing,
they want to get views for it.
So, because of that, if you're just getting started
the sponsorship thing might be a little bit of a hurdle
until you get some regular views coming in on your channel.
But if you do have views coming out on your channel already
one of the things that you can do is you can start reaching
out to people that you think would be a good fit
for sponsorship, for your type of content.
If you are going to be doing outreach
to companies that you're going to want to try to work with
or at least that you just want to let them know
that you are out there making content
so that you're on their radar,
make sure that the emails that you send
are formatted correctly.
Make sure that you are speaking in clear language
in your emails.
Before you send it,
run your email through something like grammarly.com
so that you can make sure that your email
that you're sending is the best possible thing
that you can send to them.
It's a level up.
If you can get a domain for your YouTube channel
so that you can send it from an official domain
that represents your YouTube channel as well.
And I recommend that you put together a media kit
that you would send out as well with your email
that would let people know the demographics of your channel.
The average view counts on your channel,
what your channel is about,
what it is that your channel stands for.
Or You stand for.
The type of people that are watching your content
and things like that.
And of course, another thing that you can do
on the sponsor side,
and this one is kind of like planting seeds
in a garden, right?
But another thing that you can do is,
I was talking about the affiliate thing before,
you can start promoting things as an affiliate,
it could be products as an example,
you'd start promoting it those products,
and then for every video that you make
where you're promoting that product as an affiliate
you would also make sure that you tweet out that video
on your Twitter account and that you go ahead
and at the companies that you are promoting
through that product.
So that they know,
"Hey this person, one,
they're on the radar now because
they're bringing awareness to us.
But two they're also without us even sponsoring them
they're also already spreading awareness about our product."
So then once you start to gain a following
or get some type of momentum on YouTube,
you're on the radar,
you've made a few videos about them already.
And when you reach out to them
you can even reference those videos.
So they know that you're already a supporter
of what it is that they are putting out.
And with the sponsorship in that case,
once that dialogue opens up,
what you're trying to do there
is you're just trying to deepen the relationship
with that company.
Even though you're already creating
videos about their products.
And really quick,
because of all the things that we're talking about
around making money on YouTube, I want to let you know,
that if you are just getting started on YouTube
and you haven't seen any of these things in action yet,
they can bring it in substantial amounts of money.
Everything that I've talked about
can bring in substantial amounts of money.
It's just deciding what it is that you want to go after.
But one thing that I do recommend
is that you don't look at just one option.
As a content creator wanting to do this seriously
you're wanting to really make money
from what it is that you're putting out on YouTube.
I recommend you try to implement all of these things
in addition to monetizing your YouTube channel through ads.
Once you get into the partner program
and doing alternate monetization options within YouTube
like channel memberships and live streaming
and things like that.
So that you can have all of these different streams
of income coming in.
And the really cool thing about that
is that let's say that you make
a little bit merch over here.
You do a little bit of crowdfunding over here.
You do a little bit in services over here.
You do a little bit in affiliate marketing over here.
Well, all of those things
they add up to a pretty large pie
especially over time as your channel grows,
because again, if you start implementing these things now
if you're a new content creator,
as your channel grows your income
and will grow along with it.
Go ahead and start implementing some of these things now.
To learn more about making money
on YouTube and growing your channel
and all the other things that you do as a content creator
click into this playlist right here.
And if you haven't yet, make sure you subscribe.
Thank you so much for watching.
I'll see you next time.